The agreement struck in the glacial canyon was a pact sealed not with words, but with the silent, immense weight of shared destiny. There was no hesitation. The Snow Empress, a being of serene and absolute power, simply nodded once, a gesture that conveyed both her gratitude and the gravity of her request.
"Follow me," she said, her voice the soft murmur of a winter wind.
She did not walk. She did not run. She simply drifted forward, and the world seemed to bend to her will. A path of shimmering, condensed snowflakes formed before them, a solid bridge of pure frost that extended into the vast, empty sky. As she stepped onto it, the bridge elongated, arrowing into the deepest, most untouched reaches of her domain.
Huo Yuhao and Jin Xi stepped onto the path behind her. The sensation was surreal. They were moving at a speed that would rival a soul-powered carriage, yet there was no wind, no jarring motion. They were simply gliding through the heavens, cocooned in the Snow Empress's tranquil power. It was a display of control so profound, so elegant, that Huo Yuhao finally understood why the mighty Di Tian, with his ability to tear holes in space itself, had spoken of her with such respect. Di Tian's power was a violent assertion of will over reality; hers was a gentle, absolute harmony with it.
They traveled for hours, crossing mountain ranges of solid ice and plains of pristine, eternal snow. Finally, the bridge of snowflakes began its gentle descent, leading them into a place hidden from the world, a secret sanctuary known only to the empress herself.
It was a valley, but unlike any Huo Yuhao could have ever imagined. It was nestled between three colossal, spire-like glaciers that acted as natural walls, shielding it from the howling winds of the north. The floor of the valley was not snow, but a soft, glowing moss that pulsed with a gentle, cool light. The air here was still and silent, filled with an ambient spiritual energy so pure and dense it felt like breathing liquid moonlight. In the center of the valley, a small, crystal-clear spring bubbled up, its water so cold it should have been solid ice, yet it flowed freely, radiating an aura of intense, pure life.
And growing on a small island in the very center of that spring was the treasure she had spoken of.
The Hundred-Thousand-Year-Old Snow Lotus.
It was a thing of impossible, ethereal beauty. It had nine large, crystalline petals that looked as if they were carved from the heart of a glacier, each one shimmering with a soft, internal luminescence. In the center of the bloom, a single, perfect stamen glowed with a light as pure and white as a newborn star. It was not just a plant; it was a miracle of nature, a heaven and earth treasure that had patiently absorbed the purest essence of the Extreme North for a hundred millennia.
"This is the place," the Snow Empress said, her voice holding a rare note of vulnerability as she gazed upon the lotus. "Here, I will make my attempt."
She gave them a final, solemn look. "The process will leave me utterly defenseless. My spirit will be focused entirely inward. Please, stand guard for me."
Huo Yuhao and Jin Xi both nodded, their expressions grave. "We will, Your Majesty," Huo Yuhao promised. "No harm will come to you."
With a final, grateful smile, the Snow Empress drifted to the edge of the spring. She did not pluck the lotus. Instead, she sat before it in a meditative posture, and as she began to draw upon its power, her own form began to glow, a soft white light that harmonized with the lotus's own. The transformation had begun.
Huo Yuhao immediately set to his own task. He sat down near the entrance of the valley, a strategic choke point, and closed his eyes. His Spiritual Detection bloomed outwards, a silent, invisible dome of perception. He pushed it to its absolute limits. In a straight line, his senses could stretch for over two hundred and fifty meters. In a circular field around him, it was a sphere of awareness with a diameter of one hundred and fifty meters. It was a formidable range, covering the entire valley and a significant portion of the surrounding glaciers. Nothing could approach without his knowledge.
The first few days of their vigil passed in a strange, tranquil peace. The Snow Empress remained a statue of glowing light, her aura pulsing in a slow, steady rhythm as she communed with the Snow Lotus. Jin Xi, her initial excitement tempered by the solemnity of their duty, would often sit beside Huo Yuhao, her chin resting on her knees as she watched the silent transformation.
To pass the time, they would eat the simple, preserved rations they had brought from Heaven Dou City. And to combat the profound silence, Huo Yuhao would often let his two bickering Soul Spirits out to roam.
The ethereal, translucent forms of the Ice Empress and Skydream Iceworm materialized in the cool air of the valley.
"Bingbing, my precious snowflake! My glacial goddess!" Skydream's spiritual form buzzed with a romantic energy that was completely out of place in the serene valley. He zipped around the Ice Empress's impassive form like an love-sick hummingbird. "Does this place not remind you of the beauty of your own soul? Cold, pure, and utterly magnificent! Just like you!"
The Ice Empress did not even deign to look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the glowing form of her sister, her spiritual face a mask of deep, sisterly concern.
"Be silent, you insufferable maggot," she said, her mental voice a spike of pure ice. "You are disturbing the tranquility."
"Disturbing? My darling, my voice is a symphony! A song of adoration for your unparalleled beauty!" Skydream swooped closer, attempting what could only be described as a spiritual nuzzle.
This proved to be a tactical error.
The Ice Empress's spiritual scorpion tail, sharp and deadly even in its ethereal form, snapped out with blinding speed. It struck Skydream squarely, sending him tumbling through the air with a pathetic, spiritual yelp.
Thwack!
He landed in a heap at Huo Yuhao's feet, his crystalline form flickering weakly.
"So cruel!" he wailed mentally. "To strike a heart so full of love! My Bingbing, your coldness only makes my passion burn brighter!"
"Then perhaps I should extinguish it," she retorted flatly.
This scene repeated itself daily, a bizarre and hilarious comedy routine playing out against a backdrop of divine transformation. Skydream would profess his undying love with increasingly flowery and ridiculous prose. The Ice Empress would respond with cold insults and a swift, painful sting from her tail.
Huo Yuhao and Jin Xi would watch from the sidelines, their quiet chuckles the only sound breaking the valley's peace.
"He is remarkably persistent," Jin Xi commented one afternoon, watching Skydream get flicked away like a piece of lint.
Huo Yuhao sighed, a fond exasperation in his voice. "You have no idea. His love for her is… boundless. And apparently, so is his tolerance for pain."
But amidst the comedy, there were moments of quiet gravity. The Ice Empress would spend hours simply watching her sister, her usual cold pride replaced by a raw, naked worry.
"She will be alright, won't she, Yuhao?" she asked him one day, her voice softer than he had ever heard it.
"She will," he replied with a confidence he truly felt. "She has the Snow Lotus, and she has us. She will succeed."
His reassurance seemed to comfort her, and she would return to her silent, sisterly vigil.
It was during one of these quiet moments that Jin Xi, her ruby eyes narrowed in thought as she studied the Snow Empress's glowing form, voiced an observation.
"Her origin energy… it feels strange," she said to Huo Yuhao. "It is vast, powerful, purer than anything I have ever sensed. But there is a flaw. A wound, deep within its core. It feels… incomplete."
She tapped a finger against her chin. "Di Tian once spoke of a cultivation method for beasts who reach a certain level. The Yin Yang Complement. It requires two cultivators of opposite attributes to merge their cores, creating a perfect, balanced whole that can break through the world's shackles. He said he had attempted it and succeeded. It seems the Snow Empress tried something similar… and failed."
A look of pity crossed her beautiful face. "That must be why she is not confident in facing her heavenly tribulation. Her origin is damaged. But with the power of this Snow Lotus… she can not only heal that wound, but use its essence to complete her transformation. She is very fortunate."
She let out a soft sigh. "It is a pity, though. Once she becomes human, so much of her accumulated origin, the power she can't take with her, will remain here. It will just… slowly dissipate back into the world over the next few centuries. A terrible waste of power."
Huo Yuhao listened, his expression thoughtful. A waste of power. The words echoed in his mind.
It was then that a new voice, ancient and calm, spoke directly within his Spiritual Sea.
'Disciple.'
It was Elder Yi.
'Teacher!' Huo Yuhao responded, surprised. 'I thought you were in deep meditation.'
'I was,' the ancient necromancer's voice replied. 'But the energy of this place, the sheer potency of that transforming spirit… it is a banquet for a recovering soul like my own. It has roused me. And I have been listening to your companion's words. She is correct. It would be a profound waste.'
A new, electrifying idea began to form in Huo Yuhao's mind.
'Teacher, you don't mean…'
'Indeed,' Elder Yi confirmed, his voice holding a hint of what might have been academic excitement. 'My creation of the Soul Spirit system in your future self's timeline was indeed something new for this world, but it was born of a desperate, final act. It was incomplete. A first draft. The true potential of my holy necromantic arts, the art of binding and preserving the soul, goes much further.'
Huo Yuhao's mental breath caught in his throat.
'Once the Snow Empress has completed her transformation and her consciousness has stabilized in her new human form,' Elder Yi explained, his plan unfolding with a calm, terrifying genius, 'her connection to her vast, leftover origin energy will be severed. It will become ownerless. At that moment, I will require you to lend me your body once more. I will use my own arts, amplified by your Soul Power, to gather that immense, dissipating origin. I will not absorb it for myself. I will condense it, purify it, and seal it within your Spiritual Sea.'
Huo Yuhao's mind reeled with the implications.
'And when you reach the bottleneck of Soul Rank 30,' his teacher finished, 'when you require your third Soul Ring, I will use that sealed origin, the very essence of the Snow Empress, and I will forge for you a third Soul Spirit.'
The idea was beyond audacious. It was a violation of the known laws of cultivation. The book of fate had never mentioned such a possibility. But as Huo Yuaho thought about it, he realized why.
'In my future version's life,' he thought, a sense of awe washing over him, 'Teacher Yi sacrificed himself to create the very first Soul Spirit from the Snow Empress. That was his final, greatest act. He never had the chance to refine the method, to evolve it.'
This was not a contradiction of the book. This was his teacher, alive and well, continuing his life's work, pushing the boundaries of his own creation. This was a new variable. A new path.
'I understand, Teacher,' Huo Yuhao replied, his voice filled with an unshakeable trust. 'I will be ready.'
The days continued to crawl by. The transformation was a slow, arduous process. Unlike Jin Xi's explosive, four-day metamorphosis, the Snow Empress's was a delicate, week-long reconstruction of a wounded soul.
On the eighth day, as the first rays of dawn touched the crystalline peaks of the valley, Huo Yuhao, deep in his meditative watch, felt it.
His eyes snapped open.
His Spiritual Detection, his silent, invisible sentinel, screamed a warning.
It was not one presence. It was six.
Six powerful auras, moving with a speed and purpose that spoke of immense power, were closing in on their valley. They were like six burning stars against the cold, quiet backdrop of the North. Each one pulsed with the unmistakable, overwhelming pressure of a Titled Douluo.
And they were heading straight for them.
It was impossible. This valley was a secret, hidden place. For them to come here, with such direct intent… they had to have some method of detecting the unique energy signature of a hundred-thousand-year-old beast undergoing transformation. They had come to hunt.
"Titled Douluo...They are heading here."
His voice was a low, urgent whisper, but it cut through the morning silence like a blade.
Jin Xi, who had been dozing lightly, was on her feet in an instant, the Golden Dragon Spear materializing in her hand, her sleepy demeanor replaced by the cold, deadly focus of a warrior queen.
The spiritual forms of the Ice Empress and Skydream appeared beside him, their playful bickering forgotten.
"What?!" Skydream buzzed, his spiritual form radiating a furious energy. "Humans?! Here?! Now?! Are you kidding me?! They dare interrupt my quality time with my beloved Bingbing? Unforgivable!"
The Ice Empress said nothing, but a killing frost, so cold it made the air around her spiritual form crackle, emanated from her. Her glacial eyes were fixed on the direction of the approaching threat, her full, protective fury now aimed not at Skydream, but at the intruders who dared to threaten her sister at her most vulnerable moment.
"Six of them," Huo Yuhao reported, his mind racing as he analyzed the data from his Spiritual Detection. "All Titled Douluo. They are moving fast. They will be upon us in hours."
Jin Xi let out a sharp, dismissive snort, though her knuckles were white where she gripped her divine spear. "Hmph. A pack of greedy old men, no doubt, drawn by the smell of a great treasure. They are fools to have come here."
Her ruby eyes met Huo Yuhao's, a fire of grim resolve burning within them. "Snow Empress is at the most critical phase. We cannot let them disturb her. We hold them off. No matter the cost."
She looked at the small pouch at her waist, where the parting gifts from their family were stored. "We will have to use them. The claw, the binding scale, all of it. And if it comes to it," her gaze hardened, "we will not hesitate to use Di Tian's scale. We are not strong enough to win against Titled Douluo yet."
The Ice Empress nodded in grim agreement, her spiritual form solidifying with killing intent. Skydream, for once, was all business, his usual bravado replaced by a serious, protective fury.
They were outnumbered, outmatched, facing six of the powerful beings in the human world. But they stood as one, a thin, determined line before the glowing light of the transforming empress.