Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Mira undid her stealth but kept using her illusions to hide her tails and ears. As soon as she did, all the cultivators inside and outside the Formations locked onto her position.

“There she is!”

“Hurry! Surround her!”

“Don’t let her get close to the Heavenly Verdant Windwood Tree!”

Mira raised an eyebrow at the last person’s words.

‘Heavenly Verdant Windwood Tree? Is that the name of that thing?’ She looked at the massive green tree on top of the mountain, with thousands of birds of all different ranks flying around it.

She’d never heard of a tree like that, but it made sense. If she had a tree that could raise people’s affinities, she wouldn’t want to tell the world about it either.

Now that she was a bit closer, with her senses, she spotted a few people rushing over to protect the various eggs that the birds must’ve laid, which confirmed her thoughts.

‘It seems these people are using this place as a breeding ground and is either distributing these eggs to the people backing them or selling them.’ She thought but soon lost interest and focused on the people who had now surrounded her.

Their auras pressed down on her, attempting to immobilize her, but Mira acted like she wasn’t affected. She brushed off their attempts to subdue her with a snort and stared back at them impassively.

Right now, she wasn’t in the mood to fight as she was on a time crunch, but if they wanted to die so badly, she’d be happy to oblige.

“Miss,” Suddenly, an average-sized woman with brown hair and amber eyes descended from the sky, hovering around 30 meters above her, “What are you doing here?” She narrowed her eyes and asked in a cold voice.

Mira shrugged, but a slight smile hung on her face, amused that the woman didn’t attack her, “I saw a big tree. So, naturally, I was curious.”

The woman’s face darkened. What sort of bullshit answer was that?! If you were going to lie, at least put in a bit of effort!

‘Every tree in this damn Mountain Range is big!’

She screamed internally but kept her composure and didn’t get upset. The same goes for the men and women around her. They were all experienced people and could sense the bloody death-like aura around Mira. With crazy people like that, it was better to settle things peacefully.

“Well, now that you’ve seen it, you can be on your way now.” The woman said in an icy tone. She, just like everyone else, didn’t want this dangerous woman to stick around any longer.

However, what she didn’t expect was for Mira to shake her head, “No, I don’t think I will leave.”

Suddenly, she swung her scythe, and a thin arc of lightning shot out of her blade toward a group of Nascent Soul Realm cultivators.

Their expressions changed when they saw the incoming attack, and they hurriedly controlled their Qi to block it!

“YOU DARE?!” The woman yelled and covered the people Mira attacked in a barrier to prevent them from getting hurt.

*BOOOOOOOOOM!*

Her barrier successfully blocked the attack, but Mira’s attention was never on those people, to begin with. They were just fodder anyway.

While everyone was distracted by the attack had coated her legs with Lightning Qi and shot toward the weakest Soul Transformation Realm expert, who happened to be in the 1st Stage.

The man sensed her coming toward him at supersonic speeds and scowled. He gathered Qi around his body, empowering it, and blocked the incoming scythe, but when he felt the weight behind her attack, his mouth opened wide in shock.

‘What the hell is this physical strength?!’

He didn’t even get the chance to counterattack, Mira’s attack sending him flying.

Mira was also shocked at her physical prowess when watching him soar through the air like a rag-doll, but that doesn’t mean she stopped attacking.

She shot toward the man like a bolt of lightning, and before anyone could react, slashed her scythe at his chest!

The man’s Qi blocked most of the attack, but part of it still managed to get through, creating a massive gash along his chest.

“Ugh!” The man grunted in pain and fell to the ground, but even though he was disorientated, he still roused his Qi again, expecting another attack.

However, after a second of waiting, that attack never came.

“Eh?” The man raised his head and looked around, but Mira was nowhere to be seen.

“What?! Where’d she go?!”

He used his Soul Sense to scan the surrounding area, but even then, he didn’t spot her!

“How is that possible?! She was just attacking me! Where’d she go?!” He jumped up from the ground, ignoring the pain in his chest, and began searching for her.

Meanwhile, the woman who spoke to Mira had just caught up to him and noticed the serious expression on his face, “Luke, wasn’t she just here? Where’d she go?”

Luke frowned as her words implied that she didn’t see Mira leave either. Not letting his guard down, he shook his head, “I don’t know, Jess. She just attacked me twice and then disappeared.”

The woman Luke called Jess also frowned and closed her eyes to search the surrounding area with her Soul Sense but soon opened her eyes and shook her head.

“I can’t feel her with my Soul Sense,” Jess muttered in a grave voice. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but she was also confused.

Everything was normal today. They killed a few nosy beasts who wanted to sneak in, took care of the birds, and prepped the eggs to be delivered to their superiors.

Although something weird happened a few days ago when the Rank 8 Gale Eagle suddenly shot out of the tree to go hunt, they thought nothing of it. It was a beast and would often leave the nest to hunt food.

The fact that it hadn’t returned by now was a little odd, but it wasn’t that unusual, nor did they care that much. It would return to the Heavenly Verdant Windwood Tree anyways, so there was no need to keep such a tight leash around it.

However, now that an odd yet strong woman showed up out of the blue a few days later, Jess began to think that maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.

‘The Ancient Beast Mountain Range is so large. What are the chances of someone just casually strolling through, finding this place?’ The answer came immediately to her.

‘Almost none!’

*Squak!**Squak!**Squak!*

Suddenly, she heard the birds around the Heavenly Verdant Windwood Tree start going crazy and looked over to find Mira with her hands dug into its trunk!

“Shit! She’s at the tree!!!” She yelled at the top of her lungs and disappeared from everyone’s view, shooting toward the peak of the mountain.

“What?!”

“How’d she get there from right under our noses?!”

“What about the Formation? Wasn’t that supposed to tell us where she was?!”

The surrounding cultivators shouted while following Jess. Luke was as equally as puzzled as them but didn’t dwell on it too long.

‘If she can manhandle me like a little child with physical strength alone, she’s not a normal person.’ He thought, shivering, feeling the cold wind sting his wound.

He popped a healing pill in his mouth and followed after Jess but soon frowned.

‘Hmm? Why is the healing pill not working as well as it used to?’ He thought before popping in another one. Blood stopped pouring out of his chest, and his skin began to close now that he had taken a second one, but he was still puzzled.

𝒐𝔳𝐞𝗅xt.𝚌𝒪𝓂

‘Weird.’ He thought but pushed this to the back of his mind, choosing to concentrate on the upcoming battle instead.

Meanwhile, Jess had already caught up to Mira and prepared an attack, but she was a little hesitant to use it as she didn’t want to damage the tree.

“You thief! Get your grubby hands off our property!!” She yelled, then sent a palm strike at her. She didn’t use her full power for fear of damaging the tree, but she felt it was more than enough to deal with someone at the Peak of the Core Formation Realm.

*POOF!*

The attack landed on Mira, causing her to cough up a mouthful of blood, but she didn’t move. Her body stood still, rooted on the ground.

Jess was shocked that she didn’t instantly kill the woman but regained her wits and sent a few more Palms Strikes at her.

*POOF!**POOF!**POOF!*

“Since you want to die so bad, I’ll send you off now!”

Jess yelled while preparing another palm strike.

However, before she could do that, she felt the ground shake! Shocked, worried, and confused, she glanced around to see what was happening.

Finding nothing, she returned her attention back to Mira, only for her eyes to bulge out of their sockets!

“What the fu-?!?!”

Mira stood there, blood dripping down her face, ripping the massive tree out of the ground. The sight was so shocking that she almost forgot what she was doing. Almost.

“YOU!! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!!”

Her eyes turned bloodshot, and she dashed at Mira, hoping to grab her, but before she could do so, the tree disappeared! As if it had never existed in the first place, the tree just vanished into thin air!

“YOU-! YOU-! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Jess pointed at Mira and raged.

Mira turned to the angry woman pointing at her and released a large, bloody smile.

“I’m a little busy right now, so let’s have a proper fight next time we meet.” With that said, Mira covered her body in Darkness and Lightning and disappeared from Jess’ view, leaving only a few words behind.

“Thanks for the gift!”

…

“ARRRRRRRRRRRGHH!! YOU BASTARD!! I’LL KILL YOU!!”