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--- Chapter 423 ---
"Are they going to die?" Xiao Wu asked, watching the 'Snow Empress' and her squad fight against the Demon Spirits that had breached Glory City's line of defense.
Han Yuan gently ruffled Xiao Wu's hair and replied, "They won't. The story would end too quickly if that were the case."
"I don't understand why this timeline has shown us this."
"But looking at the ruins of the future, Glory City's current situation is far from the end. They are still fighting."
"As long as they have that spirit, it won't be over!" Han Yuan assured her and others.
Han Yuan's comment echoed with the Snow Empress. Emotion filled her gaze as she looked at him before adopting a calm expression. "You're right. Glory City isn't going to fall so easily."
"Everyone struggles for a while until that day arrives..."
"That day? Snow, have you regained your memories as a human?" the Ice Empress inquired.
Snow Empress nodded, then shook her head. "I am... not. It's difficult to describe. Whenever I see the 'me' of this timeline, I recall some familiar scenes buried deep within my soul."
"Ye Ziyun is still Ye Ziyun, and Snow Empress is still Snow Empress."
"We are 'currently' connected through this time travel, though only one way."
The White-Eyed Phoenix Lord pondered and then asked. "You mentioned that day. Have you also seen the last moment of Glory City?"
Snow Empress sighed bitterly. "Honestly, the scene is too blurry. I caught a glimpse of several plane-crossing wormholes appearing all over Glory City, and then a blue light, the same blue light that brought us here, flashed to stop it."
"Blue light..." Han Yuan murmured. He hadn't told them about the Ice God Seal within the souls of the Heavenly Snow Women. After all, it was too shocking for them to digest.
However, he realized he still needed to inform them.
"That blue light is probably divinity," said the White-Eyed Phoenix Lord with a solemn expression. "Such a high mastery of the law is not something a mortal could achieve."
"While I have seen some mortals mastering and wielding high-level Time Law, reversing time to the point of time travel would inflict severe damage on a mortal. If their physical body didn't crumble, their mind and soul would."
"What kind of divinity, though?" Jade Phoenix Lord frowned.
Han Yuan finally spoke again. "It's the Ice God. When I analyzed Snow Empress and her fellow Heavenly Snow Women, I saw Ice God Seals in their souls. This triggered the time travel."
"This..." Bi Ji hadn't expected her Young Master to be the cause of this event.
The Ice Empress's expression changed. "I-Ice God? But how is that possible? Neither Snow Empress nor her sisters have ever had contact with the Ice God?"
"We revere him, but..."
"But aside from that, we haven't even received one of his legacies."
Han Yuan shrugged. "I don't know. That's for this 'timeline' to reveal. No matter how many guesses we make, they won't yield reliable answers."
Xiao Wu suddenly shouted, "Master, the 'Snow Empress' is injured!"
Everyone refocused on the battlefield. Ye Ziyun's squad had reached the breach area, bravely fighting the demon beasts while using their spiritual weapons to absorb spiritual energy.
The fight concluded quickly, but one of Ye Ziyun's squad members went insane after having her sanity devoured by the 'spiritual weapon' and attacked Ye Ziyun.
"Ziyun!"
Ye Ziyun, the past Snow Empress, watched as a blood-red blade pierced her stomach. She used her freezing power to prevent the injury from bursting open.
She looked at her teammate and said, "Wake up!"
The teammate snapped out of the madness and fell to the ground with a guilty expression. "I-I..."
Ye Ziyun sighed. "Someone, get her to the Mental Recovery Room. I'm fine."
The other squad members nodded seriously, taking the contaminated member away while Ye Ziyun pulled the blade from her stomach and swallowed a pill to recover.
Yet, upon closer inspection, Ye Ziyun's complexion had turned snowy white, and some of her blood now had an icy-blue hue.
Han Yuan noticed this. "Wait, has anyone noticed that Ye Ziyun didn't possess her martial soul while fighting those demon beasts?"
"Ah, Xiao Wu didn't see any of her spirit rings flashing earlier!" Xiao Wu shook her head gently.
"She's already turning into the Snow Empress, or rather, a Heavenly Snow Maiden?" Jade Phoenix Lord said in disbelief.
White-Eyed Phoenix Lord narrowed her eyes. "She hasn't fully turned into a Spirit Beast but has simply fused with her own martial soul."
"To begin with, the existence of a martial soul is a twin coexistence with oneself. As the martial soul grows, the spirit master also grows. However, this creates a conflict in her own origin."
She sighed. "Martial soul possession itself is a self-protection mechanism toward the spirit master."
"A self-protection mechanism? Huh, but Xiao Wu transformed from a spirit beast into a human and doesn't have this problem?" Xiao Wu questioned.
"Yes, that's precisely where the problem lies," White-Eyed Phoenix Lord nodded. "Your origin as a spirit beast is intact and sealed upon becoming a human, allowing you to condense the spirit ring."
"Humans are different because their origin is inherently weaker."
"No offense to them, of course, but this leaves a path for them to grow through absorbing spirit rings."
"Moreover, this 'Snow Empress' not only forced a fusion with her own martial soul but also continually allowed it to happen while devouring the spiritual origins of the demon spirits."
"Those things aren't very clean..."
"Isn't that the same as becoming a demon herself?"
"Still, I understand that it was an act of desperation."
"She needs to grow stronger. Otherwise, this city will fall."
"Time isn't going to wait for her or the city."
"In fact, the companion who attacked the 'Snow Empress' earlier showed the same symptoms as she did, but her mental fortitude wasn't as strong."
"She became feral because she couldn't withstand the spiritual energy of the demon spirits, and her Heaven and Earth Affinity is subpar."
"It's like spiritual poisoning..."
"Unfortunately, we can only watch..." the White-Eyed Phoenix Lord said, gazing at the 'Snow Empress' calmly.
The desperate survival of Glory City continued. After defeating wave after wave of demon spirits, Ye Ziyun's squad gained fame in the city. However, this fame came at a cost, as several of their members became bedridden due to severe spiritual energy poisoning.
Indeed, what the White-Eyed Phoenix Lord suspected finally happened. After analyzing the problem, many doctors in Glory City discovered that the spiritual energy produced by the demon spirits is highly volatile.
Although they wield a spiritual weapon made using the latest spirit guide technology to purify the spiritual energy, it wasn't effective in the long run.
They also found that some showed signs of adapting, or should we say evolving, to these changes.
While their bodies were on the verge of breaking apart and fusing with their martial souls, they were actually evolving into something even stronger than humans.
Something much closer to nature, or even divine!
For instance, Ye Ziyun, the 'Snow Empress,' possessed the cultivation realm of a Spirit Saint, yet her fighting prowess rivaled that of a Title Douluo.
As if seeking a last-ditch effort to survive the plane invasion, Glory City launched the Divine Warrior program.
Yes, the Divine Warrior program—that was the name of this ill-fated initiative.
Ye Ziyun and many other spirit masters, who showed potential in this program, were pushed to their limits. They fought like relentless war machines, but soon they faced an even more dangerous foe.
Half a year after the first incident, a massive plane-crossing wormhole appeared directly above Glory City. The swirling gray hole looked like a manifestation of the apocalypse itself.
A massive pair of hands clawed their way out of the wormhole, crushing buildings and killing residents of Glory City.
Then, several pairs of green eyes manifested in the sky, each one gazing down at the people of Glory City.
Finally, the powerful entity arrived.
The Demon Sage Emperor!