The Far North

"Yuhao, you smell so good."

"..."

Huo Yuhao carefully pulled his arm out of Tian Meng's embrace. Looking at Sister Tian Meng's snowy-white cheeks, which still held a little baby fat, he poked them curiously. When she did not wake, he simply left the Sea of Consciousness and continued on his way.

The moment Huo Yuhao left, Tian Meng sat up, looking a little guilty. A faint blush still lingered on her face.

Last night, watching Huo Yuhao settle down to rest in the Sea of Consciousness, she had suddenly wanted to hold him as she slept, for some reason. And that feeling when she first pressed against him had really been so comfortable.

But Bingbing was the one she liked. Hadn't what she did yesterday been cheating? Although Bingbing didn't know, she still felt so guilty.

But sleeping with Yuhao in her arms really had been so comfortable. She had felt more than ten thousand times as secure as when she slept alone.

"Tian Meng, oh, Tian Meng, how could you be this kind of woman? From now on, I'm swearing off lust!"

Tian Meng took a deep breath and made up her mind. She planned to forget last night and learn her lesson that way...

"Ah~ I can't forget it at all~"

Blushing with embarrassment, Tian Meng covered her face and rolled all over the Sea of Consciousness.

Wait!

Didn't most humans practice monogamy? Huo Yuhao was male, and Bingbing was female. There was no conflict at all!

At that thought, a relieved smile gradually spread across Tian Meng's face.

"Back to sleep, back to sleep..."

The moment he crossed the Heaven Dou Empire boundary marker, cold winds howled past Huo Yuhao's ears.

As he traveled farther north, the snow beneath his feet gradually gave way to hard ice. As far as the eye could see, only a hazy, snowy whiteness remained between heaven and earth. Fierce winds swept up grains of snow that lashed against Huo Yuhao like countless blades of ice.

Fortunately, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's shed husk not only insulated him from the cold to a tremendous degree, but also concealed Huo Yuhao from the senses of other Soul Beasts.

One could say that, aside from having no offensive power, Tian Meng had every other aspect maxed out.

"By the way, Sister Tian Meng, how are you going to lure the Ice Empress here?"

"That's easy. Just stay tucked away inside the piece of my shed husk I separated out and watch me work."

Tian Meng leaned back and struck an arrogant pose, then began spreading her spiritual power outward.

With a powerful surge of spiritual energy, Huo Yuhao's Thousand-Year Soul Ring silently emerged.

The Soul Ring gave off a lustrous glow as it slowly pulsed around him.

The pale gold in Huo Yuhao's eyes gradually began to change, and he began losing control of his body.

At that moment, he felt his senses rapidly extend outward, as though he were flying through the sky and looking down upon the earth.

Across the vast core region of the Far North, the light dimmed in an instant, as though day and night had suddenly reversed.

An intangible majesty, accompanied by utterly terrifying spiritual power, instantly spread outward from Huo Yuhao's body.

At the same time, Huo Yuhao's bright purple Soul Ring kept changing, forcibly turning blood-red before finally becoming a Golden Soul Ring filled with boundless majesty.

The nine clusters of golden light left over from their original fusion flew out of Huo Yuhao's body. They overlapped and gradually took shape, actually condensing into a golden figure of light that looked exactly like Huo Yuhao.

"Ice Empress, I know you've sensed my presence. I, Tian Meng, have returned for revenge. Do you dare meet me?"

As soon as Tian Meng finished speaking, the sky grew darker and darker. Black clouds pressed down, making the atmosphere between heaven and earth increasingly oppressive.

Huo Yuhao sensed thousands upon thousands of nearby Soul Beasts fleeing in terror in every direction.

And just as Huo Yuhao waited with his heart racing and excitement stirring throughout his body-

Suddenly, he noticed that things outside had changed.

The pitch-black clouds suddenly began to churn. Immediately afterward, a layer of jade-green light spread over from the north in an instant.

The inky sky turned jade-green in the blink of an eye. That enchanting color made it seem as though the lofty sky had suddenly become an enormous jade-green gemstone.

The oppressive feeling in the air vanished completely in that same instant.

"Tian Meng, you're actually still alive?"

The voice carried terrifying sound waves. Wherever it reached, the snow on the ground instantly exploded upward.

"Ice Empress, you aren't dead yet. Why shouldn't I still be alive?"

"Heh, so did you come this time to let me eat you and breeze through my heavenly tribulation?"

The Ice Empress's clear voice rang out again, her words carrying arrogance and a trace of impatience.

With a flash of green light, an emerald-like jade-green scorpion appeared before the golden figure Tian Meng had become.

The front half of the Ice Empress's body was covered in hexagonal, diamond-textured protrusions of an icy crystalline white.

She had two eyes shaped like hexagonal yellow diamonds and a five-segmented scorpion tail. The tail was jade-green throughout, tapering from its base to its tip, with a sharp stinger that gleamed silver.

"Ha, you've finally shown yourself, Bingbing."

"Who gave you permission to address this empress by that name?"

Unable to stand the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's intoxicated expression, the Ice Empress made her high-raised stinger flare with light. A beam instantly pierced the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's body.

But Tian Meng's body simply passed through the attack as though it were intangible.

"Bingbing, that move won't work on me. Watch this!"

Tian Meng smiled faintly, and a small spherical container appeared in her hand.

"Serve me, Ice Empress!"

Tian Meng aimed toward the Ice Empress and instantly hurled it at her.

Seeing that things were going wrong, the Ice Empress attacked again, but the little sphere still passed through her attack. The instant it approached her, she suddenly felt herself slowing down, and everything around her became viscous.

Terrifying spiritual power engulfed her like a vast ocean. Even struggling with all her might did no good.

Moreover, that binding sensation was growing stronger at an astonishing rate, actually squeezing her body until it creaked.

Before Huo Yuhao's eyes, the Ice Empress, one of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Far North, was completely subdued by Sister Tian Meng's shed husk, just like that.

"Amazing..."

"Yuhao, hurry! The Ice Empress's kin will be here any moment. Go in the direction I tell you."

"Okay."

Without another word, Huo Yuhao took to his heels and ran back the way he had come.

With Tian Meng's spiritual power concealing him, he had no need to worry about being discovered.

As for his footprints, amid this bitterly cold wind, ice, and snow, a single gust would erase every trace.

Only when he reached an open space did Huo Yuhao come to a complete stop.

"All right, let's start negotiating!"

A cluster of golden light emerged from between Huo Yuhao's brows and slowly floated into the air.

Gradually, that speck of light expanded, becoming a disc about a meter in diameter in the blink of an eye.

With a flash of light, a figure emerged from the golden disc. The instant after it came out, the gold in the air disappeared as well.

A fist-sized cluster of golden light surged out of Huo Yuhao's forehead.

Trapped inside was none other than the Ice Empress captured by Tian Meng just moments earlier.

Tian Meng leaned her face right up to it, wearing an expression that begged for a beating.

"Bingbing, this is exactly the expression I wanted to see. That look of wanting to kill me but being helpless to do anything about it. Oh-ho-ho~"

"You-"