53 Ice Emperor (2/2)
”Tian Meng, you're actually still alive. It's no wonder that you're the longest-living soul beast from our Extreme North.” A crisp voice rang out in all directions. The appearance of this voice was followed by a terrifying sound wave. The snow on the ground instantly rose by three meters as the sound wave struck it, akin to a wave suddenly passing through an ocean. Only the hundred meters around Tian Meng's body remained calm, as it had been protected by the enormous spiritual power coming from his body.
”Ice Emperor, you haven't died yet, so why can't I be still alive? Don't you remember what I said that year? 'If I don't die, there'll be a day when I'll become your partner.'” Tian Meng's voice suddenly turned gentle.
”Skydream, you're courting death.” The Ice Emperor's clear voice was suddenly filled with killing intent, and the jade green sky instantly turned dark green. An intense killing intent descended from the sky, and the originally protected hundred-meter diameter around Tian Meng's body instantly shrank to a diameter of ten meters.
However, Tian Meng wasn't scared of the Ice Emperor in a simple contest of spiritual power. Smiling, he spoke in a very unhurried and graceful manner, ”No, I'm just expressing my true feelings. I've lived for a million years, and I've spent a large majority of them sleeping. However, the only thing within the depths of my heart that I can't control is you. Ice Emperor, do you know why I've chosen to come back at a time like this? It's because I've calculated that you're about to reach your limit and reach a dead end within a hundred years. At that time, you won't be able to break through to the next rank. Then, you'll disappear in this icy world. That's why I've come back. I can't wait anymore, and an endless life has no more meaning to me. I don't have much longer to live anymore. I've come back to let you continue living and let us truly be together.”
Then the Ice Emperor appeared. The 1.5-meter-long Ice Emperor had two colors on its body. One was the color of ice, and the other was a jade green color.
The front end of its body had four layers stacked above each other, and each layer was longer than the previous one by a third of a meter. Its head lay on the frontmost layer, and its silver-white mouth shone with an ominous, cold light. The front of its body has covered a type of special scale that Ryu had never seen. No, instead of call it a scale, it was more accurate to say that it was protruding outwards.
They were shaped like hexagons and shone with an incomparably bright luster, and were akin to a diamond in shape. They covered the front section of its body and its six slender legs. Beneath the green sky, they emitted an incomparably brilliant luster. It was almost as if they'd become another source of light as it reflected all a myriad of rays of light.
Its two pincers were both a meter long, and they were both covered with the strange diamond-like hexagonal protrusions. Only, the foremost parts of its pincers were covered in a mirror-like silverish-white color just like its mouth.
However, the things Ryu paid the most attention to were its eyes. Its eyes were yellow as if two yellow diamonds had been embedded within its sockets. They were also hexagonal, and the flickering of their crystal-like yellow light gave off a feeling similar to that of a gem glistening.
If its upper body could be considered sufficiently resplendent, its lower body--the long, yet upward pointing tail, was the core that dazzled everything around it.
Unlike the finely segmented tail of an ordinary scorpion, the tail of the Ice Emperor only had five segments. Each segment shone with an alluring jade-green light that was filled with luster. Its five segments were identically colored, and the segment nearest to its upper body was the widest of the five; the further away from its body, the narrower it got. The last segment was also inlaid with the diamond-like protrusions, and the very tip of its tail similarly flickered with a mirror-like, silverish-white luster.
”You've come.” Tian Meng said