Its body was the same colour as white jade, sparkled, and was translucent. Although it had dug itself out from the earth, there wasn't any dirt on its brilliant skin at all. Halos of light moved about underneath its epidermis, and it unexpectedly had a small pair of eyes on its head that flickered with a golden light. Strangest of all, golden patterns were engraved on its body at certain intervals, starting half a metre from its head. From head to tail, it had a total of ten golden patterns.
"Oh...." Huo Yuhao's jaw dropped and a look of despair appeared on his face. Judging by how big it was and changing the temperature to such a degree...it was nothing compared to that ten year old soul beast he just fought.
'I'm not going to die by a baboon...but by a worm!' He couldn't help but look up at the heavens with a "are you serious?" look. This really wasn't his day, seriously, what's up with his luck?!
"Hehe. Calm down human, don't be scared. I'm not gonna harm you." The voice from before echoed out in Huo Yuhao's mind once again, sounding gentle and smooth, and the enormous silkworm nodded its head.
"...Great!" The silkworm was taken aback at Huo Yuhao, who raised both his arms up with a happy expression. It was greatly confused at first, but then it heard the latter saying, "Now I'm hallucinating or something. Tell me, oh great magical silkworm, did I get caught up by some soul beast's illusion?"
He raised his right hand towards it, shaking his head, "No, no. Don't tell me. You're just going to either lie straight to my face or not say anything about it." He paused, starting to ponder. "I don't know if this is a bad thing though, since this means there's a suitable soul ring for me as illusion-type soul beasts fall in the spiritual-type category, right?"
The silkworm stared at him blankly incredulously, who kept rambling on and on about a conspiracy that he was caught in an illusion or something, which he wasn't.
'Geez. Paranoid much?' The enormous silkworm thought, sweatdropped. It shook its head and used a very tiny amount of its spiritual power to cause a headache onto Huo Yuhao.
"Ow! What the...ow!" Huo Yuhao cried out, holding his head.
'And I had a whole epic introduction to the kid. Now though, he just ruined the atmosphere.' The silkworm thought as it waited for Huo Yuhao to recover before introducing itself,
"Hello human! Sorry for that, but I had to snap you back to reality from your rambling. I have something important to do and I can't spend any more time."
"S-So, this isn't an illusion?" Huo Yuhao weakly said.
"...Want me to do that again?"
"N-No! I get it, I get it."
The silkworm let out a snort and said, "Good. First off, let me introduce myself. I am the embodiment of heroism and chivalry! A king of kings amongst soul beasts, who is both equally smart and good-looking! I'm an absolute expert, one who has cultivated for a million years! I'm the Skydream Iceworm who's set the record for the longest lifespan in the Douluo Continent! Yup, you can call me Brother Skydream!"
Huo Yuhao's jaw dropped, completely shocked. Fortunately he didn't pissed this soul beast or he would have died.
Skydream Iceworm looked proud of itself and thought, 'Aren't you in awe? Of course you should! You're the first human who's seen my almighty figure.'
"...But wasn't there a million year old soul beast ten thousand years ago? Who became Tang Sect's founder and one of the Shrek Seven Monsters, Tang San, spirit ring?"
Skydream Iceworm froze.
A heavy silence permeated the area for a while.
"Anyways, I have something to ask of you." The Skydream Iceworm voice turned serious, the icy around it turned even colder.
'He chaged the subject!' Huo Yuhao blankly stared at the big silkworm.
"Shut up!" Skydream Iceworm yelled out, flushing red across its chubby face. It seems he can read his mind.
"There's a clear difference between that faker and me, even though if that guy were still alive he would easily destroy me, but that isn't important right now. Human," Skydream Iceworm large head came closer towards Huo Yuhao's, its large beady golden eyes staring deep into the latter's blue eyes.
"This brother wants to become your soul ring, the Douluo Continent's first ever intelligent soul ring."
"–Bwuh?" Huo Yuhao, who was struck speechless, could only stupidly reply.
Everything that had occurred so far had simply been too sudden. Admittedly, he did thirst for a soul ring. However, the soul ring that he'd wanted to obtain was at most a ten year soul ring. He'd never had any extravagant hopes.
Yet, at this moment, a massive silkworm that could talk had suddenly dug itself out from beneath the ground, had told him that it was an almighty million year soul beast, and that it wanted to become his soul ring.
Is he seriously not in an illusion or something? Because this was far too absurd!
The Skydream Iceworm's enormous head twitched and turned in the direction of the Great Star Dou Forest, and intently stared. Then, it turned back towards Huo Yuhao and said, "There's no time. I'm going to start, okay? Don't worry, I'll be gentle. I won't cause too much pain....maybe."
"Wait, what?!" Before Huo Yuhao could even voice any sort of opposition, an extremely cold aura caused him to immediately lose consciousness. He could only faintly see a white object charging towards him. In the next moment, all of his thoughts faded away.
The ten golden patterns rapidly enveloped Huo Yuhao's skinny body, and the Skydream Iceworm slowly turned itself halos of white light that unceasingly surged into his body.
"Hmm? What's going on? His body is weak, pathetic to the point I need to put ten seals in my body so he can safely support. Yet, it contains so much affinity with four types of elements? Fire, Lightning, Earth...Yin?! What the hell!" Skydream Iceworm was shocked.
He was more shocked at the incredible compatibility level Huo Yuhao had with the Fire and Lightning element, to the point it seemed fire energy in the air was constantly rubbing themselves on him and traces of electricity could be found flowing throughout his blood vessels, even though his martial soul had no other attributes except being a spiritual-type.
As if that wasn't all, it could sense the extremely dense and powerful soul power coursing throughout the boy's body. Its pure and raw energy could equal a Soul Ancestor's soul power! The problem of it however, was that it was flowing through narrowed and blocked passageways, making only a small fraction of it was being used.
The Skydream Iceworm quickly made calculations and analysis in its mind of this strange phenomenon and estimated that, if Huo Yuhao's condition of his poor passageways and meridians had been properly treated either at birth or when he awakened his martial soul, then he'd have at least rank 20 soul power; entering Soul Grandmaster stage even without any soul rings!
Though, he felt kinda uneasy when he analyzed Huo Yuhao's strange soul power. It wasn't just being held back by some poor passageways, but also something sinister... But he didn't think much of it.
'What kind of gem, no, treasure did I just stumbled upon?!' The giant silkworm was dumbstruck. He couldn't his luck of getting such a good host!
"Ah whatever! I don't have the time for this, lest those bastards find me. I can deal with this later on after I become his soul ring." As his wormly body curled around Huo Yuhao's body, a layer of incorporeal spiritual undulations had spread out from its body. These terrifying spiritual energy undulations almost instantly covered everything within a hundred miles.
When the spiritual energy undulations covered Bei Bei and Tang Ya, who had sped up to chase after Huo Yuhao, they immediately fell into a momentarily sluggish state. It caused all living beings to lose their ability to think for a short period of time.
At this moment, a large portion of the southern area of the Great Star Dou Forest had become eerily quiet.
The sky was extremely clear and sunny, chirps was heard as a flock of birds flew. Out of nowhere however, it had suddenly darkened, and a thunderous boom resounded out in the air. In that instant, the sun's brilliant rays of light were unexpectedly covered up by the darkness. Then, an enormous pressure that could make one breathless descended from the sky.
When the thunderous boom resounded in the air, the Skydream Iceworm's enormous body, who was currently trying to merge with Huo Yuhao's body, violently shook for a moment. Its small, golden eyes looked upwards into the sky, and a terrified look immediately appeared inside of them. Inside of that terrified expression was also a hint of shock.
'What the Ice God is that?'
It hadn't been affected by its pressure, but it was something it couldn't comprehend even with its long age.
A grey stream of air descended from the sky, as if an enormous attractive force had sucked it downwards. After only an instant, it landed on the back of Huo Yuhao's head, and quietly entered it.
"Oi! You wanna fight with this brother? Get out of here! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" The Skydream Iceworm didn't take too kindly to that and flew into a rage. Its huge spiritual undulations instantly surged forth in an attempt to expel the grey stream of air from Huo Yuhao's body.
An extremely blurry figure appeared behind Huo Yuhao, and an aged voice with a hard-to-describe imposingness echoed out, "The hand grasps the sun and moon, and also plucks the stars; This world has no one like me. I didn't think that this old man would have a trace of a remnant spirit left that still existed here."
"Cut the bullshit and scram! Didn't you hear what I said?!" Skydream Iceworm let out a high-pitched screech.
The vague and illusory figure didn't seem to be affected by the Skydream Iceworm's powerful spiritual attack at all. In fact, it didn't even take notice of its actions and flickered into the back of Huo Yuhao's head.
The Skydream Iceworm immediately stopped with his assault. It didn't dare to strengthen his spiritual attack again, as traces of blood had already begun to seep out of Huo Yuhao's seven apertures. He discovered that, after the grey stream of air had entered Huo Yuhao's mind, it had immediately turned into a soybean-sized grey pearl. Then, it had turned silent. It didn't conflict with his spiritual energy, nor could he affect it with his power.
"....I can't be this unlucky. It was so hard to find a spiritual-type human, but a bastard out of nowhere wants to snatch him from me? Are the heavens jealous of a genius like myself? This brother is so pitiful!" Although he was currently voicing his complaints, with comical tears flowing out of his eyes, his movements didn't slow down at all.
Dense white light gradually condensed and poured into Huo Yuhao's body, spreading a white layer across his head to toe, while the Skydream Iceworm's body both gradually turned more transparent during the process, and rapidly decreased in volume.
This is it, there's no turning back for him now!
Huo Yuhao's body had turned completely jade-white, and resembled the previous appearance of the Skydream Iceworm. His face becoming smoother, healthier and handsomer, and his black hair, its tips changing white, started growing gradually till it reaches his shoulders in just a few seconds.
"Eh? Why is he becoming more handsome? I mean, sure there was going to be "some" physical altercations when I merge with him but this is kinda... over the top." Skydream Iceworm was dumbstruck once more, he didn't expect that change to occur.
"Meh, whatever. It seems more of a boon for him anyway so I don't need to worry about that." In the end, Skydream Iceworm wiggled its gigantic body gradually turns into white motes as he merges into Huo Yuhao's body.
But as he was about to disappear into Huo Yuhao's body, he couldn't help but turned towards the west with a fierce light flickering across its beady yellow eyes.
"Until we meet again you bastards! Hahaha! Especially you, you fucking turtle! I swear, when I come back, I'll make turtle soup out of you!!" With an evil laugh, Skydream Iceworm's voice gradually turned softer before silence permeated.
The huge spiritual energy that had previously covered a hundred miles proceeded to shrink at a frightening speed, then gradually disappeared.
Several terrifying auras from within the depths of the Great Star Dou Forest simultaneously let out violent undulations, as if they'd sensed something. However, they were fated with failure.
When the Skydream Iceworm's voice had completely disappeared, a jade-white halo soundlessly appeared beneath Huo Yuhao's body. After circling around his body three times, its light dimmed, and the entire halo merged into his body, disappearing without a trace.
The jade-white colour gradually faded from Huo Yuhao, and an ice blue layer started to appear below his skin. This lasted roughly ten seconds, before it gradually dimmed and restored the original colour of his skin. Then, his body tilted, causing him to fall against a tree that was behind him.
A thin white membrane that had a faint golden sheen to it soundlessly rose into the air, before it rapidly shrunk and formed a ball that disappeared inside of Huo Yuhao's heart. There were no more traces of the Skydream Iceworm's aura after that.
.....
In a vast white space filled with golden motes like raining snow, ten enormous golden balls of light and a grey ball occupied some parts of the space, a familiar silkworm, now shrunk to 2 meters in length, slowly appeared before the golden balls like pieces of paper coming together.
"Alright! Phase one, successful. Now comes phase two, browse through his memories then..."
"Well, well. What an unwelcome surprise, a little worm has forced its way into the spiritual sea of my newest incarnation." A cold and charming voice suddenly resounded throughout the white space, startling Skydream Iceworm.
Before he could react, an enormous pressure that was more powerful than the gray ball had released beforehand in the physical world descended upon him. This sudden and abrupt unknown pressure even caused the silent grey ball to tremble and let out a aged groan.
A gigantic eyeball with blood red iris and swirly lines for pupils, appeared before both Skydream Iceworm and the grey ball, glowing with an ethereal divinity that seem to look down upon the world, stunning them for its strange appearance and strong hypnotic trance that even they cannot easily shake off for a while.
"You will show me everything, little worm and one surrounded by death. Genjutsu: Sharingan."
.....
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