"It feels like there are fewer beasts chasing me now... Is it just my imagination?"
Somewhere on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest, cracks suddenly appeared in the ground, faint platinum light glimmering from within them.
As the cracks appeared, wisps of icy cold spread outward, and a round, plump body struggled out of one of them.
It was a huge, translucent bug, white as jade from head to tail and over seven meters long. A halo of light flowed over his body, and the pair of tiny golden eyes on his head looked exceptionally sleazy.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, the first Million-Year Soul Beast in history to reach that level by sleeping.
Having finally escaped Di Tian's clutches, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm began a life of hiding here and there, watching in constant dread as those terrifying fellows from the Lake of Life endlessly searched for his tracks.
He knew that, to them, he was a walking, peerless blood bank. They would never let him go easily.
What he had not expected, however, was that the beasts searching for him today seemed to have... decreased in number?
"Am I imagining things? Or is this just a tactic to throw me off?"
As he spoke, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm wriggled his body and struggled back into the crack.
"Whatever the case, I can't go wrong by being cautious. All I need to do now is patiently wait for a Soul Master with a mental attribute, and I can put my grand plan into motion!"
"My god-making plan!"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's shifty little eyes rolled around a couple of times, brimming with anticipation.
With a Million-Year Soul Beast like him serving as a Wisdom Soul Ring, plus a second martial soul thrown in as a bonus, would becoming a god not be something he could grasp with ease?
After burrowing into the crack, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm carefully reviewed his plan, then nodded with certainty.
"That's right. The only difficult part of my plan is Bingbing. As long as I can persuade Bingbing, becoming a god will be no mere fantasy! Bingbing~ We'll soon be together forever~ Hehehe~"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm began dreaming his grand, impossible dreams again, chuckling foolishly to himself.
At the mere mention of the Ice Empress, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm became a complete lovesick creep, his thoughts running wild without any hope of stopping.
But the next instant, his plump body shivered instinctively.
"Why do I suddenly have such a bad feeling? This... this doesn't seem right, does it? There shouldn't be any flaws in my plan, should there? Why do I suddenly feel so unsettled?"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm hid his entire body, his tiny eyes full of confusion.
"Could Di Tian, Xiong Jun, and the others still be looking for me instead of giving up? No, no, no... I really can't sense their auras anymore. Besides, I've already escaped. There's no way they can drag me back in."
"Then what could be causing it?"
Unable to make sense of it no matter how hard he thought, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm simply stopped thinking about it. The crack in the ground gradually closed and vanished completely, as though it had never appeared.
... Extreme North Land ...
Inside the great hall, the imposing aura around the Snow Empress had only just dissipated. Yet the Ice Empress standing beside her showed no alarm whatsoever. Instead, a hint of delight appeared on her face.
Was Xue'er angry because of what that diary said?
I knew it-Xue'er had me in her heart!
She was getting angry over something that concerned me!
A sudden sweetness welled up in the Ice Empress's heart, dissipating much of the anger she had felt upon reading the diary.
However, the Snow Empress mistook the Ice Empress's silence for worry over the diary's contents. Without the slightest hesitation, she comforted her:
"For the foreseeable future, I'll stay by your side."
As she spoke, the Snow Empress's voice abruptly turned cold. "If that damned bug dares set foot in the Extreme North Land, I'll grind his bones to dust and scatter his ashes!"
The instant her words fell, a notification tone suddenly rang out.
[Today's diary entries have concluded. System calculations in progress...] [Congratulations to the Ice Empress for appearing most frequently in the diary. Reward obtained: ten thousand years of cultivation and passage through the heavenly tribulation. Distributing reward... Reward distributed.] [Today's group chat activity was insufficient. No Chat-Spamming Dragon King was selected. All group members, please keep up your efforts.]
The sudden system notifications caught both the Ice Empress and the Snow Empress completely off guard.
Before either could react, a surge of pure energy poured into the Ice Empress's body.
That pure energy... was none other than ten thousand years of cultivation!
"What..."
Before the Ice Empress could even finish speaking, that energy swiftly transformed into her cultivation. With those additional ten thousand years, her cultivation reached four hundred thousand years.
The four-hundred-thousand-year heavenly tribulation descended without warning!
The skies over the Extreme North Land, already filled with swirling snow, grew even gloomier. Vast banks of tribulation clouds surged together in an instant, shrouding the entire Extreme North Land in shadow. Lightning seemed to flicker within them.
At the sight, worry immediately appeared on the Snow Empress's face.
She knew that Bing'er would probably be unable to survive the four-hundred-thousand-year heavenly tribulation on her own. More importantly, both the ten thousand years of cultivation and the heavenly tribulation had arrived far too suddenly. They had no time to prepare at all!
And this heavenly tribulation was Bing'er's destined ordeal. There was nothing she could do to help.
Thunder rolled through the sky, as though a terrifying heavenly punishment might strike at any moment. Its dreadful rumbling made every Soul Beast in the Extreme North Land apart from the Three Great Heavenly Kings tremble. Even Ice Bear King Xiaobai had to lower his head, only daring to lift it occasionally to gaze fearfully at those horrifying tribulation clouds.
The Ice Empress, locked onto by the heavenly tribulation, bore the full weight of its pressure.
Nine waves of lightning tribulation-with her strength, she probably would not survive even half of them!
These ten thousand years of cultivation came at such a damned awful time!
The Ice Empress could not help cursing inwardly.
Yet what puzzled her was that, although the tribulation clouds and rolling thunder persisted overhead, no lightning ever struck. It was as though... as though they had lost their target.
Only after a long while did a bolt of lightning suddenly descend from the sky.
But its target was not the Ice Empress inside the ice hall. It was an open stretch of frozen plain.
That bolt seemed to be venting its frustration.
Immediately afterward, the rolling thunder overhead abruptly vanished, and the surging banks of tribulation clouds slowly dispersed along with it.
Within moments, the shadow hanging over the Extreme North Land disappeared without a trace.
It was... over, just like that?
The Ice Empress stared blankly with her emerald-green eyes. The panic in her heart gradually faded, replaced by a wave of wild joy.
She really had broken through to four hundred thousand years of cultivation!
She really had survived the heavenly tribulation!
"Xue'er... I really broke through! That miraculous diary really can help us overcome our heavenly tribulations!"