Beauty That Made One Want to Dissect Her

In the Undead Demiplane, inside the highest-level isolation laboratory.

Three figures stood there, all looking toward the diamond-shaped crystal floating above the platform in the center of the laboratory.

Within the crystal was a faintly pulsating mass of airflow, incomparably pure white. It darted wildly about inside the crystal, seemingly trying to break free.

Faintly, one could also sense the immense vitality and Extreme Ice aura released whenever that mass of airflow collided with the crystal.

This was the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast Embryo, or rather... the Snow Empress Embryo.

Two super old men stood behind him. Kong Ming'an stood outside the Protective Barrier, his gaze calmly fixed on the Snow Empress Embryo before him, though an inexplicable sense of absurdity arose within him.

In the Original Work, this embryo should have been purchased by Xiao Hongchen at an auction in Star Luo City five years later. Then, when the Body Sect invaded Mingde Hall, Snow Empress would self-destruct, leaving behind a trace of her origin to enter Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Sea.

Naturally, he would not miss out on material like the Snow Empress Embryo, which was why he had added it to his list.

But he had expected to obtain this thing several years later! Why had it fallen into his hands now?

Was it the butterfly effect? Or perhaps... some arrangement by the Plane Will?

Kong Ming'an was somewhat troubled, but after looking at the Snow Empress Embryo before him and considering it for a moment, he still reached out.

Threads of Spiritual Power extended outward and destroyed several key nodes of the God Sealing Platform.

The next instant, the white glow inside the crystal abruptly trembled. Immediately afterward, an incomparably terrifying Extreme Ice aura erupted, completely shattering every seal of the God Sealing Platform!

Dazzling Ice Blue light flooded the entire laboratory. Once the glare faded, the embryo had vanished.

In its place was a Girl floating in midair, dressed in a long Ice Blue gown.

She was tall and slender, the clean lines at her waist outlining her peerlessly elegant figure. Her snow-white hair fell to her waist, its ends stirring without wind, naturally revealing a cold and aloof face.

—the foremost of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Extreme North, the Heavenly Snow Woman, Snow Empress.

Kong Ming'an stared blankly at her. Faint blue radiance flickered in his eyes as he unconsciously murmured,

"Beautiful..."

Do not misunderstand. He was not taken by her beauty; he had simply seen something different.

Under his special "energy" perspective, Snow Empress's very existence was the ultimate perfection of an energy structure.

Snow Empress had been born from the purest ice-attributed Heaven and Earth Origin Power of the Extreme North Core Circle. She was a lifeform truly born of heaven and earth.

Every energy node in her body, every trace of energy flowing through her, conformed to some profound principle of heaven and earth. She was a perfect creation of nature.

It was a kind of "beauty" that transcended worldly aesthetics and reached straight to the source.

Kong Ming'an admitted that his heart had been stirred.

So stirred that, for the first time, he could not suppress the urge to "dissect" a humanoid creature... Damn it, why was he having such a hard time restraining himself?

Snow Empress slowly awakened. A trace of daze flashed through her Ice Blue eyes, but she immediately sensed the presence of humans nearby.

Her daze turned to vigilance. Almost instinctively, icy Soul Power began circulating around Snow Empress as she subconsciously sought to destroy everything around her.

But just before her terrifying ice power could erupt, two incomparably powerful auras locked onto her directly!

One carried deathly stillness and holiness, while the other was a pure Vitality Pressure as scorching as a furnace.

Either of those auras would have required her full attention at her peak. Now that she was not at full strength and was being locked onto by both at once, she immediately felt a lethal threat!

She forcibly suppressed her instinct to attack. Her Ice Blue eyes swept across the room before finally settling on Kong Ming'an, who appeared the most "weak" yet stood in the central position.

She could sense that those two terrifying auras revolved entirely around this Human Youth and protected him firmly between them.

"Human... where is this place? And who are you?" Her voice was cold and ethereal, like ice prisms colliding, carrying innate majesty and distance.

Kong Ming'an withdrew the gaze that had been trying to analyze her and returned to his usual calm.

"This is my laboratory. As for me, you may call me Kong Ming'an. Snow Empress, welcome back. Though this situation may not be to your liking, I... am sincerely here to talk."

"Sincerity?"

Snow Empress's eyes cooled. Her gaze swept over the two super old men behind Ming, then returned to him. "Your so-called sincerity is imprisonment?"

"It is not imprisonment. If anything, I am saving you."

"Saving me? Hmph..."

Snow Empress's gaze grew even colder. She had been sealed by humans while transforming, then trapped in a lightless seal for an unknown length of time.

After such experiences, how could she possibly trust the words of the person before her so easily? The only reason she had not attacked directly was the threat posed by the two experts behind Ming.

"I know what you have been through, and I know that you cannot trust humans for the time being. But..." Kong Ming'an's tone was steady, carrying a faintly gentle smile. "...perhaps we can make a deal."

"A deal?"

Snow Empress frowned slightly, her tone still icy. "Not a single human is any good!"

A personal attack, huh...

Kong Ming'an had long expected Snow Empress to react this way, but he still marked down a grievance against her in his mental notebook and decided he would get even later.

Well... Kong Ming'an could be quite petty at times.

Unhurriedly, Kong Ming'an spoke. "I have a way to let you safely survive your next seven-hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Tribulation... Mm, I also have a way to deal with Ice Empress's three-hundred-and-ninety-thousand-year Heavenly Tribulation."

Ripples appeared in Snow Empress's Ice Blue eyes, and a trace of emotion emerged on her otherwise placid face.

"Do you know what you are saying?" Her voice remained cold, but her tone was no longer as absolute as before.

"Of course."

A smile of a fish taking the bait appeared at the corner of Kong Ming'an's mouth. His ink-dark eyes met those Ice Blue ones as he casually revealed the bargaining chips in his hand.

"Indeed, I can give you far more than you imagine.

"Beyond your Heavenly Tribulation and Ice Empress's Heavenly Tribulation, I can even promise to protect the entire Extreme North, shielding it from the calamity of excessive human encroachment.

"Even if you overcome your Heavenly Tribulation, you alone may not be able to accomplish that, right?"

Snow Empress frowned. If the Human Youth before her had a method to resolve both her Heavenly Tribulation and Ice Empress's Heavenly Tribulation, she could barely believe him to some extent.

After all, two experts capable of making her feel threatened stood behind him. It was not impossible for him to possess a way to deal with Heavenly Tribulations.

But protect the Extreme North? What gave this Human Youth the right?

Just as Snow Empress was about to speak, Ming slowly raised his hand, revealing the Dark Purple Triangular Mark in his palm.

In an instant, a thread of divine power containing Destruction Aura flashed from the mark and vanished.

This was... a God Trial?!