Confronting the Ice Empress

The pillar of light dissipated.

She stood there.

A young girl who looked no older than twelve or thirteen, her height reaching only to Mu Chen's chest.

Two long scorpion-braids hung behind her, every strand of hair a vibrant emerald, as if polished from the ice of the Far North.

Her skin was so fair it was nearly translucent, her features too exquisite to be real, and her emerald pupils were vertical slits like insects trapped in amber—cold, sharp, and devoid of any human emotional fluctuation.

She wore a short emerald skirt, standing barefoot on the ten-thousand-year ice; the moment her feet touched the surface, a layer of even harder ice shell automatically condensed beneath her.

Behind her, the phantom of a massive ice scorpion emerged, its entire body emerald like jade, pincers splayed and tail arched, the venomous hook at the tip refracting a lethal, cold glint in the dim light.

Ice Empress.

One of the three great kings of the Far North, the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, with three hundred and ninety thousand years of cultivation.

Her aura enveloped the entire area without reservation. Within a radius of several hundred meters, the ice surface cracked into countless fine fissures under this pressure, and the air was filled with a cold, extreme coercion. Every breath tasted of a faint metallic tang deep in the throat—the blood seeping from capillaries frozen and shattered.

But when she saw the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow in Mu Chen's palm, her emerald pupils contracted slightly. The change was infinitesimal, like a shallow scratch across an ice sheet, vanishing in an instant.

"Human." Her voice was beautiful, crisp like the sound of a breaking icicle, yet every syllable carried the temperature of ten-thousand-year ice.

"Where did you get what is in your hand?"

Mu Chen did not answer her question. He held the ice marrow in his palm, his blue eyes meeting those vertical emerald pupils with calm, and said something entirely unrelated to her inquiry: "I have over a dozen pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow in my possession, all of better quality than this one, none worse."

Ice Empress fell silent.

A dozen pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow were enough to trigger a bloodbath among all the ice-attribute soul beasts in the Far North.

And she was the one who understood the value of the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow best, for her injuries had dragged on for many years.

If left untreated, this wound would ensure she would never have the possibility of surviving her next heavenly tribulation.

To heal the damage to one's origin, the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow was one of the few effective remedies, but the problem was that one piece was not enough.

At least ten were required.

"What do you want to trade for it?" Ice Empress asked straightforwardly.

"I will give you two choices." Mu Chen held up two fingers. "First, I use the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow to heal your wounds, and you act as my guardian for ten years. After ten years, you are free to stay or go."

The corner of Ice Empress's mouth twitched slightly, as if she had heard a joke of boundless arrogance.

The Ice Jade Empress Scorpion with three hundred and ninety thousand years of cultivation, acting as a guardian for a forty-ninth-level human Soul Ancestor? Even for only ten years, it was an insult to the title of one of the three great kings of the Far North.

"The second choice," Mu Chen continued, ignoring her reaction, "is that you offer yourself to me in sacrifice. In exchange, I will use the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow to help the Snow Empress recover from her injuries and assist her in breaking through. Fifteen pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow are enough to allow her Snow Empress origin to re-condense."

When the second sentence was finished, Ice Empress's expression changed.

If the first choice made her feel it was ridiculous, the second choice struck precisely at her deepest weakness. The Snow Empress, the head of the three great kings of the Far North, the Heavenly Snow Woman with seven hundred thousand years of cultivation.

The Snow Empress's injuries were even more severe than her own, so severe that even maintaining a human form had become difficult.

For these years, she had been in seclusion in the deepest part of the Far North core area; on the surface, it was cultivation, but in reality, she was using all her power to delay the deterioration of her injuries. If they could not be treated in time, the fall of the Snow Empress was only a matter of time.

This human before her knew about this.

"How do you know?" Ice Empress's voice suddenly became extremely low, as low as the sound of an undercurrent moving beneath the ice.

Mu Chen did not answer.

Ice Empress did not need an answer either. She was a being who had lived for four hundred thousand years, having seen more humans than most soul masters had seen soul beasts.

Humans possessed a strange trait; they always seemed to know things they shouldn't. Sometimes it was notes left by a fallen powerhouse, sometimes an ancient prophecy, and sometimes it was simply an inexplicable intuition. She stopped pursuing the source of the information, for it no longer mattered. What mattered was that this human held the hope for the Snow Empress to survive.

But it was only hope.

"What you say is very moving. But why should I believe you? Fifteen pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow—what if you are lying to me?" Ice Empress's voice returned to its cold state, and a dangerous light emerged in her vertical emerald pupils.

She took a step forward.

With just that one step, the ice surface within a radius of several hundred meters sank by an inch. Cracks spread from her feet in all directions, and countless tiny ice crystals condensed in the air, suspended in mid-air, the edge of every crystal as sharp as a blade.

The coercion of a three-hundred-and-ninety-thousand-year soul beast was fully released; it was no longer pressure at the level of soul power, but a crushing of the life hierarchy. At this moment, any spiritual barrier was rendered useless; this coercion bypassed Old Tang's golden protective shield and reached deep into Mu Chen's soul.

Mu Chen did not retreat.

The pressure fell upon him like an ice mountain pressing down on his shoulders. He could feel his bones making faint sounds, his legs trembling slightly, but he stood where he was, motionless. With a mere thought, the space behind him suddenly began to distort.

A gray, void-like expanse unfolded behind him, like an eye slowly opening.

Jagged gray rock walls, dried-up black riverbeds, and a bone-white tower shrouded in mist in the distance—the entrance to the Undead Half-Plane tore a rift in the ice field of the core area.

The dead, silent aura pouring from the rift collided with the cold of the Far North, emitting a hissing sound, as if two blades were scraping against each other.

Mu Chen took half a step back. Half his body submerged into the gray rift, and the pressure from Ice Empress, which was enough to crush refined steel, vanished like a clay ox entering the sea the moment it touched the entrance to the half-plane, silently dissolved by the laws of another plane.

He was half in the Far North and half in another plane. He could advance to attack or retreat to defend, able to hide his entire body into the half-plane at any moment, isolating himself from all of Ice Empress's attacks.

Ice Empress's footsteps stopped. Her emerald pupils narrowed slightly as she looked at the gray rift, her gaze as sharp as a knife. She could feel the spatial properties on the other side of the rift; it was not any soul skill, nor was it a Soul Tool, but a real, existing plane with independent laws. This realization caused a subtle change in her expression.

"An independent space—you are no ordinary human." She said slowly, her tone no longer that of a condescending examination, but carrying a hint of the gravity of re-evaluating an opponent.

Mu Chen stepped out from the half-plane, and the gray rift behind him slowly closed. He stood before Ice Empress once more, his blue hair fluttering in the cold wind, his blue eyes still meeting those vertical emerald pupils with calm.