Eighteen Seals Inside His Body? Xue Chen Was Dumbfounded! (Please leave a comment to urge the next chapter, thanks!)

Just as the second thunder dragon let out a roar that shook the heavens and earth, bearing down with the force of ten thousand bolts, Snow Empress moved.

Her slender hand lifted slowly, palm facing forward. An indescribable, bone-deep cold suddenly spread out from her.

It was not a raging blizzard, but an absolute stillness—a complete halt!

In the void behind her, a vast, intricate azure formation composed of countless ice-crystal runes appeared in an instant. It rotated slowly, radiating a mighty will that could freeze souls and extinguish all things!

This was none other than one of Snow Empress's Three Absolutes—Emperor Palm: Great Cold Without Snow!

There were no dazzling lights or deafening sounds, only an absolute zero that seemed capable of freezing time and stilling the laws of nature!

Snow Empress gently pressed her palm forward.

The enormous ice-crystal formation behind her blazed with light, and a nearly transparent, icy-blue palm print silently met the ferocious thunder dragon plunging toward her!

"Vmmm—!"

The earth-shaking explosion they had expected did not come at once.

The instant the palm print, which contained the annihilating essence of Great Cold Without Snow, touched the raging thunder dragon, time seemed to freeze for a moment.

Then, two utterly opposite forces, both pushed to their limits—extreme cold and extreme violence—began the most perilous and direct clash of annihilation!

The purple-gold lightning dancing across the thunder dragon's body dimmed at a visible speed, as if frozen by an invisible frost;

wherever the icy-blue palm print passed, even the energy contained within the thunder itself seemed to be forcibly snuffed out!

"Crack... Rumble!!!"

After a brief stalemate came an even more violent eruption of energy!

A terrifying shock wave mixed with ice shards and flashes of lightning burst outward in a ring, tearing a massive hole in the dark clouds above!

Under the Emperor Palm, which contained the absolute intent of annihilation, the second thunder dragon ultimately failed to break through. Starting at its head, its enormous body fractured inch by inch, crumbled, and finally burst apart completely!

However, just as when Snow Empress had shattered the first thunder dragon, an even more astonishing scene unfolded!

The second bolt of heavenly punishment, shattered by Snow Empress and turned into a rain of countless tiny bolts, did not scatter wildly across the world.

Instead, as if summoned by some irresistible force, it paused in midair before transforming into countless fine, nimble threads of blue and purple-gold lightning;

ignoring Snow Empress, they streamed with unerring precision toward the hole in the roof of the Ice Crystal Palace below—their target was Xue Chen, still absorbing the first wave of lightning inside!

Snow Empress hovered in midair, letting the cold wind blow through her long hair.

She lowered her head and looked through the hole in the roof as the rain of lightning poured down like falling starlight, flowing docilely into the increasingly dense cocoon of lightning surrounding Xue Chen.

The last trace of doubt vanished from her peerless face, replaced by a solemnity that seemed to touch upon some secret of heaven and earth.

The Emperor Palm can scatter the form of the heavenly punishment, but it cannot sever the connection between its energy and Chen'er.

This tribulation was meant for him all along! It isn't punishment, but... a baptism and a gift!

Inside the hall, Ice Empress and Xiao Bai stared up at the second wave of lightning energy pouring in like falling starlight. They were already too shocked to react.

Xiao Bai's enormous bear mouth opened and closed, but in the end, all that came out was a meaningless series of gasps.

Ice Empress drew a deep breath of the cold air and murmured to herself,

"This kid... what kind of monster was he in a past life?"

Xue Chen greedily absorbed the seemingly inexhaustible power of the thunder.

As this pure, immense power continued to surge through him, a strange feeling he had previously sensed only vaguely became unmistakably clear.

The fog obscuring his vision dispersed. At last, beneath the thunder's cleansing power, something hidden deep within him revealed a glimpse of its true nature.

Xue Chen's heart stirred. He gathered the spiritual power that had naturally grown stronger with his improved vitality and blood, then carefully probed the source of that strange sensation.

One glance was all it took to realize how little he had known—and to be thoroughly startled!

Through his spiritual power, he sensed a chaotic region deep within his dantian, or perhaps closer to the core of his life's origin.

This should have been where his Soul Power sprang from and his vitality and blood took root—an unremarkable place.

But now, with the thunder's power washing over it and his spiritual power focused upon it, he discovered to his horror that the region was covered and locked away by layer upon layer of incredibly complex runes, their dim light flickering strangely!

The seals formed by these runes were not a single barrier. One ring enclosed another, layer upon layer, like a precise and merciless cage, branded deep into the very source of his life!

One, two, three... Xue Chen counted carefully with his spiritual power. The deeper he went, the heavier his heart sank.

...Nine... eighteen! A full eighteen seals!

Every one of them gave off an ancient, powerful aura that made his soul tremble!

They were tightly connected, forming an incredibly sturdy and complex system of restraints that firmly imprisoned something deep within his body—or perhaps... some kind of potential!

"W-what is going on?!"

A vast confusion and shock instantly overwhelmed Xue Chen's mind, and even the speed at which he absorbed the thunder slowed despite himself.

Why are there eighteen seals inside me?!

Who did this? Who put these things in my body?!

One instinctive thought flashed through his mind—Mom, Snow Empress!

As far as he knew, only someone as powerful as Snow Empress could possess such divine means and place seals like these inside him—seals he had only vaguely sensed for the first time today.

Did the mother who adopted me hide something from me, or even... have ulterior motives?

But the moment the thought surfaced, Xue Chen forcibly pushed it away.

That can't be right...

He immediately dismissed the suspicion.

Snow Empress's love for him, the tenderness and care that came from the depths of her soul, had never been false.

Besides, Snow Empress had clearly told him that she found him after he fell from the sky onto the Far North Ice Plains. Even she didn't know his true origins.

How could someone who knew nothing about his past have laid such complex and powerful seals in advance?

Could it be... the people who abandoned me?

My... biological parents? Or some other being?

A new, even more chilling guess rose in his mind.

That's it. That's the only explanation that makes sense.

These eighteen seals might have been placed on me when I was a baby—or even earlier!

Was abandoning me in the Far North connected to these seals? What were they trying to hide? What were they trying to seal?

His perspective as a transmigrator made him think more deeply than an ordinary child—and feel an even greater chill.

He had thought he was merely a lucky transmigrator, adopted by Snow Empress and blessed with a powerful Martial Soul.

But now, the eighteen mysterious seals within him, along with his unfamiliar Martial Soul, seemed to be telling him in silence that his very existence might be one enormous mystery!