She knew the Ice Empress. Unless something truly serious had happened, she would never have lost her composure like this.
She immediately turned to Xue Chen and ordered swiftly,
"Chen'er, stay inside the palace with Xiao Bai. Don't come out."
Her tone carried an unquestionable authority.
"Mother?"
Xue Chen also came back to himself from his excitement. Seeing how solemn Aunt Ice Empress and Mother Snow Empress looked, his heart tightened.
Xiao Bai immediately stood up as well, its huge body blocking Xue Chen from view, its bear face full of wariness.
The Snow Empress said no more. She exchanged a glance with the Ice Empress, and the two of them blurred into a white streak and a green streak of light, vanishing from the Ice Crystal Palace in an instant.
They left behind a bewildered and uneasy Xue Chen, along with the wary Xiao Bai.
Xue Chen put away his Martial Soul. He looked up toward the palace doors, a powerful mix of curiosity and worry rising in his heart.
What exactly had happened outside?
Could this sudden upheaval in the heavens and earth really be connected to the Martial Soul I'd just awakened?
The Snow Empress and the Ice Empress became two streaks of light and, in the blink of an eye, appeared high above the Ice Crystal Palace.
The sight before them made even the Snow Empress, Lord of the Far North, narrow her eyes slightly.
As far as the eye could see, the entire Far North seemed shrouded beneath an endless black curtain. Heavy clouds hung low, almost within reach.
The clouds no longer held scattered bolts of lightning. Instead, countless thick blue-white streaks, some even laced with eerie purple-gold, darted wildly through them, tearing across the sky.
Unceasing thunder joined into a deafening roar.
On the ground, the ice fields that had remained frozen for tens of thousands of years were illuminated by flashes of lightning until they looked like a land of ghosts!
Soul Beasts throughout the Far North, no matter how strong or weak, fled in a panic, huddling in fear and crying out in terror. It was a scene straight out of the apocalypse.
The Ice Empress's voice rang clear through the deafening thunder, heavy with a gravity she had never shown before:
"I explored hundreds of miles to the north. Everywhere I went looked just like this!
"This storm... It doesn't seem to be regional. It looks like it's covering the entire Far North!"
The Snow Empress hovered in the air, her peerless face veiled in frost. She felt the violent, chaotic thunder elements in the air, along with a... suffocating oppression she couldn't describe. Slowly, she shook her head. Her voice was ethereal, yet her judgment was firm:
"This isn't an ordinary weather phenomenon!"
An ordinary thunderstorm could never cover such a vast area, nor could it frighten the Soul Beasts born in the Far North to this extent.
The thunder contained a will and power that made even her feel a faint unease.
The two of them didn't dare delay. They darted off again, heading in different directions from the Ice Crystal Palace. Their spiritual senses spread far and wide as they carefully searched every inch of ice field and every snow-capped peak in the Far North, trying to locate the source of this upheaval.
Yet after a thorough search, the results only left them more confused.
Aside from the terrifying thunderstorm shrouding heaven and earth, they found no sign of an enemy invasion or any unusual burst of energy. It was as if this world-destroying scene had appeared out of thin air.
"Strange!"
The Ice Empress returned to the Snow Empress, her brows knitted tightly.
"How can this be? I can't find any reason for it!
"How could such an abnormal celestial phenomenon suddenly appear in the Far North? It makes no sense at all!"
The Snow Empress remained silent, thoughts racing through her ice-blue eyes.
She had a vague feeling that this phenomenon was connected to Xue Chen, who had just completed his Martial Soul Awakening inside the palace.
But how could that child's Martial Soul Awakening possibly bring about a transformation of the heavens that covered the entire Far North? It was simply too incredible.
Having found nothing, the two could only return to the Ice Crystal Palace, still full of questions.
However, just as they were about to reach the sky above the Ice Crystal Palace—
"Rumble—!!!"
The dark clouds in the sky seemed to be stirred by some invisible, frenzied force. They began to churn and gather at a speed never seen before!
They no longer spread aimlessly. Layer upon layer, surging violently, they converged on a single point—the sky directly above the Ice Crystal Palace!
In the blink of an eye, the outline of an enormous, bottomless black hole took shape above the Ice Crystal Palace. Purple-gold lightning flickered around its edge, crackling with destructive force!
Around the black hole, the purple-gold lightning no longer flashed in scattered bursts. Instead, it coiled tightly around the rim like furious thunder dragons.
The Snow Empress and the Ice Empress hovered in midair, staring at the black hole formed from the clouds, churning and gathering directly above the Ice Crystal Palace.
The might of heaven and earth struck at the fear and understanding buried deep in their blood and memories.
"Heavenly tribulation!"
The two spoke almost in unison, their voices filled with unmistakable shock.
They had both endured the trials of heavenly tribulations themselves. They knew all too well the force that symbolized heaven and earth's judgment and destruction.
And that was precisely why they understood just how terrifying the scale of this tribulation was!
Covering the entire Far North, its energy condensed until it seemed almost solid—this was far beyond anything an ordinary hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast could summon while undergoing a tribulation!
The Ice Empress abruptly turned to the Snow Empress, suspicion and uncertainty filling her green eyes.
"Snow Maiden, is this heavenly tribulation yours?"
In her eyes, if the Snow Empress was about to face her next tribulation, then with her nearly seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, summoning a tribulation on this scale might... not be entirely impossible.
The Snow Empress's peerless face was grave. She slowly shook her head, her ice-blue hair flying in the violent currents. Her voice was clear and certain:
"There is still time before my next tribulation. I didn't summon it."
"Not you?"
The Ice Empress froze, her delicate brows drawing tightly together. "Then is another Soul Beast nearby undergoing a tribulation? But around here..."
Her formidable spiritual sense swept across a hundred-mile radius, and she immediately rejected her own guess.
"No! I can't sense any Soul Beast with the cultivation aura needed to summon a tribulation like this!
"Strange. Where did this heavenly tribulation come from? And who is it targeting?"
This made no sense at all!
A heavenly tribulation was heaven and earth's trial of those who defied the natural order. It had to have a clear target.
Yet this world-destroying vortex of tribulation hung plainly above the Ice Crystal Palace. Its aura spread across the surroundings, but they couldn't find the tribulation-taker who should have been there!
Just as the two of them's thoughts raced, trying to find the source of this utterly unreasonable tribulation—
"Rumble!!!"
The thunderous black hole in the sky seemed to have reached its limit. It let out a roar that shattered the void!
A blue bolt of lightning, carrying countless tiny streaks of purple-gold electricity, crashed down from the center of the black hole!
As it fell, the bolt abruptly condensed, taking the vague shape of a snarling blue thunder dragon!
Its jaws gaped in fury. Its body was made of pure destructive energy, and its target was unmistakable: the roof of the Ice Crystal Palace below!
Its speed and ferocity far surpassed those of an ordinary heavenly tribulation!
The Snow Empress and the Ice Empress had been distracted by their doubts and their investigation. Their minds faltered for a brief moment.
Only when the thunder dragon tore through the sky and the aura of destruction was already upon them did the Snow Empress jolt out of her thoughts!
Before you continue