The clothing on his body was almost completely useless. Lin Xiao mobilized all the soul power within him, circulating it throughout his body. The closer he got to the extreme north, the heavier the surrounding cold air became.
Fortunately, the few strands of remnant souls in the air weren't moving very fast, allowing Lin Xiao to follow them from a safe distance.
Deep in the vast snow plains, there wasn't a single impurity in sight. The place where heaven and earth met in the distance was nothing but a blanket of white. Lin Xiao suddenly thought to himself: the place where the Douluo Continent was located was actually a planet. Could it also have things like polar points?
Before he could dismiss his random thoughts, the strands of souls in the air gradually lowered their altitude. Lin Xiao's expression shifted as he looked toward the place where they were descending.
He still hadn't sensed any aura of living beings. There might really be some heavenly treasure here that could attract souls.
Without stopping his steps, Lin Xiao continued forward. In the distance, a faint white protrusion appeared in his field of vision.
However, the constant falling snow obscured his view, making it hard to clearly see what that thing was.
After thinking for a moment, he lowered his head to look at his waist. With such a good guide by his side, it would be a pity not to ask.
"I'm not sure either. In the 700,000 years I lived in the extreme north, I left my footprints in every place here, but before I left, I had never seen that thing."
Snow Empress's answer left Lin Xiao somewhat silent. If it were something that had only appeared in recent years, then even if it was some heavenly treasure, its age probably wouldn't be very high.
Various guesses emerged in his mind, but Lin Xiao continued to approach. The closer he got, the more a strange sense of familiarity lingered in his heart.
Could it be that this place had attracted so many souls that it made him feel a bit familiar?
With doubts in his mind, the white protrusion he had seen earlier grew closer. Lin Xiao gradually saw clearly that it seemed to be a small, delicately built ice hut, constructed by someone at some unknown time. Its exterior was already covered in a thick layer of accumulated snow, making it truly hard to spot from afar.
Lin Xiao slightly furrowed his brows, his heart already filled with vigilance.
This thing was definitely not left behind by a soul beast.
Even though some soul beasts possessed human-like intelligence, they did not have the habit of building structures or crafting tools like humans. Although this place was covered in snow, Lin Xiao could still clearly discern traces of artificial construction.
Moreover, after getting closer, he faintly sensed a flow of soul power from within.
It seemed that some kind of formation had been set up here, blocking the perception of others or soul beasts.
Just as Lin Xiao was pondering, a few more strands of remnant souls drifted over from afar. However, these did not originate from soul masters, but from soul beasts that had died in the extreme north.
The formation here did not block the remnant souls at all, allowing them to drift straight into the ice hut.
Lin Xiao stood in front of the ice hut, taking a few slight steps back. Then, with a gesture of his right hand, the assassin's soul floated up and swept toward the ice hut ahead.
The next moment, just as the assassin's soul entered the ice hut, Lin Xiao's figure suddenly shot forward. He tapped the ground repeatedly with his feet, his body fiercely retreating backward.
Space power instinctively unfolded, but for some unknown reason, merely using soul power to slightly mobilize space power caused the surrounding space to shatter.
Black cracks appeared all around him, releasing chaotic flows from within that seemed to connect to another world, as if they wanted to completely swallow him.
Lin Xiao's expression changed drastically, but he had no time to think about what exactly had happened. The light from his soul guide thrusters, blooming, carrying his figure as he continued to retreat backward.
Only when the ice hut began to blur in the distance did Lin Xiao stabilize his posture and gradually come to a stop.
His chest heaved slightly, and the large breaths of vapor in front of him had already frozen into chunks of ice.
"What did you see?" In his spiritual sea, Electrolux, noticing something wrong, spoke up and asked.
Hearing Electrolux's words, Lin Xiao slowly raised his head to look at the distant ice hut.
"I saw a statue inside."
"A statue of the Holy Emperor."
Lin Xiao's face was already grave, and a surge of thoughts instantly flooded his mind.
He had originally thought it was some heavenly treasure that resonated with his martial soul, which was why it kept attracting remnant souls from the extreme north.
But Lin Xiao never expected that the moment the assassin's soul entered the ice hut, the first thing he saw was a stone statue. Around that statue seemed to be a strange power that constantly tore at the assassin's soul.
And that statue was all too familiar to Lin Xiao. In the Holy Spirit Cult, he had seen things similar to it more than once.
The face was blurred and unclear, and it held a long-handled weapon in its hand, with only the tip left uncarved in detail, making it impossible to see exactly what it was.
He had considered many possibilities before, but he never imagined that the familiar feeling actually came from the Holy Emperor. Moreover, this event had never appeared in his memories.
Lin Xiao also knew that there were still many people in the Holy Spirit Cult who did not exist in his memories.
In his memories, the original Huo Yuhao had successfully destroyed the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters, but by that time, the headquarters had already relocated some people, and even some elders and worshippers had completely disappeared.
Later, because Huo Yuhao was in a hurry to ascend to the God Realm due to a misunderstanding with Tang Wutong, the matter of the Holy Spirit Cult was left unresolved.
But Lin Xiao never thought that the Holy Spirit Cult's reach would extend so far, even into the depths of the extreme north.
Lin Xiao suddenly looked up into the distance, realizing something.
Even without Snow Empress and Ice Empress in the extreme north, for such rumors to spread so quickly, it was probably not just because many soul masters wanted to hunt for soul rings; someone was likely pushing it behind the scenes.
As for who left the Holy Emperor's statue here, who discovered that Snow Empress and Ice Empress were no longer in the extreme north, and who spread this news... besides Zhongli Wu, Lin Xiao couldn't think of anyone else.
While he was thinking, a few more souls drifted over from afar and fell into that ice hut.
Lin Xiao slightly narrowed his eyes. Without Snow Empress and Ice Empress interfering, the entire extreme north had, at some unknown point, become a place for the Holy Spirit Cult to accumulate souls.
And Zhongli Wu spreading the news about this place was probably to lure those soul masters into the extreme north to harvest their souls.
The entire extreme north seemed, unknowingly, to be holding a long-lasting and vast-scale sacrifice for that Holy Emperor.
Moreover...
Lin Xiao slightly raised his hand, soul power slowly circulating space power at his fingertips.
Perhaps due to the special environment here, or perhaps for some other reason, the space here seemed weaker than in other places. That was why just slightly using some space power had caused the space to shatter.
Was placing the Holy Emperor's statue here really just to attract the remnant souls in the area? Or was there another purpose?
That was probably something only Zhongli Wu himself knew.
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