The air inside the ice cave stopped flowing.
The Snow Empress stood suspended in the air, barefoot, her icy blue eyes holding the dead stillness of one who viewed all life with indifference.
Not the slightest emotion could be found on that peerlessly beautiful face. There was only supreme majesty, towering above this world of ice and snow.
Snowflakes clustered around her, and even the laws between heaven and earth seemed to conform to her breathing.
Facing such a terrifying existence head-on, cold sweat uncontrollably seeped from Xiao Zhan's forehead.
The droplets had barely emerged from his skin before they froze into ice crystals in the extreme cold that could freeze even space itself, falling to the ground with a few sharp cracks.
He swallowed dryly, his once-straight back now taut like a fully drawn bow.
"Yan'er..." Xiao Zhan's voice trembled, his teeth chattering along with it. "Y-you... you didn't get the wrong one, did you?"
Xiao Zhan knew exactly what a Rank 96 Super Douluo like himself was worth.
Against a Soul Beast whose mere presence could crush the breath from a person, he was not even confident he could turn and flee.
Xiao Yan stood where he was, his moon-white robe without so much as a wrinkle.
He appraised the Snow Empress floating in midair, his tone relaxed and casual.
"I didn't get the wrong one. She's exactly who I came for. The Snow Empress, one of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Extreme North, with nearly seven hundred thousand years of cultivation."
At that, Xiao Yan tilted his head, still in the mood to tease his father. "Can you handle this?"
Xiao Zhan's eyes widened round, his chest heaving violently. Just as he was about to curse out this son of his who had led him into a pit, the Snow Empress spoke first.
"Humans, how do you wish to die?"
Her voice was pleasant and ethereal, graceful and melodious, yet it carried a chilling killing intent that froze the soul.
In the Snow Empress's eyes, the Soul Engineer who had just tried to capture her with the God-Sealing Platform was no different from this father and son.
Humans were greedy by nature. All they sought were her Spirit Rings and Soul Bones; what they coveted was this body of hers and her cultivation.
Xiao Yan turned a blind eye to the overwhelming killing intent.
He stepped forward, passing the vigilant Xiao Zhan and facing the Lord of the Far North in midair.
"Heh, can we make peace?"
The casual question sounded especially abrupt within the silent ice cave.
The Snow Empress could not be bothered to waste another word.
She had seen far too much human cunning. Only death was the end.
She raised her crystalline right hand.
Deep-blue ice crystals rapidly gathered in her palm, forming a sharp ice sword.
Emperor Sword, Ice Extreme Peerless!
Without any unnecessary movement, the Snow Empress swung her sword down.
The deep-blue sword radiance silently sliced through space, instantly draining and freezing the air along its path.
It was an ultimate chill capable of erasing even a Super Douluo along with their soul, so fast that one could barely keep up even in thought.
Xiao Zhan's eyes nearly split apart. The Soul Power within him boiled completely as he prepared to burn his life essence, forcibly shove Xiao Yan away, and use his own life to block the strike.
Xiao Yan's expression turned solemn. Rather than retreat, he straightened his back.
"My world-shaking wisdom tells me it's time to use world-shaking power." He stared directly at the descending deep-blue sword radiance, his voice echoing through the ice cave. "Come forth, Electrolux!!!"
Space warped strangely.
An aged figure clad in black-and-white robes appeared without warning before Xiao Yan.
Facing the Emperor Sword that could freeze even space, the old man's expression did not change.
He extended his withered right hand and casually reached forward with his index and middle fingers.
Clang!
The unstoppable deep-blue sword radiance, capable of killing a Super Douluo, was firmly pinched between those two shriveled fingers.
The chill on the blade tried to spread upward from his fingertips, but it was effortlessly shredded by an invisible power of laws and could not advance another inch.
While pinching the Emperor Sword, the old man's left hand was not idle either.
He turned around, curled his index finger, and gave Xiao Yan a solid knock on the forehead.
"What are you shouting for?! Don't you know to respect your elders?!" Electrolux glared at him irritably.
The ice cave fell silent.
For the first time, violent shock appeared on the Snow Empress's eternally frozen expression.
She stared fixedly at the old man who had caught her full-force strike with one hand.
She could not sense the slightest fluctuation of Soul Power from him, yet there was a spiritual pressure that made her soul tremble.
That level of power was vast and profound, completely surpassing the limits of this world.
That was true Divine Level power!
She could not escape.
The icy blue in the Snow Empress's eyes was gradually replaced by resolve.
Since she was destined to fall into human hands today, she would rather perish together with them than let these greedy people lay so much as a finger on her.
She closed her eyes and began madly compressing the core of her origin within her body.
Bing'er, Xiao Bai, people of the Far North, farewell forever!
Sensing the surrounding ice and snow begin to stir restlessly, and the energy within the Snow Empress collapsing inward in an irreversible manner, Xiao Yan immediately spoke to stop her.
"Wait! I didn't come here to kill you. I want you to become my Soul Spirit!"
The Snow Empress's compression of her origin paused for a moment.
A Soul Spirit? In her understanding, no matter how fancy the new terms humans created were, at their core they were merely disguises for hunting Soul Beasts to obtain Spirit Rings.
She opened her eyes and let out a cold laugh, her icy blue gaze filled with contempt.
"I, the Snow Empress, would rather shatter my own origin, scatter seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, and become the wind and snow filling the Extreme North than become your so-called Soul Spirit!"
Xiao Yan rubbed his aching forehead and did not bother arguing with her. He raised his chin toward Electrolux.
Electrolux understood immediately. With a point of his fingertip, a golden rune condensed out of thin air, becoming a streak of light that shot directly into the Snow Empress's brow.
This was not an attack, but a packaged transmission of knowledge.
The Snow Empress instinctively wanted to resist, but under the guidance of God-Level Mental Power, the detailed information about "Soul Spirits" was still clearly imprinted into her mind.
The words of mockery she had intended to continue speaking caught in her throat.
The contract presented in that information completely overturned everything she knew.
This was not the original Soul Spirit Contract, but one Xiao Yan had specifically had Electrolux upgrade and modify.
After becoming a Soul Spirit, she would no longer need to sacrifice her life.
Other than losing her physical body, she would exist in the form of a pure energy body. Not only would she retain her complete independent consciousness, she could even cultivate on her own.
What she found most unbelievable was that even if her host died unexpectedly in the future, as long as she had accumulated enough energy, she could still leave the host and continue living in the world.
How was this slavery? This was clearly a golden ticket to evade the Heavenly Tribulation of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast!
The resolve in the Snow Empress's eyes gradually crumbled, replaced by unimaginable shock.
She looked at Xiao Yan standing below, then at the unfathomable old man in black-and-white robes. The scales in her heart began to slowly tip.