Snow Empress looked at the strange item, her breathing hitching slightly.
Become completely human? Give up the icy essence that had nurtured her for seven hundred thousand years?
For any Soul Beast, that would be a difficult choice. But after a brief hesitation, Snow Empress lifted her head and gazed deeply at Qian Xunji. Since she had chosen to trust this man, there was no reason to back down.
"Fine. I agree." Snow Empress's voice was clear and resolute.
"Close your eyes, relax your mind, and don't resist."
Qian Xunji smiled faintly and activated the Converter in his hand.
Buzz—
A pure, gentle pillar of white light burst from the device, instantly enveloping Snow Empress's beautiful figure.
There was no violent surge of energy in the great hall, only a life-giving law quietly reshaping her, as gently as rain moistening the earth. Qian Daoliu stared wide-eyed from the side, scarcely daring to breathe as he fixed his gaze on this incredible miracle.
A moment later, the white light slowly faded.
Snow Empress was still standing where she had been. Her long silver-white hair, her elegant dress, even her peerless, cool beauty—all remained unchanged.
But the aura that had once marked her as a seven-hundred-thousand-year Ferocious Beast of the Far North, enough to make any Titled Douluo's heart tremble, had vanished without a trace! In its place was a pure, vast, and profound Soul Power that belonged entirely to a top human powerhouse!
"So this is... a human body?"
Snow Empress slowly opened her eyes and stared at her hands in disbelief.
At the same time, a powerful wave of Soul Power erupted from within her.
Level 96... Level 97... Level 98!
Her Soul Power finally stabilized at the mid-Level 98 stage!
Snow Empress closed her eyes and sensed the change. Her brows lifted slightly. Transformed from the seven-hundred-thousand-year Ruler of the Far North into a human, she had lost the immense support of the world's spiritual energy, so her original reserves and raw power had indeed diminished somewhat.
This degree of loss is completely acceptable, Snow Empress calculated silently.
Just then, with a crisp sound like cracking ice, nine suffocatingly powerful Spirit Rings slowly rose from beneath Snow Empress's feet!
Black, black, black, black, black, black, red, red, red!
Six ten-thousand-year black rings, and three dazzling red Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Rings!
"Try it out. Have your abilities been affected?" Qian Xunji asked eagerly.
Snow Empress focused her thoughts and closed her eyes, sensing her new human Martial Soul—Heavenly Snow Woman.
A moment later, she abruptly opened her eyes, intense delight flashing in her icy-blue gaze.
"My original Emperor Sword, Emperor Palm, and Emperor's Cold Heaven have all been perfectly converted into Soul Skills! And not only that..."
Snow Empress took a deep breath. The last Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Ring beneath her feet—the deepest and most profound of them all—suddenly lit up!
"This Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Ring gave me two new Soul Skills."
Snow Empress's voice quivered slightly with excitement.
"Ninth Soul Skill, First Form: [Ice God Descent].
"It's an extreme amplification skill. Once activated, my strength, speed, spiritual power, and control over ice will all triple in an instant! And this amplification can stack with my domain!"
Triple all attributes?
Qian Xunji and Qian Daoliu exchanged a glance, each seeing the shock in the other's eyes. This wasn't an ordinary boost. It was an utterly unreasonable crushing advantage in attributes!
"What about the second Soul Skill?" Qian Xunji pressed.
"Ninth Soul Skill, Second Form: [Ice Element Explosion]."
Snow Empress raised her fair hand. A tiny ice flower formed at her fingertip, then she crushed it gently. "I can detonate any ice or snow elements within my line of sight, whether I created them or they occurred naturally. It isn't a physical explosion. It's the destructive detonation of ice's elemental essence."
It was practically a divine skill!
Snow Empress's heart was already surging like a storm-tossed sea.
She had thought that transforming into a human would leave her weakened for a time, but she had never imagined that the systematic enhancement from these nine Spirit Rings—especially the absurd skill of the ninth Spirit Ring...
Now, with [Ice God Descent] activated, she was even more powerful and terrifying than she had been as a Soul Beast in the Far North!
"A miracle... This is absolutely a great miracle!"
Qian Daoliu was so excited that he could barely speak. He had just watched a Soul Beast transform into a human Super Douluo at Level 98, with such an utterly outrageous Spirit Ring configuration! If she married Qian Xunji and had children with him, what kind of monsters would they be?!
"Miss Snow Empress... no, daughter-in-law..."
Qian Daoliu was now utterly convinced. He strode forward and, without hesitation, pulled an ancient token radiating brilliant golden light from his robes.
"I was reckless outside the hall just now, and almost hurt you. Take this Angel God Token!"
Qian Daoliu solemnly placed the token in Snow Empress's hand, his generous tone leaving no room for refusal.
"Sealed inside this token is a sliver of Divine Power left behind by the Angel God's ancestor! If you face a life-or-death crisis, detonate it and it will unleash a full-power strike at the Divine Official level! Even a Level 99 Limit Douluo could be gravely wounded or even killed by it."
"This... it's far too precious." Startled by Qian Daoliu's sudden gift, Snow Empress hesitated and looked toward Qian Xunji.
A strike at the Divine Official level—that was an ultimate life-saving trump card on the Douluo Continent!
"When an elder gives you a gift, you shouldn't refuse. Dad gave it to you, so take it."
Snow Empress looked at the heavy token in her hand, then at Qian Daoliu's beaming face and Qian Xunji's gentle gaze. In that moment, this once-proud and peerless empress of the Far North finally felt, for real, the strange bond called "family" within this temple—the seat of humanity's highest power.
From that day on, Snow Empress officially moved into Pope Hall, with her bedroom arranged next door to Qian Xunji's.
Freed at last from the burden of the Heavenly Tribulation that had hung over her for seven hundred thousand years, and no longer confined to the monotonous ice and snow of the Far North, this once lofty Ruler of the Far North adapted to her human body and unexpectedly developed a down-to-earth warmth that even Qian Xunji hadn't anticipated.
Instead, she stopped rushing to cultivate.
And so a peculiar sight appeared in Pope Hall.
Every afternoon, Snow Empress would wear a simple, elegant outfit and lounge on a soft couch in Pope Hall's back garden. She'd hold a plate of osmanthus cakes or candied hawthorns carefully made in the imperial kitchen in her left hand, and a trashy romance novel she'd picked up from the shops around Spirit City in her right—
Titles like Domineering Sect Master Falls in Love with Me and The Genius Good-for-Nothing's Broken Engagement. She read them with relish, sometimes furrowing her brow at the heartbreaking passages, sending a chill through the air that froze the flowers and grass around her.
Qian Xunji watched it all and was glad to see it. A Soul Beast who knew how to enjoy life and human emotions was a true companion, with a heart and soul.
However, this cozy routine suffered a fatal mishap on the third day after Snow Empress moved in.
Before you continue