"Human?"
The Ice Empress raised her head, sweeping her cold, weary, yet still terrifyingly majestic emerald eyes toward the suddenly appearing Zhang Lexuan and Caelus.
The massive hole in her chest, pierced by a golden arrow, had been forcibly sealed by a thick layer of emerald ice that radiated extreme cold, temporarily halting the further drain of her life force and the erosion of the light power.
But this was merely drinking poison to quench thirst; she clearly felt that her life and strength were irreversibly nearing their end.
A dying Vicious Beast is often the most brutal and reckless.
The current Ice Empress was no exception.
The moment she saw humans, old and new grudges erupted in her heart like a volcano.
The Nirvana Corpses of the Hall of Rebirth, though their essence had changed, were all human in their former lives.
Coupled with the aversion to human Soul Masters hunting Soul Beasts accumulated over the long years... all her negative emotions found an outlet at this moment.
Moreover, she did not know if the two were from the Hall of Rebirth.
Killing intent spread out like something physical.
Without any warning, the Ice Empress struck.
Terrifying cold air erupted from her as the center, spreading instantly like invisible ripples of death.
The surrounding air let out a wail of "crack-crack" as it was instantly frozen into a pale blue ice crystal Domain, the ground covered in a thick layer of shimmering hard ice.
"Be careful!"
Zhang Lexuan's expression changed drastically, and she almost instinctively shielded Caelus completely behind her.
A phantom of a silver moon appeared above her head, and the soft moonbeam poured down like liquid silver, quickly forming a solid silver light shield that enveloped the two of them.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!"
The extreme cold air slammed into the moonbeam shield, making a tooth-aching sound of erosion. The shield's light flickered violently, and frost quickly condensed on its surface, but it managed to barely withstand the first wave of the cold impact.
However, the Ice Empress's attack was far from over.
At the very moment Zhang Lexuan was focusing all her strength on maintaining the moonbeam shield, an emerald, lightning-fast phantom appeared before the shield without warning, as if it had bypassed the limitations of space.
It was the tail of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.
The tip of that scorpion tail shimmered with a cold light capable of piercing metal and stone and freezing the Soul.
"Puchi—!"
A soft sound, not sounding particularly loud, struck Zhang Lexuan like a bolt from the blue.
The moonbeam shield, condensed with her Spirit Douluo Soul Power, was as flimsy as paper before this scorpion tail, easily pierced through.
In the next moment, a cold, destructive sensation of chill came from her chest.
Zhang Lexuan looked down in disbelief, staring blankly at the emerald scorpion tail that had pierced through her left chest, bringing with it a spray of tragic, beautiful blood.
Intense pain flooded her nerves like a delayed tide.
"Ugh...!"
She couldn't help but let out a muffled groan of pain, and crimson blood uncontrollably overflowed from the corner of her mouth.
"Eldest Senior Sister!"
Caelus's cry of alarm rang out from behind her.
Zhang Lexuan bit the tip of her tongue hard, using the sharp pain to forcibly stimulate her consciousness, which was on the verge of fading.
She could not fall; Caelus was still behind her.
"Get away!"
She let out a sorrowful and indignant cry as a silver moon suddenly rose, bursting with intense light.
Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, red—eight spirit rings shone together.
She ignored the scorpion tail piercing her body and instead poured all her strength, in a desperate gamble, into that blood-red hundred-thousand-year spirit ring.
"Eighth Spirit Ability — Eclipse of the Blood Moon!"
The silver moon in the sky was instantly dyed an ominous blood-red, and a crimson beam of light filled with an aura of destruction and death shot toward the Ice Empress.
Everywhere it passed, the air seemed to be evaporated completely.
At the same time, she used her last bit of strength to suddenly look back, letting out a heart-wrenching shout to Caelus:
"Caelus — run!!!"
Faced with this hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ability capable of heavily injuring or even killing an ordinary Titled Douluo, the dying Ice Empress's eyes held only coldness and disdain.
She didn't even move; she simply raised her small, snow-white hand, condensed a speck of extreme emerald light at her fingertip, and casually pointed forward.
"Ssh—!"
A thread of emerald cold light, as thin as a hair yet condensed to the extreme, shot out, precisely hitting the front of the imposing crimson light beam.
That destructive Eclipse of the Blood Moon, as if it had met its natural enemy, began to rapidly freeze and crumble the moment it touched the emerald cold light, eventually turning into red ice crystal dust that scattered into nothingness.
The gap in strength was simply too large.
And the Ice Empress's figure disappeared from her spot at that moment, appearing in the next instant before Zhang Lexuan, who was coughing up blood from the backlash of her broken Spirit Ability.
She looked at this stubborn human woman, her eyes showing no emotion, and simply struck out with a single palm.
"Bang—!"
An irresistible force struck, and Zhang Lexuan's body was thrown backward like a kite with a broken string, her blood drawing a striking arc in the air.
"Eldest Senior Sister!"
Caelus's pupils constricted, and he almost instinctively stepped forward, opening his arms to catch the flying Zhang Lexuan.
But the terrifying power contained in that palm strike was something even he could not fully neutralize.
"Boom—!"
The two of them were blown back together like cannonballs, slamming hard against the ice wall behind them.
The hard ten-thousand-year ice wall was smashed into a large indentation, and countless shattered ice blocks fell like rain, burying their figures.
"Ugh..."
Caelus groaned, feeling as if his internal organs had shifted. His throat felt sweet, and a trace of blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth.
He ignored his own injuries and immediately looked down to check on Zhang Lexuan in his arms.
At this moment, Zhang Lexuan's face was as pale as paper, her aura weak to the extreme. The piercing wound in her chest was still bleeding, staining her moon-white dress and Caelus's clothes red.
She struggled to keep her eyes open, looking at the blood on the corner of Caelus's mouth, her eyes filled with guilt and despair.
If she hadn't been in such a hurry to leave the Extreme North Land, they wouldn't have encountered such a desperate situation.
The Ice Empress looked coldly at the two who had been smashed into the ice wall, not pursuing them immediately.
Waves of tearing pain came from the frozen area on her chest, forcing her to stop and catch her breath.
The Ice Empress glanced indifferently at the two among the ice debris, confirming that they did not have the nauseating aura of dead silence of the Nirvana Corpses, but rather fresh human life fluctuations.
'So it's just two unlucky humans...'
A flicker of realization crossed her mind, but it was immediately covered by fatigue and indifference.
Whether they were human or not made no difference to her now; they were merely two ants who had accidentally stumbled onto the road to her end.
She had no interest in finishing them off; she only wanted to take the Snow Empress's Origin and find a quiet corner to wait for the final conclusion.
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