Huo Yuhao Arrives at the Extreme North

After she finished speaking, she tossed a snow lotus condensed from Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice into the air.

The snow lotus split into two in mid-air, flying toward Xiao Bai and A-Tai respectively before merging into the centers of their brows. That was the token of the Snow Empress; holding this token was equivalent to possessing the authority of the Snow Empress.

Any soul beast in the Far North would unconditionally obey the orders of the token-bearer upon sensing the aura of the snow lotus.

Xiao Bai touched his forehead with a paw, feeling the mark left by that snow lotus within his soul imprint.

An extremely serious expression appeared on his bear face: "Xiao Bai accepts the order. Don't worry, Mother; if anyone dares to cause trouble while you are away, I will slap them to death."

A-Tai knelt on one knee in silence, pressing its right fist against the ice. The ice layer emitted a dull echo the moment it knelt; that was its promise—a silent promise guaranteed by the weight of the entire glacier.

The Snow Empress suddenly chuckled and reached out to pat Xiao Bai's furry front paw, as she could not reach his head.

In that instant, she was no longer the leader of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, nor was she some seven-hundred-thousand-year-old fierce beast. She was merely that snow spirit from a long, long time ago, chasing the aurora on the ice plains alongside a clumsy little white bear.

"Don't slap them to death; leave them for me to deal with when I return."

Xiao Bai grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp, ice-crystal teeth. It was a smile that appeared somewhat comical, yet somewhat warm, beneath the clouds that never dispersed over the Far North.

Mu Chen stood to the side and swiped his hand across his storage Soul Tool bracelet. The gray rift of the Undead Half-Plane unfolded silently behind him; the craggy gray rocks, the parched black soil, and the ghostly green flames atop the distant bone tower appeared particularly abrupt in the cold wind of the Far North.

"There is an area within the Undead Half-Plane that I have prepared for you."

The Snow Empress did not hesitate, stepping toward the rift. Her figure flickered slightly as she passed through the entrance—the moment where the laws of two different spaces completed their handover—and then she stood steadily in the area of the Undead Half-Plane covered by ice.

She looked around, her gaze sweeping over the craggy gray rocks and the neatly arranged phalanxes of skeleton soldiers in the distance, finally landing on the tower built of bones. A thoughtful glint flashed through her ice-blue eyes.

"This place..." She looked back at Mu Chen, "You certainly have many secrets."

The gray rift slowly closed, completely concealing the Snow Empress's aura. Mu Chen did not linger in the Far North. He pulled his collar tight—not because of the cold, as the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion Left Arm Bone had pushed his tolerance for low temperatures beyond the human norm, but out of a habitual action—and turned south, leaving this world covered in ice and snow.

When he left, the wind in the Far North began to howl once more.

On the fourth day after Mu Chen left the Core Area of the Far North, another figure was struggling to traverse the Ice-Sealed Forest on the outskirts, trekking arduously toward the core area.

It was a youth of only twelve or thirteen, wearing the dark green uniform of Shrek Academy, wrapped in a heavy fur coat that clearly did not fit him well.

Every step sank deep into the snow, up to his knees, before he pulled his leg out with great effort to take the next step. His lips were frozen purple, a thin layer of frost clung to his eyelashes, and every breath turned into a cloud of white mist, torn apart by the wind and dissipated into the air.

Huo Yuhao.

Behind him was the phantom of a massive Ice Silkworm, translucent and milky white, its skin covered in a layer of natural ice-crystal patterns. The Ice Silkworm did not move quickly as it crawled across the snow, but every step left a faint, silvery-white trail on the surface. It was more than ten times larger than Huo Yuhao, its round body resembling a small, moving snow-capped mountain.

"Brother Sky Dream," Huo Yuhao rubbed his frozen fingers, "are you sure this direction is correct? We have been walking for four days."

The voice of the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm echoed in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, carrying the helplessness of a veteran toward a rookie: "It is correct. Two more days of walking and we will enter the Core Area of the Far North. That was where Brother shed his skin back in the day; that area is where the Ice Jade Scorpion tribe likes to haunt the most. Once we get there, Brother will use my molted shell to simulate the aura of my prime, and I will definitely be able to lure Bing Bing out."

Huo Yuhao was silent for a moment, the snow beneath his feet crunching with every step.

"Brother Sky Dream," he spoke again, "is the Ice Empress really your friend?"

The tone of the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm paused for a rare moment: "Not a friend. She is Brother's Bing Bing, the Bing Bing I will never forget in this life."

Huo Yuhao imagined the scene of an Ice Silkworm trying to be friends with an Ice Jade Empress Scorpion and found it somewhat hard to fathom. But he did not say anything more, because his purpose for coming to the Far North was clear: to obtain a soul ring.

After the freshman assessment, his progress in the Soul Guidance Department had been rapid. Fan Yu said he possessed an almost instinctive intuition for Soul Tool construction, a intuition that combined perfectly with his Spiritual Detection Sharing, allowing him to be precise to the micron level when handling the Core Array.

In just a few short months, he was already able to independently craft second-level Soul Tools. At the same time, his soul power had risen from level fourteen to the level twenty bottleneck. Level twenty meant he needed to obtain his second soul ring.

The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had suggested he come to the Far North to find the Ice Empress; if he could gain the recognition of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, it would be a qualitative leap for him.

Huo Yuhao knew this plan carried immense risk. The Ice Empress was one of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, a four-hundred-thousand-year-old Ice Jade Empress Scorpion; even senior instructors at Shrek Academy might not dare to provoke her head-on. But the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had sworn that he had a way to use his molted shell to lure the Ice Empress out.

"The aura of Brother in my prime is like a walking piece of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow to the Ice Empress," the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had said in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness at the time, his tone filled with smug certainty, "She won't be able to resist."

And so, Huo Yuhao came.

From Shrek City to the edge of the Far North, he had taken a carriage for four days and trekked through the Ice-Sealed Forest for another four. During this time, he had encountered several thousand-year-level ice-attribute soul beasts, all of which were driven away by the aura released by the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm. But he knew very well that the real danger was the core area. Old Tang only existed in Mu Chen's Sea of Consciousness and could not help him mask his aura; once he reached the core area, he would have to rely entirely on the protection of the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm.

If the Ice Empress did not appear, or if he alerted other ten-thousand-year soul beasts, his life would likely end here.

On the sixth day, Huo Yuhao finally stepped into the Core Area of the Far North.

The cold here was not at all the same concept as the outskirts. It was not a matter of lower temperatures, but a more essential, inherent chill belonging to "death."

He felt as if his bone marrow were freezing, and every heartbeat required more effort than usual.