Chapter 97

"The medium is in place," she said. "Next is my origin essence."

She walked over to Xue Lingyun and sat down across from him.

Less than a meter separated them, their knees nearly touching.

Ice Empress looked at him in silence for a moment.

"Are you sure?" she asked, more serious than she had ever sounded before. "There has never been a precedent for this path. If it fails, you're finished."

Xue Lingyun looked at her.

"I'm sure."

Ice Empress stared into his eyes for several seconds before looking away.

"Fine." Her voice lowered slightly. "Then let's begin."

She closed her eyes.

Emerald green patterns of light lit up across her body, spreading outward from her heart.

They did not emerge from the surface of her skin, but shone through from deep within her body, as though something inside her were burning.

That was the Spirit Bone origin essence condensed from her four hundred thousand year cultivation, carrying the racial gifts and physical essence of the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion.

She stripped that origin essence from her body.

It was not a cutting, but a separation.

Like plucking a branch from a tree—the branch still carried the tree's vitality, but it had become independent.

Her body shuddered violently. The pain of stripping away her origin essence was no less than having a bone torn from her alive.

Her lips pressed into a pale line, but she made no sound.

The emerald green origin essence hovered above her palm like a condensed emerald flame, faint silver glimmers flickering within it.

The energy was so pure that, merely hanging there, it caused a fine layer of ice crystals to form in the surrounding air.

Ice Empress opened her eyes and pushed the mass of origin essence toward Xue Lingyun's right arm.

"The