"You two were once formidable and noble creatures.... now, you're both reduced to this." Huo Yuhao sighed deeply, shaking his head.
"If I were an idealistic person, I would've kept your souls stored and try to revive you both in the future. It's what I should do to repay you both." His eyes sharpened as he executed several hand-seals in a split second.
The dragon souls cried out in anguish and resentment, as they felt their spiritual bodies being squeezed tightly like grapes pressed into juices.
"However, even ninjutsus and necromancy have limits. You both are merely lingering spirits, just form and no substance. Your consciousness have long since dissipated. Your true "selves" have either returned to oblivion or entered the cycle of reincarnation, leaving behind memory imprints and dragonic instincts."
"Trying to resurrect souls of nonexistent consciousness with zero benefits, is simply foolish."
Rather than let their souls go to waste, it was better to use them as nourishment.
The Dragon Kings' Souls right now are mostly made up of 80% spiritual power, 15% soul power, and 5% of divine power or immortal Qi mixed with Divine Consciousness.
Eons of erosion through the passage of time had deterioration their souls' quality to the level of peak mortals.
Otherwise, Huo Yuhao wouldn't have easily subdued them who were once High-level God Kings.
But what made these souls highly beneficial for him was certainly the lingering divinity on them! It clearly wasn't enough to have him enter Godhood immediately, but it would help him immensely.
His spirit, soul, and body have all reached a level near the peak of mortal limits. However, he was worried about his second martial soul and his weapons.
According to Di Tian, the powers of a God varies and a God can even fight against someone stronger than them in the same class level—but very rarely.
What made them different to each other and have an established hierarchy can be summed up into three things: divinity, technique, and divine tool.
Divinity is the source of power behind the name of a God. An example would be the God of Destruction and Goddess of Life, both who are the literal incarnations of the respective elements of Destruction and Life.
Destruction Energy and Life Energy are some of the greatest forms of energies and intents in the entire universe. They were basically the undisputed strongest beings in the universe!
To put it into perspective. If the Seven Elemental Gods and several other 1st Class Gods were to band together to fight against them, 9/10, the band of Gods would lose.
Which is why only a handful of Gods could threaten them, and most of them are their peers; Asura, God of Evil, Goddess of Kindness, etc.
Rong Nianbing was an exception however, who could fight equally against the God of Destruction, simply because of his Godly mastery of the Seven Elements that even the Gods who holds dominion over them paled in comparison.
If he had access to the energies of Destruction and Life, who knows? There might've been a chance for him to become the new God of Creation.
Next was techniques. Most of the times, a God would mostly rely on their divinity and use brute force to win a fight.
However, technique was the factor that decided whether a God was merely powerful or truly terrifying.
An example of this was the original Sea God, Poseidon. Who, despite being a deity that holds dominion over the seas, created spear techniques that incorporated the laws of time and space.
It was with such techniques that made him one of the strongest 1st Class Gods and even have the strength to momentarily fight against a God King.
And lastly, is a Divine Tool.
Divine Tools possess intelligence and various abilities, and their ranks determine how much they can enhance the wielder's strength.
A highly ranked divine tool could even help an ordinary 1st Class God to fight on equal grounds against an ordinary God King.
Huo Yuhao doesn't know much about the creation of a divine tool. But! He theorizes that a divine tool can be made from martial souls or even lay the foundation of their divinity.
What happens to a martial soul after a soul master reaches Godhood? Would they simply remain the same? Highly unlikely. Martial souls are tied to the soul of a soul master, so it stands to reason that they could become of a divine level as well.
The Ice Jade Scorpion Emperor martial soul is a top-tier martial soul, but it still falls short of God-tier martial souls like the Seraphim, Clear Sky Hammer, Dragon King, Xuanwu, etc.
AN: We can shit on Tang San and the Clear Sky Sect a lot, understandable, but the Clear Sky Hammer is certainly one of the strongest tool martial soul since even without a soul ring it could deal a lot of damage to even a Soul Emperor.
Huo Yuhao hypothesizes that evolving his second martial soul would pave his way into Godhood much easier. Who knows? It might even evolve into Divine armor.
His main martial soul, his eyes, has reached the level of God-tier and it already proven how beneficial it has become for him.
Ice Empress might not be a dragon, but the Water Dragon King is recognized as one of the strongest water-type divine beast in the universe. And the origin of Ice is Water, so there shouldn't be any dissonance.
As for the Fire Dragon King's soul? Eh, it could help enhance his fire affinity and the rest of its dragonic nature could help Wu Feng.
As for using the soul bones to forge them into divine tools? That would be a better choice. Unfortunately, Huo Yuhao doesn't have enough knowledge to craft the bones into Divine Tools yet.
Which is why he focused on evolving his second martial soul.
"Refine!" Huo Yuhao's cold indifferent eyes glinted.
With his extensive knowledge of necromancy and forbidden ninjutsus; specifically the Edo Tensei, the Human and Outer Path of the Rinnegan, he quickly figured out a way on how to refine these souls for use.
*ROOOOOAR!!*
The baleful dragon cries shook the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well to its very foundations.
Illusory waves rippled through space itself as the two Dragon King souls struggled violently, their instinctive pride rejecting refinement, subjugation and inevitable consumption.
Even reduced to lingering remnants, they were still dragons, apex beings born with arrogance etched into their very existence.
But arrogance meant nothing before absolute power.
"Disperse!"
Huo Yuhao's Byakugan eyes gleamed.
An intricate magical formation unfolded above the Dragon Kings' Souls, composed of countless interlocking rings of runes and seals.
This was the result of the fusion between two worlds; of ninjutsu and magic!
*ROOOOOAR!!*
The Dragon Kings' Souls let out a final cry before their spiritual bodies shattered and dispersed into thousands of strands of pure energy.
"Condense!"
By Huo Yuhao's command, the strands did not scatter chaotically. Guided by the formation, they converged in precise streams, cold-blue and crimson-gold, spiraling inward like sand and formed into two blue and red crystals.
"Success." Huo Yuhao heaved a sigh of relief. This was the first time he'd ever used this formation so the chance for failure was high.
Huo Yuhao motioned his hand, grabbing the crystals and the corpses of the Dragon Kings.
'Sukunahikona, Daikokuten.'
His Kokugan eye opened, shrinking the corpses and tossing them all into the Daikokuten in one fell swoop.
'Good. Besides the soul bones, their corpses could still be useful. I'll use them later. And using the Water Dragon King's divine essence right now to evolve my second martial soul is dangerous.'
'I need to awaken Ice Empress first in order to facilitate the process.'
Ice Empress is closely linked to his second martial soul. If he needed the process to go smoothly then he needed her awake.
Fortunately, the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well is filled with extreme energies of ice attribute.
"Ice Empress, Snow Empress. It's time to wake up." Huo Yuhao muttered and sat cross-legged, a complex array formation below him and a thin, translucent light barrier enveloped him.
This formation had a single purpose, and it was to filter out energy within the range of the formation. Huo Yuhao only wanted the extreme cold energy of the spring.
The process wasn't hard or long. Huo Yuhao absorbed the extreme Ice Yin energy and circulated them respectively into his spiritual sea and his dantian.
Ice Empress hibernated within his spiritual sea in a protective light barrier in the shape of an egg.
As the extreme energy of Ice-Yin entered the egg, it trembled.
Fine cracks spread across its surface, glowing an ethereal blue.
Crk—crk.
A chilling pressure bloomed outward, a familiar breath was felt that Huo Yuhao hadn't felt for years.
'Welcome back to the land of the living, Ice Empress.' He softly smiled as the 'egg' cracked more before shattering and dissolving into countless motes of crystalline frost.
Skreeeee—!
A familiar, massive Ice Jade Scorpion manifested within his spiritual sea and let out a roar that momentarily shook his spiritual sea before settling down.
Huo Yuhao let her freely express her excitement for being awake in his spiritual sea. Otherwise with his near divine spiritual power, she would've immediately been suppressed.
'This aura... Did she breakthrough to 500,000 years old?' He was inwardly surprised. After all she had been in hibernation this entire time to heal from her injuries.
Moreover, it was just recent that she had broke through to 400,000 years old! Granted, that was more than two years ago but that was considered short for someone like her.
Where on earth did she find enough energy to achieve such a breakthrough in such a short amount of time?
Huo Yuhao waited for her to calm down and then talk to her, but he was disappointed to see her then lay down on the ground, seemingly in deep sleep.
'I see. It seems that she's stabilizing her cultivation and would be in deep meditation for a couple of hours.'
'Looks like I won't be able to talk to her for now. Alright, move on to Snow Empress.'
Within his dantian where Snow Empress's soul resided.
Unlike Ice Empress's situation, Snow Empress hibernated in thick layers of crystal black ice, each layer engraved with delicate, snowflake-like symbols that pulsed faintly as the energy of extreme Ice-Yin flow into her.
She was in a meditative position, her face showed an emotionless expression but if one observed closely it could be seen that her complexion was getting better.
But what was most astonishing was a bolt of crimson lightning darting around her crystalized form, exerting a terrifying aura that could make a Transcendent Douluo draw cold sweat.
Small tendrils of crimson lightning would struck the crystal ice almost every second, breaking off chunks of ice, but it would prove to be ineffective as the crystal ice regenerated almost instantly.
*Crackle—zzzzt!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
The lightning arced again, more violently this time, coiling around Snow Empress's crystallized body like a living dragon. With every strike, a dull boom echoed through Huo Yuhao's dantian, and a suffocating pressure spread outward.
Huo Yuhao's consciousness descended into his dantian, his expression dark as he stared at the crimson lightning.
"This heavenly tribulation lightning is really tenacious. Even after sealing it away and with Snow Empress slowly absorbing its energy, it still persists."
He furrowed his brows, observing the heavenly tribulation lightning for a few moments and made a decision.
"It seems to have grown weaker. That's good. With the Preta Path, I could absorb this and Snow Empress could safely—oh no!"
Huo Yuhao's expression drastically changed, his forehead started aching.
That was because the crimson heavenly tribulation lightning turned its direction towards him, and its aura began to surge drastically to the point that Huo Yuhao began to shiver.
Its body trembled and it started splitting apart, forming new crimson lightning that quickly numbered in the thousands!
Dark clouds began appearing above, the upper part of his dantian.
[Detected Divine Consciousness forming. Development of Immortal Qi within the body in progress. Physique reaching evolutionary realm to become a higher-level being.]
[Conditions met.]
[Descent of the Heavenly Tribulation to wash away mortal ties to become a "God" will now commence.]
An emotionless voice echoed in Huo Yuhao's dantian, making him cautious and vigilant.
'Who—?! I don't have the time to think about that right now!'
"F**k! You're gonna do this to me now?!" Huo Yuhao cursed, opening his six eyes, undulations of tremendous spiritual power exuded from his spiritual avatar.
"...."
From within the black ice crystal, the eyelids of Snow Empress trembled.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
AN: Should I go for the lit. english translation for these two jutsus for future chapters? Accordingly, Sukunahikona means: Small Man of Renown. While Daikokuten means: Great Black Heaven or Vast Dark Heavens.