The Far North.
Luo Yun had been traveling for three days.
The blizzard had never let up.
The wind whipped white snowflakes into his face, each one pricking his skin like a tiny needle.
All around him stretched an endless white expanse. He couldn't tell sky from earth or east from west. Even time itself seemed to blur.
Luo Yun leaned on the Sun Corona Sword, its golden-green light shielding him from the bone-deep cold.
"How much farther?" he muttered to himself.
He stopped and looked around.
There was nothing but snow.
His parents were somewhere in the Far North, but the region was vast, and the storm obscured his view.
If he kept searching aimlessly, he could search until he died and still never find them.
He couldn't keep looking like this.
Luo Yun lifted his head.
The Far North had the Three Great Heavenly Kings.
The Ice Empress, the Snow Empress, and the Titan Snow Demon King.
Of those three, the Ice Empress and Snow Empress were the ones he could reason with.
At that thought,
Luo Yun raised his right hand. A streak of purple-red lightning burst from his palm and shot off to the right.
The flash of lightning cleaved a brief path through the storm before striking a boulder dozens of meters away. The rock exploded, sending fragments flying and revealing a cave behind it.
The cave was small. Inside, a white Ice Silkworm, about as thick as an arm, lay curled up.
The rock fragments woke it from its nap. It raised its head groggily.
Then it saw a person.
The Ice Silkworm's pupils contracted sharply.
A human had found even this well-hidden cave?
Was this human going to eat it?
In the next instant, its body shrank abruptly. It shot out of the cave like a spring, leaving a white streak across the snow as it fled at astonishing speed.
Luo Yun didn't chase after it. He merely lifted his hand slightly.
A chain of purple-red lightning shot from his fingertips, moving even faster. It instantly wrapped around the Ice Silkworm and hauled it back.
Bound tightly by the chain, the Ice Silkworm dangled before Luo Yun, trembling all over.
"Which way to the Ice Empress's territory?"
Luo Yun's voice was quiet and somewhat muffled by the wind and snow, but every word came through clearly.
The Ice Silkworm's mouth quivered twice, and it let out a tiny, tearful whimper.
Trembling, it raised a paw and pointed northwest. Then it closed its eyes and waited to be eaten.
Luo Yun glanced in that direction and nodded.
The lightning chain vanished. The Ice Silkworm dropped from the air, struck the snow, bounced twice, and rolled over.
It lay belly-down in the snow, trembling all over. It didn't dare move or run, or even breathe too loudly.
Luo Yun walked past it and headed northwest.
His pace was neither hurried nor slow. His boots crunched against the snow.
The Ice Silkworm stayed sprawled on the ground. It waited a long while, and only when it was sure the person had gone far away did it dare raise its head.
It watched the black figure grow smaller and smaller, and suddenly felt its eyes grow warm.
For the first time, it had met a human who didn't want to kill it.
"What a good person..." The Ice Silkworm let out a faint, tearful sigh, then plunged into the snow and disappeared.
Three hours later.
Luo Yun narrowed his eyes. In the distance stood two towering ice mountains facing each other, truly resembling the pincers of a giant scorpion.
Between the peaks, a deep cave was just visible, exuding a chilling aura that made his heart pound.
This was the territory of the second-ranked among the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North: the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, a 390,000-year Ferocious Beast.
Luo Yun merely glanced at the cave before striding toward it.
He had barely stepped within a hundred meters when a cold, violent soul-pressure, steeped in supreme authority, surged out from the depths of the cave!
"Human! Trespass into forbidden territory, and die!"
The voice rang out, crisp and icy, its terrifying pressure crashing toward Luo Yun and Su Han!
Luo Yun furrowed his brow. The Corona Sword appeared, firmly blocking the Ice Empress's pressure.
A flash of jade-green light followed.
A scorpion appeared without a sound in the middle of the ice path ahead. It wasn't large, but its beauty was breathtaking.
Its body looked as though it had been carved from the finest jade, crystalline and translucent, and no more than a meter and a half long.
Its torso was shaped like a human's, while its long scorpion tail arched high above it, its stinger a strange, demonic blue-green.
At that moment, it was staring at Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's spiritual projection with a trace of surprise and deep disdain.
It was one of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North.
A super Ferocious Beast with 390,000 years of cultivation—the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, the Ice Empress!
"A six-year-old human?" The Ice Empress's voice held undisguised contempt and a hint of disbelief.
"What's a little kid like you doing all the way out here? Tired of living? Did you come all this way just to offer yourself as a snack?"
Her voice was cold enough to pierce to the bone. The terrifying aura of a Ferocious Beast flickered around her as she locked onto Luo Yun.
Luo Yun looked at the jade-like scorpion before him, his scarlet eyes devoid of emotion.
Then he spoke slowly. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried steadily through the Ice Empress's pressure.
"Submit to me."
The Ice Empress froze.
In her 390,000 years of life, she had seen plenty of humans who didn't know when to quit. She had never seen one this determined to die.
A six-year-old runt who hadn't even shown a single Soul Ring stood in her territory and ordered her, the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion and one of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, to submit?
"What did you say?" The Ice Empress's voice was as cold as the deepest ice of the Far North. Her tail arched high, its blue-green stinger gleaming eerily in the blizzard.
"Submit to me," Luo Yun repeated, his tone unchanged.
The Ice Empress stared at him for two breaths, then laughed.
Her laughter rang out, crisp and icy, full of undisguised contempt and mockery. It echoed through the gorge, shaking snow loose from the mountainsides.
"Human boy, you really don't want to live."
Luo Yun didn't answer.
He raised his right hand, spreading his fingers.
Purple-red Destruction Thunder surged from his palm.
The Ice Empress's laughter cut off abruptly.
Her soul trembled. The shudder didn't come from her body, but from the depths of her soul, as if something had sounded an alarm in her very instincts.
She jerked her head up and looked at the sky.
Dark clouds were gathering.
They weren't the blizzard clouds so common in the Far North, but purple-red thunderclouds steeped in an aura of destruction.
A hundred meters above Luo Yun, the clouds churned wildly into a massive vortex. Something was brewing at its center, radiating an aura that made her heart pound.
Was that a heavenly tribulation?
The Ice Empress's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Was the 400,000-year tribulation coming so soon?
How could it be so soon?
Luo Yun walked toward her step by step, his boots ringing crisply against the ice.
The ball of lightning in his hand continued to gather power.
The Ice Empress's gaze shifted from the thunderclouds to the ball of lightning in Luo Yun's hand. Her pupils contracted again.
It wasn't a heavenly tribulation. This kid had caused all that himself?
"Now, do you think I have the right to make you submit?" Luo Yun stopped three paces away and looked up at her.
Before you continue