"Where did this big fat bug come from, playing ghost? You look like a baby Mothra, and you still dared come out to scare your big bro Huo!"
Huo Yuhao cursed viciously as he ran.
He had no interest in listening to that big fat bug ramble. The instant he heard him speak, he took off. With his current speed rivaling Bolt's, he covered several hundred meters in the blink of an eye.
He had immediately recognized the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's mental attribute, but the thought of making him his Soul Ring never crossed his mind.
Are you kidding? This Soul Beast could talk. Was that something I could handle?
A talking Soul Beast had to be at least tens of thousands of years old, right?
"Wait, wait, wait! Young man, I sincerely want to become your Soul Ring-a Wisdom Soul Ring unlike anything this continent has ever seen!"
Huo Yuhao's pupils contracted, and he hurriedly stopped.
Another crack opened in the ground ahead of him, and the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm emerged again, the two little eyes on his enormous head staring at him feverishly.
"Why do you keep haunting me? I don't have any Jizhi Syrup on me."
Huo Yuhao stopped running. Judging by how fast the other party burrowed through the ground, he couldn't escape anyway. Besides, since the silkworm was willing to talk, he might as well hear what he had to say.
He narrowed his eyes and asked, "What exactly are you?"
"I'm not a thing. I'm the continent's only million-year Soul Beast, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm."
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm sounded wildly excited. "I want to become your Soul Ring. Then you'll have the most powerful Million-Year Soul Ring!"
"Believe me, with how compatible we are, combined with the power I'll give you, you'll definitely be able to reach that level!"
The short little arms beneath the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm wriggled excitedly. To him, Huo Yuhao was like a rope that could pull him out of the abyss.
"What the hell are you even talking about?" Huo Yuhao asked with a scornful laugh. "Why should I believe an ugly, big fat bug like you... huh?"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's enormous body suddenly shone with white light. A ball of white light slowly descended to the ground, taking the form of a little girl around ten years old in front of his enormous insect body.
He wore a white outer robe adorned with golden patterns, exuding a sacred purity, like a lotus rising unstained from the mud.
Beneath his short golden hair was an adorable face, as delicately sculpted as jade. Most striking of all were his large golden eyes, clear yet deep, holding a complicated mix of emotions.
He parted his lips, his tone almost pleading. "Now you believe me, right?"
"Nice use of spiritual power." Huo Yuhao snapped his fingers. "But a honey trap won't work on me."
The little girl shook his head in denial. "This isn't spiritual Simulation. This is what I look like after taking human form."
Huo Yuhao said nothing and gathered Soul Power in his eyes.
The little girl did indeed have a physical body. He wasn't an image simulated with spiritual power.
But Huo Yuhao wasn't going to trust him that easily. If he could take human form, he had to be a Soul Beast at least a hundred thousand years old.
"What's your real objective?" Huo Yuhao asked coldly.
"I've already told you many times." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm slowly walked toward him. "I want to become your Soul Ring."
Huo Yuhao scoffed. "Well, the sun must be rising in the west. A Soul Beast actually wants to become someone else's Soul Ring of his own free will."
"What a wonderful surprise. So wonderful it's hard to believe!"
Of course Huo Yuhao wasn't going to take the other party's word for it. He firmly believed that when things went against all reason, something sinister was lurking behind them.
"That's all right." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had reached him and extended an index finger. "You'll believe me soon."
He pressed it against Huo Yuhao's forehead. White light instantly blazed, and surging spiritual power and Soul Power poured into Huo Yuhao's body.
Huo Yuhao's face turned ashen. He had wanted to flee the moment the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm approached, but the other party's immense spiritual power had shackled him in place, leaving him unable to move.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's finger was like a dam releasing its floodwaters, sending vast quantities of spiritual power into Huo Yuhao's mind in an unending stream.
Huo Yuhao clenched his teeth. He felt as though endless cold was being poured into his brain.
Cold!
So cold!
A cold that sank deep into his marrow!
Ever since awakening his Ice Martial Soul, he hadn't experienced the sensation of cold for a long time.
That long-absent chill kept assailing his cerebral cortex.
Yet the chill didn't last long. Almost all of it flowed into his dantian, where the cold energy already within his body absorbed and assimilated it.
"Hsss-haa-"
Huo Yuhao drew a deep breath, feeling the chill gradually vanish and become his own power.
"Wonderful, wonderful! You can actually withstand this much of my power!" The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was ecstatic.
Huo Yuhao's physical constitution and spiritual power far exceeded his expectations. Though he was only level 10, he could continuously take in the silkworm's Soul Power and spiritual power.
His face brimmed with excitement, as though he could already see the moment of success.
"Get out!"
But just as the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was immersed in joy, a hand radiating cold seized his outstretched wrist, dragging him out of his fantasy and back to reality.
Huo Yuhao's eyes shone with a faint blue light as he stared coldly at him.
"Get out of my head!"
Huo Yuhao looked down at the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, his gaze terrifyingly indifferent.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm looked stunned, then realized that his spiritual power had stopped flowing in. Huo Yuhao's spiritual power had suddenly grown stronger, and the spiritual power channel between them seemed to have been locked. It could neither transmit power nor be severed.
"You... what did you do?"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm couldn't believe it. The ocean of spiritual power he had accumulated over a million years had actually been blocked by Huo Yuhao.
Now that Huo Yuhao refused to cooperate, forcing his spiritual power into him would undoubtedly damage Huo Yuhao's spiritual origin.
"No one gets to control me!" Huo Yuhao gripped the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's wrist tightly.
"No one!"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm said anxiously, "I'm not trying to control you! I really want to become your Soul Ring. Don't you want to grow stronger?"
"I won't become someone else's puppet just to get stronger!" Huo Yuhao narrowed his eyes. "People with powerful spiritual power can take over other people's bodies, can't they?"
"I'm not trying to take over your body! I don't have that ability!" The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's expression suddenly changed as a sense of danger erupted in his heart.
He hurriedly glanced into the distance, where a powerful spiritual presence was steadily drawing closer.
It had to be coming for him!
"I'm begging you! I really haven't lied to you. Just let me become your Soul Ring! Otherwise, they'll be here!"
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was so anxious he nearly cried. Even though he had concealed his aura and the other party hadn't discovered him yet, he would be found sooner or later if this stalemate continued.
"Tell me exactly who you are and what your real objective is!" Huo Yuhao demanded with an authority that brooked no refusal.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm took a deep breath. He knew that unless he spoke, this mule-stubborn human boy would never agree.
With his wrist still caught in Huo Yuhao's grip, he hurriedly explained:
"I was originally born into the Ice Silkworm Clan in the Far North. I'm a rare Soul Beast with a mental attribute, and I don't have much fighting ability."
"But once, while fleeing a natural predator, I happened to fall into an ice cavern filled with supreme cold marrow. Without the threat of predators, I kept absorbing those priceless ice-attribute treasures and gradually broke through to become a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast, a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast, and then a Soul Beast over nine hundred thousand years old."
"However, even though my cultivation was infinitely close to a million years, I still didn't have much fighting ability. After leaving the ice cavern, I fell into the ocean. To avoid other powerful Soul Beasts, I kept wandering until I finally arrived here, in the Star Dou Great Forest."