The Temptation of Freedom

Having dealt with the flies outside, Huo Yuhao could finally have a proper talk with Sky Dream Iceworm.

He turned around and gestured for Tu Feng and the others to retreat.

"Everyone, fall back to the tunnel entrance. Without my orders, do not approach, and do not spy."

His voice was not loud, yet it carried an authority that brooked no defiance.

As though granted a pardon, Tu Feng and the others scrambled backward, terrified that the horrific giant beast might strike them again. They both revered and feared Huo Yuhao now; in their minds, this young man had already become inseparable from that monster.

The entire plaza fell silent in an instant.

Only Huo Yuhao and the giant beast before him, like a mountain range of ice crystals, remained.

"All right, no one will disturb us now," Huo Yuhao said calmly through their mental link.

"Hmph. Good thing they ran fast."

Sky Dream Iceworm's thoughts came through. Yet after its rage and excitement subsided, what remained was exhaustion and desolation accumulated over a million years.

Its enormous, ice-crystal-like body squirmed slightly. Soft white light flowed across it, illuminating the dark underground temple like a fairyland beneath the moon.

"Kid, you said you knew why I was imprisoned here?" Sky Dream Iceworm's thoughts grew low.

"Yes."

"Let's hear it."

Huo Yuhao did not answer immediately. Instead, he asked, "Before you hear my 'story,' could you tell me yours first? A million years... what did that feel like?"

Sky Dream Iceworm fell silent.

After a long while, a massive torrent of emotions—loneliness, pain, and resentment all intertwined—surged into Huo Yuhao's mind through the mental link.

It was not an attack, but a confession.

"Feel? This Sky Dream doesn't feel anything!"

"From the moment I gained consciousness, I've been trapped in this damned place! I don't even know what the outside world looks like! All I know is that my power grew stronger day by day, while this cage locked me down tighter and tighter!"

"I can sense endless energy deep underground, but I can't touch it! This lousy formation is like a straw stuck into my body, sucking my blood every single day!"

"I slept, then woke. Woke, then slept. Sometimes, I dreamed of an endless ice field, dreamed of all sorts of things flying in the sky, dreamed of rolling around in the snow... but every time I woke up, I was still in this pitch-black hellhole!"

"Later, humans began breaking in. They called me the 'legacy of a god.' They wanted my power, wanted to turn me into a supplement for themselves! They used every vicious method they could to attack me, trying to tear me apart!"

"A million years! Do you know how long a million years is?! I hate them! I hate them to death!"

Sky Dream Iceworm's roar echoed through Huo Yuhao's sea of consciousness. The despair and fury within it were enough to drive anyone without a firm will mad on the spot.

But Huo Yuhao's [Thought Palace] stood as steady as a rock. He calmly endured it all and caught the crucial information within.

"So, you crave freedom," Huo Yuhao concluded.

"Obviously!"

"And you hate the people who treat you as a tool and a supplement."

"Even more obviously!"

Sky Dream Iceworm's thoughts calmed somewhat. Its vast consciousness curiously "examined" Huo Yuhao's spiritual core.

"You're a strange one, kid. Your mind... your soul... is different from every human this Sky Dream has ever seen. Their souls are like tangled balls of thread, filled with every kind of desire and distracting thought. But yours... it's like... a precise machine? No, even more complicated than that. It's filled with 'structures' I can't understand at all."

What it referred to were the logical frameworks and systems of knowledge from modern science, buried deep within Huo Yuhao's soul.

"Because I showed you respect," Huo Yuhao said evenly.

"Respect?" There was a hint of confusion in Sky Dream Iceworm's thoughts.

"Yes. I didn't treat you as an 'experience pack' or a 'soul ring,' but as an independent life-form capable of communication."

Huo Yuhao took a deep breath. He knew the most critical moment had arrived.

"Sky Dream, I have a proposal."

"Speak."

"We cooperate, in a way this world has never seen before." Huo Yuhao's mental signal became clearer and more solemn than ever.

"I give you the freedom and respect you desire. You give me the power to shatter the chessboard."

"Between us, there will be no master and servant, nor parasite and host. Instead, there will be an equal—'soul symbiosis'!"

Boom!

The words "soul symbiosis" were like a divine thunderbolt from the heavens, striking Sky Dream Iceworm's newly awakened consciousness with savage force!

"W-what the hell?!"

For the first time, Sky Dream Iceworm's immense consciousness fluctuated violently, even with a trace of stammering.

"Equality? Symbiosis? What kind of joke are you making, kid?! Between humans and soul beasts, there's only devouring and being devoured. Where could equality possibly come from?!"

This was too subversive! It overturned everything it had understood about the rules of this world over the past million years!

On Douluo Continent, the final fate of soul beasts was to become soul rings for soul masters. Powerful soul beasts might become the "pets" or "mounts" of certain experts, but in essence, that was still a master-servant relationship.

Equality?

No human had ever said those two words to a soul beast!

"I'm not joking." Huo Yuhao's will was as firm as iron. "Did you already forget the 'script' I showed you just now? In that 'god's' eyes, what difference is there between us? You're the 'million-year cheat' prepared for his successor. I might be the 'tool' responsible for delivering that cheat into his successor's hands."

"We're both chess pieces. There's no fundamental difference."

"So why should I play this game by the rules meant for chess pieces? I'm flipping the table!"

Huo—Yuhao's—voice—rang—through—the—spiritual—plane!

"Sky Dream! Are you willing to accept this? You were trapped for a million years, only to fulfill someone else's ambitions in the end? Your freedom, your power, everything you possess—it's all just one line in someone else's script?"

"I refuse to accept it! My fate must be written by me!"

"Work with me, Sky Dream! Together, we'll see what this world truly looks like! We'll challenge that god who lords over us all! We'll create a future that belongs to us! Isn't that far more exciting than rotting away here or becoming someone else's stepping stone?!"

Huo Yuhao's words were like a spark that could set the plains ablaze, instantly igniting the tiny ember of resentment Sky Dream Iceworm had suppressed for a million years!

That was right...

Why?

Why had Sky Dream been born only to be imprisoned?

Why, after enduring for a million years, did Sky Dream have to become the cheat of some "chosen one" who had appeared out of nowhere?

That god called "Tang San"... who the hell did he think he was!

"..."

Sky Dream Iceworm fell silent once more.

But this time, it was no longer exhaustion. It was an unprecedentedly fierce struggle.

Huo Yuhao's proposal was like a door leading to a new world, displayed before it.

Beyond that door lay the freedom it had craved for a million years, the passion of defying fate, and an unheard-of partnership with a human as equals.

But...

Could humans truly be trusted?

It had been cheated by humans too many times. The greedy faces of those intruders, their vicious intentions to devour it alive—those things had long since been carved into the depths of its soul.

Could this boy called Huo Yuhao also be making empty promises, trying to deceive it out of its power in a more clever way?

Once it chose "symbiosis," it would be handing its entire life over to him. If he harbored ill intentions, it would be doomed beyond redemption!

Huo Yuhao sensed Sky Dream Iceworm's hesitation and suspicion.

He did not urge it, nor did he use more impassioned words to stir it up.

He merely stood there quietly, slowly opening his spiritual origin—his most central, purest soul fluctuations—completely defenselessly to Sky Dream Iceworm.

There were no lies there, no disguises.

There was only the persistence of a modern soul toward equality and freedom.

There was only that mad yet unwavering ambition to drag the gods down from their pedestals and establish an order for the mortal world.

Sky Dream Iceworm's immense consciousness cautiously touched Huo Yuhao's opened soul.

It felt it.

That pure conviction, without the slightest impurity.

It was a spiritual quality it had never felt from any living being.

This human... was telling the truth!

He really wanted to be its equal partner!

He really... wanted to take down that god!

"Interesting..."

"Fucking interesting..."

After a long while, Sky Dream Iceworm's thoughts rang out again. Its exhaustion and hesitation had vanished completely, replaced by a blazing madness and excitement that was ready to stake everything!

"Kid! Sky Dream will trust you this once!"

"I've waited ten thousand years already. What's another ten thousand years to gamble on?!"

Its mountain-like body began to radiate increasingly dazzling light, making the entire temple tremble!

"Come on! Let Sky Dream see just how far your soul can take me!"

"Let's do it!"