Icefield Wolf Pack

Xu Feng's explanation was reasonable and well-founded.

Shui Bing'er accepted it.

She fell silent for a moment, her long lashes lowered as though she were pondering something.

After a while, Shui Bing'er raised her head. There was less dreaminess in her eyes, replaced by greater seriousness and anticipation.

"Then... if I really become a god someday, will I be able to see my mother again?"

The cautious hope in that question stirred something in Xu Feng's heart.

He knew Shui Bing'er was gentle and kind, and he could not bear to shatter her fantasy.

But neither did he want to deceive her.

"I do not know whether reincarnation exists in the Divine Realm, nor whether the souls of the dead can reunite. But one thing is certain: only when you are strong enough and possess sufficient power will you be qualified to explore these mysteries. Only then will you be able to protect everything you wish to protect, and perhaps even... recover what you have lost."

Shui Bing'er's petite body trembled slightly.

Her grandfather, father, and younger aunt all loved her dearly, but they rarely spoke with her in depth about her mother, much less mentioned the details of her mother's death.

She only knew from fragmented conversations and her younger aunt's occasional sighs that her mother had died during a soul beast hunt.

Avenge her mother, grow stronger, protect her family—these thoughts had long since taken root in her heart.

Now, the Ice Phoenix in her dream seemed to have pointed out a path toward strength that appeared impossibly distant, yet incomparably clear.

Xu Feng saw the turmoil in Shui Bing'er's heart and knew she needed time to process this enormous flood of information.

He withdrew the radiance around himself and said gently, "Think it over carefully, little Bing'er. This is not a decision you need to make immediately, but it concerns both your future and mine. I will come to find you again."

As his words fell, the Ice Phoenix's enormous, beautiful figure began to turn transparent and illusory, slowly dispersing into the azure sky of the dream like morning mist.

Shui Bing'er instinctively reached out to stop him, but she only grasped a patch of icy air...

Dawn was just beginning to break.

Inside the tent, Shui Bing'er slowly opened her eyes.

Everything was as usual.

Yet she clearly remembered that strange dream.

"Was all of that... really just a dream?"

Shui Bing'er touched her forehead but felt nothing unusual.

She recalled every detail of the dream—

That incomparably beautiful Ice Phoenix, that gentle yet resolute young man's voice, those words about sacrifice, soul spirits, creating gods, and the Divine Realm...

They had been so clear, so real.

Nothing like an ordinary dream, vague and disjointed.

That final sentence, "I will come to find you again," echoed in her ears like a solemn promise.

Shui Bing'er gently lifted a corner of the tent and looked toward her grandfather.

Leng Jun seemed to sense her movement and turned around.

"Bing'er, you're awake?"

"Mhm. Grandfather, you kept watch all night. You must be tired. It's just dawn now, so rest for a while. I'll keep watch."

Leng Jun shook his head, his expression suddenly turning serious.

"Bing'er, I already slept for a while. Strangely enough, I was knocked unconscious by an incomparably powerful mental force. That mental force seemed to come from a soul beast far more powerful than I could imagine. But it did not seem hostile. Otherwise, the two of us might already have..."

Hearing this, Shui Bing'er's heart sank sharply.

"Could it... have been that Ice Phoenix?"

"Ice Phoenix? What Ice Phoenix?"

Leng Jun looked utterly confused.

Shui Bing'er explained, "I dreamed of... a very large, very beautiful Ice Phoenix. It even said some very strange things to me."

"So it was just a dream."

Leng Jun smiled faintly.

"What you think of by day, you dream of by night. You've been thinking about finding a suitable ice-attribute soul beast, so it isn't strange that you dreamed of an Ice Phoenix. Pack up. We'll go look for soul beasts."

Shui Bing'er gave a quiet hum and packed up the tent with her grandfather.

She found it rather strange.

Her grandfather was an eighty-seventh-rank Soul Douluo, and his martial soul was an Ice Phoenix with powerful mental attributes. Yet he had suffered a mental attack from a soul beast and been knocked unconscious.

Just how terrifying must that unknown soul beast have been?

She thought of the Ice Phoenix from her dream.

The Ice Phoenix's cultivation had already reached the level of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast; it understood the laws of heaven.

Could it have been the one that made Grandpa faint?

As she thought of this, the conversations from her dream replayed over and over in her mind.

"God-Creation Plan..."

"Sacrifice..."

"Soul Spirit..."

"Become gods together..."

What if... it hadn't been a dream?

But a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast voluntarily sacrificing itself to a Soul Grandmaster?

That really sounded like the ravings of a madman.

How could something that good possibly exist in reality?

Reason and desire waged a fierce battle within Shui Bing'er.

She raised her head to look at the sky, silently whispering in her heart:

"If... you really come looking for me again, then it'll prove that wasn't a dream. And I'll be willing to complete your God-Creation Plan with you..."

The grandfather and granddaughter simply packed up camp, replenished their food and water, then set off once more on their journey to find a Soul Beast.

Leng Jun's expression was even graver than it had been yesterday.

The mysterious spiritual power that had silently and effortlessly restrained him, an eight-ringed Soul Douluo, the previous night continued to hang over his heart like a dark cloud.

He was certain that it was not something an ordinary ten-thousand-year Soul Beast could possess. It might even have reached the hundred-thousand-year level.

Yet the other party had not tried to kill him, leaving him utterly baffled.

All he could do was remain vigilant and lead Shui Bing'er forward with great care.

Shui Bing'er's thoughts were equally chaotic.

What had happened to her grandfather confirmed some of her suspicions and greatly increased the likelihood that her dream had been real.

As she carefully followed behind him, she surveyed the icy forests and snowy mountains around them from the corner of her eye.

A trace of uneasy anticipation arose in her heart, hoping that she might truly see the Ice Phoenix from her dream.

About an hour later, the two arrived at a mountain hollow backed by a massive glacier and surrounded on three sides by steep icy slopes.

The terrain here was relatively open.

As they walked, Leng Jun suddenly stopped, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

"Bing'er, be careful. There's a Soul Beast!"

Leng Jun shielded Shui Bing'er behind him and activated Martial Soul Possession with his Ice Phoenix. Powerful Soul Power fluctuations and bone-piercing cold instantly spread through the area.

Eight soul rings—two yellow, two purple, and four black—rose one after another from beneath his feet, radiating the pressure of a Soul Douluo powerhouse.

"Awoo—!!"

Suddenly.

A long wolf howl rang out from above the icy slope.

Immediately afterward, hurried pounding footsteps and low growls came from every direction.

Five gray-blue figures darted out from behind the icy slopes like ghosts.

They were as fast as lightning, surrounding Leng Jun and Shui Bing'er in the blink of an eye!

They were five Icefield Demon Wolves, each as large as a tiger!

Their bodies were covered in thick, hard gray-blue ice armor. Their fangs protruded from their mouths, while cruel, greedy cold light flickered in their dark green wolf eyes.

The five Icefield Demon Wolves were not standing at random. They faintly formed an encirclement, their movements carrying the unique coordination and discipline of a wolf pack.

Even more alarming, a far larger figure slowly paced out from the entrance to the mountain hollow.

It was a giant demon wolf over six meters long!

Its ice armor was a deep dark blue, with intricate icy patterns faintly flowing across it. A tuft of silver-white fur, seemingly formed from condensed ice crystals, sat upon its forehead like a crown.

It merely stood there, yet a fierce, frigid, savage aura washed over them.

Its pressure far surpassed that of the five ten-thousand-year demon wolves around it!