Ice God: I'll leave Mother in your care

Hearing the Goddess of Life's words, the God of Evil, who had remained silent all this time, finally spoke. He raised his hand, and a wine flask the size of an ordinary person's head appeared in it.

"This wine flask can also nurture the wine inside it to a degree. Even if you pour a little ordinary water into it, given enough time, it can nurture that water into wine containing spiritual energy. Drinking it is good for the body."

"This is also a small token from us as husband and wife. We hope you won't take offense, Senior Ice God." The Goddess of Kindness nodded gently. She and the God of Evil were married, sharing honor and disgrace.

"Then I'll offer compensation as well. I see this child has Twin Martial Souls. I also ascended from Douluo, and I know that every increase in rank requires a Soul Ring. I'll provide eighteen God-Given Soul Rings. They can also grant the Soul Ring best suited to the user's needs, based on their limit of endurance at the time. The child can give any extras to his friends and family." Tang San followed suit, taking out eighteen golden objects that looked like pills.

"Then I'll thank you on my successor's behalf." The Ice God did not dawdle, chiefly because she did not have much time left. She had fallen long ago. What remained now was less a remnant soul than a lingering shadow, nurtured by the Ice God's Divine Seat for many years. Now that she had stirred the Ice God's Divine Seat again, her time was already limited. The sooner she could finish, the better.

Once the gods' compensation had been accepted, Tang San mobilized the Divine Realm Core and drew over one percent of the Divine Realm's Immortal Spirit Qi.

As he did so, a dazzling multicolored vortex appeared above their heads. The energy between heaven and earth was rapidly sifted and filtered through it, finally forming a bead no larger than a glass marble.

The Ice God put everything away, then turned and left the Divine Realm. The scenery before Huo Yuhao shifted rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, they were outside the Divine Realm. But they did not hurry back to the Douluo Continent. Instead, they stood amid the vast universe, with the dazzling Divine Realm behind them.

The Ice God stopped right outside the Divine Realm's entrance, took out the eighteen God-Given Soul Rings Tang San had given her, and crushed them all in one go.

Only after doing all this did the Ice God turn into a streak of light and fly toward the Douluo Continent.

"Are you curious about what I was just doing?" On their flight back, the Ice God did not forget to ask Huo Yuhao.

"Sister Ice God, you were freeing your Divine Seat from the Divine Realm. That way, even if I use the Ice God's Divine Seat to become a god in the future, I'll have one less problem," Huo Yuhao said. That was his view, and what he felt was her main objective after watching her actions.

It was to ensure that her Divine Seat no longer belonged to the Divine Realm, so he would not have to get into disputes with the Divine Realm after becoming a god.

"What else?" the Ice God continued asking. She had not done so much for just that one purpose.

"Other than obtaining resources, I can't think of anything else," Huo Yuhao said. That was all he could see, and those were also the two things the Ice God had done openly.

"There was also sounding out the current Five Great God Kings of the Divine Realm for you, seeing what their present circumstances were and testing their attitudes.

"As you saw, of the current Five Great God Kings, I don't recognize any of them except the God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life.

"That Sea God who inherited the Asura God's Divine Seat is your enemy.

"And judging by their behavior just now, the other four God Kings probably don't know what Tang San has actually done.

"From their attitudes, the new God of Evil and Goddess of Kindness should belong to the neutral faction. Or rather, they haven't been in the Divine Realm long and have no foundation, so they lean toward caution while adapting to their surroundings.

"Their so-called gifts of apology were really just following Xiao Lu-the Goddess of Life-in expressing their stance," the Ice God said. She had little time left, so naturally, she had to pave the way for Huo Yuhao as much as possible.

"You were testing their attitudes just now?" Only after hearing the Ice God's words did Huo Yuhao realize it. He had thought she merely wanted to obtain more cultivation resources for him while freeing the Ice God's Divine Seat, so he would not have to argue with the Divine Realm over it in the future. He truly had not expected her to be testing the Five Great God Kings as well.

The Ice God nodded gently. "That's right. If they're the God of Destruction and Goddess of Life I remember, they're the sort who are willing to listen to reason. When they're in the wrong in matters like this, they'll admit it and provide compensation.

"But if they refused to acknowledge it-after all, I've been dead for so many years-if they'd changed and chosen to stop following reason and the Divine Realm's rules as they once did, or had ambitions of their own, they wouldn't have offered any compensation when I proposed taking away my faith.

"I may have looked imposing before them, but there's an enormous gap between a First-Level God and a God King. The main reason I dared speak before them was that they wanted to uphold the rules they'd established.

"Because if even they wouldn't follow their own rules, there would be even less point in making anyone else follow them.

"And the result now is that they're willing to follow the rules. That's definitely good news for you. They'll surely find a way to come looking for you later.

"When the time comes, just tell them everything that happened in my Divine Temple. As for the rest, some things should be said and some shouldn't. Judge that for yourself. You can be their ally, but don't become their lackey."

"Yes, I understand." Huo Yuhao understood what the Ice God meant. Among the current Five Great God Kings, the God of Evil and Goddess of Kindness were just as he had said: they had only recently arrived in the Divine Realm and had yet to gain a firm footing, so they would not lightly choose to get involved in anything.

There was no need to say much about Tang San. He was his enemy.

As first-generation God Kings, the God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life were the Divine Realm's true guardians of order at present. They would certainly intervene in rule-breaking like Tang San's.

But likewise, as guardians of the rules, they would also become Huo Yuhao's enemies if he violated the Divine Realm's rules.

The Ice God's probing had shown Huo Yuhao who his current enemy was and which allies he could call upon.

In fact, the Ice God's final words had been very clear: Huo Yuhao only needed to provide information about Tang San's fine deeds. The compensation in his hands could be counted as benefits the Ice God had earned by risking her life for the Divine Realm in the past.

But he only needed to provide information. He should not consider obtaining further benefits from the God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life. The one final benefit he could gain from them was letting them know what Tang San had done, so the two would begin taking action against him.

"Yuhao, I'll leave Mother in your care from now on. I'm going to do what I've wanted to do for many years, and what I should have done." The Ice God smiled. This was the last thing she could do for Huo Yuhao, and something she was doing for her homeland as well.

Before Huo Yuhao could react to her words, he felt the power within him that reigned supreme over the world begin to vanish rapidly. The moment it disappeared, he found that he had somehow been sent back to the Divine Temple on the Douluo Continent.

He still held the compensation the Five Great God Kings had given the Ice God.

"No!!! Stop!!!" Then Huo Yun's piercing, grief-stricken cry rang through heaven and earth.

It was like a mother calling to a child who was about to be lost forever, urging her to turn back.

It was even more like a helpless mother letting out a shrill roar.

Boom-

The next instant, the heavens collapsed and the earth split apart-in the truest sense!

The earth was splitting. Across the Douluo Continent, abyss-like fissures opened in countless places. The sky seemed to have cracked as well, densely covered in fractures.

Feeling his mother's grief and the upheaval of heaven and earth, Huo Yuhao hurriedly looked up. Within those countless cracks, a space sealed by densely packed golden or multicolored chains seemed to be reflected. At its very center, a multicolored mass of light was held firmly in place, as though imprisoned within a cage formed from endless chains.

Inside that cage, a pure white figure tinged with ice blue slowly faded away. At the end, she reached out, trying to touch that multicolored mass of light.

Others might not know, but the Soul Beasts of the Far North and Huo Yuhao knew that was the Ice God.

That was the Ice God's last remnant soul. She was disappearing.

"What is she doing?" Huo Yuhao's pupils contracted at the sight. He did not know what others were doing, but recalling the Ice God's earlier words, he realized the farewell in them had already been unmistakable.

"She wants to sever the rules, to sever the rules binding me. But those rules... even at her peak, she couldn't shake them, much less as she is now... her... her remnant soul... has suffered the rules' backlash... it's going to dissipate." As Huo Yun spoke, she could not suppress the sorrow in her voice. By the end, she was even choking with sobs.

"Why would she do this? Couldn't she stay inside me and exist like Teacher Electrolux?" Huo Yuhao did not understand what good this did her. If she stayed alive, she could still plan for the future.

"This... has always been... her obsession. And her remnant soul... is completely different from your Teacher Electrolux's... for every day her remnant soul exists, while she's awake, the Ice God's Divine Seat will keep trying to assimilate all the power within you in her direction... even if she doesn't intend it, as long as she's there... the Ice God's Divine Seat will recognize only her as its master... it would have been fine if she'd kept sleeping... but she woke up. So she chose to arrange everything... to do everything she could as well as possible... and have her last remnant soul actively seek death." As the Douluo Consciousness, Huo Yun knew why the Ice God had done this, and explained through sobs.

Born a Soul Beast, the Ice God should have stood with the Soul Beast faction. Yet during the Dragon God War of old, she had sided with the faction that now ruled the Divine Realm. The reason was simple.

It was because the Dragon God had attacked her-the Douluo Consciousness. To the Ice God, that was naked betrayal: betraying the homeland that had nurtured him, betraying the parents who had raised him. The moment she learned of it, the Ice God had wanted to rescue her.

But at the time, she had only just broken through to First-Level God. How could she have matched the Dragon God, who had already become a God King? Unsurprisingly, she suffered a crushing defeat.

The Dragon God did not kill her and spared her life, but that was only then. The Ice God had never considered giving up on the Douluo Consciousness. She tried many times during her life, all ending in failure, until she finally fell during the Dragon God War.

Her final wish was for her Divine Seat to protect her sole remaining remnant soul and return to her homeland, the land that had given birth to her and raised her.

She slept for so many years. When she woke again and learned of the new crisis facing her homeland, once she confirmed Huo Yuhao's identity as the Child of Destiny, she did not hesitate in the slightest, making her final contribution within her ability to her homeland and her mother. Then she exhausted her last strength, mobilizing her remnant soul and everything she could command to launch one final assault against the rules suppressing the Douluo Consciousness.

That power was exceedingly weak before the rules. It merely made the heavens collapse and the earth split across the entire Douluo Plane for a moment, yet those rules remained immovable. She could not even leave the tiniest crack in a single rule.

But she had done it. With the last of her strength, insignificant before the rules left by the Divine Realm and the Dragon God, she had delivered her final blow.

It was what she had always wanted to do ever since the Douluo Consciousness had been suppressed by the rules. No matter how many years passed, that had never changed. Even as a remnant soul, she would swing her sword at the rules one last time. Whether she succeeded or not, whether she could leave even the tiniest crack or not, she had to swing that sword.

Only because it was her obsession, the thing she had always wanted to accomplish, yet could no longer complete.

Having fallen many years ago, she could only entrust that unfulfilled wish to those who came after her, then use this method to bring the final chapter of her life to a close.

At the very end, before she vanished completely, the Ice God wore a smile as her remnant soul dissipated at the point closest to the Douluo Core.

Her remnant soul seemed to merge completely into Douluo's embrace, the scattered motes of light slowly merging into the multicolored mass at the center.

But a closer look would reveal that they had merely drawn a little closer to that multicolored mass of light. The motes left by the Ice God's dissipation had only reached a place imperceptibly close to it before vanishing.

Only a single mote of light entered the core, and only because Huo Yun exhausted all her strength, to be slowly nurtured there. Within it still lingered the Ice God's murmur: "I'm sorry, Mother. Your daughter is useless. I couldn't save you."

Rain poured down!

Across the entire Douluo Continent-or rather, the entire Douluo Plane, including its oceans-a torrential rain unlike any before began to fall.

There was no rumbling thunder, only a downpour filled with endless sorrow.

In the Far North, just before the rain reached the ground, the region's cold froze it into snowflakes. It became white snow, drifting down over the vast land.

All of Douluo was weeping. It was a father, it was a mother, weeping for a child who would never return.

After a god fell, their Divine Sense was immortal, but it could still be scattered, drifting away to enter reincarnation. Yet because that Divine Sense was spread far too thin, it would gradually even reincarnate as all manner of different people.

This also meant that many gods could never return after falling, unless someone could gather every trace of their remaining Divine Sense scattered throughout the vast universe. But that required an immense amount of time.

Dear readers, please spare some recommendation votes and monthly votes. Your support is what motivates me to write.