Snow Empress fixed a cold gaze upon Huo Yuhao, her eyes narrowed. "So you're the human. How....unexpected, you're quite young. And not at the level of cultivation I had expected, although you do have an impressive level of spiritual power. But where is Ice?"
"Right here, Snow Lady." There was a streak of blinding ice-jade light emanating from Huo Yuhao's body and Ice Empress, in her human form, appeared beside him.
Snow Empress' eyes widened in shock. "I-Ice? Is that...you? You're human? No, this is just a spiritual projection! You...You lost your body and reside in this human's body? How? Why?"
Ice Empress bitterly laughed. "I was in the same boat as you, I was about to hit the four hundred thousand year old mark and trigger the heavenly tribulation—I wouldn't be able to survive that. When potential reaches its limit, external help won't be useful. That's why I chose this path."
"Snow Empress, how are you? Do you still remember me?" Skydream chose this moment to appear as well, awkwardly waving his hand at her.
"Huh? And who are you? Wait, a soul beast aura?" Snow Empress was utterly stunned as to what was going on. "You feel familiar. Exuding a tremendous amount of spiritual power, yet...you feel harmless? Have I met you before?"
She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, why are you two in the human world? Both in your spiritual states and residing in a human's body."
Ice Empress huffed and crossed her arms. "This is all thanks to this guy, you've met him before, his true appearance is an Iceworm. You remember him, don't you? This guy's luck is on the level of Gods. He managed to advance in his sleep, and overcame bottleneck after bottleneck. Its cultivation even surpass both you and mine."
Snow Empress perked up. "Oh, I remember this guy now. But I remember that you chased after it before. Didn't you say that it went missing? Why're the two of you together now?"
Skydream chortled, gave a thumbs up and said, "Snow Empress, you're right that we're together! Heck, we even sleep together as well!"
"Scram and shut up!" Ice Empress raged and gave a well deserved kick to Skydream's rear, sending him crashing to the wall.
"...Totally worth it..." Skydream groaned.
Ice Empress sighed and then tried her best to explain how she had met Huo Yuhao and the Skydream, as well as how Skydream had convinced her to become Huo Yuhao's second martial soul.
Snow Empress' emotions were evidently surging. Huo Yuhao also took this opportunity to gather the fragments of the Class 9 God Sealing Altar—it was a Class 9 Soul Tool! Even the the academy didn't have one, its fragments is valuable by advancing his knowledge in soul tools and as material for future projects.
"Ice, I didn't expect that you'd choose such a path." Snow Empress sighed after hearing Ice Empress out. She had also calmed down significantly.
Ice Empress laughed bitterly. "I had no choice! If not because I was desperate, I wouldn't have entrusted my fate to someone else. Right now, I can only do my best to help Yuhao. I hope that he can reach that stage one day."
"I—ahhhh!" Snow Empress's voice broke off into a cry as she suddenly clutched her head, a wave of pain washing over her. The sudden agony caught everyone off guard.
"Snow Empress!" Ice Empress's voice was filled with alarm as she rushed to her friend's side. Both Skydream Huo Yuhao instinctively moved closer.
"What's happening to her?" Huo Yuhao asked, his tone urgent. He could sense a surge of unstable energy radiating from Snow Empress, as if her soul was struggling to stabilize after being freed from the God Sealing Altar.
"Skydream? Do you know what's happening to her?" Ice Empress hurriedly asked the best person specialized of someone's spiritual state.
Skydream quickly assessed the situation. "Her soul is in a fragile state after being trapped in the God Sealing Altar when she undergone her rebirth to human. Although her rebirth was interrupted, it still somewhat succeeded."
He blinked, realizing something about Snow Empress' state. "This....Snow Empress, this isn't your true appearance, is it? You're forcibly taking on your previous appearance, not your human one that you gained."
"What?" Both Ice Empress and Huo Yuhao exclaimed simultaneously, confused.
"Tch. I'm..." Snow Empress winced, her form flickering once again as she struggled to maintain her current appearance. "Alright! I was worried that the human beside you would've done something to us, so I forced my true power to awaken." She admitted reluctantly.
She continued, "Even if I had a fraction of my ability, it would've still be enough to stall even a so-called Titled Douluo."
Ice Empress sighed deeply, her expression a mixture of concern and understanding. "Snow Empress, you didn't need to push yourself that far. We're here to help, not harm you."
Snow Empress's form flickered again, but this time it seemed to settle, her energy stabilizing somewhat. "I couldn't take any chances," she said, her voice quieter now. "All humans are evil! It's bad enough that they hunt us down, but imprisoning me just erase my consciousness and become someone's martial soul, soul ring and soul bone? What kind of fate is that?!"
"Snow, calm down. We—"
"Aahhh!" Snow Empress cried out once more, her form suddenly glowing with an intense, blinding light. The room was instantly filled with a surge of cold so powerful that Huo Yuhao was forced to use Ice God's Legacy to fight against the biting cold.
To the utter shock of everyone in the room, Snow Empress began shrinking down, no, she was deaging at an alarming rate.
Within just a few breaths, Snow Empress had turned into a two or three year old girl. Her chubby body was covered in a snow-white, cotton skirt.
'She turned into a child?' Huo Yuhao blinked, stunned.
"What'd you expect? Snow Empress underwent rebirth into a human—soul beasts usually reborn at least a six years old child because that's the optimal age for their body to handle their remaining power due to the awakening of their martial soul, making it easier for them to assimilate to their human body." Skydream explained.
Although he never experienced it himself, but he had been held captive by those fellas in the core region of the Great Star Dou Forest. They, especially their leader, held extensive knowledge of soul beasts.
When Skydream was getting sucked dry by them almost every day, they would sometimes gossip about their kind—especially those who underwent rebirth.
It was useful, but it was not worth going through thousands of years of torture.
Snow Empress looked at her chubby rosy hands and sighed deeply. She closed eyes and said, "Skydream."
"What up?"
Snow Empress snorted, "I never thought you'd be so loyal. You found a path to success, but you never forgot Ice. Solely based on this, Ice is fortunate to follow you. You must take good care of her in the future."
"Uh..." Although Skydream was happy for the acknowledgement, but the way she said it made him feel mixed about it.
"Snow Empress, what are you saying?" Ice Empress asked, her voice laced with concern. "You know that I'm still here with you, and we're not going to let anything happen to you. Or are you unwilling to walk the same path as me?"
Snow Empress laughed bitterly, "It's not that I don't want to. I can't. Your situation is different from mine. Although incomplete, but I'm already reborn as a human. My own strength is suppressed within my origin power. If my rebirth is successful, this strength will slowly be released from my human body and turn into my human strength."
"Now that a part of this strength is still present, do you think this human can accept this shrunken origin power of mine?"
"Furthermore, Skydream was the one who reserved a spot for you and allowed you to undergo fusion. But do I have a place in this boy? If I stay, I'll only be a time bomb. Once I detonate, the two of you will also die, along with this human."
Snow Empress laughed despondently. "As I am right now, blowing up might be the best way. My origin power is completely unstable from the interruption of my rebirth and being sealed. I....the worst way my life is going to be would be deaging further to the point of ceasing to exist!"
Ice Empress felt a pang of sorrow hearing Snow Empress's words. "No, Snow! We won't let that happen!" She then turned towards Skydream.
"Skydream—"
Skydream shook his head, "No. Even if you beg me, I wouldn't be able to save her. This...this is beyond me."
Ice Empress' face fell, despair settling in her heart.
"But!" Skydream quickly added, "There is someone who might, someone who knows more about souls. Someone we all know that is more lazy than me."
"Hmph. Is that any way to ask someone for help?" Electrolux's ancient and wise tone of voice reverberated within Huo Yuhao's mind. His presence was calm yet imposing, like a vast ocean that had witnessed countless eons pass by.
'Are they all appearing? Can this barrier even hide everyone's aura?' Huo Yuhao sweatdropped.
Huo Yuhao immediately straightened up. "Teacher, can you save her?"
Electrolux paused for a moment before responding, "Her situation is indeed precarious, but not beyond hope. The root cause of her instability is the interrupted rebirth process. However, given her current form and the fragment of her origin power still present, a solution does exist."
Ice Empress and Skydream both looked hopeful, while Snow Empress remained silent, still processing the situation.
"What do we need to do?" Huo Yuhao asked urgently.
"First, we need to stabilize her soul, spirit, and body," Electrolux explained. "When her rebirth to becoming human was interrupted, her spiritual sea and soul received extensive damage, that, basically, if she were a human she would've become a vegetable by now."
"Her human body however needs to grow; it was planned to be, physically, at least six years old or older. But as you can see, it's unstable."
"Her human body needs to find a place full of life energy to properly stabilize and mature," Electrolux continued. "This will allow her to fully integrate her origin power without risking further de-aging or, worse, disappearing completely."
Huo Yuhao frowned, deep in thought. "A place full of life energy..." His eyes widened, "My second spiritual sea? But, can her human body enter it?"
Electrolux nodded, "It can."
"Then, what about her soul and origin power? Huo Yuhao is already at his limits from having us. So where would her soul take residence then?" Ice Empress hurriedly asked.
At that moment, Ancestor chimed in. "For now, she'll stay in a small separate space within Huo Yuhao's dantian. And don't worry, it doesn't take any room of his dantian. It's a seperate space after all."
"Wait, what? Ancestor, how did you do that?!" Huo Yuhao's eyes widened in shock with what he just heard.
"Fūinjutsu," Was his reply.
Huo Yuhao wanted to learn more about it.
Electrolux coughed, getting everyone's attention.
"Alright. What we need to do here is we first separate her soul from her human body, Yuhao, you have to use your Eye of Eternity's Six Paths: Human Path, to extract her soul safely. While I handle transporting her body into the Life Gold."
At this moment, Snow Empress finally looked up and stared at them, utterly dumbfounded.
"W-What exactly is going on? And who are these other two that I'm sensing?"
Huo Yuhao turned to her and said, "Isn't it obvious? We're trying to save you."
"But why? I'm just a burden on you all." She subconsciously asked.
Huo Yuhao smiled and said, "You're Ice Empress' friend, that's more than enough reason to save you."
"Plus, Yuhao here went through literal hell just to save you. It'd be all for nothing then," Skydream added.
"Shut up and stay silent!"
"Ow! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Snow Empress blankly stared at them, feeling a bit teary in her eyes. But she quickly looked away.
"Thank you, everyone..." She shyly muttered, hoping nobody really heard her. But they did.
Huo Yuhao, Skydream, and Ice Empress all exchanged glances, each of them smiling at Snow Empress's heartfelt, albeit shy, gratitude.
Huo Yuhao, with a gentle expression, knelt before her. "You're welcome, Snow Empress. We're in this together."
.....
AN: Sorry this was delayed. I was getting bitten by mosquitoes every second last night—it made me forget to schedule post this, which also led to zero sleep because of the damn mosquitoes, and now I'm staring at my screen with red eyes and shadow bags(?) underneath them.
Death to all mosquitoes ☠️🦟 ☠️
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