Ice Empress Descends

Without any warning, the gray-white sky was suddenly dyed in dazzling golden light.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm no longer suppressed himself. The spiritual essence he had accumulated over a million years erupted completely at this moment, like a volcano that had been building pressure for ages.

Vast spiritual waves, centered on Huo Yuhao, instantly swept across the snowy plains for a hundred li around.

"Icey—! Brother's here to see you—!! Did you miss Brother—?!"

Huo Yuhao's mouth twitched.

Wouldn't confessing like this really get someone beaten to death?

The golden sky suddenly split apart.

A terrifying chill beyond words suddenly erupted from the far north. The golden radiance of spiritual power was forcibly driven back in an instant by an overbearing jade-green force!

"Sky—Dream—!!"

A cold, proud voice filled with endless killing intent echoed between heaven and earth.

Jade-green light swept in, covering the sky and earth as though the entire world had become a massive piece of emerald.

She was here.

Huo Yuhao's body instinctively tensed. At the edge of his vision, a creature slowly emerged.

It was not large.

Compared to the ten-thousand-year Titan Snow Demon he had seen before, its body could even be described as petite.

It was around one and a half meters long, its entire body a crystalline jade green.

It was no ordinary green, but the color of the finest imperial green jade, flowing with captivating luster beneath the aurora. Its foreclaws sparkled like diamonds, while the hook on its tail gleamed with lethal icy light. Every segment of its shell was as perfect as a work of art.

"This is... a four-hundred-thousand-year beast?" Huo Yuhao felt his blood slow.

It was the absolute suppression of a superior life-form over an inferior one.

"Tian Meng, you're not dead?" Ice Empress hovered in midair, her jade-green eyes coldly fixed on Huo Yuhao below—or rather, on the aura of Tian Meng emanating from him.

"And you actually dared return to the Far North? Do you think your flesh wasn't enough for me to eat?"

Before she finished speaking, a terrifying pressure capable of freezing one's soul crashed down like a tsunami!

If it had been an ordinary two-ring Soul Grandmaster, or even a three-ring Soul Elder, they would likely have fallen to their knees in that instant—or been frightened out of their wits.

But Huo Yuhao did not kneel.

The moment that pressure descended, Huo Yuhao bent his legs slightly and lowered his center of gravity. His right hand instinctively rested on his waist—where a hunter's knife hung purely for show.

His gaze changed.

It was the gaze of a hunter facing an Arch-Tempered Elder Dragon.

Within his spiritual world, the Ice Empress before him was no longer an invincible deity, but a Boss with a health bar, attack patterns, and weaknesses.

As long as it was a Boss, there was a way to defeat it.

"Hm?" Ice Empress let out a soft sound of surprise in midair.

At last, she shifted her attention away from Tian Meng's aura and onto this frail human.

He only had twenty levels of Soul Power, weak as an ant—one breath from her could freeze him to death.

But... why wasn't this ant trembling? Why was there no fear in his eyes? And why did she even sense, deep within those golden pupils, a trace of... fighting spirit that seemed to be assessing her?

"Human?" Ice Empress's voice turned colder. Countless ice spikes instantly formed in the surrounding air. "Why do you not kneel upon seeing me?"

That question carried the imperial majesty of hundreds of thousands of years.

Huo Yuhao only felt his eardrums buzzing. Even his cold-weather hunter's outfit creaked under the strain, yet he still held his back straight.

He slowly raised his head and met those terrifying jade-green eyes. The corner of his mouth even curled into a crazed smile honed in the desperate situations of Resident Evil. "Because... dying on my knees would be too ugly!"

Huo Yuhao's voice was not loud, and the cold wind shredded it somewhat, but every word drove into the ice like a nail.

"I've seen hordes of corpses that devoured everything, faced an unstoppable Tyrant head-on, and slain flying dragons soaring through the skies."

"Even if you're a god... if you want me to kneel without showing a health bar... then you'll have to ask whether the blade in my hand agrees first!"

Even Sky Dream Ice Silkworm in the sea of consciousness was dumbfounded.

"Fuck... Yuhao, don't be so stubborn! This is a real big shot! You'll get one-shot!"

Ice Empress froze in midair.

She had lived for four hundred thousand years and seen countless powerful humans.

Some had knelt and begged for mercy. Some had turned and fled. Some had fought desperately.

But never had there been one like this ant before her.

That look... it was as though he were evaluating where her shell was weakest, as though he were considering what kind of trap he should use to capture her.

"Ha... Hahahaha!" Ice Empress suddenly laughed. Her laughter was crisp and pleasant, yet it made one's blood run cold.

"'Dying on your knees would be too ugly.' Interesting. I suddenly don't want to freeze you into an ice sculpture right away."

Ice Empress's tail hook, gleaming with icy light, swayed slightly. "I'm curious. What gives you such confidence? Tian Meng? Or those strange clothes you're wearing?"

Just as Ice Empress was about to make a move and test this human a little—

"Oh, Icey! Don't attack! We're family! We're all family!" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm finally could not hold back anymore. His enormous spiritual phantom emerged from behind Huo Yuhao and placed itself between them.

"Yuhao is just a kid who doesn't know better! He's gone dumb from playing games!" Brother Sky Dream wiped away sweat as he frantically signaled Huo Yuhao with his eyes. "My ancestor, turn off game mode first! We're in negotiation mode now!"

Tian Meng turned toward Ice Empress, putting on an affectionate, fawning expression. "Icey, Brother didn't come back this time to die! Brother brought you a great fortune... one enough to change your fate!"

"A great fortune?" Ice Empress sneered, her tone full of disdain for the weak. "From trash like you? Or this human who only knows how to boast? If you mean that eating you would increase my cultivation, then I might consider it."

The negotiations were on the verge of breaking down.

Huo Yuhao suddenly stepped forward, his gaze as sharp as ever.

"He wasn't boasting." Huo Yuhao pointed at himself, then at Tian Meng.

"This is not a request. This is a... transaction."

Huo Yuhao looked at Ice Empress and spoke words that made even the ruler of the Far North's heart tremble:

"Do you want to perish as prey beneath the approaching four-hundred-thousand-year heavenly tribulation... or follow me as a hunter and ascend to godhood... even hunt that lofty Divine Realm?"

The wind stopped once more.

This time, it was not because of Ice Empress's pressure.

Ice Empress's jade-green eyes stared fixedly at Huo Yuhao.

After a long while, she slowly descended and reined in a trace of killing intent.

"Human! You have ten minutes. If you cannot persuade me... all of you will become fertilizer beneath this Iceborne!"