"This is where it all began!"
Leylin sighed. Had the scorpion man not perished here carrying the bloodline of the Bronze Giant, the entire Ice World would never have come into existence.
Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to call the scorpion man the progenitor of this world.
Leylin's body hovered in mid-air before slowly descending to the bottom of the depression.
When he beheld the scorpion man's full form, his pupils contracted sharply.
In Leylin's field of vision lay a massive half-human, half-scorpion corpse. Filaments of blue ice, resembling a spider's web, connected to it through the scorpion man's skin, pouring vast amounts of life force and ice energy into its body.
On the scorpion man's back, eerie green blood boiled and writhed as though it were alive, having already covered its entire back and begun spreading outward.
Green blood vessels had spread across nearly the scorpion man's entire body, forming knot-like protrusions that resembled eyeballs—lifeless yet brimming with an unsettling presence.
Under the erosion of the green blood and vessels, the scorpion man's overall appearance had undergone subtle changes.
Compared to the body in Leylin's memories, the scorpion man now appeared more slender, its face even refined and trending toward femininity, with clearly female characteristics emerging on its upper body.
"Wait! Something's wrong—this isn't a corpse..."
Leylin was suddenly startled. Only upon drawing closer did he realize that the scorpion man not only had faint breathing, but its heart was also slowly beating.
Yet compared to its massive frame, this fluctuation of life was so feeble that Leylin had initially overlooked it entirely.
"This scorpion man—it's alive!"
Leylin stumbled back several steps, and at that moment, the scorpion man suddenly opened its eyes!
"You've come!"
A familiar wave of soul force began battering against Leylin's defenses.
"You're not him! You're the Ice Queen! No—you're the guardian of the Ice Plane, that Bronze Giant!!!"
Leylin cried out in alarm as fine black scales spread across his entire body. Several potion vials shattered, forming a massive barrier of light, while the crimson pendant on his ear hummed with readiness.
The terror of an ancient rule-bound being was something that even Leylin, as he was now, would not dare to face head-on.
Though he had harbored faint suspicions before, when the truth finally surfaced, it still left Leylin feeling somewhat dazed.
Everything — every thread of what he had witnessed — rapidly replayed through his mind and was quickly pieced together.
During the ancient war, the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents had invaded the Ice World. The Bronze Giantess fought to the death, and a single drop of her blood landed on the Scorpion Man, following him as he fell through a spatial rift. By a twist of fate, they had arrived here.
The Scorpion Man perished on the spot, but the green blood on his back did not!
The Bronze Giantess was a terrifying being of the seventh tier or above! She had even comprehended a certain rule, granting her the ability to regenerate from a single drop of blood!
Her bloodline had inherited a portion of her spiritual imprint, and even though the Scorpion Man, a Morning Star powerhouse, had fallen, the blood still retained its vitality!
The bloodline of such an ancient existence, even a single drop, was enough to gain new life once separated from its parent body.
However, the difficulty of rebirthing directly from a single drop of blood was simply too great. And so it had acted like a virus, seeking out a living host it could parasitize, attempting to infect and transform the host into a form it needed.
And in the Dark Regions, could there be a more suitable organism than the Scorpion Man? Setting everything else aside, the sheer proximity alone was enough to make the choice!
Thus, the giantess's bloodline began parasitizing the Scorpion Man's corpse, even modifying him, reshaping his features to take on a feminine appearance.
This transformation not only required an enormous amount of time but also a terrifying amount of Life Energy.
And so, through the giantess's imprint and via the cold radiation, the Dark Regions were transformed into a frigid world. She had even given birth to life forms native to this icy domain!
Subsequently, she used a portion of the Scorpion Man's flesh and blood to create Alvin, placing him as her guardian.
In the Dark Regions, a Morning Star guardian was more than sufficient to suppress everything!
And so, the giantess hid behind the curtain while Alvin handled all affairs on the surface, periodically collecting Ice creatures for blood sacrifices, bolstering the Scorpion Man's Life Energy and providing nourishment for the giantess's blood.
All of this had been on the verge of success.
Once the transformation was complete, the giantess could achieve rebirth through the Scorpion Man's body and become an entirely new being — if Leylin had never appeared.
But there were no "ifs" in the world. Leylin's arrival, and especially Alvin's demise, had forced the giantess to act personally, accelerating the collection of flesh and blood and Life Energy, all the way to the present moment.
"No! I am only a part of the giantess! What I am now is a combination of the memory imprint and this Scorpion Man's body! Therefore — I am the Ice Queen!"