Chapter 139: The Ancient Ice God

Wang Rui was worried.

In the original course of fate, the Golden Dragon King had quietly released the negative forces sealed within him, subtly influencing the temperament of the God of Destruction—without any other gods noticing.

Although the novel never explicitly mentioned it, Wang Rui speculated that the Golden Dragon King had managed to leak his power due to Tang San attempting to study the Golden Dragon Spear, damaging the seal and leaving behind a small gap.

But that was a slow, silent infiltration.

Not like now, where he was forcibly pushing his power through the gap, descending into the Douluo world.

The Eye of Fate could not peer into the God Realm.

Wang Rui had no way of knowing whether the seal would mutate because of this, nor did he dare to gamble on whether the God Realm's council would detect the hidden breach. He was equally uncertain whether the God Realm would take direct action against his old father.

If the damage to the seal was detected in advance by the God Realm…

Even so, he still temporarily handed control of his body over to the Golden Dragon King.

Since he had already come down, he might as well stretch his limbs a little and relax.

After all, the living conditions inside the God Realm's seal… were obviously far from ideal.

As the Golden Dragon King descended with his power, Wang Rui could hear faint sobbing and cries filled with resentment and unwillingness.

He looked at the spiritual world, where the Golden Dragon King's consciousness manifested.

The massive golden dragon was nestled between the towers of a castle, his tail draping down along the rooftops. He looked just like an oversized orange cat lying on his favorite cat tree.

The Golden Dragon King gazed greedily at the familiar planet.

The unending snowstorms of the Extreme North were monotonous, but he didn't care.

It had been many, many years since he had last seen the real scenery of this planet. For countless cycles, he had been trapped within the seal, chewing on twisted memories stained crimson with blood.

Once, white dragons had flown over these snowy plains, followed by creatures bearing draconic traits, crossing the vast snowfields… That grand and magnificent sight had long since been buried under the dust of time. The era of dragons ruling this world had ended, becoming a past that belonged to the past.

Wang Rui wanted to remind him to withdraw his power quickly, lest he attract the attention of the God Realm—but in the end, he couldn't bring himself to say it.

After a long while, the Golden Dragon King's gaze finally fell upon Di Tian.

"You…" He hesitated for a moment, struggling to dig out the memory of a tiny black dragon from the depths of his mind before he finally spoke, "Di Tian?"

"Yes, my lord." The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King suppressed the excitement in his voice as he answered.

"It's truly been a long time." The Golden Dragon King sighed, his face showing a trace of nostalgia—along with something else. It was as if he had traveled through the vast river of time, back to the moment when the great ruler first laid eyes on the young offspring of his most trusted subordinate. That was an expression the silver king beneath the Lake of Life had never shown.

"It has been so many years… You've worked hard, child."

Di Tian's eyes lit up. "I wouldn't dare say so." He took a deep breath and lowered his head, barely concealing his emotions.

On the side, the Three-Eyed Cat looked at Di Tian with an increasingly hostile expression.

His guardian, who had seemingly engraved passive aggression and sarcasm into his DNA, was actually speaking kindly to someone else's child (wrong). This scene felt increasingly like something out of a certain genre (very, very wrong).

"Why don't you explain to me first—what do you mean by 'you don't want to kill Snow Empress a second time'?" Wang Rui asked coolly.

"The literal meaning. I've killed her before…" The Golden Dragon King responded absentmindedly, then seemed to realize something and corrected himself. "Oh, now it should be called my main body. My main body—that is, Dragon God—once killed her before. Elemental beings are an absolute nuisance. Even if you crush them, they just revert into pure elements… Then, after tens of thousands of years, those elements will condense again and reform into an elemental spirit, endlessly repeating the cycle."

Di Tian's expression tensed.

The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King keenly extracted two critical pieces of information from his words. First, the connection between the Golden Dragon King and the Three-Eyed Spirit Beast was far more than just a minor bloodline link—over the past fifteen thousand years, they must have become familiar with each other in an extremely secretive manner. Second, the Golden Dragon King's perception of himself was subtly different from the Silver Dragon King's.

His internal scales tilted further.

An ordinary elemental being would never have warranted Dragon God's personal intervention… Wang Rui also realized something.

Sure enough, the Golden Dragon King seemed to sink into memory, his voice softening. "That was many, many years ago… At that time, I had just gathered the nine original Dragon Kings from all corners of the universe. Back then, they were still unhatched dragon eggs. I had just finished my long and lonely journey through the cosmos, ready to find a suitable planet to settle down and hatch them."

Lost in reminiscence, the Golden Dragon King no longer fretted over pronouns, and no one present reminded him.

"You chose this place?" Wang Rui asked with interest. "What were the criteria?"

"There are countless planets in the universe. Some go from barren to thriving over eons. The creatures that different worlds give birth to can be similar or completely different." The Golden Dragon King shrugged. "But the dragons born from different worlds are strikingly similar. However, not every planet is capable of naturally birthing dragons."

He did not reveal the exact criteria for his selection, and Wang Rui did not press further.

"In any case, I once thought this was a good place—full of life, rich in spiritual energy, and naturally capable of producing dragons. So I returned here to settle down. But when I came back, this planet had already turned into a frozen white world."

"An ice-elemental spirit had ascended to godhood. Back then, it was much easier to become a god than it is now. The God Realm had yet to be established, and the dark, chaotic cosmos offered countless ways to ascend. Some even slaughtered their entire planet to achieve divinity." He spoke casually, but there was a chilling murderous aura in his words. "That ice-elemental spirit froze the entire planet, harvesting the terror of all living things to ascend in one fell swoop. He planned to turn this frozen world into his divine kingdom… But I still needed a home."

"So I killed him. Simple as that." He gazed dispassionately at the distant mountains. "It's been too long; the terrain has changed a lot. But the general battlefield should be around there… The ice elements that make up that Snow Empress probably still remember what it felt like when I completely crushed them."

After the death of the Ancient Ice God, the ice formed from his divine power melted, sea levels rose, and later, the Mountain Dragon King transformed into land.

And if an ice-elemental spirit became a god, they could take any form. Wang Rui's expression grew somewhat strange. So that's why both the Scorpion and the Ape carried the bloodline of the Ice God…

"I extracted part of the authority of ice and gave it to the Water Dragon King. But his remaining godhood and such should still be here in the Extreme North. It's useless to dragons, since we ascend easily. But you might be able to use it now." The Golden Dragon King raised a brow. "That was an ancient god who perished before the God Realm was established. He's not under the God Realm's jurisdiction, nor bound by its restrictions… The God Realm forbids mortals from ascending, but it has no control over the inheritance of ancient deities. This was an iron law set when the God Realm was created—and space was reserved for them."

The Extreme North… was the tomb of the Ancient Ice God.

And the most precious burial treasure—was the godhood of an ancient deity.

A ticket to immortality.

Yet the tomb's master had been reincarnated, only to find himself shackled by the laws of the God Realm. Elemental spirits were now classified as soul beasts and could no longer ascend. Even with a godhood, it was useless.

Only humans could become gods.

No wonder the Snow Empress harbored such hatred toward humanity. Her reincarnation was likely aimed at ascending as an Ice God through a human form.

Otherwise, given her attitude, she would never have chosen to become the race she despised most.

Wang Rui smiled—not with malice, just amusement.

(End of Chapter)