Caelus felt his Meridians being forcibly widened, his bones groaning under the unbearable burden, and every cell trembling and tearing under the wash of energy, only to be forcibly repaired by the vitality contained within the snow lotus itself.
This process of destruction and rebirth intertwined, bringing pain that far exceeded death by a thousand cuts.
However, this was only the beginning.
Almost at the same time Caelus swallowed the snow lotus, the Ice Empress took one last look at Zhang Lexuan, who was leaning against the ice wall not far away, her breath weak but her gaze complex.
Confirming that this favored daughter of Shrek was indeed no threat at this moment and could not interfere, the last trace of hesitation in her eyes completely vanished, replaced by a resolve to burn her bridges.
"Roar—!"
A low hiss that seemed capable of freezing the Soul echoed through the ice cave; it wasn't a human voice, but the roar of an ancient Vicious Beast.
The Ice Empress's petite green-haired girl body suddenly erupted with a dazzling jade-green brilliance, and within that light, her form underwent a World-shaking transformation.
Her body expanded rapidly within the light, and in an instant, a magnificent yet infinitely menacing giant scorpion appeared before Caelus.
It was over one and a half meters long, its entire body carved from the purest green jade, crystal clear and reflecting the eerie blue light of the ice walls.
A long scorpion tail, like an emerald chain, was held high, its stinger flashing with a heart-stopping deep blue light, as if it had concentrated the ultimate cold and poison of the World.
Its entire body was covered in diamond-like protrusions, which were not decorations but natural armor formed by highly condensed Ultimate Ice.
Four scorpion pincers, looking as if they were crafted from diamonds, shimmered with a chilling light; the front pincers were relatively small, but the rear ones were exceptionally large and powerful.
This was the Ice Empress's true form, one of the true kings of the Extreme North Land, a super Soul Beast with a terrifying cultivation of three hundred and ninety thousand years—the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.
After revealing her true form, the Ice Empress did not pause.
Her giant, emerald-like compound eyes took a deep look at Caelus, carrying an inexpressibly complex emotion—there was the reluctance of letting go of hundreds of thousands of years of pride, the expectation for the future, and even more, a desperate trust.
The next moment, in the center of her forehead, a more brilliant, core-like jade-green rhombic crystal suddenly lit up. This was where her lifelong cultivation and Soul imprint resided—her mental Origin.
"Detach!"
Accompanied by a silent Soul-cry, that jade crystal violently detached from the forehead of her true form, turning into a fist-sized, extremely condensed jade-green light orb, inside of which countless ice crystals and snowflakes seemed to swirl and dance.
The moment the light orb detached, the Ice Empress's massive, art-like jade scorpion body seemed to instantly lose all its spirituality, turning dull and lifeless, standing frozen in place like the finest ice sculpture, while her life aura rapidly diminished like a candle in the wind.
And that jade-green light orb, like a swallow returning to its nest, accurately merged into the center of Caelus's brow.
...
Caelus's mental space.
The jade-green light orb transformed from the Ice Empress penetrated the boundaries of the flesh and broke into a Domain she had never imagined.
There was no Chaos mist or mental ocean common to an ordinary Soul Master's mental space; instead, there was a vast, deep, seemingly eternal starry sky.
Countless stars twinkled in the distance, and the flowing Milky Way adorned the darkness like a veil of gauze.
And in the very center of the starry sky, a massive temple, whose grandeur and antiquity were beyond words, floated suspended.
The temple was built entirely from a strange stone that was neither metal nor jade, shimmering with starlight and flowing light; its style was ancient and solemn, with giant stone pillars supporting a towering dome carved with countless extremely complex mysterious runes that seemed to explain the Origin and end of time.
The temple floated quietly in the Void Realm, as if it were the starting point of time and the end of all things.
A vast, boundless aura that looked down upon all living beings permeated every corner of the space.
"This... where is this?"
The jade-green light orb fluctuated violently, showing the extreme shock in the Ice Empress's heart.
She had lived for hundreds of thousands of years and seen the mental Worlds of countless experts. Even for a Limit Douluo, it was absolutely impossible for their mental space to be so magnificent, so... transcendent.
This didn't look like the mental World a human Spirit Ancestor should have at all.
Just as she was filled with suspicion and uncertainty, a calm, ethereal female voice, seemingly devoid of any human emotion, sounded ahead and to her side:
"Hello."
The Ice Empress "turned her head" abruptly, only to see a figure sitting quietly on the long stone steps made of starlight that led to the main hall of the temple.
It was a girl who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, her features so perfect she didn't seem Mortal. Her long silver-white hair was like flowing moonlight, scattered casually behind her, with bits of starlight shimmering at the tips.
She wore a simple yet mysterious white-gold gown, its hem like melting time, flowing over the steps.
Most striking were her eyes—a pair of golden eyes that seemed to contain the endless river of stars, the past, and the future; they were calm, deep, and carried an indifference that saw through all eternity.
She just sat there quietly, yet she seemed to be the sole center of the entire starry sky and this Temple of Time.
The mental fluctuations emanating from her were so condensed, vast, and of such a high level that the Ice Empress felt like a firefly before the bright moon, pitifully small.
This was absolutely not the mental force a human Soul Master could possess; this was... the power of a Divinity.
"Who are you?! Why are you in Caelus's mental space?!"
The Ice Empress instantly became highly alert, her jade-green light orb transforming into her human form as a green-haired girl. She took a defensive stance, her voice carrying an undisguisable fear.
"Don't worry, Ice Empress."
Just then, Caelus's familiar voice rang out in this mental starry sky with a hint of a gentle smile, smoothing over some of the Ice Empress's unease.
"Her name is Istaroth, the God of Moments. Well... like you, she is also a partner whose fate is linked to mine."
"God of Moments... Istaroth?"
The Ice Empress murmured the name, her jade eyes widening even further, filled with disbelief.
"A Divinity? You... you actually possess a God Position Legacy?!"
The shock in her heart was beyond measure.
Divinity, that was a supreme Realm that a Soul Beast could hardly reach even after a million years of Cultivation.
It was an existence that supposedly transcended the level of life.
Caelus, this human youth with only four rings, actually had a true Divinity living in his mental space? This simply overturned her hundreds of thousands of years of knowledge.
"A God Position Legacy?"
Caelus's voice carried a hint of subtle nuance.
"Though you might have misunderstood something... if you put it that way, it's not exactly wrong."
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