She cradled the snow lotus, a complex look flashing in her ice-blue eyes. She murmured, "I can no longer survive the final tribulation. My Soul Core is showing signs of cracking. If I force my way through the tribulation, I'll die for certain."
"There's only one path left... succeed, or perish."
Her voice was soft, but her resolve was unshakable.
Snow Empress plucked off a petal and gently placed it in her mouth. Strangely, the enormous petal melted as soon as it touched her tongue, turning into a cool energy that surged through her body.
One petal, two, three...
In no time, Snow Empress had consumed the entire Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus.
She slowly closed her beautiful eyes. The space around her began to distort, and ice-blue light spilled from her body, growing brighter and brighter until it enveloped her completely.
Snow Empress's figure gradually blurred, transforming into a cloud of white mist. The mist radiated bone-piercing cold, yet seemed to possess a will of its own as it drifted and gathered atop the glacier.
As time passed, the outline of an embryo gradually took shape within the white mist—translucent and crystalline, as if carved from ice, and emanating a rich aura of life.
That's right. Snow Empress was undergoing the most important step for a Soul Beast: transformation.
As a peerless Ferocious Beast with a cultivation level nearing seven hundred thousand years, she should never have had the chance to transform. Soul Beasts had to choose whether to transform when they reached a hundred thousand years of cultivation. Once they missed that window, they never got another chance.
But Snow Empress was fortunate enough to encounter this Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus. Using its power of creation, she had forcibly opened the path to transformation, planning to cultivate anew as a human and pursue the elusive dream of becoming a god at level one hundred.
This was a desperate gamble. After transforming, she would lose all her cultivation and have to start over. Human lifespans were short, and she could encounter all sorts of dangers along the way. She might even die before becoming a Titled Douluo.
But Snow Empress had never lacked a daring spirit. Rather than sit and wait for the seven-hundred-thousand-year tribulation to descend and scatter her soul, she would stake everything on one last throw!
Just as Snow Empress reached the crucial moment of her transformation—
Su Chen and Mu Ye arrived.
They hid behind an ice mound, watching the cloud of white mist atop the glacier from a distance. Seeing Snow Empress's peerless beauty slowly dissolve into mist and merge with the lotus embryo, Su Chen couldn't help but marvel.
She really was a stunning, mature beauty... even more beautiful than she'd been described in the original story.
In the Sea of Consciousness, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's eyes went wide. "Snow Empress... she's cultivating anew!"
Its voice brimmed with shock and... a hint of excitement it could barely hide.
"Su Chen, this is our chance!" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm said urgently. "Snow Empress is at her most vulnerable during the transformation. She can't fight back at all! Let's hurry over and capture her! I can seal her!"
Its idea was simple: strike while she was down and finish her off. Snow Empress was at her weakest right now, making this the perfect time to act.
However—
"No." Su Chen shook his head, his voice calm and firm.
"Why?!" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm grew frantic. "This is a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity! If we miss it, then once Snow Empress completes her transformation, persuading her will be harder than climbing to the heavens!"
Su Chen answered calmly in his mind, "Snow Empress is different from Ice Empress. Ice Empress might yield and offer herself as a sacrifice when faced with the Four Hundred Thousand Year Tribulation, but Snow Empress... never would."
He paused, his tone even more certain. "She might even drag us down with her. She's the kind of woman who's unyielding to the core—she'd rather break than bend."
Snow Empress was proud. The fact that she would rather transform and start over, gambling on the slim chance of becoming a god, than cling to life for a few more centuries only to die in a heavenly tribulation, said everything about her character.
How could someone like that accept being coerced into becoming another person's Martial Soul?
Sky Dream Ice Silkworm fell silent. It knew Su Chen was right. Snow Empress really was that kind of person.
"Then... what do we do?" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm sounded anxious. "We can't just watch her complete her transformation, can we? Once she succeeds, we won't have another chance!"
Su Chen shook his head, a glint flashing in his eyes. "I'm waiting for an opportunity."
"What opportunity?"
"A chance to play the hero and save the beauty."
The corner of Su Chen's mouth curled into a meaningful smile. He remembered that in the original story, Snow Empress had been ambushed during her transformation by a Level 9 Soul Engineer, who had sealed her with the God-Sealing Platform. All he had to do was step in at the crucial moment and save her.
This was a desperate gamble.
If he won, he would gain a second Martial Soul with god-level potential: Snow Empress, the Ultimate Ice!
If he lost, his second Martial Soul would be the slightly weaker Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.
But Su Chen thought it was worth the gamble.
"All right, I'll trust you this once." It sighed. "But let's get one thing straight: if things go south, we need to get out of there fast. Snow Empress isn't someone you want to mess with when she's gone berserk."
"Don't worry." Su Chen nodded.
Time passed, second by second.
Just as Snow Empress reached the most crucial stage of her transformation—
A figure quietly appeared near the glacier.
He was a middle-aged man dressed in a thick fur coat, carrying various strange Soul Tools as he surveyed the area.
"Hm? This energy fluctuation..." The man suddenly stopped and looked toward the glacier's summit, his eyes lighting up. "Such powerful energy! Could a treasure have appeared?"
He quickened his pace and began climbing the glacier.
Watching from behind the ice mound, Su Chen's eyes glinted.
He's here.
The Level 9 Soul Engineer who had stumbled into the Far North Core Area in the original story had finally appeared.
The man soon reached the glacier's summit. When he saw the cloud of white mist and the faint outline of an embryo within it, he froze for a moment before breaking into delighted laughter.
"Th-this is a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast in the middle of transforming?!"
"Hahaha! What a stroke of fortune! What a stroke of fortune!"
He laughed heartily, his greed plain on his face.
To have stumbled across such an opportunity—he truly had heaven's favor!
It was rare enough for a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast to transform, and he'd happened to find one in the middle of it. What's more, this Soul Beast's aura was so powerful that it was probably no ordinary hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast...
The thought made greed practically spill from the Soul Engineer's eyes.
He took out a Soul Tool: a tray with a wooden stand on top, inlaid with at least a hundred colorful gems that glimmered with a faint golden light.
The wooden stand looked simple, but it was actually a Level 9 Soul Tool called the God-Sealing Platform. It was the proudest creation of this Level 9 Soul Engineer, capable of sealing energy beings and even temporarily trapping a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast!
Snow Empress was in the middle of transforming and couldn't attack at all. The Level 9 Soul Engineer seized his chance, waiting for the moment the white mist completely merged with the lotus—
"Seal!"
He shouted and aimed the God-Sealing Platform at the snow lotus.
"Vmm—"
A pale golden barrier shot out from the God-Sealing Platform, instantly enveloping the entire snow lotus. The lotus shook violently, and the white mist within crashed against the barrier again and again, but couldn't break through its pale golden shell.
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