Ice God's Inheritance, Ice God's Heart

Lei Chen's words echoed through the empty ice cavern, confirming the origins of this magnificent palace—the temple of the Ancient Ice God.

Snow Empress gazed at the temple radiating endless majesty and chill, her ice-blue eyes filled with heartfelt longing and reverence.

To her, the Ice God was not merely a legendary First-level God, but the spiritual faith of all ice-attributed Soul Beasts throughout the Far North Land. As a lifeform condensed from the purest ice-element essence, Snow Empress revered the Ice God far more deeply than any other Soul Beast.

Now, faced with the temple that stood at the source of her faith, her steps could not help but hesitate. She looked at Lei Chen, her ethereal voice carrying a trace of uncertainty. "Are we... really going inside?"

"To enter a divine temple without permission is a desecration of the god..."

Lei Chen understood Snow Empress's concerns. His expression remained calm, but his tone carried the detachment of one who understood history. "Don't worry about such things. The Ice God perished long ago in the divine war of antiquity. This temple is nothing more than a ruin now."

"Perished...?" Snow Empress's delicate body trembled slightly, and a flash of shock and confusion crossed her exquisite face.

She did not doubt Lei Chen's words. The power and status this Plane Lord had displayed, along with the favor of helping her overcome her tribulation, had earned him her deep trust.

Yet, upon suddenly hearing that the god she had believed in for hundreds of thousands of years had long vanished into the river of history, an immense sense of loss and emptiness inevitably rose within her. It was as though some spiritual pillar supporting the existence of the Far North Land had silently collapsed at one corner.

Snow Empress stared blankly at the temple, momentarily at a loss.

Lei Chen did not disturb her, giving her a moment to process this shocking news.

After a while, Snow Empress finally calmed her turbulent emotions, and the confusion in her eyes gradually faded.

Gods could perish as well; this was simply the norm of the universe. After all, she was the ruler of the Far North Land, and her will far surpassed that of ordinary people. She quickly recovered from the brief daze brought on by the collapse of her faith.

She looked at Lei Chen, her gaze clear once more. "I understand. Then why did you bring me here?"

Seeing Snow Empress regain her composure so quickly, a trace of approval flashed through Lei Chen's eyes. He pointed toward the temple and continued, "Though the Ice God has fallen, he did not leave nothing behind. He condensed his most fundamental Divine Power here, waiting for one fated to receive it."

"And you, Snow Empress, as the strongest being born in the Far North Land today, are the one most qualified to inherit this power—the one who came after."

Lei Chen's words were like a lamp being lit within Snow Empress's heart.

So the Ice God had not completely disappeared, but had left behind the hope of an inheritance!

"So I am to inherit Lord Ice God's power?" Her gaze instantly became incomparably resolute, and all her earlier concerns vanished like smoke. "I understand!"

"I am willing to follow you into the temple and accept Lord Ice God's trial and gift." Snow Empress's voice was firm and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

Lei Chen nodded and took the lead toward the temple gates formed from ten-thousand-year mysterious ice. Snow Empress followed close behind, her steps unwavering.

After passing through the magnificent archway dozens of meters high, the interior of the temple came into view.

The hall was extremely vast and empty. Its four walls and vaulted ceiling were all constructed from a kind of deep-blue divine ice, naturally inscribed with countless intricate and profound ice patterns.

These ice patterns absorbed ice-element energy from heaven and earth on their own, radiating a soft, eternal ice-blue glow that illuminated the entire temple without being the least bit glaring. Instead, it possessed a solemn, frigid beauty.

At the center of the temple stood not a divine statue, but a circular altar supported and surrounded by countless tiny ice crystals. Upon the altar, nothing else rested there—only a single object floated quietly.

It was a work of art so perfect it was beyond compare. Only about the size of a dragon's eye, it had the flawless shape of a water droplet and the purest, deepest ice-blue color. Its surface contained countless minute, perfectly smooth facets, densely packed and too numerous to count.

When the ice-blue divine light flowing through the temple shone upon it, the droplet-shaped gem did not simply reflect the light. Instead, it split and refracted it into countless dazzling ice-blue rays that crisscrossed above the altar, weaving a magnificent yet chilling web of light.

The radiance it emitted naturally alone gave the surrounding space an almost frozen sense of stagnation. The ultimate cold and fluctuations of Divine Power contained within made even Snow Empress, who had just broken through the seven-hundred-thousand-year mark, feel her heart tremble.

"This is the Ice God's Heart." Lei Chen's voice rang through the empty temple. "It contains the Ice God's fundamental Divine Power. Go, Snow Empress. Touch it and try to establish a connection with it. You are the master it has awaited through countless ages."

Snow Empress held her breath and walked toward the altar step by step. The closer she came, the more clearly she felt the intimate summons and bloodline-deep resonance emanating from the Ice God's Heart. She extended her jade-white hand and carefully reached toward the floating Ice God's Heart.

When her fingertips lightly touched its cool, translucent facet, the rejection or impact she had expected did not occur.

The Ice God's Heart merely trembled slightly before releasing an even gentler glow. Like a traveler returning home after a long separation, it left the altar of its own accord, slowly drifted downward, and finally hovered before Snow Empress's chest.

As though inspiration had struck, Snow Empress removed a strand of silver hair and gently threaded it through a naturally formed tiny hole at the top of the Ice God's Heart, hanging it around her fair neck like a pendant.

The Ice God's Heart rested against the skin of her chest, bringing a refreshing chill that did not harm her. Snow Empress could clearly feel that the power within was as unfathomable as a vast ocean. With her current cultivation, let alone absorbing and refining it, even drawing upon one ten-thousandth of it was difficult.

Lei Chen spoke at the right moment. "The power contained within the Ice God's Heart is of too high a level, far beyond what you can bear now. What you need to do is not forcefully refine it, but keep it close to your body. Through your cultivation and growth, allow your aura and your origin to gradually assimilate with it."

"This will be a long process. According to my calculations, when your cultivation breaks through one million years and your life level undergoes another qualitative transformation, that will be the moment you initially refine the Ice God's Heart and reforge the Ice God's Divine Position."

Snow Empress lowered her head to look at the Ice God's Heart on her chest, glowing with a faint blue light, and nodded solemnly.

Having successfully obtained the Ice God's Heart, the two no longer lingered. They turned and departed from the Ice God's Temple, which had lain silent for countless ages.

After leaving the temple gates, Snow Empress stopped and turned around. She bowed toward the magnificent temple, then she and Lei Chen transformed into streaks of light and flew upward along the path they had come, soon shooting out of the Frozen Abyss's pitch-black opening and returning to the Far Northern Ice Plains.