Word Count: 3,318 Words
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Pale light filtered down into the cave of Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence, scattering the close, sweat-damp warmth and thinning the heady scent that still clung to the air. Everything had settled into a quiet, drowsy stillness.
Two figures lay across a bed of crystalline ice. The Snow Empress's lovely face was flushed deep rose, her snow-white hair spread in glorious disarray while she drifted through the lingering afterglow. At her waist and hips, a pair of hands went on making mischief, tracing idle paths along her curves.
Several minutes passed before those beautiful sky-blue eyes regained their focus. She shot the handsome young man a glare equal parts shy and reproachful, her voice still ragged with a barely suppressed pant:
"This Empress knew you were up to no good!"
"Of course. I finally got what I wanted. From now on, you won't be running away."
Ling Bai drew her closer, his heated breath spilling across the curve of her neck. His gaze traveled slowly over that perfect body. Her skin was so white it seemed to glow against the ice, calling to mind a snow-colored rose in full bloom, thorns and petals layered one over another around the soft heart within.
"Who cares about you."
The Snow Empress's expression stayed cold, but the smile hiding in her eyes betrayed every word. They had known each other for six years. She had watched him grow from a weak Spirit Master into the Holy Evil Douluo whose name now shook the world.
She knew Ling Bai far too well. The smallest shift in his manner was enough for her to sense the restlessness stirring behind it.
She had regained a body of her own, and the Three Great Beasts finally had real hope of breaking through. Two joys arriving at once, more than enough cause to celebrate. And it was not as though she harbored no feelings for Ling Bai herself.
As the sovereign who had ruled the Extreme North for hundreds of thousands of years, she was decisive by nature. Once she set her mind to something, she followed through, so she had simply gone along with the current and given him exactly what he wanted.
I know your heart harbors improper thoughts. You know I was only pretending to resist.
Within the cave of Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence, the two of them explored the origin of life together.
Ling Bai, humble representative of the human race, offered his deeply considered verdict afterward: the spirit of heaven and earth born of the Extreme North was exquisitely smooth!
The Snow Empress was a study in contrasts. Beneath that body of eternal frost hid a blaze fierce enough to crack glaciers, and the collision of ice and fire, cold yielding to searing heat and back again, was the kind of intoxication that dissolved all thought.
Halftime ended. 'Little Bai' rose to the occasion once more, standing tall and proud, and Ling Bai's fingertips began a slow ascent from her cold, pale calf. Just before he could breach forbidden territory, she seized his wrist.
"Stop it. Not a shred of tenderness in you. I'm sore all over. No more."
"All right, all right. We'll rest."
Ling Bai reined in his considerable enthusiasm and tucked the loose strands from her brow behind her ear. This ruler of ice and snow had observed more than enough live demonstrations over the years and possessed astonishingly rich theoretical experience. When theory finally met practice, the results had been smooth, exhilarating, and breathtakingly thorough.
Which had, in turn, drawn out Ling Bai at his absolute fullest, so much so that the Snow Empress, with all her seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, had been forced to hang up the white flag.
"Come with me to the Extreme North," the Snow Empress said softly. "Bing'er, Ah Tai, and Xiao... Xiao Pang will trigger their heavenly tribulations once they absorb the Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence. We need to guard them through it."
"Mm."
Ling Bai had no objection. Dragon City and the Extreme North were practically neighbors, and a small request like this cost him nothing.
"Now that you have a body again, you should start condensing Yin-Yang Complement Twin Spirit Cores. It's time you formally stepped into the Limit Douluo realm."
"I..."
The Snow Empress pressed her reddened lips together, and obvious hesitation surfaced in her beautiful eyes. "The Evil Emperor's spatial understanding has benefited me greatly, and my foundation is more than sufficient.
The Heavenly Snow Woman is the daughter of the Extreme North, and this land is the natural environment best suited to me. If I attempt a second spirit core, I'll have to enter seclusion here for some time..."
"So what you're trying to say is that seclusion means you can't stay with me?"
Ling Bai saw straight through her unspoken meaning, and amusement flickered across his face.
Her thoughts laid bare so bluntly, the Snow Empress's cheeks flared crimson. She huffed and rolled away, refusing to look at that insufferably smug grin.
Ling Bai wrapped an arm around her slender, supple waist and breathed in the clean, frost-cold fragrance of her hair. "Snow Empress, we're both independent people. Being together means walking forward side by side. You can't hold back your own growth for my sake.
You've already failed once, so you have the experience. And you watched me condense Yin-Yang Complement Twin Spirit Cores with your own eyes. A year, a year and a half at most, and you'll succeed. Come find me in Nine Treasure City when you're done.
Unless... you can't even bear one year apart? Is that it, my lovesick little Xue'er?"
"Ling Bai, I'll bite you to death!!!"
That one line detonated her completely. She whipped around and sank her teeth into him, then flipped over and pinned him beneath her. Staring down with the frigid contempt of a queen regarding something scraped off her boot, she left no room for negotiation:
"This Empress has recovered. Again!"
"As you command."
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
"Ah—"
"Mmph!"
"Ling Bai—!"
Outside the cave, the Bone Dragon King squatted at the entrance with a massive lump of Divine Ice Crystal clutched to its chest, enduring wave after wave of biting cold from every direction. It let out a long, aggrieved sigh that fogged the frozen air.
You two, stop going at it already!
Can someone send me home first?!
This dragon is freezing to death out here!
Round two concluded with the Snow Empress thoroughly filled, utterly satisfied, and completely spent. Only then did the pair leave the Earthdragon Sect and take flight toward the Extreme North.
Snow blanketed the endless mountain ranges like nature's most exquisite sculpture. Under the moonlight the peaks gleamed silver, each one draped in a veil of quiet mystery.
They entered the Extreme North's core region without obstruction, and the Snow Empress tugged Ling Bai down to the ground. In her own words, she wanted to walk through the land she loved with the person she loved.
Snowflakes drifted down and laid a soft, pure carpet beneath their feet. Each breath condensed into a small cloud of white mist in the freezing air.
With every step they left a trail of interwoven footprints behind them. The snow, with its own quiet magic, preserved those marks perfectly. They were proof of a path walked together, traces of shared time pressed into the world.
As they walked, Ling Bai gradually fell a step behind until he stood directly at her back, both hands resting lightly on her shoulders.
They stopped and looked back together at the long trail stretching away. Some prints deep, some shallow, some straight, some winding, two lines tracing across the snow until, at some point, they merged into one.
The instant she turned her head, the Snow Empress went still. From some moment she could not quite identify, Ling Bai had begun stepping exactly into her footprints, one after another, as though walking the very road she had walked.
"For the next seven hundred thousand years, let's walk on together."
Those golden eyes were warm and limpid, shining with a light that reached all the way to the depths of her heart. A flowerlike smile bloomed across her breathtaking face, and her gaze overflowed with tenderness.
"All right."
Their hands clasped tightly, and then their lips met. These beautiful moments were like the footprints in the snow. Even buried under fresh drifts, they would leave a permanent mark upon the heart.
"Bastard human, what are you doing!!!"
A storm of ice and snow erupted in the distance. The Ice Jade Scorpion Empress, the Ice Devil Titan King, and the Ice Bear King, the Three Great Beasts of the Extreme North, came racing over in answer to the Snow Empress's summons.
From a hundred miles out, the Ice Empress caught sight of the two lost in each other. Wind howled beneath her feet as she threw off the other two beasts and charged ahead alone, her voice shrill with the grief of a cuckoo weeping blood:
"Stop that! No kissing allowed!!!"
She shifted into human form, a twin-tailed little girl with tears already brimming in her eyes, and swung the Ice Empress' Pincer with everything she had straight at Ling Bai's kidney. Those pristine lips, unkissed for seven hundred thousand years, were being utterly claimed by that bastard human!
Ling Bai did not even turn his head. He caught her fist with one hand and gave it a casual push, and the Ice Empress stumbled back three steps before landing rump-first in a snowdrift, helpless to do anything but watch the hazy, intimate warmth shimmering in the Snow Empress's eyes. She had never once seen that look before!
"Xue'er is ruined..."
The Ice Empress petrified where she sat, as though struck by Medusa's Gaze. In an anime, she would have cracked neatly down the middle into two perfect halves!
Ling Bai glanced at the furious twin-tailed loli from the corner of his eye and wondered, with wicked amusement, whether she would drop dead of a heart attack on the spot if she ever learned that her precious, beloved Snow Empress had been bent over and railed standing up.
"Mom/Snow Empress!"
The Ice Bear King and the Ice Devil Titan King finally caught up. They bowed respectfully to the Snow Empress first, then turned and bowed to Ling Bai as well.
By now, what was there left to misunderstand? The Snow Empress had fallen headfirst into love and become a human's willing captive!
The Snow Empress pushed Ling Bai aside and cleared her throat, reclaiming the majesty befitting the lord of the Extreme North:
"I have returned this time for one matter alone, to help you survive your great tribulations."
The bracelet slipped from her wrist on its own and transformed back into fifteen pillars of Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence. She divided them evenly, five to each beast.
"Ling Bai has been worried about your heavenly tribulations and went out of his way to find this Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence for you. You must not let his good intentions go to waste."
He was the companion she had chosen, so naturally she wanted to praise him before her family and subordinates and make him easier for all of them to accept.
"Thank you, Mom! Thank you, Dad!"
The Ice Bear King called it out without a moment's hesitation, and the Ice Devil Titan King followed right behind with his own heartfelt thanks. The Ice Empress hemmed and hawed for a long while, her gaze darting back and forth between Ling Bai and the ice essence. In the end the temptation proved too great, and she squeezed a stiff, grudging "Thank you" out through clenched teeth.
One could not lose both the fish and the bear's paw. The Snow Empress was already gone, but the heavenly tribulation still had to be survived. Otherwise there would not even be a chance to steal her back!
The Three Great Beasts sat down and began absorbing the Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence while Ling Bai and the Snow Empress stood guard. The Ice Empress possessed the deepest cultivation and finished first, which naturally drew down her 400,000-year heavenly tribulation.
To spare the Extreme North's environment from devastation, she rushed toward its outer reaches. The tribulation brewed overhead and the entire sky turned oppressively dark. Thick clouds gathered and roiled, and streaks of lightning wove through them in a crackling web.
The crushing pressure forced countless spirit beasts across the Extreme North flat against the ground. Only those above a hundred thousand years dared roar into the thunder, defying that towering might.
A bolt crashed down and struck the Ice Empress squarely on the head. She reverted to her true Ice Jade Scorpion Empress form and roared up at the storm. Ice Empress' Armor erupted across her body, hexagonal diamond crystals encasing her frame as both front pincers slammed upward into the descending lightning.
"Heh, doesn't even hurt!"
The Manifold Mysterious Ice Essence truly lived up to its name. Rich energy flooded the Ice Empress's body. Bolt after bolt rained down, and she relied on the raw, terrifying physique of a spirit beast to push her Ultimate Ice spirit power to its absolute limit. A shield materialized above her and held the tribulation steady.
Confidence surging, she sent a massive jade-green pillar of light blasting skyward and slammed it into the tribulation clouds. In an instant a world of ice and snow spread for thousands of feet around the beam. Snowflakes whirled through the air as the temperature plunged.
Ice Empress's Wrath!
"She's really getting full of herself..."
Ling Bai and the Snow Empress exchanged exasperated glances. Why on earth was the Ice Empress provoking a heavenly tribulation?!
The tribulation clouds took offense. Their color deepened to an ominous black, and spherical bolts of world-ending thunder came crashing down one after another, venting a full measure of wrath upon her. The Ice Empress went pale with fright. The tribulation had thrown all sense of fair play out the window, escalating in a single breath past even the Snow Empress's 500,000-year tribulation!
"Xue'er, save me!"
The Snow Empress pressed her fingers to her brow, but Ling Bai patted the back of her hand before she could move. She had only just regained her body and still needed to condense her Yin-Yang Complement Twin Spirit Cores, so spending her strength here was unwise.
High above, the Ice Empress fled in utter panic, dodging furious bolts left and right. A brilliant golden holy sword materialized in midair and swept a single clean horizontal stroke toward the clouds.
The tribulation that had driven the Ice Empress to the brink shattered into countless fragments beneath that one slash, and beneath Ling Bai's feet the Evileye Tyrant Emperor's white-gold spirit ring blazed with dazzling brilliance.
The Ice Empress dropped back to the ground, still shaken, guilt written plainly across her face. She was just weighing whether to thank Ling Bai for saving her life when he tilted his head and gave her a thin, disdainful smile:
"Tiny chest, huge temper, lousy strength."
Critical hit!
"You... you... you, I'll fight you to the death!!!"
The Ice Empress was so furious she nearly converted to the fire attribute on the spot. She hurled herself at Ling Bai with everything she had. Two and a half seconds later, the 400,000-year Ice Jade Scorpion Empress lay effortlessly pinned beneath Holy Evil Douluo.
With the Ice Empress serving as a textbook example of what not to do, the Ice Bear King and the Ice Devil Titan King wisely behaved themselves. They endured their tribulations without incident and evolved into 300,000-year Great Beasts.
The Three Great Beasts returned to their respective territories, and Ling Bai and the Snow Empress made for her residence, the Snow Empress Palace.
Joy radiated from her with every step. All three Great Beasts had survived their tribulations and would live at least another hundred thousand years. Even in her absence the Extreme North would remain peaceful and safe, and the weight she had carried on her shoulders for so long finally lifted.
The Snow Empress Palace stood atop a ten-thousand-year glacier deep in the Extreme North's core region, grand and beautiful enough to leave any living creature awestruck.
Ice formed its walls and snow its tiles, and every brick shimmered with a cold, crystalline light. The great gate had been carved from ten-thousand-year profound ice and engraved with the wonders of this land, the sunlight of polar day and the stars of polar night, glacial fissures and spirit beasts roaming the snowy plains, as though recounting the ancient legends of a kingdom of frost.
The interior was more magnificent still. Ice pillars hung from the vaulted dome, catching dim light and scattering it into shifting scrolls of radiance and shadow across the floor. A thin layer of frost covered the ground, and every footstep drew out a crisp, ringing note, like the song of ice spirits at play.
The Snow Empress Palace belonged to the Snow Empress alone. Even the Ice Empress, second sovereign of the Extreme North, could not set foot inside without permission. The icy doors swung open, and the two entered side by side.
To Ling Bai's surprise, the first thing she did upon entering was produce a small white flower with a pitch-black stone attached beneath it.
"Yearning Heartbroken Red." A faint smile touched her lips. "Do you remember? There were two Yearning Heartbroken Reds at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. I took the second one while you weren't paying attention."
"I know," Ling Bai said.
A plant that size, how oblivious would one have to be to miss it? He had simply chosen to say nothing. No matter how close two people were, getting along still required understanding the art of leaving certain things unsaid.
She took it, so she took it. The Snow Empress mattered more than any Yearning Heartbroken Red. That was all there was to it.
A wistful look crossed the Snow Empress's face. "Back then I hadn't recognized my own feelings, so I meant to use it to confirm my heart.
And I was a little afraid. What if my love wasn't as steadfast as I imagined? What would I have done then...?"
"Then plant it here in the Extreme North," Ling Bai said with a light laugh. "No matter what happens, whether the Yearning Heartbroken Red falls or not, you belong to me.
When the day comes that you've truly made up your mind, you can test it in secret."
"I really don't know what to do with you..."
That was what she said, yet she knelt down and carefully planted the Yearning Heartbroken Red in the center of the great hall.
"I'm going into seclusion now. The moment I condense my Yin-Yang Complement Twin Spirit Cores, the first thing I'll do is come to Nine Treasure City to find you."
Ling Bai nodded, and then his expression changed without warning. The Snow Empress rushed to steady him, her voice sharp with concern:
"What's wrong? Are you all right?"
"A sudden unease. Like a warning from the power of destiny." Ling Bai gripped her hand tightly.
"Only one place could pull a reaction like this out of me. The Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Clan!
Something has happened at the clan. I'm going back. Now!"
…
Heavenly Soul Empire. Nine Treasure City.
"Eldest Uncle, Second Uncle. We've arrived."
Tang Wutong gazed down coldly upon the bustling city below. Beside her stood Niu Tian, Tai Tan, and eight Titled Douluo with Clear Sky Hammers resting across their shoulders. Behind them, dozens of seven-ringed and eight-ringed Clear Sky Clan disciples hung motionless in the open sky.
Niu Tian, Great Sect Master of the Clear Sky Clan, drew a slow, deep breath and roared:
"All members of the Clear Sky Clan, kill!"