Bingbing leapt into Shin's outreached hands, which had been infused with a large amount of the Celestial Dragon's mana. The Celestial Dragon coiled around Shin lovingly, all while the elements leapt around in complete joy. They were all being filtered down into Shin's Spectre Soul and spat out as Ice-Elements for the Kamaitachi to enjoy. Bingbing closed her eyes, wagging her tail while billions of light particles entered every single pore that she possessed. Heigui Xuegang had his hands raised, blocking whatever light entered his eyes. The mana output was just too intense for the Spirit Venerate to endure. Even though Shin was still a Rank 50 Spirit Lord, the Celestial Dragon's baptism had refined his Spirit's spiritual energies back to its primordial state. Anyone or anything that was exposed to the light would instantly feel like their cultivation would be lifted instantaneously, and their attacks would exude twice the amount of damage.
So, one could only imagine how Bingbing, the direct recipient of Shin's mana, felt at this moment.
"Yiiiiiipppppp!" The snowy white gerbil continued to chirp. Her fur was standing up uniformly, and all of her teeth were shining with the light of a thousand stars. Shin's entire mana reserves were rapidly depleting. His fingers were desperately holding onto its shape while buckets of sweat dripped down his body. Shin knew that it was a considerable undertaking, attempting Bingbing's request. Still, the young man deemed that it was the only method for the Lantis Navy to succeed.
Bingbing largely ignored Shin's current state. Not because she wasn't sympathetic, but the Kamaitachi was just far too engrossed in her own affairs. It was the most critical juncture of her entire life. A single moment of hesitation could cost her everything, not to mention, the backlash that Shin would receive was immense. Thus, the Tier 8 Spirit Beast had to succeed. Bingbing's entire being was engulfed by the Celestial Dragon's embrace as if she were the weaker being. Her Tier 8 mana had already been at its tipping point for the longest time.
Though the Kamaitachi had lived for less than a hundred years, there was something unique about Bingbing. When Lady Seph first found the colony of Kamaitachis, they were all wild but amiable creatures. They were one with nature and had the ability to draw in legions of ice-elements at will. Thus, Kamaitachis are beings that were promised Tier 8 once they matured fully.
Usually, it would take centuries for a Kamaitachi to become fully grown, and the oldest of their species were almost always a few thousand years old. However, Bingbing was an oddity. Being experimented on by the Himmel Empire Laboratories, Bingbing's parents were specifically bred to give birth to the most dominant generation of Kamaitachi. It was part of the Himmel Empire's ultimate goal to create a force of obedient Tier 8 Spirit Beasts. Alas, it was ultimately thwarted by Lady Seph's wrath.
Still, before the Divine Healer had stormed her way into the Himmel Laboratories, the scientists had managed to genetically create their most prized possession. The theoretical most perfect Kamaitachi. With an innate mana pool twice as big as any other Kamaitachi, from birth, Bingbing was destined to be the greatest. Her growth rate was staggering, and in just a few years after she was born, the snowy white gerbil was already at Tier 5. In less than a century, Bingbing had crossed the threshold of most Spirit Beasts and broke into the Tier 8 realm.
Adding Shin's superior Celestial Dragon mana… One could see the final destination of the mutated Kamaitachi.
"Yip, yip, yippie..." For the first time in her life, Bingbing's uttered a different sound. Her vocal box was evolving alongside every single fibre of her being. Increasing into half Shin's size, Bingbing had become a ball of extraordinary light. Her shape was being moulded by her evolved soul, and the temperature within Heigui Xuegang's barrier was rapidly decreasing.
"Bingbing, you..." Shin was about to interject, but he remembered the snowy white gerbil's current state. She couldn't split off even a fraction of her attention, else her world would collapse. Bingbing had to complete this evolution.
And to complete… She did…
Ssssssssttttttttttttttttt!!!
White smoke fell out of the ball of light, instantly freezing anything within the vicinity. That included Shin, who was the primary reason why Bingbing had triggered her evolution in the first place. Fortunately, the young man was long prepared for the outburst of energy and coated himself in his Spiritual Body Enhancement. Shin's draconic scales protected him from any frostbite, and his superior resistances enabled the young man to remain lucid inside of the extreme temperatures. In fact, it was so cold that even the Spirit Venerate protecting Shin felt the urge to expel the ball of light from his protection entirely.
Luckily, there was no need for Heigui Xuegang to pull off such a drastic action. The temperature stabilised after one full minute of changes and eventually, 'Bingbing' emerged from her ball of light.
"W-What?" Shin fell to his bum, as a mixture of shock and fatigue overwhelmed his legs. Gone was the adorable snowy white gerbil that he'd played with since childhood. Instead, a young girl, who seemed barely ten-years-old, leapt down from the frosty ball. Her snow-white skin was untarnished by even the slightest speck of dirt. Beautiful white hair, akin to that of the first snow of Christmas, flowed down to her shoulders. However, the appearance of the girl wasn't the most surprising bit. Both her eyes were dyed in an azure hue as if there was a serene lake hidden within her soul. Shin jaw dropped to his knees. He had seen those eyes before… That pair of eyes… They were the spitting image of his own!
"Yip, yip! I'd finally reached Tier 9!" The girl cheered, both her hands were raised high up into the sky. The girl was butt-naked, but there weren't any private parts, hinting her lack of gender. Or rather, she wasn't human at all; thus, there was no need for any reproductive organs.
"Bingbing?" Shin cautiously enquired, even though he already knew the answer.
"Yip! Shin!" The girl instantly leapt into the young man's arms, completely oblivious to shame. She nuzzled her nose into Shin's sweat-filled shirt, completely filling her lungs with the scent of the man. In her Spirit Beast form, it would have been a cute and heartwarming sight. However, Bingbing had now taken the shape of a fully naked girl. If any law-enforcement were to see Shin now, jail time would be the least of his concerns.
"B-Bingbing! Get off me for a moment," Shin pushed the white-haired girl away. He instantly took off his outer coat and attempted to wrap Bingbing in it. However, the girl slapped the outreached hands back, adamantly refusing to wear Shin's jacket.
"Too prickly!" Bingbing complained about the black fur that irritated her skin. Her winced-up face was completely human-like that it tugged on Shin's heartstrings just a little.
"A-Ah, but you have to wear something!" Shin stamped his foot down. "It would be really bad if you went out looking like that!"
"Eyyy... Yip! How about this?" Bingbing spun around once, sending snowy white particle out of her hair. They condensed over her skin and slowly formed into a white baby doll dress. With Bingbing's new outerwear, the young girl looked more like a noble girl that had innocently got lost from her parents.
"Yeah… That's better..." Honestly, Shin would rather Bingbing wear something a little less revealing in this cold weather, but he recalled that girl standing before him wasn't really human. There was no point in going for the specifics. "How do you feel?" Shin abruptly changed the topic.
"Yip yip! Never been better!" Bingbing replied cheerfully. Over the three years, the Kamaitachi had been faithfully standing by Shin's side, guarding him against whatever dangers that might be in his way. Therefore, as a consequence, Bingbing had absorbed the Celestial Dragon's Aura more than any other man, woman or Spirit Beast. She continuously fed on the aura, continually improving her cultivation base in the process.
Bingbing was never one to rush. It was astronomically harder for a Spirit Beast to advance as compared to a regular cultivator. It took decades, centuries even, just to promote one level. Bingbing knew that she was genetically different, and not to mention, with the assistance of Shin's Celestial Dragon, her cultivation rate was at least ten times greater than before. Therefore, the Kamaitachi bode her time. She waited and waited until finally...
"Yip, yip! I made it!" The girl pointed a V sign to the skies. "I'm a full-fledged Tier 9 Spirit Beast now, yip!"
"Hehe, I'm proud of you..." Shin chuckled. Even though Bingbing was now comparable to a Spirit Venerate, at her core, she was still the adorable snowy white gerbil that Shin grew up with. However, the young man's face turned rather quickly. "I hate to ask this from you when you've just advanced but..."
"Yip, yip! Don't worry," the girl beamed in delight, showing her full set of teeth. "I also want to beat up that asshole that tried to kill me!" Bingbing pivoted her gaze towards the surface of the ocean, where the claymore-wielding Spirit Venerate lay.
"Alright..." Shin stroked Bingbing's pure white hair, calming her down somewhat. "However, your main priority is freezing the escape path of the Black Masks! We can't let them get away with the Paradise Hearts!"
"Yip, yip, yip!" Bingbing's cheery voice echoed within the energy field. Taking her hands off Shin, the Kamaitachi propelled herself out of the barrier and kicked herself straight towards the fleeing longboats. Some submarines caught sight of the alien creature attempting to flank them and redirected their weapons towards Bingbing. However, the man-made objects were far too slow. Bingbing was now a Tier 9 Spirit Beast, a realm beneath a legendary Primordial Beast. There was nothing that the submarines could do to stop her.
In an instant, the submersible ships had been frozen up entirely, becoming deadweights that could only sink deeper and deeper into the terrifying depths. Eventually, every single one of the remaining submarines, those unidentified vehicles that had caused the Nineteenth Artificial Island to sink, had all been neutralised.
"What's going on?" One Shudra could sense that something was amiss. The waters beneath them were far too calm. Before he could escalate matters to his superiors, a colossal iceberg split his longboat into two as a speedy figure flew up high into the snowy sky.
A white-haired girl, who looked no older than ten, graced the battlefield, bringing all sorts of eyes onto her body. On her back, there were two gorgeous angel wings made out of pure ice. In terms of design, it was oddly similar to the ones that Lady Seph had.
"Who's that?"
"A little girl? Wait, why is her aura so inhuman?"
Whispers dominated the battlefield, most of which were questions pertaining to Bingbing's identity. None of them would have guessed that the snowy, white gerbil had metamorphosed into a completely different being. Well, there was one person that could tell…
"Bingbing?" Lady Seph looked at the young girl incredulously. The mana coming out from the girl was unquestionably Bingbing's, but how had she become a young human girl?
The Kamaitachi didn't care about the views of others. She was wholly focused on the task that Shin had given her. Crystalline glitter dust fell down from both of Bingbing's wings and gently floated down onto the turbulent oceans. Still stunned by her sudden appearance, none of the Black Masks moved to counter the young girl. The only thing that they could do was watch helplessly as Bingbing's mana merged with the gentle falling snow…
"Damn it, stop her!" The claymore-wielding Brahmin was the first to realise Bingbing's plan. He hollered out orders towards his men, hoping to delay the girl for just one second. Alas, he was just a nanosecond too slow.
Bingbing's spiritual energy had now enveloped the entire ocean, and her mana had reached its peak. For a brief moment in time, the Ice-Elements dwarfed the Water-Element, right above the Lantis Sea. There was nothing that could be done. Bingbing's ability had been cast. And thus…
The oceans froze...
✵✵✵
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