The writing on the Sky Curtain's Golden Ranking slithered like dragons and snakes, and new golden characters came crashing down.
[Power Ranking, Fifth Place — the Far North. Rewards granted!] [Lord of the Far North, Snow Empress: Exempted from three Heavenly Tribulations! Granted a hundred thousand years of cultivation! Bestowed the ability to "Transform Heaven and Earth," allowing her to switch to human form at any time while retaining all her combat strength!] [Ice Empress of the Far North: Exempted from one Heavenly Tribulation! Granted fifty thousand years of cultivation! Bestowed the ability to "Transform Heaven and Earth"!] [All Soul Beasts belonging to the Far North: Improved constitutions and heightened comprehension! Bloodline shackles weakened by thirty percent!]
Across the Far North Ice Plains, the wind and snow abruptly stopped.
Golden light spilled down from the heavens, illuminating this frozen purgatory, where the sun never shone, until it resembled a blessed paradise.
Snow Empress stood atop the highest ice mountain. For the first time, astonishment filled her usually serene, peerlessly beautiful face.
Exempted from Heavenly Tribulations?
And she could even transform into a human at will without losing her cultivation?
For Soul Beasts, a Heavenly Tribulation was the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. It came once every hundred thousand years, and surviving it was a near-impossible feat.
Transforming into a human was an even bigger gamble. They had to relinquish all their cultivation and start anew; the slightest misstep meant death and the end of their soul.
Yet this Golden Ranking had actually erased both of those towering obstacles!
"This... How is this possible?"
Ice Empress stood beside Snow Empress, her petite body bathed in golden light.
She could clearly feel the bottleneck inside her, once as unbreakable as a fortress, melting away. A warm current flowed through her limbs, and the pleasure deep in her soul was so intense that she could hardly keep from crying out.
The anxiety she had felt as her four-hundred-thousand-year limit approached vanished in an instant.
"Big Sister!"
Ice Empress whirled around, her twin emerald ponytails tracing a lively arc. Her wide eyes shone with a brilliance they had never held before.
"It's real! It's all real!"
"My cultivation has increased, and... I feel like I can become a real human just by willing it!"
Snow Empress took a deep breath, steadying her turbulent emotions.
She lifted her head and gazed at the Golden Ranking, which was gradually fading from the sky, her eyes deep as an icy sea.
This was an extraordinary gift.
So extraordinary that it made her uneasy.
"A man's crime is possessing a jade ring."
Snow Empress's voice was cool and ethereal, like ice beads falling onto a jade plate.
"Though this Golden Ranking has granted us an opportunity that defies the heavens, it has also exposed the Far North to the gaze of the entire continent."
"Humans are greedy."
"Seventy-thousand- and forty-thousand-year Soul Rings and Soul Bones hold a fatal allure for those human powerhouses."
At her words, some of the excitement faded from Ice Empress's little face, replaced by a trace of murderous intent.
"Hmph, what's there to fear?"
"Now that our strength has grown so much, if those humans dare come, I'll kill one for every one that comes. If two come, I'll kill them both!"
"This is the perfect chance to test out my extra fifty thousand years of cultivation!"
Snow Empress shook her head slightly, her gaze turning toward the southern horizon.
That was where the human world lay.
"You don't understand."
"Humans may be weak individually, but they're skilled at forming battle arrays, and they have a never-ending supply of Soul Tools and schemes."
"If the whole world were to attack us, the Far North might not escape unscathed."
As she spoke, a figure surfaced in Snow Empress's mind.
He was a young man dressed in green and white.
He was also the only human she had met in her long life who had been different.
Unlike other humans, his eyes held nothing but greed and bloodlust.
He was like a breeze that could never be caught: free and easy, yet so powerful that no one could see through him.
Back then, he had traveled here solely to find Ice Crystal Fruit for brewing wine.
"If you run into trouble, you can come find me."
Before leaving, the young man had smiled and said those words to her.
At the time, she had taken them for nothing more than a polite remark.
But now, as she thought back on it, his eyes had been clear as spring water, without a trace of impurity.
"Big Sister, who are you thinking about?"
Ice Empress sidled closer, fixing Snow Empress with a mischievous grin.
"Could it be that drunkard?"
Two rare blushes rose on Snow Empress's peerlessly beautiful face. They vanished in the blink of an eye, but Ice Empress still caught them.
"Don't talk nonsense."
Snow Empress chided her, but there was little reproach in her voice.
"I'm not talking nonsense."
Ice Empress circled Snow Empress, unabashedly appraising her older sister's flawless figure.
Her big sister really was beautiful beyond compare.
Her long legs were straight and slender, glimpsed beneath the slit in her snow-white skirt. Her skin was fairer than snow, crystalline and translucent, as if all the spiritual energy in heaven and earth had gathered there.
Her waist was so slender it could be encircled in one hand.
And that cool, noble bearing of hers—just looking at her made Ice Empress's heart race, even though she was a woman herself.
"All these years, you've kept bringing up his name whenever you had nothing else to do, and you even made a point of collecting the Ice Crystal Fruit he likes."
"Well, now we can all become humans."
"Big Sister, with that figure and that face, if you went to the human world, wouldn't that drunkard be so bewitched by you he'd lose his soul?"
"Then you could rekindle your old flame. Wouldn't that be lovely?"
Ice Empress grew more animated by the moment, her face alight with excitement.
Snow Empress was getting a little embarrassed by her teasing. She reached out and lightly flicked Ice Empress on the forehead with a jade-white finger.
"You do talk too much."
"But..."
Snow Empress paused, her expression turning serious.
"I really should go find him."
"Not just to catch up, but for the future of the Far North."
"He seems to hold a position of some standing in the human world. If we can get his help, or even form an alliance with him, perhaps we can resolve the crisis facing the Far North."
With that, Snow Empress looked at Ice Empress.
"Bing'er, you should go."
Ice Empress blinked and pointed at herself.
"Me? Aren't you coming, Big Sister?"
Snow Empress shook her head.
"I'm the Lord of the Far North. Now that we've just received these rewards, who knows how many eyes are watching this place? I can't leave lightly."
"Now that you have a human form, it shouldn't be hard to hide your aura and blend into the human world."
"Go to Godwind City."
"Find a man named Venti."
"Tell him an old friend is in trouble, and ask if he still remembers the promise he made back then."
Ice Empress wasn't keen on leaving her sister, but she knew how important this was.
She pouted.
"All right, all right. I'll go."
"But, Big Sister, what if that heartless man refuses to keep his word?"
At that, the image of the young man's lazy smile once again surfaced in Snow Empress's mind.
The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. With that smile, it was as if even the ten-thousand-year-old ice around them had melted.
"He won't."
"The wind never lies."
The main thoroughfare of Godwind City.
Bai Chenxiang, Shui Bing'er, and Shui Yue'er stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking Dugu Yan's path.
Though all three of them were still young, under Venti's tutelage, their cultivation already far surpassed that of their peers.
Shui Bing'er in particular was surrounded by surging chill. A massive Ice Phoenix phantom faintly appeared behind her, and her aura was no weaker than that of the powerhouse facing them.