Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Feeling the skin on her hands slowly melting off, Mira jumped into the air and backed off. However, the scorching heat penetrated her feet when she landed on the ground.

"Damn! Why is it so hot?" Mira made a pair of ice boots, but within seconds they melted.

With a sigh, she stopped to fight against the molten ground and circulated her Qi, then hovered in the air.

Now that her skin wasn't melting, she could finally get a good look at where she was. Due to the heat penetrating her pores, she wasn't too shocked about her current location, but her eyes did widen in surprise at how hellish the place was.

The air in this place was thick and suffocating, with the acrid stench of burning sulfur and brimstone hanging in the air. The landscape was dominated by jagged rocks and fire pillars that rose from the molten earth, casting flickering shadows across the scorched landscape.

Dark and gloomy skies hung overhead, with roiling clouds of smoke and ash obscuring the sun and casting everything in a sickly red glow. The winds that whipped across the landscape were scorching hot, carrying with them waves of intense heat that made it difficult to breathe.

Pools and rivers of magma dotted the landscape, glowing with an intense heat that threatened to consume all who ventured too close. The ground itself was cracked and fissured, with fiery crevices belching up waves of superheated, poisonous air.

Lava pillars rose up from the earth, towering high into the sky and casting an eerie glow across the desolate landscape. The pillars were pulsing with heat, radiating an intense aura of fiery power that left all who drew too close feeling scorched and raw.

Fiery beasts and twisted demons stalked the scorched earth; their bodies wreathed in flames as they prowled the landscape, seeking out the souls of the damned. Terrifying demons roamed the land, their red, twisted, and deformed bodies etched with the torture their bodies and soul had undergone while staying in this place.

Off in the distance, Mira noticed a giant volcano that reached the sky. Dark, toxic gasses constantly spewed out of it. However, at the top of the volcano, a fiery eye hung over the landscape, watching over its inhabitants.

While Mira had never seen anything like this, her eyes remained still as she calmly observed her surroundings. However, there was one place where there were no dark clouds, fire, or anything synonymous with the word "Hell".

Quite the opposite.

Above a massive, smoking volcano, its fiery maw belching forth clouds of ash and smoke that obscured the sky, a shining gate hung in the air. The gate itself was an awe-inspiring sight; a massive, shimmering structure of silver and gold that glinted in the dull light of the volcanic wasteland.

The gate was intricate and ornate, with elaborate carvings and designs etched into its surface. Massive, glowing pillars of crystal flanked the gates, each pulsing with otherworldly energy that seemed to infuse the very air with a sense of peace and wonder.

Despite the ominous surroundings, the gates radiated a warm and welcoming light, casting a golden aura across the ash-covered landscape below. The gates themselves were suspended in the air, held aloft by an unseen force that seemed to defy the laws of gravity.

At the top of the gate was a sign with words embroidered in gold. The letters seemed to be from an ancient, unknown language that looked oddly similar to the black runes which coated her body yet were slightly different.

Mira shouldn't be able to read them, but for some reason, the meaning of these words entered her mind.

The words read: Gates of Heaven!

Just looking at the bright, golden light exuding from the Gates of Heaven, Mira felt a searing pain in her eyes. However, she kept her eyes wide open for another few seconds to engrave the image of it into her mind.

'I don't know why, but I feel like this in and of itself is an opportunity.' Mira thought. When she remembered every little detail of the gate, Mira placed the memory in an empty room in her Mind Palace, labeled 'Heaven', and turned her head away.

Just as she finished scoping out the land, she heard the F.LD.I.L ring inside her head.

[There are only 8 absolutes in this world: Heaven, Hell, Space-Time, the Void, Genesis Essence, Omega Energy, Souls, and the River of Reincarnation. Each of them has always existed and will always exist.

[Heaven is the judge that keeps the world in order. Its job is to find anyone who wants to break that balance and punish them. It does not have morals or care about petty human squabbles. According to human standards, you could be the worst person and have killed billions of people, but the Heavens won't care.]

[Across the universe and throughout all of Space-Time, an infinite number of beings have died of natural causes. What is infinity compared to a few billion? Should the Heavens punish the world for its cruelty? No, obviously not. Life and death are a way of the world. In Heaven's impartial eyes, every death is a natural cause. The living are the ones who attach a negative connotation to death., not the Heavens.]

[Only when you've done something that breaks the delicate balance of the Universe will the Heavens aim to punish you.]

[Hell is the punishment for those who have tried to break the balance of the Universe. Here, the souls of the 'damned' will experience eternal pain and suffering for their crimes, never to reincarnate again.]

[Space-Time is the origin and reason behind why existence can exist. Without it, there is nothing.]

[The void is an intangible, metaphysical place that expands into infinity. Space and Time can only exist within the void, yet the void only serves to propagate the continuation of Space-Time.]

[Genesis Essence is the energy that created everything you see. Qi, the Earth, the sky, planets, stars, and everything in between can be traced back to Genesis Essence.]

[Omega Energy is the antithesis to Genesis Essence, yet the two can't exist without one another. It's essentially just Genesis Essence that's already been contaminated and can't be used to propagate existence anymore. Think of it as the 2nd stage in the process of recycling Genesis Essence.]

[Lastly are Souls and the River of Reincarnation. Everything has a soul in this world. Every little pebble. Every blade of grass. Every animal. Even the clump of cells that will create a fetus inside a pregnant woman. Having a soul isn't the criterion for being alive and is merely a representation of your strength and importance in the world. For example, a pebble might not have a large soul, but if it's part of a larger whole like a mountain, its status is temporarily raised until it is relocated or destroyed.]

[The River of Reincarnation is what cleanses these souls and recycles them for future use.]

[Everything in this world exists because there is a balance. Without this balance, then existence as a whole might be in danger. It might not happen immediately, but the changes will be significant after tens or hundreds of Chaos Cycles (times when the universe resets).]

[If you want to join the absolutes' ranks, you must first fight them. Once you've succeeded in doing that, conquer them. Lastly, you have to carve out your own little place in existence that is outside of the 8 absolutes. It must exist outside of their control and be unique to you.]

[Only after you've completed all of these steps can you dare to say you walk down the path of the Absolute Ice Dao.]

[That is your objective!]

[Now go! Go struggle for your own little piece of the universe!]

"..."

Mira floated there in stunned silence, not knowing how to react to that information. The scale of this situation just seemed to become much larger than she'd ever thought possible.

"Fuck! I just want to break through into the Nascent Soul Realm! Why must everything be so complicated?!" Mira complained, yet a grin never left her face.

Mira has lived most of her life with the mantra, 'The more difficult something is, the more rewarding it will be.'

Since she prioritizes strength over all else, the fact that she was unable to break through despite her talent just means the strength she'll gain as a result will be more than enough to compensate her for the difficulty.

'Still, am I really supposed to know this stuff? Why do I feel like the F.LD.I.L just exposed a few secrets about the world that I'm not supposed to know, at least not at my current level of strength?' Mira thought but just shrugged her shoulders.

'Whether I have this information or not doesn't change anything.' Mira turned to one of the deformed demons, and the grin on her face widened, 'My objective is to fight, right? Then, I'm more than happy to oblige!'

Mira took out her scythe and launched herself at the demon!