Douluo Continent, the Far North Ice Sea.
Biting winds raged, whipping up snow that filled the sky and joined heaven and earth in a boundless expanse of white.
"Shriek-!" A piercing, despairing cry tore through the wind and snow.
In midair, a giant bird over ten meters long, its entire body covered in ice-blue scales, struggled frantically.
It was a formidable Soul Beast-an Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle with nearly twenty thousand years of cultivation.
Yet the speed and impenetrable ice scales it took such pride in were utterly fragile before the young human man facing it.
The young man was named Ye Wuchen. His robes, whiter than snow, snapped in the gale, while his handsome face remained calm and composed.
Behind him, an exquisitely beautiful, illusory female figure hovered silently.
It was the phantom of a woman formed from the purest ice and snow, her hair white as snow and her eyes like ice, radiating an ultimate chill that could freeze all things-a top-tier beast martial soul, the Heavenly Snow Woman!
Yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black... and two red Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings radiating an overwhelming, savage might!
Their red glow shone over the ice sea, staining the swirling snow an eerie blood-red.
An Eight-Ring Soul Douluo, yet he possessed two Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings.
Such a staggering Soul Ring configuration was enough to whip up towering waves throughout the entire Soul Master World.
"Emperor Sword-Ice Extreme: Peerless." Ye Wuchen's voice was cold as shattered ice.
He raised his right hand. The ice elements throughout the surrounding world seemed to hear their sovereign's command, surging madly toward his palm.
A crystal-clear longsword radiating the aura of ultimate ice formed in an instant.
This was one of the Snow Empress's Three Absolutes he had learned from his master, the Snow Empress.
Without any flashy movements, Ye Wuchen casually swung his hand.
A deep-blue sword ray cleaved through the air, disregarding the Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle's frosty breath. Like a force smashing rotten wood, it tore through the creature's ten-thousand-year scales and pierced its body.
Ice fragments exploded through the air. The Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle's massive body crashed heavily onto the ice, its blood frozen by the extreme cold before it could even flow out.
It twitched feebly, the flame of its life about to go out.
"Bing'er, finish it off and absorb your fifth Soul Ring." Ye Wuchen dispersed the Emperor Sword in his hand and stood with his hands behind his back, his tone softening somewhat.
"Yes, Master!"
A clear, melodious female voice came from behind him.
Shui Bing'er stepped forward, cold mist likewise swirling around her. Behind her, the phantom of a noble, magnificent Ice Phoenix spread its wings as though about to take flight.
"Fourth Soul Skill, Ice Phoenix's Feather!"
Shui Bing'er did not hesitate. Her purple fourth Soul Ring flashed.
A dense barrage of ice-blue phoenix feathers shot forth, precisely piercing the Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle's vital points and ending its life completely.
Motes of black light gathered above the Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle's corpse, finally forming a black Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring.
Shui Bing'er sat cross-legged, drew the black Soul Ring over herself, and closed her eyes.
Ye Wuchen sat quietly cross-legged nearby, his spiritual power forming an invisible barrier to guard his disciple.
Seeing Shui Bing'er's delicate brows draw together, Ye Wuchen could not help letting his thoughts drift.
He was a transmigrator from Blue Star.
Looking back, his beginning could have been called hellishly difficult-he had been born directly in the Core Circle of the Far North, a forbidden zone for humans.
Had he not awakened the Heavenly Snow Woman martial soul, which perfectly suited the Far North, and attracted the attention of the Snow Empress, foremost among the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, he would likely have died in the wind and snow long ago.
The Snow Empress had not only adopted him but also accepted him as her disciple, holding nothing back as she taught him her supreme techniques.
Now, at just twenty-four years old, Ye Wuchen had already reached the peak of level eighty-nine as a Soul Douluo, only one step away from becoming a Titled Douluo.
And Shui Bing'er, the disciple he had personally taught, was also about to cross the threshold of level fifty and become a Soul King in the bloom of her fifteenth year.
Time passed amid the wind and snow.
Four hours later, the ice-blue cocoon of light enveloping Shui Bing'er shattered with a boom.
Soul Power fluctuations belonging to the Soul King rank surged from her body, sweeping away all the surrounding snow.
Shui Bing'er opened her eyes. Their already water-clear depths now held a trace of profound ice blue.
After absorbing this Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring, the sixteen-year-old Shui Bing'er had grown even more graceful and slender.
She had grown a little taller, and a custom-made ice-blue dress traced the young girl's budding, lovely curves.
Beneath the hem, her long, jade-like legs were straight and well-proportioned, clad in knee-high white ice-silk stockings.
Together with her waterfall of long ice-blue hair and her cool, otherworldly bearing, she resembled a goddess of ice and snow untouched by mortal affairs.
"Master, I did it! Level fifty-two!"
Shui Bing'er ran up to Ye Wuchen, a rare, charming smile blooming across her cool face like a snow lotus blossoming on an icy mountain.
"Good. Show me your new Soul Skill." Approval shone in Ye Wuchen's eyes.
"Fifth Soul Skill-Ice Phoenix Glazed Wings!"
Shui Bing'er gave a clear cry, and the black Soul Ring around her blazed with light.
A magnificent pair of ice-blue phoenix wings unfurled from her back, like the purest glazed crystal, shimmering with a dreamlike luster.
"Master, this is an extremely powerful defensive and enhancement Soul Skill," Shui Bing'er explained excitedly.
"Under the protection of Ice Phoenix Glazed Wings, my defense can increase by two hundred percent!"
"Not only that, it can also absorb the energy in an enemy's attacks and convert it into ice elements to replenish me, while giving me a fifty-percent increase in speed."
Ye Wuchen nodded in satisfaction.
The reason he had come to this vast ice sea in search of an Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle.
Was precisely because he valued its defense and its innate racial ability to convert attacks into ice elements.
That Ice-Scaled Fish Eagle had suffered an ignominious death because Ye Wuchen's cultivation realm was far above its own.
Together with the suppression of ultimate ice, it had been slain in a single blow, without any chance to use its life-saving ability.
In Shui Bing'er's hands, this Soul Skill made up for her shortcomings in survival and mobility as a power attack system Soul Master.
Ye Wuchen reached out and, out of habit, gently ruffled Shui Bing'er's long ice-blue hair, saying warmly:
"A perfect Soul Skill. We happen to be not far from the Far North. Let me take you to meet my master."
At his words, Shui Bing'er's beautiful eyes immediately filled with curiosity and nervousness:
"Master's master... that would make her Bing'er's grandmaster. Master, what sort of person is our venerable grandmaster?"
She had cultivated under Ye Wuchen for many years, yet she had never met this mysterious grandmaster.
But in Shui Bing'er's mind, someone capable of raising a prodigy as astonishingly talented as her master.
Had to be a secluded expert at the pinnacle of the continent, perhaps a white-haired, supremely imposing Titled Douluo.
At his disciple's question, the graceful, peerlessly beautiful figure of ice and snow involuntarily surfaced in Ye Wuchen's mind.
"Her..." Ye Wuchen smiled gently. "She's very cold, like the profound ice in the Far North that hasn't melted for ten thousand years. But she treats those close to her extremely well."
Just as master and disciple were about to set off, a sudden change occurred.
An incomparably brilliant golden light tore through the heavens, spreading as swiftly as an aurora and covering the entire sky in the blink of an eye.
It was a golden heavenly screen so enormous that words could not describe it.
It hung high above the nine heavens, as though it had replaced the sky over Douluo Continent with this screen.
The next moment, a vast, ethereal voice disregarded the distances of space and thundered in the mind of every living being on Douluo Continent:
[The Great Dao Heavenly Screen descends, taking stock of Douluo Continent's masters and disciples!]
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