The light no longer surrounded the Ice Empress evenly. It began spreading across the floor, walls, and ceiling.
It was as though a thin layer of ice crystals were unfurling from where she stood. Wherever it passed, delicate frost-white patterns covered every inch of the surface.
The frost patterns were exquisitely detailed, like an intricate design drawn in an instant across the crystalline walls.
No two lines were alike, yet all were connected, forming an impenetrable web of frost throughout the hall.
Outside the palace, the wind and snow across the entire Far North grew fiercer at the same moment.
The sky darkened from gray-white to a deeper, leaden white, as though a sheet of frost-bleached lead pressed down upon the icefield.
The snowflakes that had been drifting slowly down became a dense curtain of snow that blotted out the sky, filling every inch of space between heaven and earth.
The wind kept rising.
Its soft howl sharpened into a shriek, then swelled into a roar like ten thousand horses and soldiers charging together.
Snowflakes caught in the gale spun, sliced, and collided like countless tiny ice blades, churning the air above the heart of the Far North into a chaotic white vortex.
The blizzard spread outward from the palace in every direction. Wherever it passed, even Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts that had dwelled in the depths of the Far North for untold ages instinctively retreated into their lairs.
They sensed the power spreading from the Ice Snow Divine Palace. It was deeper and purer than any storm they had ever known, as though cold compressed over countless epochs were slowly being released.
Snowflakes fell, one after another.
They were larger, denser, and heavier than those of any snowfall the Far North had ever seen.
Every snowflake was perfect in shape.