Time rewound to the present.
On a certain day, in a certain month, in a certain year of the Douluo Continent calendar.
For the Far North, today was an absolutely momentous day worthy of being recorded in history.
Because the human child carrying all the hopes of the Ice and Snow Empresses had finally turned six.
The day of martial soul awakening had finally arrived.
For this day, the Ice and Snow Empresses had gone to great pains.
Especially Snow Empress. In order to learn the exact process of how humans awakened their martial souls, when Xue Bingchen was five last year, she had specifically taken him into human society again, traveling to a remote little town on the northern border of the Heaven Dou Empire.
Mother and son hid in the void overhead, like gods looking down upon ants, silently watching the Spirit Hall Soul Grandmaster deacon awaken the martial souls of the commoner children in the town.
That experience left a deep impression on Xue Bingchen.
Watching that Spirit Hall deacon, who was somewhat arrogant but still conscientiously traveled through every impoverished and remote village to awaken commoner children's martial souls for free, Xue Bingchen secretly gave him a thumbs-up.
"Putting aside the factional conflicts later on, Spirit Hall really can't be criticized when it comes to ordinary Soul Masters."
At the time, Xue Bingchen had been lying in Snow Empress's arms, muttering softly:
"Not only do they awaken commoners' martial souls for free, but as long as they possess even a trace of Soul Power, they receive Gold Soul Coin subsidies.
How is this some villainous organization? They're practically Douluo Continent's god of wealth and its hope project!"
Hearing his muttering, Snow Empress merely glanced down indifferently at the human children who had awakened useless martial souls such as "hoe," "sickle," and "Blue Silver Grass," yet possessed no Soul Power at all. Her breathtaking eyes flashed with the aloofness and disdain of one in a superior position.
"Chen'er, these ordinary mortals have mixed and impure bloodlines flowing through them. Naturally, they can only awaken such useless dead things."
Snow Empress gently stroked Xue Bingchen's cheek, undisguised pride filling her voice.
"But you are different. You are the treasure of the Far North, a child favored by this land and sky. Your martial soul is destined to stand above all living beings."
Remembering that scene from last year, Xue Bingchen took a deep breath of the Extreme North Ice Plains' frigid, bone-piercing air, which nevertheless made him feel incomparably comfortable, and slowly opened his eyes.
At this moment, he stood atop the highest peak in the Extreme North Core Zone, Ten Thousand Year Snow Mountain.
At his feet lay a massive Hexagram Awakening Formation, which Ice Empress had spent an entire month carving from the Far North's hardest and purest Ice Extreme God Crystal.
At every node of the formation was embedded a ten-thousand-year ice-attributed soul beast inner core radiating terrifying cold, replacing the awakening stones used in human awakening ceremonies.
With such a grand display, not to mention Spirit Hall's Pope, even gods descending from the God Realm would probably have their jaws drop.
The Ice and Snow Empresses stood on opposite sides of the hexagram formation's edge, their gazes locked tightly upon Xue Bingchen in its center.
Ice Empress's emerald eyes were full of anxiety and anticipation. Her tender little hands tightly tugged at her twin ponytails as she kept mumbling to herself.
"It has to be the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion... It has to be the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion... Heavens, please let little Bingchen awaken my martial soul. Then I'll be his mother in name and truth..."
Hearing Ice Empress's muttering, Snow Empress merely shook her head helplessly, a composed smile curling across her lips.
There was not the slightest worry on her breathtaking face, for she had absolute confidence in the foundation she had laid for Xue Bingchen over the past six years.
"Chen'er, are you ready?" Snow Empress's ethereal, pleasant voice rang through the wind and snow like heavenly music.
Xue Bingchen nodded heavily, his little face filled with solemnity and determination. "Mom, I'm ready! Begin!"
"Good."
Snow Empress nodded slightly. Then, her flawless hand, white as mutton-fat jade, slowly rose and pointed from afar at Xue Bingchen in the center of the formation.
"Buzz—!"
Following Snow Empress's movement, a stream of Ultimate Ice origin energy, pure to the extreme and devoid of the slightest impurity, flowed from her fingertips like a gentle brook and instantly poured into the Ice Extreme God Crystal formation beneath the ground.
In an instant, the entire Hexagram Awakening Formation erupted with dazzling icy-blue radiance!
The six ten-thousand-year soul beast inner cores seemed to ignite, releasing incomparably vast power of ice and snow. They transformed into six icy-blue pillars that shot into the heavens, converging above Xue Bingchen's head into a massive vortex of ice and snow.
"Close your eyes. Feel the slumbering power within your body with your heart. Guide it, release it!"
Snow Empress's voice exploded in Xue Bingchen's mind like the tolling of a morning bell and an evening drum.
Xue Bingchen closed his eyes as instructed.
At that moment, he felt as though he had been placed within a warm womb of ice and snow.
The energy stirred by Snow Empress surged into every part of his body like spring rain, traveling through his broad, resilient meridians and charging irresistibly toward the deepest part of his soul.
He felt that somewhere inside him, a heavy door that had remained shut for six years was slowly opening beneath the impact of that power.
"Crack—"
A shattering sound seemed to ring out from the depths of his soul.
Immediately afterward, an indescribable, ultimate chill erupted violently from Xue Bingchen's dantian!
This chill was not the ordinary cold that pierced the bone. It was an Absolute Zero carrying supreme pressure, as though it could freeze time and space and force all things into submission!
"Boom—!!!"
The instant that chill erupted, the sky above the Far North changed.
The howling blizzard fell into absolute stillness in an instant. Then, a brilliant icy-blue pillar of light over a hundred meters in diameter erupted from Xue Bingchen's body like a volcanic explosion, soaring straight into the heavens!
The pillar was too dazzling. It seemed poised to tear apart the perpetual gloom shrouding the Far North and pierce straight toward the God Realm above the ninth heaven!
"It succeeded!"
Outside the formation, two dazzling flashes of light burst from Snow Empress's icy-blue eyes, which had remained calm for countless years.
A smile capable of melting the snow and ice filling the skies blossomed across her breathtaking face.
She stared excitedly at the tiny figure within the pillar of light, her voice even trembling slightly.
"It really is... it really is the Heavenly Snow Woman martial soul!"
Within the dazzling pillar shooting into the sky, countless crystalline ice and snow elements gathered wildly. At last, they condensed into a breathtakingly beautiful figure dozens of zhang tall above Xue Bingchen's head.
The figure wore a white dress, her silver hair dancing in the wind. Barefoot, lotuses bloomed beneath every step she took.
Her appearance, her bearing, even the cool and lofty pressure radiating from her that stood above all living beings were exactly the same as Snow Empress, the Ruler of the Far North standing nearby...
Only, this phantom was even more ethereal, even purer, as though she were the physical manifestation of the world's laws of ice and snow.
This was one of Douluo Continent's greatest martial souls, perhaps even the absolute pinnacle of all ice-attributed martial souls—the Heavenly Snow Woman!
The spectacle of Xue Bingchen awakening his martial soul was simply too immense.
This icy-blue pillar of light that soared into the sky not only illuminated the entire Far North, but the terrifying law fluctuations it emitted also crossed countless mountains and rivers like a tsunami, instantly sweeping across all of Douluo Continent!
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