Ice Empress

All the Soul Beasts in the distance that had sensed Jiang Che's arrow fled like startled birds.

Jiang Che's long cry still echoed through the sky when the ice beneath his feet suddenly began to shake violently.

The shockwave from the Ice Dragon Bow's arrow had yet to dissipate when a chill far more biting and domineering than the Far North's frigid winds swept out from deep within the mountains.

This aura carried an oppressive force that looked down upon the world. It was beyond the reach of an ordinary Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, and it actually overwhelmed the Dragon Might radiating from Jiang Che's Soul Rings, plunging the entire ice field below freezing in an instant.

The thick, churning black clouds suddenly shuddered violently, as if cleaved apart by a blade. A long, narrow fissure split open in the middle of the cloudbank.

The next moment, from the edge of the sky deep in the Far North, a piercing Ice Jade radiance swept forth with irresistible force. In the span of a breath, it swallowed the entire gloomy firmament.

The black sky vanished completely, replaced by a clear, icy green. Its color was gentle and lustrous, yet carried an unassailable majesty, as if the entire heavens had become a jade sculpture frozen for ten thousand years.

The oppressive tension in the air, stirred up by the Soul Skill's eruption, was wholly replaced by this supreme aura of frost. All things beneath the heavens seemed to fall silent. Even the howling wind slowed, bowing its head in submission before the might of the Ruler of the Far North.

"Human! How dare you run wild on my territory!"

A clear, crisp voice rang out from every direction. Its arrival was accompanied by a terrifying sonic boom. The snow on the ground surged nearly three meters into the air in an instant, like waves suddenly rising from the sea. Only the area within a hundred-meter radius of Jiang Che remained calm.

Jiang Che furrowed his brow. The only Soul Beasts in the Far North with such power were the Ice and Snow Empresses. But the Snow Empress was probably no longer here, so the one who had come could only be the Ice Empress. He didn't dare remain in the air, afraid that other Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts might spot him and gang up on him. He quickly returned to the ground and reined in his aura.

[Warning! Warning! The Ice Empress, one of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Far North, has set her sights on you and bears you a deep grudge. In her eyes, your strength makes you no more than an inconspicuous bug. So do your best to stay alive!]

The next moment, the Ice Empress appeared.

The dark sky was once again swept by clear, jade-green light. A streak of green hurtled across the heavens, leaving behind a fleeting trail of light before disappearing without a trace.

Jiang Che instantly focused all his attention, fixing his gaze ahead. He could barely remember how the original story had described the Ice Empress, but he was certain of one thing: the higher a Soul Beast's cultivation, the larger its body, and this was especially true of Ferocious Beasts over a hundred thousand years old.

Yet when this Ferocious Beast of the Far North truly entered his sight and senses, Jiang Che couldn't help but stare in astonishment. A heartfelt sigh of admiration welled up inside him: she was breathtakingly beautiful.

That was right. The Ice Empress was so beautiful it took his breath away. This was the first time he had ever used the word "beautiful" to describe a Soul Beast, and his admiration came entirely from the heart.

The Ice Empress was only about one and a half meters long. Jiang Che had never seen a member of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion race before, and all his earlier guesses were overturned in an instant. Who could have imagined that the Ferocious Beast who struck fear throughout the Far North was a scorpion—a scorpion of peerless beauty?

Scorpions had always been associated with ugliness and hideousness. If someone had told Jiang Che in the past that a scorpion could be beautiful, he would have looked at them like they were an idiot, even suspecting they were deliberately provoking him.

But now, Jiang Che only wanted to apologize for his past ignorance. He was utterly convinced that this was the truth, and that he had simply been too narrow-minded to know better.

The Ice Empress before him was adorned in just two colors: the lustrous white of ice and snow, and the jade green of emerald.

The front half of her body consisted of four stacked segments, each a little over half a foot long. Her head was set into the foremost segment, and her silvery-white mouthparts gleamed with a cold light, revealing the sharpness of a Ferocious Beast.

Her front carapace wasn't covered in ordinary scales. Instead, it was densely studded with raised hexagons, each shining like a flawless diamond. The six long, agile legs were covered in the same crystalline protrusions. Reflected in the light above the snowy ground, she seemed to have become a source of light herself, radiating dazzling brilliance in every direction.

Her pair of front pincers were a full meter long, their surfaces likewise covered in diamond-like hexagonal protrusions. Only the tips, like her mouthparts, were smooth and lustrous as mirrors, a brilliant silver-white—both sharp and elegant.

What Jiang Che couldn't tear his eyes away from were her eyes: a bright yellow pair, like two perfectly cut yellow diamonds set in her forehead. Her pupils were hexagonal as well, filled with swirling golden light and glittering like precious gems. They held both the majesty of a Ferocious Beast and an utterly captivating liveliness.

If her front half was already dazzling, then the long tail raised high behind her was the heart of her breathtaking beauty.

Unlike the cumbersome, many-segmented tails of ordinary scorpions, the Ice Empress's tail had only five segments. Each was a vivid, translucent jade green, alive with a rich aura of life. Their colors blended seamlessly, with the segment nearest her body the widest and each one narrowing toward the tip. The tail's barb arched high, covered in the same delicate diamond-like protrusions, its tip a cold silver-white that shimmered like a mirror, radiating sharpness and elegance.

How could a Soul Beast, naturally formed as if carved from the finest gemstones, fail to deserve the word "beautiful"? Even calling her beautiful seemed far too pale, far too shallow.

"Ice Empress, what happened just now was a misunderstanding. If I did anything wrong, let me apologize first." Though Jiang Che was confident he was no weaker than a Super Douluo, the Ice Empress was a being who could give even Xuan Zi, a Level 98 Douluo, a headache back in the outside world.

If they fought in the Far North, it was anyone's guess who would win. With that, Jiang Che prepared to leave.

"Hmph! Human, do you think this is a place where you can come and go as you please?" The Ice Empress gave a disdainful snort, and her clear, crisp voice rang out again.

"Then what do you want?" Jiang Che asked in an unfriendly tone. He simply hadn't wanted to provoke the Ice Empress for no reason, but her aggressive attitude irritated him. After obtaining his ninth Soul Ring, he was now feeling extremely full of himself.

"What do I want? Since you woke me, you'd better prepare to leave your life here." The Ice Empress stared fixedly at Jiang Che, her yellow eyes brimming with fury.

She had been asleep, but the terrifying shockwave of ice energy from earlier had woken her, even cracking the ice around her hiding place in several places.

"Ice Empress! I respect you as one of the rulers of this land. If you want me to stay and keep you company, that's fine—but I'm no bug you can crush at will!" Jiang Che knew he wouldn't get away without a fight. He stopped wasting his breath and summoned his Martial Soul and Soul Rings.