The Ice Empress fell silent for a moment, then sighed.
She walked toward the Ice Palace.
Luo Yun stood where he was, waiting quietly.
At the entrance to the Ice Palace.
"You're here, Bing'er."
The voice came from inside the hall, crisp as cracking ice.
The Ice Empress looked up. A white figure drifted slowly down from midair, her ice-blue hair streaming behind her.
Her features were even more delicate than the Ice Empress's, and an otherworldly detachment lingered between her brows and eyes, like a spirit born from ice and snow.
The Snow Empress.
"Snow Empress, it's been a long time." The Ice Empress spoke, her voice a little hoarse.
The Snow Empress landed before the throne and turned around. Her ice-blue eyes swept from the Ice Empress's head to her feet, then back up again.
"Are you injured?" The Snow Empress's voice held no emotion, as if she were stating a fact.
"It's nothing."
"Who did it?"
The Ice Empress fell silent. Looking into the Snow Empress's ice-blue eyes, she suddenly found it difficult to speak.
She and the Snow Empress had known each other for hundreds of thousands of years. They were like sisters.
"A very powerful human boy." The Ice Empress's voice was soft, as if she were weighing each word.
"And I've chosen to submit to him."
The Snow Empress's ice-blue eyes abruptly narrowed.
She thought she must have misheard.
The Ice Empress, ranked second among the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, an Ice Jade Empress Scorpion with three hundred and ninety thousand years of cultivation, had submitted to a human?
"What did you say?" The Snow Empress's voice turned cold, and the temperature in the hall plunged by more than ten degrees.
"He has inherited a god's legacy." The Ice Empress raised her head and met the Snow Empress's gaze.
"He also wields a power of destruction like a heavenly tribulation. That power fills me with fear."
The Snow Empress stared at the Ice Empress for a long time. She tried to find hesitation in her eyes, regret, some sign that she had been coerced, but she saw nothing.
The Ice Empress's eyes were calm, too calm for a Ferocious Beast that had just lost its freedom.
"So," the Snow Empress said, her voice returning to its emotionless chill, though something stirred in her eyes, "you've come to persuade me to submit to him too?"
The Ice Empress parted her lips, but before she could speak, the Snow Empress let out a laugh.
It rang through the hall, crisp and cold, without the slightest warmth.
"Bing'er, we've known each other for hundreds of thousands of years." The Snow Empress stepped down from before the throne and walked toward the Ice Empress, her ice-blue gown trailing across the frozen floor with a faint rustle.
"You should know what I'm like. As the foremost of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, I'm every bit as proud as you are."
She stopped before the Ice Empress and looked down at her. There was no anger or disappointment in her ice-blue eyes, only a cold, unwavering resolve.
"Even if I can't survive the tribulation ahead, I'll choose to take human form and start over."
"But become a human's slave? Never!"
The Ice Empress lowered her head.
She didn't argue, because she knew the Snow Empress meant every word.
After hundreds of thousands of years together, she understood the Snow Empress all too well.
This spirit born from ice and snow was prouder to her core than anyone.
Making her submit to a human would be harder than killing her.
Silence filled the hall for a long time.
Watching the Ice Empress lower her head, the Snow Empress's cold fury gradually faded. She sighed, and some of the chill left her voice, replaced by a gentleness the Ice Empress rarely heard.
"Bing'er, I don't blame you." The Snow Empress reached out and lightly touched the Ice Empress's pincers with her icy fingertips.
"You made your choice, and I respect it. But I have my own limits. I'll submit to a human only if he proves worthy of it."
The Ice Empress raised her head and met the Snow Empress's ice-blue eyes. Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she only nodded softly.
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the hall.
They weren't heavy, but they were steady, ringing crisply against the ice corridor, one after another, unhurried.
The Snow Empress's gaze instantly sharpened, her ice-blue eyes fixed on the entrance.
A human.
Luo Yun walked into the hall.
He moved at an easy pace, the Moon Eclipse Sword held in his right hand, its tip grazing the floor and tracing a fine line across the ice.
Purple-black lightning crackled along the blade, its tiny snaps especially clear in the quiet hall.
He hadn't summoned the Sun Corona Sword, but a golden-green glow flickered in his left palm, driving away the surrounding cold.
The Snow Empress's gaze fell on Luo Yun. It swept from the ice beneath his feet to the Moon Eclipse Sword in his hand, from the sword to the golden-green glow in his left palm, and finally settled on his crimson eyes.
Her pupils contracted slightly.
Something about this six-year-old boy stirred an indescribable chill in her heart.
"Human." The Snow Empress's voice returned to its cold, emotionless register as she looked down at Luo Yun with her ice-blue eyes.
"Are you the one who made Bing'er submit to you?"
Luo Yun looked up at the Snow Empress.
"Mm."
"More precisely, it was a deal."
"A deal?"
"She submits to me, and once I become a god, I'll grant her eternal life."
"Become a god? Ha. And you think you can?" Naturally, the Snow Empress didn't believe godhood came so easily.
"Then let's make a bet."
The Snow Empress's brow twitched slightly. "What are we betting on?"
"A fight." Luo Yun gripped the Moon Eclipse Sword and stared straight at the Snow Empress with his crimson eyes.
"If I win, you submit to me. If I lose, the Ice Empress's contract is void, and you can do whatever you want with me."
The Snow Empress froze for a moment, then laughed outright.
A four-ring Soul Master, a six-year-old boy, stood before the foremost of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North and said he wanted to fight her.
"Do you know what my cultivation is?"
"I could kill a Seven-Ring Soul Sage with a single ice crystal. What makes you think you can fight me?"
Luo Yun said nothing. He simply looked at her in silence.
Looking into those crimson eyes, the Snow Empress suddenly recalled what the Ice Empress had said.
"He has inherited a god's legacy, and he wields a power of destruction like a heavenly tribulation."
She gave Luo Yun another look, from the purple-black lightning on the Moon Eclipse Sword to the golden-green glow flickering in his left palm, then to the eyes that didn't belong to a six-year-old. This human child was indeed not as simple as he seemed.
The Snow Empress fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Fine," she said, her voice calm again. "I'll fight you. If you lose, the Ice Empress's contract is void. If you win..."
She paused, a complicated glint passing through her ice-blue eyes.
"I, the Snow Empress, will honor my word and submit to you."
Luo Yun's lips curved slightly. "All right."
The Ice Plains.
Luo Yun and the Snow Empress stood at opposite ends of the frozen plain, about a hundred paces apart.
The Ice Empress had retreated to the distance, standing atop an Ice Hill. Her blue-green vertical pupils remained fixed on the two figures below, her pincers slightly spread and her tail stinger swaying restlessly.
Her gaze lingered on Luo Yun for a moment, then shifted to the Snow Empress.
She knew how proud the Snow Empress was, and she knew how strong she was.
With nearly seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, the Snow Empress was the most powerful being in the Far North. Even the Ice Empress couldn't withstand more than a few exchanges against her.
But for some reason, a faint feeling stirred in her heart.
The Snow Empress would lose.
It wasn't that Luo Yun was stronger. It was the aura around him that made her feel anything could happen.
The Ice Empress shook her head, casting the thought from her mind, and focused on the two figures below.
Whatever the outcome, she had already chosen Luo Yun.
With the Snow Empress's help, the human's chances of becoming a god would be even greater.
And that would make her own chances of becoming a god greater too.
On the frozen plain, Luo Yun gripped the Moon Eclipse Sword and took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness deep into his Sea of Consciousness.
Two balls of light floated there: the golden-green Light of Life on the left and the purple-black Light of Destruction on the right. He reached out and grasped the purple-black light.
Origin of Destruction, activate.
Luo Yun's eyes flew open.
In that instant, his entire presence changed.
His black hair turned dark purple from the roots, taking on a metallic sheen.
His robes became a purple-black cloak, its hem embroidered with silver lightning patterns and its collar and cuffs edged in dark gold.
The cloak stirred without wind, its hem snapping behind him.
Purple-black Destruction Thunder coiled around him, countless tiny snakes crawling over his body. Every time they leapt, they crackled.
The Moon Eclipse Sword rang eagerly in his hand. The lightning along its blade grew several times more violent, purple-black sparks leaping wildly.
Standing there, he looked nothing like a human child. He seemed more like a demon god who had emerged from the Abyss.
The Snow Empress's pupils contracted sharply.
That aura of utter destruction made even her soul tremble.
The Snow Empress drew a deep breath, forcing down the tremor. She looked at Luo Yun, the condescension in her ice-blue eyes replaced by grave attention.
She suddenly understood why the Ice Empress had submitted.
But she had no way back.
Her pride wouldn't let her retreat without a fight.
The Snow Empress raised her right hand, ice-blue Soul Power gathering in her palm. The surrounding temperature plunged by dozens of degrees, and fine ice crystals appeared in the air, like countless tiny diamonds suspended around her, refracting a frigid light.
"Come," she said, her voice as calm as the deepest ice in the Far North.
Luo Yun gripped the Moon Eclipse Sword, purple-black Destruction Thunder crackling around him. He raised his head and looked at the Snow Empress with his crimson eyes.
On the Ice Hill, the Ice Empress held her breath.
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