At first light, the two groups went their separate ways on the official road outside Heaven Dou City.
Qing Wan headed south with Xiao Xiao, bound for the Star Dou Forest. Xiao Zhan, meanwhile, seized Xiao Yan by the shoulder. Soul Power surged, and he transformed into a streak of light, racing toward the northernmost tip of the continent.
A level ninety-six Super Douluo traveling at full speed soon heard the wind by his ears blend into a single piercing howl.
In less than half a day, the horizon had been swallowed by endless whiteness.
At the outskirts of the Extreme North, howling winds carried blade-like shards of ice, pelting them head-on.
There was not the slightest trace of vegetation anywhere. Rolling snowdrifts stretched all the way to the meeting point of sky and earth.
Xiao Zhan slowed down and landed lightly on a snow-covered rock.
He turned to Xiao Yan beside him, intending to suggest that they rest here for a while and let their bodies adapt to the low temperature before venturing deeper.
The extreme cold here was truly terrifying. An ordinary Soul Ancestor would have their blood frozen solid after staying for even a short while.
But just as he was about to speak, the words caught in his throat.
Xiao Yan stood amid the wind and snow, yet not a single snowflake had settled on his moon-white robes.
His breathing was long and steady. With every breath, a faint phantom of Taiji yin and yang appeared around him.
The ever-flowing Innate Qi of the Art of the Fuxi Emperor circulated steadily through his meridians, perfectly keeping the bone-piercing cold at bay.
Seeing this, Xiao Zhan laughed twice. "Good boy! Since you can handle it, let's stop wasting time and head straight into the Core Zone!"
The two took to the air again and plunged directly into the depths of the Extreme North.
The deeper they went, the stranger the surrounding landscape became.
The snow was gradually replaced by dark blue mystical ice that had not melted for ten thousand years.
Nearly all moisture in the air had frozen. The cold air they inhaled became countless barbs that stabbed painfully into their lungs.
Xiao Yan did not dare be careless either. He silently increased the output of Taiji Innate Qi to maintain his body temperature.
Above a massive ice valley, Xiao Zhan came to a halt.
"Yan'er, this Core Zone of the Extreme North really is something. It's ice and snow everywhere, and there isn't even a landmark. Where do we start looking?" Xiao Zhan rubbed his hands together, and the white mist he exhaled instantly froze into ice crystals that fell through the air.
Xiao Yan did not reply. He raised his right hand before his chest, fingers slightly spread.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the massive Fuxi Bagua Formation Map let out a hum.
The formation map abruptly shrank, turning into a brilliant stream of light that flowed through his meridians into his palm.
As the light faded, a palm-sized Fuxi Bagua Compass floated above his hand.
The compass was formed from illusory starlight. The eight runes—Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dui—slowly circulated around its edge.
Xiao Yan half-closed his eyes, forming calculations with his left hand as he poured spiritual power into the compass.
"Heaven and earth find their places; mountain and marsh exchange their qi."
With his low chant, the Taiji symbol at the center of the compass began spinning faster. The surrounding ice and snow seemed drawn by some profound law, swirling around him in a small vortex.
The eight ancient runes lit up one after another. Finally, the Kan Trigram, representing water and cold, burst forth with dazzling radiance. The light turned into a thread-thin line of starlight, pointing directly toward a location deep within the ice valley.
Xiao Yan opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on the direction indicated by the starlight.
"It's over there." Xiao Yan flicked his finger and put away the compass, a hint of urgency appearing in his eyes.
"Let's move faster. The divination says she's at the most critical stage of taking human form."
Following the guidance, the two silently slipped into a hidden, enormous ice cavern.
The moment they stepped onto the edge of the cavern, the disturbance within made Xiao Zhan stop in his tracks.
At the center of the cavern, a crystal-clear Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus had already withered, all of its essence absorbed by a blurry yet breathtakingly beautiful figure.
That figure was at the final stage of transforming into human form, and her aura was exceptionally weak.
However, before the transformation could be completed, a man in a dark uniform suddenly sprang out from the shadows in a corner of the cavern.
A complex metal flight device was equipped on his back, while he held a strange-looking ninth-grade Soul Tool in his hand—the God-Sealing Platform.
"Hahahaha! I searched everywhere only to find it here! This Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast embryo is mine!" The man's face was filled with greed. The God-Sealing Platform in his hand erupted with blinding white light, forcibly dragging the weakened figure inside.
At this sight, fury instantly erupted across Xiao Zhan's face.
"Courting death!"
Without another word, Xiao Zhan stomped heavily. The pressure of a level ninety-six Super Douluo poured forth like a collapsing mountain and a raging sea.
The black Three-Life Soul-Suppressing Cauldron appeared with a boom. As the seventh Spirit Ring blazed with light, Xiao Zhan directly unleashed his Martial Soul Avatar.
Three enormous cauldrons merged in midair, transforming into a colossal black cauldron vast enough to suppress mountains. Carrying the might to crush all things, it smashed down toward the ninth-grade Soul Engineer's head.
The Soul Engineer was still immersed in the ecstasy of capturing a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast. By the time he sensed the lethal threat above him, the giant cauldron was already right before his eyes.
Bang!
The triggered defensive Soul Tool he wore activated instantly, spreading out a pale golden shield.
Yet the shield, capable of blocking an ordinary Titled Douluo's attack, lasted only a single second before a Super Douluo's Martial Soul Avatar. It shattered inch by inch like thin ice.
That one second was enough for the Soul Engineer to understand that death was inevitable.
"You want to steal what's mine? Then we'll all die together!"
The man's eyes were bloodshot. He did not know that the God-Sealing Platform contained Snow Empress, the Lord of the Far North, but he knew that once a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast broke free of its seal, it would surely choose to self-destruct at once.
The force of that explosion could severely injure or even kill a Super Douluo.
He exerted force with both hands, crushing the God-Sealing Platform raised above his head. Immediately afterward, he detonated his own Soul Power core.
Boom—!
The giant cauldron fell, and the Soul Engineer and the ninth-grade Soul Tool were both reduced to dust amid the thunderous blast.
Standing at the cave entrance, Xiao Yan looked at the shattered God-Sealing Platform and sighed helplessly. He had still been half a step too late.
As the God-Sealing Platform shattered, the restraints were violently torn apart.
The air within the ice cavern stopped flowing in that instant.
The already bone-chilling temperature dropped by dozens more degrees in the blink of an eye.
The mystical ice on the cavern walls emitted cracking sounds under unbearable strain, thick fissures spreading across the ice.
Huge hexagonal snowflakes condensed out of thin air along the cavern ceiling, whirling as they slowly drifted down.
At the center of the endless wind and snow, a slender figure gradually came into view.
She stood barefoot in the air, her snow-white hair falling all the way to her ankles.
Her face was so perfect that not the slightest flaw could be found. Her ice-blue eyes held the ten-thousand-year chill of one who looked down upon all living beings and regarded all things with indifference.
Her white dress swayed in the wind. The surrounding ice and snow seemed to come alive, joyfully gathering around her and elevating her inviolable majesty to its peak.
The Lord of the Far North, Snow Empress, had descended!