Ice Cave, inside a hidden ice cellar.
This was the laboratory Leilin had temporarily set up, resembling a large cellar. In various niches, a single Jade Ice Scorpion was being held in each, but these Jade Ice Scorpions all appeared extremely listless, as though a massive amount of energy had been drained from them.
In the very center of the laboratory, Leilin was facing a small iceberg on the ground, an excited expression on his face.
The battle had reached its final stages. The Jade Ice Scorpion King, seeing that it truly couldn't break free, had no choice but to use its last innate ability — ice-encasing!!!
This was a special ability unique to the Jade Ice Scorpion. It could form a ring of hardened ice around its body, allowing it to wait until its injuries healed or until rescue arrived.
The Jade Ice Scorpion King using this technique against Leilin was, in a sense, a truly desperate gesture.
The ice block before Leilin was enormous — it could practically be called an iceberg. Massive amounts of white mist continuously spread down from its surface, lowering the temperature of the surrounding area considerably.
The Jade Ice Scorpion's ice-encasing layer naturally wasn't ordinary ice. Its hardness even exceeded that of steel.
And the Jade Ice Scorpion King's ice-encasing protective layer was naturally even more terrifying than that of an ordinary Jade Ice Scorpion. But all of this, to Leilin, was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Moreover, while this ice-encasing protected the Jade Ice Scorpion King, it also served as a restraint! So after Leilin had thoroughly studied it, he simply used the ice-encasing layer to restrain the Jade Ice Scorpion King.
At this moment, Leilin was holding a slender needle, inserting it into the iceberg!
The needle was specially made, its surface gleaming silver, fully over a meter long. The instant it touched the surface of the iceberg, it produced the sizzling sound of a branding iron meeting water.
Immediately, a red dot appeared on the surface of the iceberg, and the long silver needle slid in as though piercing cotton, smoothly penetrating the ice-encasing layer all the way to the Jade Ice Scorpion King's outer shell.
The Jade Ice Scorpion King at this moment was like an insect frozen in amber — unable to move at all, unable even to shift its eyes.
Tsk! The needle quivered slightly before finally piercing into the Jade Ice Scorpion King's body, withdrawing a small amount of green blood.
Upon seeing this drop of blood, an expression of immense excitement appeared on Leilin's face.
...
Half a day later, Leilin stared at a droplet of green bloodline essence in the culture dish, a hesitant expression on his face.
The Jade Ice Scorpion King was still at the peak of the first rank, and naturally couldn't produce a complete and pure ancient bloodline.
But even so, it still allowed Leilin to find quite a few things within its bloodline.
Some ancient creatures could, through specific methods, transmit certain information and fragments through their bloodline inheritance. This information was generally hidden deep within the genes, and apart from the creature's own awakening, no external force could glimpse it.
But Warlocks were different! Their research and understanding of bloodlines was sufficient to unlock complex genetic locks, allowing these ancient pieces of information to see the light of day once more!
And Leilin had found precisely this kind of ancient information within the Jade Ice Scorpion King's bloodline!
"Although I don't know whether it's good or bad, let's take a look!"
At this moment, upon seeing the Jade Ice Scorpion King's bloodline essence, even Leilin's own Giant Coimant Serpent bloodline stirred slightly, giving him a measure of confidence.
"Intercept the Soul Sense!"
A wisp of silver Spiritual Power extended from Leilin's forehead, sinking into the Jade Ice Scorpion King's bloodline.
...
Boom!!!
It was as though only after enduring a long darkness could one once again see the light.
Leilin woke up, but in his current state, he found himself unable to move. His body, however, was crawling along the ground continuously — like a bystander parasitizing this body's interior, able to observe but unable to take control.
All around was a world of white, with a thick layer of ice on the ground. Through the reflections in the ice, Leilin caught sight of his true appearance.
Six jointed, segmented legs, a scorpion tail trailing behind, and the upper body of an adult male — only the two large hands had transformed into massive pincers.
"What ancient creature is this?" Leilin was momentarily bewildered.
The South Coast had very few inherited records, and the compendium of ancient creatures didn't contain this particular species. Many powerful beings from other worlds weren't included either, so Leilin couldn't identify the true ancestry of this Jade Ice Scorpion King.
But the vast, surging power within his body made it clear to Leilin that this creature's level of power was absolutely far above his own — it might even have reached the realm of a Morning Star Wizard!
Crack!
An iceberg thousands of meters tall shattered directly before the scorpion-man, who merely waved its massive pincers and continued onward without a care. Occasionally it battled other creatures of comparable power, the shockwaves destroying vast stretches of the ice field.
Until that day!!!
Crack! The scorpion-man was tearing apart a creature that resembled an ice dragon, gulping down its flesh and blood, when suddenly it sensed something and raised its head to gaze at the horizon.
Boom!!!
The sky shattered and the earth split. In the far distance, the heavens seemed to have been torn open by a colossal breach — a spatial rift spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometers appeared across the sky!
Serpents! Enormous black serpents! Silver-scaled serpents! And even the Giant Coimant Serpents that Leilin knew all too well — they surged through the spatial rift and poured into this icy world!