A Feline Beast Appears in the Snow

Yes, during the time he was evolving, his body had begun shedding its skin once again.

As his claws tore at it, a series of sounds like ripping silk rang out. It was the old skin peeling from his body.

By now, even his shed skin had formidable defensive properties.

Watching it fall away piece by piece, Bai Chuan felt an utterly exhilarating relief course through his whole body. The itchy, stinging sensation was gone.

He had to admit, having a pair of nimble claws was incredibly useful.

Back then, when he wanted to shed his old skin, he had to search all over for narrow crevices and squeeze inside, rubbing against them to scrape it off. Even then, he couldn't get it all off easily.

This was nothing like that. Now it was easy, clean, and quick.

Once Bai Chuan had fully crawled out of his shed skin, he was astonished to discover that his body had grown to a full six meters long.

His size had already exceeded the recorded limit for King Cobras.

He seemed no weakling among pythons, either, and that was without even considering his other abilities.

"Everything's taken care of. Time to have a good meal." After taking in his greatly increased size, Bai Chuan rubbed his empty belly with the little claw in front of him, then slithered toward the cave entrance.

One meter... two meters...

The farther he traveled, the fainter the Great Serpent's dark silhouette became, as though it were fading away.

At last, it vanished into thin air, as if it had turned transparent.

Snowfield.

The cold wind blew, snowflakes drifted, and the chill cut to the bone.

"Squeak! Squeak!"

A series of shrill, miserable cries suddenly rang out across the snow.

Then a white rabbit, missing a leg, hopped out in a lopsided limp.

It looked utterly terrified. Its long ears, usually held high or resting loosely, were now pressed tightly against its body.

Fear filled its beady black eyes. It kept turning to look behind itself, as though some monster were chasing it.

It dared not stop, struggling onward through the snow.

As it struggled, its severed hind leg began to ooze more and more crimson blood. First, the fur on its thigh grew wet, then droplets began to fall onto the pristine snow.

For a moment, the snow was white, and the blood was red.

Meanwhile, not far behind the wounded rabbit—

"Hiss, hiss..."

A faint grinding sound arose as the snow was pushed aside. Before long, a huge, long furrow slowly appeared across the smooth snow.

It looked as though some enormous, invisible, and dangerous creature had passed by.

In truth, that was exactly what had happened.

The creature passing through was none other than Bai Chuan, in Environmental Mimicry—in other words, "invisible."

Of course, Bai Chuan wasn't merely passing by. He had been following the snow rabbit the whole time.

He had been out of the cave for quite a while. Aside from one snow rabbit he had fortunately caught early on, he hadn't spotted any other creatures.

With no other choice, he looked at the little rabbit in his claw, too small to fill even one bite, as the cold wind blew.

A sudden idea struck him. Rather than eat it and still be hungry, he might as well use it as bait and see what happened.

He acted on the thought at once. With ease, he snapped one of the rabbit's hind legs, making sure it couldn't instantly disappear from sight. Then, using a snake's body, he made another wound on it.

After that, he dropped it into the snow and followed behind at an unhurried pace.

He let the wretched rabbit struggle through the cold, while each drop of blood and its coppery scent were carried farther away by the wind.

The rabbit kept fleeing. Before long—

A nimble figure quietly appeared in the snow.

The moment he saw it, Bai Chuan instinctively held his breath and stopped moving.

His scales seemed to come alive, fitting tightly against his body to keep his scent from spreading.

Only then did he look into the distance and study the figure carefully.

At a glance, it looked like an oversized cat, but unlike a cat—

Its body was stocky, its limbs long, and its tail short and thick, with a blunt, rounded tip. Its ears were broad at the base, with erect black tufts at the tips. Long fur hung from its cheeks, and its belly fur was long as well.

Its back was darker, a reddish brown, with darker fur along the middle. Its belly was pale yellowish white. The fur around its eyes was white, and its cheeks bore two or three distinct rows of dark brown vertical stripes.

It was a lynx, a creature native to snowy regions.

It was now creeping stealthily toward the bleeding snow rabbit.

Bai Chuan smiled at the sight.

Perhaps by sheer coincidence, the lynx was edging sideways in his direction.

And it was getting closer.

This was perfect. He had thought he would have to sneak up from behind and launch an attack himself, but his target had come right to him.

It seemed he would get to play the waiting hunter for once.

As his target drew closer, Bai Chuan grew more and more careful to conceal his presence, waiting for it to approach step by step before bursting out to kill.

The lynx had no idea that another invisible predator was waiting for it in this field of pristine snow.

It cautiously crept forward, while its sharp eyes darted about, taking in its surroundings.

The prey's cries told it that with such a commotion, a whole pack of meat-eaters would soon arrive.

It had to close the distance and claim the rabbit as quickly as possible so it could leave at its leisure.

It drew closer: one meter... two meters...

Soon, it entered Bai Chuan's attack range, just six meters away.

And then, at last, it sensed that something was wrong.

It seemed to have bumped into something that shouldn't have been there—something sharp, warm, and long.

What was this?!

In an instant, the lynx instinctively raised its head.

As if in response, the next moment a huge, savage black serpent's snout slowly emerged from the air. Its cold, piercing eyes fixed on the lynx.

Its head was raised high, its neck spread wide like a cloak, adorned with dazzling, mysterious golden markings.

Its jaws were already gaping open, its sharp, hard fangs gleaming in the snow.

Startled, the lynx's fur stood on end. It arched its back, about to leap away.

Its keen instincts warned it that this was another predator, and it had been targeted!

But it was too late. Bai Chuan had never encountered a feline before, and he had heard that felines had extraordinarily quick reflexes.

So, to make sure his ambush succeeded, he had forcibly held back the urge to attack when the lynx was thirteen meters away.

Instead, he had waited until it was six meters away—right beside him.

Only then did he slowly open his jaws and dive down.

The next instant, a piercing whoosh split the air.

"Pfft!"

The sound of a sharp weapon piercing flesh rang out: the venomous fangs had sunk into the lynx's neck.

Before it could fight back, the Great Serpent's supple yet sturdy body began winding around the lynx's limbs and torso.

Then it locked tight.

At the same time, golden venom rapidly gushed from the Great Serpent's fangs, flooding into the lynx's body.