The Ice Empress Descends

It takes three days to travel from Shrek City to the edge of the Far North.

Mu Chen first took a carriage to Frost Town, a frontier town at the northernmost tip of the Heaven Dou Empire, then traveled north on foot, crossing a hundred-mile stretch of frozen forest before truly stepping into the territory of the Far North.

The further north he went, the lower the temperature dropped. The vegetation along the road changed from coniferous forests to low-lying shrubs, then to moss clinging to the permafrost, and finally, even the moss vanished, leaving only an endless white wasteland.

The Crimson Flame Bead pressed against his chest, radiating a constant warmth. Yet, faced with the sub-zero temperatures of fifty or sixty degrees below zero on the outskirts of the Far North, this warmth was like a match in a blizzard, barely enough to keep his body temperature from dropping below freezing. What truly allowed Mu Chen to continue deeper was the intervention of Old Tang.

"Hold your breath and focus your mind; I will help you conceal your aura." Old Tang's voice resonated within the Sea of Consciousness. The golden silhouette raised his right hand, and a gentle golden light barrier expanded from Mu Chen's Sea of Consciousness, enveloping his entire body.

The light barrier insulated him from the external cold and masked his human scent. In the core area of the Far North, any trace of an unusual aura could attract the attention of soul beasts over ten thousand years old. Without this protective shield, Mu Chen would be torn to shreds by the time he reached the boundary of the core area.

"How long can this shield last?" Mu Chen asked.

"Three days," Old Tang replied curtly.

"Within three days, the soul beasts of the Far North will be unable to perceive your existence. But after three days, the shield will dissipate. You must complete your business and leave the core area before then. Otherwise, with your level forty-nine soul power, if your aura is exposed in the core area, you won't even need existences at the level of the Snow Empress or Ice Empress to act; any high-level ten-thousand-year soul beast could make you stay here forever."

In truth, Old Tang just wanted Mu Chen to hurry; after all, with him around, he could extend the duration for as long as needed.

Mu Chen nodded and quickened his pace.

The further north he went, the stronger the wind became.

The wind on the ice sheet didn't just blow; it slammed into him, carrying fine ice crystals that stung his face like countless needles.

The snow underfoot changed from soft powder to a hard ice crust, each step producing a dull echo.

Before leaving the Outer Academy last year, he was level forty-five. Over the past year, the hidden dividends of his integrated cultivation had gradually manifested. The increase in soul power purity brought about a natural growth in his level, completing a four-level leap from forty-five to forty-nine in less than a year.

This speed would be considered terrifying in the eyes of any teacher at the Outer Academy.

Now, in his dantian, the deep blue pool of soul power had accumulated to the verge of a breakthrough; he was only one level away from touching the threshold of a Soul King.

This was one of the reasons he had the confidence to come to the Far North.

Mu Chen walked on the ice sheet for two full days. From Frost Town to the outskirts of the Far North, and then to the boundary of the core area, he traversed frozen valleys, climbed ridges covered by ten-thousand-year glaciers, and bypassed several soul beast lairs radiating terrifying auras.

Once, an Ice Ridge Demon Wolf over ten meters long passed by an ice mound less than a hundred meters away from him. Its ice-blue wolf eyes swept across his direction, paused for three seconds, and then turned away. Old Tang's protective shield masked all his perceptions; in its eyes, Mu Chen was no different from a block of ice rock.

On the morning of the third day, he entered the core area.

The core area of the Far North could no longer be described simply as cold.

The temperature here was so low that even the air began to liquefy; every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass.

The light of the Crimson Flame Bead had dimmed to the point of near-invisibility in this region. The cold air outside the protective shield seeped through Old Tang's barrier in thin wisps, forming a layer of frost on his blue hair.

Yet, the moment he stepped onto this land, he could still feel that bone-deep aura that made his soul tremble, emanating from the deepest depths of the permafrost beneath his feet, from the summit of the tallest ice peak in the distance, and from the cold wind present everywhere.

The Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North.

Old Tang's voice resonated in the Sea of Consciousness, carrying a rare note of gravity: "In this place, there are no fewer than ten soul beasts with over fifty thousand years of cultivation. More than ten. Every inch of the permafrost beneath your feet is stepped upon the territory of some terrifying existence."

"I know," Mu Chen said. He did not stop his pace.

"You know, yet you keep walking forward?" Old Tang's tone held a hint of helplessness. "Sometimes I really don't know if you're bold or just have a death wish."

"Neither." Mu Chen stopped on a low ice mound, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding terrain. To the northwest were rolling ice mountains, to the southeast was an open ice sheet, and three hundred meters directly ahead was a bottomless ice crevice.

"I'm here to talk business. Talking business requires sincerity; standing at someone's doorstep and calling out is better than peeking around from outside."

He took something out of his storage soul tool bracelet.

Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow.

The crystal-clear ice marrow emitted a soft blue halo in the cold wind of the Far North, the light spreading in circles like a stone dropped into a calm lake.

The surrounding cold air intensified several times over in an instant, and the ice crystals in the air gathered toward the ice marrow at a visible speed, forming a thin layer of frost on its surface.

The Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow is a supreme treasure of heaven and earth that can only condense in the deepest parts of ice eyes over ten thousand years old.

Formed over a thousand years and condensed into marrow over ten thousand, the ice-type energy contained within it is pure to the extreme, a holy object that all ice-attribute soul beasts dream of.

Mu Chen had obtained a total of forty-five pieces from the bottom of the well at the Earth Dragon Sect in Dragon City—a quantity enough to drive any ice-attribute soul beast mad.

He held the ice marrow in his hand, stood quietly in place, and waited.

The wind suddenly stopped.

It wasn't that the wind had lessened; it had ceased entirely.

Between heaven and earth, there remained only an absolute, suffocating silence.

Then, that aura descended.

It didn't surge from any one direction; it surged simultaneously from all directions, from the sky above, and from the permafrost beneath his feet.

It wasn't simple cold, but a more essential chill belonging to the end of all things, as if the midnight of deep winter had been compressed into a single point and then driven deep into the marrow of his bones.

The moment it touched this aura, the soul power within Mu Chen's body began to circulate automatically. He pushed his Mysterious Heaven Skill to the limit, and the deep blue soul power pool in his dantian surged violently, barely managing to keep the chill outside his meridians.

Old Tang's golden light barrier emitted a faint cracking sound under the pressure of this aura, like the groaning of an ice sheet unable to bear a heavy load.

A beam of emerald light descended from the sky.

The beam landed on the ice sheet in front of Mu Chen. There was no explosion, no loud noise; it simply and silently melted a circular pit several meters in diameter into the permafrost. The ice at the bottom of the pit was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the slowly rotating shadows of the lead-gray clouds in the sky.