Electrolux in Hand

Just as the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was making its sacrifice, a thunderous boom suddenly rang out high in the sky, and the entire heavens darkened.

Drawn by the immense energy produced by the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's sacrifice, a gray current of air tore through space and plunged from above, rushing toward the back of Huo Yuhao's head.

It was a wisp of divine consciousness left behind by Electrolux.

Feng Piaoling had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He had been hiding underground, directly beneath Huo Yuhao's position.

The instant the sky darkened, Feng Piaoling shot out and placed himself between the gray-white light and Huo Yuhao's back.

By then, Electrolux's divine consciousness was on the verge of dissipating, with little independent awareness left. After entering Feng Piaoling's body, it found that he had opened his Spirit Sea and decided not to leave. It settled in and sank into silence.

Feeling the change within his Spirit Sea, Feng Piaoling was finally reassured. A relieved smile spread across his face.

By then, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's sacrifice had also reached its final stage.

Huo Yuhao's constitution was simply too weak, and the sacrifice was taking place while he was absorbing a Ten-Year Wind Baboon Spirit Ring.

This forced the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm to devote even more effort to stabilizing Huo Yuhao's Spirit Ring and placing seals on it. It had no attention to spare for the outside world.

Feng Piaoling glanced at the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's shed skin, which it hadn't yet had time to retrieve. The corner of his mouth lifted in a barely noticeable smile as he picked it up and stuffed it into a Storage Soul Tool ring he had prepared in advance.

Then he put that Soul Tool ring into another Soul Tool.

He repeated this seven or eight times. After layering them like nesting dolls, even the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's formidable Spiritual Power couldn't locate its shed skin.

Only after finishing all this did Feng Piaoling dive back underground.

The Level 9 Soul Tool Mental Barrier he had just used had consumed far too much of his Soul Power and Spiritual Power. Even with the exceptionally abundant Soul Power and powerful Spiritual Power he had cultivated through the Green Lotus Sword Art and Heaven-Reaching Demon Eye, he couldn't keep it up for long.

Before then, he had to pretend he knew nothing about the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's sacrifice and establish an alibi.

He still wanted to make use of Huo Yuhao's good fortune to find himself a suitable third Spirit Ring.

He didn't want to fall out with him so soon.

Meanwhile, things weren't going nearly as well for the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm.

"Too weak, too weak! Your big brother's having the worst luck! Just how many seals do I have to place before that feeble body of yours can bear my million-year Wisdom Soul Ring? And of all the Spirit Rings you could've absorbed, why did you have to pick a Wind Baboon? You could've chosen any ten-year-old Spirit-type Soul Beast!"

"And now look at you—you got an Airflow Observation skill. Its only use is watching the air move. What good is that? You could've at least gotten an ice attribute! Now I can't even increase your Spirit Ring's age. Your First Spirit Ring is ruined, and I don't even know if it'll affect my god-making plan."

(P.S.: Here's a more reasonable alternate setting: one reason the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm sought out Spirit Masters with a mental attribute was that its Spiritual Origin could only increase the age of mental- and ice-attribute Spirit Rings.)

"Who did your big brother wrong to deserve this? If I'd known, I should've sacrificed myself to that sly kid just now. At least he had the talent of Twin Martial Souls."

As it expanded Huo Yuhao's Spirit Sea and placed seals, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm grumbled incessantly.

At the same time, through the memories it had imprinted in Huo Yuhao, it learned about Feng Piaoling.

In Huo Yuhao's eyes, Feng Piaoling had looked after him all the way here. Aside from his mother, he was the only person who had ever treated him well.

Not wanting to ask too much of such a good person, Huo Yuhao had turned down Feng Piaoling's kindness and chosen to absorb the Ten-Year Wind Baboon Spirit Ring.

After learning all this, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm couldn't help cursing. "Idiot!"

When it finally finished its work and went to retrieve its shed skin, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was... no, the whole worm was utterly dumbfounded.

"Where's my shed skin? Where's that huge shed skin of mine? Without it, how am I supposed to take this kid Huo Yuhao to find Bingbing?"

At that moment, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm felt its life as a Soul Beast had never been darker.

Without the Ice Empress, it wouldn't be that becoming a god was completely hopeless, but its chances would undoubtedly plummet.

"Forget it. If it comes down to it, I'll just have to try finding another ice-attribute Soul Beast."

In the end, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm still didn't give up on Huo Yuhao. It still retained its Spiritual Origin and could choose someone else.

But switching to someone else would ultimately come at a considerable cost. It wouldn't change hosts unless it had no other choice.

"Anyway, your big brother's finally free. You bastards who treated me like food—you've lost your chance." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm tried to console itself, its voice gradually fading.

The Spiritual Power that had covered a hundred-li radius rapidly contracted and vanished.

The instant that Spiritual Power disappeared, a white ring and a luminous white ring silently appeared beneath Huo Yuhao.

One was ten years old, while the other was a million-year ring in a sealed state. Although they looked slightly different, ten-year Spirit Rings came in shades ranging from light to dark depending on their age.

There was no need to worry about anyone becoming suspicious.

The two white Spirit Rings circled Huo Yuhao's body three times, then faded and disappeared into him.

Thanks to Feng Piaoling having Huo Yuhao absorb the Ten-Year Wind Baboon First Spirit Ring ahead of time, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had been forced to use some of its own Spiritual Origin to forcibly raise Huo Yuhao's Soul Power to level twenty.

Now Huo Yuhao was a twenty-first-level Soul Grandmaster.

You could say he'd been blessed in disguise.

But compared with what he'd lost, this ten-level Soul Power boost above what he had in the original story was hardly worth mentioning.

It wasn't long before Tang Ya and Bei Bei came racing over at top speed.

When they saw Huo Yuhao lying unconscious on the ground, safely protected inside the scabbard of the Thunder Tribulation Sword, they stopped.

Just then, Feng Piaoling returned as well, looking rather "disheveled."

"Were they attacked by a Soul Beast?" Tang Ya asked in astonishment, looking from Huo Yuhao on the ground to the nearby earth, which was a cratered wasteland from the Fire Bomb Talismans.

Bei Bei, meanwhile, looked at the corpse of the Wind Baboon nearby, its leg broken.

A ten-year-old Wind Baboon shouldn't have been a threat to Feng Piaoling, who was on the verge of becoming a Soul Elder at level thirty.

Then he noticed the craters left by the Fire Bomb Talismans and the protective barrier produced by the Level 4 Soul Tool scabbard.

That meant they had most likely encountered a much stronger Soul Beast.

Feng Piaoling must have gone off to draw it away just now.

"Mm." Feng Piaoling didn't elaborate. He simply gave a quiet response, retrieved the scabbard of the Thunder Tribulation Sword, and silently sat down nearby. He circulated the Green Lotus Sword Art to recover his Soul Power.

Tang Ya had already imagined the scene of Feng Piaoling drawing away a powerful Soul Beast by himself to protect Huo Yuhao. She stopped calling him a taciturn man, too, and her gaze softened as she silently resolved to bring both him and Huo Yuhao into the Tang Sect.