章 188: Chapter 180: Successful Retrieval

Ever since he awakened his martial soul, Elder Ma had never felt the cold chill anymore. Even without using his martial soul, his body could handle -70°F(-57°C) a temperature that can instantly freeze and kill most Soul Douluos and below.

The Devil Snow Wolf wasn't particularly strong, the terrifying thing about them was their physical strength and compatibility with Ice and Snow that they were just second to the top three soul beast tribes in the Extreme North.

Elder Ma was a close-combat soul engineer, creating soul tools that were based on helping a soul master survive cold environments and enhancements to his soul skills and its control.

It was a bit regrettable that his grandson didn't get to inherit his martial soul.

But back to Elder Ma—for all his life, he had never felt the cold.

That was until....

"Aaaaaahhh!" Elder Ma roared in agony as the dark-blue flames engulfed him.

His body, which had been resistant to freezing temperatures all his life, was now wracked with unbearable cold, a chill so deep it felt like his bones were being consumed by ice.

Then came an unbearable heat that followed immediately after. He tried to circulate his ice, but it refused to obey him! Even using every bit of his will to pull on his soul skills, there was no reaction.

Elder Ma's body was caught in a violent flux between freezing and burning sensations, leaving him unable to adapt or defend himself.

It was as if the dark-blue flames were both ice and fire, mercilessly attacking him from within.

His soul power reserves, which had once seemed infinite in cold environments, drained rapidly in his attempt to resist the overwhelming assault. Each breath he took felt like inhaling shards of ice and embers of fire at the same time.

The pain was so overwhelming that he went to his knees, hugging his body—desperate to relieve the pain, yet, his will to live was still strong.

But it was rapidly waning...

"Ah....ah..." Pitifully, he turned his head to his group to cry out for help—his eyes widened in shock and horror.

"Raaaaghh!"

"Kill! Kill!"

"For the empire!"

It was as if they had been exposed to some drugs or something, because the group of soul engineers that was to help reinforced him in his "secret" operation had gone bloody mad.

Their eyes were bloodshot, filled with a savage frenzy as they screamed and attacked one another with wild abandon.

Soul tools, designed for precision and power, were now being recklessly unleashed in every direction, causing chaos among the group.

Explosions of energy, lightning strikes, and forceful impacts ricocheted through the narrow space, turning the once-organized soul engineers into rabid animals.

Elder Ma, still writhing in pain from the dual torment of the dark-blue flames, could only watch in disbelief.

'W-What's going on...? Why are they fighting each other?!' The madness that had overtaken them was unlike anything he'd ever seen, a horrifying twist that made him question everything.

No, it wasn't just madness. It was something more primal, more than the corruption of one's mind.

It was pure rage and murderous instinct.

Huo Yuhao's eyes gleamed coldly as he observed the pandemonium. "So this is the power of my fourth soul skill... How terrifying, it's unfortunate that I hadn't used it on the evil soul masters back then."

'Kuraokami, the Mangekyou Sharingan ability in my left eye. It's like the innate ability, Amaterasu, that Ancestor told me about.'

The Amaterasu, one of the many innate abilities gained when awakening the Mangekyou Sharingan, produces black flames that could burn any material — other flames included — until nothing but ash remains, while also almost impossible to avoid.

It was said that it can still continue burning for seven days and seven nights.

Disappearing and immortal, Amaterasu cannot be extinguished through most conventional means and will continue burning until their target is completely incinerated; only the user can put out the flames.

The Kurokami was the opposite of Amaterasu, it was Ultimate Ice, but it was so much more than what Huo Yuhao or even Ice Empress at her peak could make!

To put it simply, Kuraokami was Ice so cold that it "burns", reaching down to a terrifying temperature of -300°F(-184°C). That was something close to the level of Absolute Zero! Unless Huo Yuhao wills it himself, the Kurokami wouldn't dissipate, even with his death.

Whether it was a mutation caused by the Ice God Bone sealed in his left arm or it was borned from Huo Yuhao's own nature; the Kuraokami was an unparalleled manifestation of ice, twisted into something far beyond the ordinary.

It embodied his will to dominate and destroy, a force that could bend the laws of nature and warp reality itself, freezing time and space while also unleashing a cold so intense it mimicked the effects of fire.

Which is why it wasn't weird how much it drained both his soul and spiritual power, 20% and 50% respectfully, he was lucky that it drained more of his spiritual power—or else he would've keeled over and blacked out.

'I really underestimated the power of my Mangekyou Sharingan,' Huo Yuhao gulped.

He hadn't expected his attack to go so well! He was ready to unleash everything at Elder Ma and his group if things took a turn for the worse, but fortunately they weren't able to react in time.

Kuraokami did well against Elder Ma, but his fourth soul ring skill, is a truly terrifying spiritual skill.

He called it Mass Hysteria.

What is the most horrifying thing in the world? The strongest soul beast or soul master? No, no. It was terrifying, yes, but it was a far off fear that could only happen with the smallest chance of happening.

The terrifying thing...was for a human to become "frenzy"; in a desperate situation where their mind snaps and turns them into mindless beasts. It's the kind of primal fear that exists deep within every person—the loss of control, the descent into madness.

Mass Hysteria targeted that very fear, using Huo Yuhao's immense spiritual power to infect the minds of those within range. It magnified their emotions, twisted their thoughts, and turned their focus into a singular desire: to kill everything in sight, including their comrades.

Huo Yuhao got it from killing a rare, 8,000 year old Devil Blood-Eyed Serpent in Star Dou Forest—its age was raised to 15,000 years old with the use of Skydream's power.

It was an incredibly powerful soul beast, due to their ability to manipulate the minds of their prey and fellow hunters with the use of their special pheromone.

They're considered to be endangered, not because they've been actively hunted down, but because of their own nature as solitary beings—they were too lazy to find a mate.

Huo Yuhao waited until only three of the soul engineers remained, critically injured and unconscious, and finally dispelled Kuraokami from Elder Ma with a wink of his left eye.

Elder Ma's body...looked completely normal, with no visible injuries, having reverted back to his normal self.

The only thing wrong about him was his extremely pale skin, it was to the point that Huo Yuhao could see the arteries in his body with the naked eye.

"Y-You..." Elder Ma mumbled weakly as Huo Yuhao approached, the latter looking a bit impressed by his tenacity.

"Hoh, so you can still speak. Hm. I knew I should've increased the intensity, but you would've died otherwise." Huo Yuhao tilted his head, aloof and calm, his voice cold yet casual.

He stopped a few paces in front of Elder Ma, looking down at the elder with a calculating gaze.

"I'm impressed."

Elder Ma coughed weakly, "K-Kill me already....just be done with it..."

"Sorry, but I find you still useful to me alive than dead." Huo Yuhao chuckled evilly.

Elder Ma's body trembled with both fear and frustration. He tried to clench his hands, though it only resulted in his fingers slightly twitching.

"I-I...." Elder Ma gritted his teeth and circulated his soul power, transform and use the power of ice and kill the ghost in front of him—!

His eyes widened, he felt nothing. His martial soul didn't come out. It was refusing to change him! What's going on?!

Huo Yuhao smirked behind the mask, before the Ice God's Legacy, all elements of Ice and Snow would bow, so does most of Ice-type soul beasts.

"Well, that wasn't a very smart idea now, was it?" Huo Yuhao said coolly, his voice laced with amusement as he observed Elder Ma's futile attempts to muster his power.

Elder Ma's heart sank, realizing his ice affinity had been completely suppressed.

"You..." Elder Ma's voice was barely a whisper, his pride shattered as he struggled to come to terms with his defeat. "What...What are you...? You say you're a ghost...?"

Huo Yuhao chuckled softly, the sound sending a chill down Elder Ma's spine. "Who knows? That's a question I've been asking myself for a long time."

He grabbed the man's head, gripping him tightly, and made him look at his eyes. "Now then, time to make you useful..."

'H-His eyes...Why do they look familiar...?!' Elder Ma's eyes widened as he stared into Huo Yuhao's piercing eyes, which seemed to shift between a deep, endless abyss and a crystalline, terrifying golden light.

A flicker of recognition flashed through his mind, but before Elder Ma could grasp the connection, his thoughts were consumed by a sudden overwhelming force.

His mind was no longer his own—Huo Yuhao's spiritual power flooded into him, seizing control of his consciousness.

A few moments later, Huo Yuhao dropped Elder Ma's head onto the ground. He then stared at the three survivors.

'One of them won't live for long, while the other two are too mentally broken from what they had done to their friends and allies. They won't be of use to me...'

With cold indifference, he extracted the storage ring that contained the embryo, of which the Snow Empress was contained, from Elder Ma's hand.

'I got her!' Huo Yuhao smiled before putting on the storage ring.

With a final glance at the unconscious Elder Ma and at the other three soul engineers, Huo Yuhao turned his attention back to his mission, leaving behind critically injured soul engineers who was now nothing more than pawns in his grander schemes.

He paused, getting a message from one of his clones.

'Trouble up ahead, huh...' He glanced back at the corpses behind him and thought about another strategic way to escape.

"I didn't think this is where I'm going to use this ability for the first time..." Huo Yuhao closed his eyes and instantaneously, his demeanor changed.

His entire body radiated the aura of death, with a single dark-grey soul ring forming around him.

When he opened his eyes, it changed into a pale grey color with his pupils being pentagrams that radiated mystery and desolation.

His breathing slowed, and the aura of death around him deepened, becoming almost tangible—a heavy fog that weighed down the air.

The cold air grew even colder as his grey soul ring began to glow, softly at first, then with increasing intensity.

Huo Yuhao's presence seemed to swell, the grey aura of his power spreading outwards like the reach of a long shadow.

The corpses around him lay still, devoid of life, but there was something ominous in the air—an unnatural energy that made the very ground beneath him tremble.

With a single commanding thought, he raised his hand towards the fallen bodies. His voice cut through the silence like the crack of thunder:

"Arise."

The word reverberated through the air, not loud, but filled with the weight of his soul power and spiritual energy. As if obeying an irresistible call, the corpses began to twitch.

Slowly at first, then with increasing intensity, their limbs moved with jerky, unnatural motions.

The ground beneath them rumbled softly as one by one, the dead began to rise. Their eyes were hollow, their faces blank, but their bodies obeyed his command. A faint, deathly mist surrounded them, wrapping around their forms as they stood before Huo Yuhao, awaiting his orders.

The soul engineers who had once fought with such precision and skill were now nothing more than puppets of the dead, their lifeless bodies reanimated by the force of Huo Yuhao's Divine Law of Necromancy.

Huo Yuhao smirked behind his mask, the feeling of control over the dead thrilling and empowering him. Ever since Electrolux had decided to finally take him in as his disciple, he had helped awakened his Light element and started teaching him all sorts of spells.

And of course, with his Sharingan and his own intelligence, he easily learned all of the spells he taught him.

And this, reanimating the dead into beings called zombies, low-ranking undead, was one of the most basic spells he taught him. This type of undead didn't have any intelligence and only retained about 50-60% of their combat ability when they were alive. However, they could still fight under his command, making them useful as disposable soldiers.

Exactly what he needed in this situation.

The grey soul ring pulsed once more, and his new army stood at attention, ready to obey his every command.

"Follow me," he said quietly, his voice calm yet filled with authority. The reanimated corpses obeyed immediately, shuffling forward as Huo Yuhao turned his attention to the path back.

....

❄️Shout out to the great Cultivators of my patreon, may you reach the peak of the heavens and conquer the earth! Pursue immortality and receive enlightenment!

•Julien

•allen pellissery

•SpamSubi

•matatank

•B1G_DREAM

•Albert Jojo

❄️A bigger shout out to the ones who ascended to become a One Above All!! The GOATS! THE MAJESTIES!!

•Tyler Dann

•Adrian Durand

•weykerz h

•Gilgamos

•Orion Chung

•swift arrow

Wanna read 10 advanced chapters, other stories, photos of the characters and support me all at the same time so I can pump out more chapters, and possibly dish out extra chaps? Well then, head on over to my patreon and become enlightened cultivators!

P.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/FroztDouluo