"You finally came."
With light, graceful steps, the Snow Empress approached Lin Qian.
Her gaze swept over them in turn, and only when it reached the Ice Empress on his left shoulder did she show a hint of surprise. "Bing'er, what happened to you?"
The Ice Empress gave Lin Qian a look, then slipped into award-winning actress mode and let out a long sigh. "It's a long story..."
She embellished the account, stressing all the benefits of Sacrifice plus Lin Qian's talent as she recounted what had happened, then even added her own reflections at the end.
The Snow Empress initially listened in silence. Only when she heard that Lin Qian had rank-eighty innate soul power, his first martial soul was a body martial soul, he was Spirit Hall's Saint Son (that part could be disregarded), and he possessed the God of Eternity's inheritance (a name he had previously made up to fool Bibi Dong) did she truly take him seriously, her eyes finally gaining focus.
Yes, that was right. The Snow Empress hadn't given Lin Qian a second thought at first. Only with a deity's halo around him did the youth finally become worthy of her regard.
It had nothing to do with romance. She merely wanted to forge a favorable connection and gain another source of help for breaking through her seven-hundred-thousand-year tribulation in the future.
But someone who firmly held the foremost seat among the Far North Heavenly Kings naturally had unquestionable strength, and her brains were top-notch too, roughly equivalent to-
Snow Empress = Tian Meng + Ice Empress + Titan Snow Demon King
After hearing Lin Qian out, she didn't immediately state her position. Instead, she asked, "Since you already have a divine trial, why do you still need soul beasts to offer themselves in Sacrifice?" As she spoke, she glanced at the Ice Empress, who was already a soul spirit.
She had noticed this human back when Lin Qian was riding his motorcycle through the snow and had sent Snow Spirits plus A-Tai to watch him.
Even when they later lost his trail, she hadn't taken it to heart. After all, the Three Great Heavenly Kings were invincible in the Far North. Ordinary people came but never returned.
Yet this human had not only survived, but even talked the Ice Empress into offering herself in Sacrifice.
What remarkable ability!
At this point, the Snow Empress wasn't troubled by a heavenly tribulation, so naturally she wouldn't fail to take human form and become an embryo as she had in the original story. Lin Qian was even less inclined to try sweet-talking her, lest she beat him straight into his next reincarnation!
Since underhanded schemes wouldn't work, he would use the finest open stratagem instead!
"I mean no harm. I came here only to ask you to consider... would you rather endure unknown heavenly tribulations, or follow a deity and ascend to become an immortal?"
Would you like to ride a rocket or pilot a spaceship?
To the Snow Empress, his words probably sounded something like that.
She laughed aloud. "Are you so certain you'll become a god? What if you fail?"
"He won't fail!"
It was the Ice Empress who spoke.
As his strongest current investor, she was the last person who wanted Lin Qian to fail. Besides the prospect of a failed investment, there was another reason: he was now the man she loved.
Seeing the fervor in her eyes, the Snow Empress shifted her exquisite gaze, her ice-blue pupils breathtaking.
"Bing'er, there's no need to rush. I never said I would refuse."
The Ice Empress was overjoyed. "Then you agree?"
The Snow Empress smiled without answering.
Lin Qian understood. "You want to test me?"
The Snow Empress said, "That's right. If you want my soul ring, you'll need strength. I also happen to want to see just how outstanding someone with a deity's inheritance really is!"
Lin Qian said, "In that case, Ice Empress, Tian Meng, go wait in my Sea of Consciousness!"
"Wait." The Snow Empress interrupted him. "The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm can do as he pleases. Bing'er stays."
Then she explained, "Give me your spiritual origin."
The Ice Empress froze, then was horrified. "You want to... no, you can't! Someone could die!"
The Snow Empress remained unmoved. "I told you, obtaining a soul ring requires paying a price!"
He didn't know what cryptic exchange the two were having, but as long as she was willing to discuss it, there were plenty of opportunities.
Lin Qian interrupted. "I understand. No matter how difficult the road ahead may be, I'll face the challenges head-on. Please!"
Soul beasts had battle-loving instincts in their bones. Male or female, none of them liked dithering. Seeing how straightforward he was, the Snow Empress's favorability leaped from zero straight to the verge of a passing grade.
And the reason it hadn't crossed that threshold was, of course, that they hadn't fought yet.
In the world of soul beasts, reason meant nothing; only fists did the talking. Without the strength to conquer them, everything was empty talk.
Had she not sensed the Ice Empress's aura, she wouldn't even have bothered meeting him. She would simply have had him beaten and thrown out-meet the Titan Snow Demon King.
"Are you ready?"
A little while later, the Snow Empress asked one final time.
Once she started fighting, she would never stop unless her opponent conceded. Partial paralysis was the mildest possible outcome.
The Titan Snow Demon King, who had lain flat for a thousand years: indeed.
"Spiritual Chains!"
Lin Qian answered with action instead of words. His Million-Year Soul Ring shone, and his first soul skill came online.
Invisible chains swept in from every direction, winding toward her hands and feet.
With her formidable strength, the Snow Empress naturally wouldn't follow in Qian Renxue's footsteps, having her limbs bound and dying of embarrassment on the spot.
She raised her delicate hand and flicked it gently. A tornado instantly formed in her palm, not only shattering the chains but sending the residual force surging toward him.
Fighting wasn't playing house. This time, she didn't wait, following one strike with another. "Xue Wu Shining Sun!"
Sword and palm made the heavens icy and the snow cold: Emperor Sword, Emperor's Palm, Emperor's Cold Heaven.
Those two lines specifically described the Snow Empress's three supreme arts. What she had just unleashed was one of them, a domain soul skill.
The air temperature plunged to minus two hundred degrees. The sky, cloudless a second earlier, instantly filled with howling, bitter winds and snow dancing in swirling gusts.
Goose-feather-sized snowflakes raged wildly, immediately robbing Lin Qian of his ability to see.
If he couldn't see, then he wouldn't look. Lin Qian's first soul ring continued to shine. "Ice Silkworm's Gaze!"
The phantom of the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm appeared behind him. Dazzling golden light shot from its forehead, ignoring the wind and snow and piercing the Snow Empress's defenses in a single strike!
"Great Cold Without Snow!"
The second of her three supreme arts, Emperor's Palm, activated.
This skill had one prerequisite: she could only strike her opponent with her palm. In other words-
The Snow Empress was coming!
The moment that ice-blue soul power, carrying wind and snow, drew close, Lin Qian sensed immense danger. Intimate contact with a beauty was certainly delightful, but he had to be alive to enjoy it.
He released his body martial soul and thrust out his own palm, meeting hers in midair. "Palm of the Tathagata!"
Bang!
Their palms collided. Wind and snow howled across the heavens, annihilating everything within a hundred li.
Yet compared with the blizzard raging within those hundred li, the center of the storm was surprisingly calm.
Great Cold Without Snow and Palm of the Tathagata canceled each other out, neither victorious nor defeated.
"Emperor Sword: Ice Extreme Peerless!"
Her final supreme art came. A longsword formed from ice crystals condensed out of thin air, gleaming with unparalleled might.
Wherever its sword light passed, cracks appeared in the air, as though the entire space had frozen into ice before being cleaved apart by the sword.
"Hell Demon Flame Sword!"
His second soul ring shone, and the skill of the Three-Headed Red Demon Hound Left Leg Bone activated at the same time. With a slight adjustment from Lin Qian, a fire sword formed from the two overlapping powers instantly condensed and headed straight for the ice sword.
The clash between ultimate fire and ultimate ice was still evenly matched.
Sensing that Lin Qian was holding something back, the Snow Empress was rather displeased and began mobilizing both her own origin and the origin she had requested from the Ice Empress.
Standing in midair, she said, "You'd better be careful with this next strike-Pride of the Ice and Snow Emperors!"