The moment the man carrying a Soul Tool designed to capture Soul Beasts undergoing rebirth stepped inside, Ice Empress attacked.
She moved so fast that even Lin Yun hadn't seen it coming. He didn't have time to react—or even warn her—before the two sides clashed.
After a fierce battle, the Level 9 Soul Engineer died at Ice Empress's hands. She turned to Lin Yun, her eyes far more vicious than usual.
"You never told me and Xue'er that I could only maintain this state for ten minutes!"
Lin Yun smiled. "I said you'd be able to use your full strength, didn't I? And without my ability, how could you have mastered your clan's proudest technique, Ice Explosion Technique?"
Ice Empress projected a human form with her spiritual power. She glared at Lin Yun as if she were blowing her whiskers in anger. "Those are two different things! We're talking about how you deceived me!"
Seeing Ice Empress's furious expression, Lin Yun reached over and ruffled her hair. "All right, the duration of this ability depends on my cultivation. With the Soul Skill you gave me and my own abilities, increasing my cultivation will be as easy as blinking, won't it?"
Ice Empress said sourly, "Sure. How many years does one of your blinks take? Don't mess around."
As she spoke, Lin Yun had already stepped forward and begun rummaging through the unlucky Level 9 Soul Engineer's belongings.
Unlike the Ice Explosion Technique Huo Yuhao had used in the original story, Ice Empress had astonishingly precise control over it.
Perhaps her past frustration at never having mastered the technique had led her to study its theory in depth. Whatever the reason, she had destroyed only the defensive Soul Tool.
The Storage Soul Tool inside had remained unharmed.
After a good deal of fiddling, Lin Yun managed to open two of the Storage Soul Tools, though he couldn't get a few of the others open.
Those two Storage Soul Tools contained a pair of icy-blue Twin Daggers and a pile of rare materials.
As for Gold Soul Coins, there were more than he could count.
Zhang Lexuan wasn't particularly interested in the materials. She was a straightforward fighter, after all, and had little sense of what they were worth.
As Lin Yun searched the corpse for anything useful, he suddenly paused. Some of the wounds on the man weren't from Ice Empress.
They carried a chilling, dark aura, and even felt cold to the touch.
Lin Yun's thoughts raced. In the original story, Snow Empress's embryo had eventually appeared at an auction in the Star Luo Empire.
And it was common knowledge that the Sun Moon Empire was rife with internal strife and competing factions. By this point, the Holy Spirit Cult had most likely already joined forces with Xu Tianran.
Lin Yun figured out where the Soul Engineer who had been after Snow Empress had come from. So the internal power struggle had sent Evil Soul Masters—its hired blades—chasing him into the Extreme North.
It made sense. The Extreme North had at least four Ferocious Beast-level Soul Beasts. If Evil Soul Masters stormed in with their Martial Souls, they'd attract far more attention than a Soul Engineer.
To kill that Soul Engineer, they would have had to cross the territories of those fiercely territorial Soul Beasts.
If Ice Empress had run into them, she would definitely have dealt with the greater threat first: the Evil Soul Masters.
He just didn't know how things had played out in the original story, or why the embryo had ended up in the Star Luo Empire.
Either way, he had now snatched the prize from that whole chain of events, so none of it would happen.
As Lin Yun thought, he gathered up all the Storage Soul Tools.
Even the ones he couldn't open were worth keeping. Maybe he'd be able to unlock them once his spiritual power had grown.
A few more days passed, and Zhang Lexuan began to wonder why Shrek Academy hadn't come looking for them.
Before they left, she had reported that they were going to the Extreme North.
Lin Yun didn't mind. He'd never been set on returning to Shrek Academy in the first place.
At noon that day, the embryo Snow Empress had become shifted slightly.
The movement was small, but it instantly seized the attention of all three of them.
Delight shone in Ice Empress's eyes as she smugly told Lin Yun, "Once Xue'er comes out, let's see how she deals with you for tricking me."
As Ice Empress spoke, cracks spread across Snow Empress's embryo. It seemed Snow Empress would hatch today.
With a sharp crack, a fragment of the embryo, like a piece of eggshell, broke off.
A pair of long, ice-crystal-colored legs emerged.
Then came a face that was somewhat youthful, yet carried an air of cool nobility.
Snow Empress had completed her rebirth, but she had only become an eleven-year-old girl at the Soul Elder level. She was even a little shorter than Lin Yun.
Ice Empress froze on the spot, while Lin Yun couldn't help laughing.
"So this is your revenge? That's funnier than an old lady crawling under the covers!"
The atmosphere here was joyous. Things were far less pleasant elsewhere.
At the border of the Extreme North, several Shrek Inner Court students stared at an old man before them.
The old man wore a black robe and held a severed head in his hand. It belonged to their leading teacher.
Ma Xiaotao said in a low voice, "Elder Feng lost too. We've lost two elders who were both at level ninety-five. This is bad. Dai Yueheng, take the others and get out of here. Save whoever you can."
Dai Yueheng stared at Ma Xiaotao in confusion, asking with his eyes what she meant.
But at that moment, Ma Xiaotao suddenly shouted, "Run!"
Then she charged forward and wrapped her arms around the murderous Evil Soul Master.
Dai Yueheng reached out to grab Ma Xiaotao, but only managed to tear off a piece of her clothes. He gritted his teeth. The cold-bloodedness in his Dai Family blood took over, and he spun around and bolted.
The Evil Soul Master watched Dai Yueheng flee and clicked his tongue. Then he looked down at Ma Xiaotao, who was trying to fight him to the death.
"Evil Fire Phoenix? Interesting."
The Evil Soul Master raised his bloodstained long-bladed Martial Soul and tapped Ma Xiaotao on the head with its hilt.
Ma Xiaotao immediately lost consciousness and collapsed.
The Evil Soul Master glanced toward the depths of the Extreme North, hesitated for a moment, and reviewed what had happened.
I just fought in the heart of the Extreme North, and nothing happened. The Three Heavenly Kings of the Extreme North probably haven't noticed me. It should be fine to take a quick look.
As he spoke, the Evil Soul Master scraped his scalp with his curved blade. With the mindset that timid people starved while the bold ate their fill, he headed deeper into the Great Extreme North Forest.
The faint, intermittent aura of the dead served as his beacon along the way. The Ice Jade Scorpion Clan, leaderless without their chieftain, had no interest in stopping him.
He went deep into the forest. Though he failed to find his target, a blue halo of Soul Power caught his attention...
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