The Spirit Ability 'This Moment, That Moment' had completely transcended the scope of spirit abilities. Even the divine skills of the gods in the God Realm, or even Super Divine Skills, would pale in comparison to its effects.
Thinking of Istaroth, who had not responded to him in the Sea of Consciousness, and sensing her slightly weakened aura, Caelus already knew how he had obtained this Spirit Ability.
No wonder Istaroth had said before that he would definitely obtain a Spirit Ability that could be useful in this Extreme North Land. It wasn't that she had actually read the script, but that she had personally stepped in to give him a cheat.
Thinking of this, Caelus felt a warmth in his heart. Although Istaroth usually ignored his pestering, she still cared about him.
Moving back in time, while Caelus was in the valley on the outskirts of the Extreme North, putting all his effort into absorbing and refining that ten-thousand-year spirit ring while Istaroth forcibly altered his Spirit Ability within his mental World...
...In the furthest, coldest depths of the Extreme North Ice Plain, an absolute forbidden zone shrouded in eternal wind and snow, a change capable of affecting the entire landscape of the Extreme North Land was quietly occurring.
This was a range of towering ice crystal mountains, seemingly built from eternal black ice, piercing straight into the hazy sky.
At the summit of the steepest and most solitary snow peak, there strangely existed a cold pool no more than a few meters in diameter.
The pool water was not liquid, but a solid essence of ultimate ice Qi so dense it wouldn't dissipate. It rose in a mist yet strangely remained condensed, like a magnificent gemstone embedded in the peak, constantly emitting forest-white cold smoke.
And in the center of this cold pool, a lotus flower, carved entirely from ice and snow, was quietly blooming.
It had no distinction between roots, stems, or leaves, as if it were an elemental spirit born naturally from this ultimate ice.
The petals were layered, showing a translucent snowy white, crystal clear, with what seemed like countless tiny fragments of ice-crystal starlight slowly flowing within.
At the heart of the lotus, a soft and pure ice-blue halo pulsed slightly, like a sleeping heart. With every pulse, it drew the ice elements in the surrounding heaven and earth into a joyful dance, emitting a refreshing yet bone-chilling exotic fragrance.
This was precisely a treasure of heaven and earth—the hundred thousand year snow lotus.
By the side of the cold pool, an exquisite white figure stood quietly.
She wore a long dress that seemed woven from the drifting snow, its hem moving without wind, rippling with layers of ice crystal waves.
Her ankle-length silver-white hair was like a flowing waterfall of moonlight, dancing wildly in the wind and snow, with fine frost seemingly condensed between the strands.
Her skin was even more translucent and white than the ten-thousand-year black ice. Her features were refined beyond the limits of what Mortal ink could describe. Between her brows resided the eternal cold and solitude of the Extreme North Ice Plain, and her ice-blue eyes, clear as lakes deep within a glacier, reflected the purest snow of heaven and earth, yet were so deep they seemed to contain seventy-thousand years of vicissitudes.
She was the undisputed monarch of this vast Extreme North Land, ranked third among the Ten Great Vicious Beasts, possessing a terrifying cultivation of nearly seven hundred thousand years—the Snow Empress.
At this moment, this peerlessly cold goddess, who seemed like an Incarnation of ice and snow, leaned forward slightly, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on the hundred thousand year snow lotus in the cold pool.
Deep within those eyes, which were usually as calm as an ancient well, a rare and extremely complex ripple surfaced. There was longing, determination, and also an imperceptible... trepidation.
This hundred thousand year snow lotus was a great Opportunity she had accidentally discovered here a hundred years ago.
Although it had not birthed sentience, the essence of heaven and earth and the ice-system Origin it contained were unimaginably vast, possessing many incredible effects.
The point that most captivated the Snow Empress was recorded in ancient texts: it could potentially help Vicious Beasts who had long surpassed the hundred-thousand-year limit to break the rules of heaven and earth and undergo Transformation.
Transforming into a human is a massive gamble for a One Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Beast. It is a choice to shed the beast body and embrace a human form, pursuing the ethereal path to godhood in another shape.
But the price is equally immense—they will lose their powerful cultivation, comparable to a Titled Douluo, and their nearly endless lifespan, becoming a weak human starting from scratch. Furthermore, if they cannot Breakthrough to the Divine Rank within a hundred years, they will die of old age like a Mortal.
Because of this, very few One Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Beasts choose this thorny path, and those who do mostly perish amidst the perils of the human World.
For someone like the Snow Empress, whose cultivation had reached nearly seven hundred thousand years, logically speaking, she had long since lost the possibility of Transformation. Her path was only to continuously face increasingly terrifying Heavenly Tribulations until she was reduced to ashes under the Lightning Tribulation, or by some fluke, survive and charge toward the million-year threshold.
But this hundred thousand year snow lotus gave her an unprecedented glimmer of hope.
It might be able to protect most of her Origin power, allowing her to retain considerable self-defense capabilities after Transformation instead of starting from zero.
For the Snow Empress, who was about to face her seventh Heavenly Tribulation and felt her hopes of surviving were slim, this was undoubtedly a bright lamp in the dark, a silver lining in a desperate situation.
Transforming into a human meant an uncertain future, but it was still better than being completely turned to ash under the Heavenly Tribulation.
She longed to live, to see that vast World occupied by humans that was said to be brilliant and diverse, and even more, she longed to pursue that legendary, unreachable... God Realm.
"Ice Empress..."
The Snow Empress silently recited that name in her heart.
For such an important matter, she needed an absolutely trusted powerhouse to act as her Protector.
Among the three heavenly kings of the far north, the Ice Empress, who had accompanied her for hundreds of thousands of years, was her only choice.
She had made up her mind. After a little preparation, she would go find the Ice Empress, then return here to refine the snow lotus and fight for that chance at life.
However, just at the moment when the Snow Empress's mind was racing, filled with both expectation and anxiety for the future—
A sudden change occurred.
Her ice-blue eyes suddenly became as sharp as ten-thousand-year ice, and the aura around her, which had been restrained like a sleeping glacier, exploded violently.
An invisible pressure, like a physical tsunami, swept out with her as the center, instantly clearing away the howling wind and snow at the summit, forming a Domain of absolute silence and absolute cold.
"Who is it?!"
A cold shout, like an ice blade slicing through frozen air, carried a chilling killing intent.
Following her voice, the space around the Snow Empress began to distort and fluctuate unnaturally, like a stone being thrown into a calm lake.
In the next moment, figures cloaked in heavy black robes with cold, deathly auras stepped out from the Void Realm like ghosts.
One, two, three... a total of sixteen figures.
They silently surrounded the Snow Empress. Their positions seemed casual, yet they vaguely aligned with some profound formation, blocking all her possible escape routes.
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