Reborn

At this moment, the small wooden box began to vibrate violently in Bai Chuan's claws.

Along with the vibrations, the Ice Silkworm inside the box let out an extremely piercing shriek.

This was an unprecedented strange phenomenon. Before, even when surrounded by a large group of humans and pushed to exhaustion, this Ice Silkworm had never let out such a miserable scream.

No, it hadn't even made a sound at all.

But now, it did!

Bai Chuan was startled. Reacting quickly, he instinctively tried to press the wooden box down with his claws and pass it to the little Rat.

But it was too late, or rather, it had no effect.

The box's vibrations grew more and more terrifying, scaring Bai Chuan into instinctively tightening his grip. The result—

"Crack~"

With just a light squeeze from his sharp, blade-like claws, the already fragile wooden box split completely open.

A small, plump white worm appeared in midair.

Its tiny, soft little feet, its tender white body, and its two small black-dot eyes.

No matter how you looked at it, it had nothing to do with ferocity. It was the very image of a cute little thing.

Yet this sight made Bai Chuan's scalp tingle, as if all his Scales were about to stand on end.

Just as Bai Chuan thought it would erupt with that terrifying cold at any moment—

The Ice Silkworm let out another miserable shriek, then floated in midair, convulsing unnaturally.

As it convulsed, extremely tiny but dazzling white specks of light began to seep out from inside the worm's body.

The moment those specks appeared, wisps of biting cold air emanated from them.

In an instant, the temperature here dropped several degrees, and it kept falling, the rate accelerating as more specks emerged.

Within just a few breaths, the specks gathered together, forming a stream of pale white light that shot toward Bai Chuan.

And the Ice Silkworm fell to the ground with a "plop."

What was this?

This sight made Bai Chuan jolt. In the blink of an eye, he lifted his long neck and arched backward, retreating explosively.

Because this clearly visible stream of light was exactly the same white light that had frozen those humans solid before!

Though this stream was faint and much smaller, it was still not something he could easily withstand.

But unexpectedly, before he could escape—

The stream of light, sensing its target fleeing, halted mid-flight, changed direction, and came at him again.

"Damn, it even tracks?!"

Seeing this, Bai Chuan let out a rare curse, and the next moment, the stream struck him in the head.

Then, Bai Chuan stood frozen in place.

Of course, that didn't mean he was dead.

Bai Chuan, who had thought he was about to die, was shocked to find himself unharmed. Instead, he felt an extremely strange sensation.

A torrent that he felt should have been bitterly cold was pouring into his body from his forehead, yet he felt no cold at all.

No, not even a trace of cold. For a moment, a conflict between his body and his senses assaulted his mind.

It was a very odd feeling. His senses told him this was a cold current comparable to a frozen lake in deep winter, and he should have been frozen to death by now.

But his body was like a starving wolf spotting fat meat—not only did it not detect the deadly chill, it eagerly welcomed the arrival of this cold current.

He even seemed to feel a sense of joy emanating from the current, like a long-wandering scholar returning home.

Subconsciously, he narrowed his eyes, savoring this strange sensation.

At the same time, as Bai Chuan froze and narrowed his eyes—

His body underwent a startling transformation.

A thin layer of frost began to slowly form on his snake head where the stream had struck, and wisps of pale white cold started spreading from his head down his entire serpentine body.

Cold air began to emanate from him continuously.

Not only that, but before long—

An even more astonishing scene appeared.

As the biting cold radiated from his snake body, a dense swarm of tiny, varied insects began to emerge from all over his body.

Among these insects were some as small as grains of rice, some as thin as threads, some as large as peanuts, and even flat, wide ones resembling pork tapeworms...

These parasites, which had been living inside his body all along, eating his flesh and drinking his blood, were now scrambling to escape, as if some terrifying existence had appeared inside him that they desperately needed to flee from.

But before they could get away, many of them gradually lost their mobility as they crawled, stiffening up, and fell to the ground like rain with a series of "plops."

It was an extremely horrifying and bizarre scene.

And this scene was witnessed only by a single little Rat.

The incident happened so suddenly that the little rat didn't even have time to react before it was already over.

Then it witnessed this astonishing sight—this kind Great Serpent's body was actually covered in a swarm of strange, bizarre bugs.

Startled, it directly took a step back, its two little paws tightly hugging its own small body, but the next second it also snapped to its senses.

Since this Great Serpent had these things on him, could it be that it had them too?

Suddenly realizing this blind spot, the little mouse was also somewhat terrified as it lowered its small head to look at its own body. Its usually glossy, sleek fur now seemed glaring and horrifying no matter how it looked!

In its panic, its claws scratched here and there, as if trying to dig out the little bugs from inside its body.

Meanwhile, when Bai Chuan came back to his senses from that incredibly comfortable feeling.

What met his eyes was a wilted-looking little rat. It no longer had its earlier excitement, its fur completely disheveled, weakly leaning against the earthen wall with its head drooped, its little claws occasionally scratching at its fur.

As if it had been attacked by someone during this time.

What happened?

Bai Chuan was stunned, unable to understand what was wrong with this rat now.

Until he lowered his head and saw a ground full of various bugs, and even some still clinging to his scales that hadn't fallen off.

The sight made him feel a wave of disgust, and he instinctively shook his whole body to fling off these bugs.

With a series of "smack smack" sounds, the few bugs still stuck to his scales were sent flying, some even hitting the dejected little mouse, causing it to squeak pitifully and dodge away.

After that, Bai Chuan endured his nausea and carefully examined these bugs. They all looked different, the only similarity being that they were all dead.

"Are these parasites from my body?" Bai Chuan thought briefly and understood the situation.

That was it. No wonder when he woke from that comfortable sensation, he felt an extremely pleasant and refreshing feeling all over his body.

It was as if he had been carrying dozens of pounds of weight all along, and now he had finally completely shed that burden.

He felt light all over, as if he were about to ascend to immortality.

Even his breathing felt much smoother.

This was because the power of ice inside him had cleansed his body from within.