The unknown lines carved into the altar slowly lit up. From high above, they formed a blooming white flower, its intricate layers of petals stretching outward as if they had come to life.
At the heart of the flower, Snow Empress knelt under the overwhelming divine might. Several slits had torn along the side of her skirt, exposing taut, straight skin flushed red by her reversed blood flow.
The god's right hand hovered above her head. Her ethereal eyes watched Snow Empress, who still held her head high and met her gaze. The blue of those eyes was like a live volcano buried deep beneath an icy ocean, struggling to break free; once it erupted, it would melt everything.
She was unreasonably stubborn.
Then the god's hand came down, so casually it seemed she was patting the head of her pet cat. Only this cat was furious, baring its teeth and snarling at the descending hand.
As her palm fell, every star in sight was drawn to it, turning into meteors that streaked toward the altar with long white tails. The oncoming pressure left Snow Empress unable to move. With each difficult breath, the white vapor she exhaled froze instantly into ice crystals and fell to the ground.
An indescribable cold spread from the hostile ice elements all around her. From the moment she was born, Snow Empress had been ice and snow's darling. Yet now she felt like an ordinary person facing the suffocating cold of the Far North. Even the air she inhaled was full of ice crystals that scraped painfully at her throat. The biting chill spread from her throat through her whole body, leaving her increasingly stiff and numb. So this is how unbearable the cold can be?
But even this despairing scene could not frighten