Leilin spoke coolly, but his hands showed no mercy as he released blood-red light like silk threads, piercing into the Scorpion Man's back.
The green blood squirmed as if facing a mortal enemy.
But unfortunately, under the effects of the toxin, not only the Bronze Giantess's bloodline—even the Ice and Snow Empress's voice had grown sluggish.
Leilin turned a deaf ear to the Ice and Snow Empress's pleas and conditions, focusing solely on refining the bloodline in his hands.
Under his control, the green blood on the Scorpion Man's back began to show signs of being drawn out. Individual green blood vessels had already surfaced.
"Aagh! Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents! It's the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents again!"
The Ice and Snow Empress's voice suddenly turned calm: "Even if I perish immediately and face eternal damnation, I refuse to let the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents have her way!"
BOOM! The green blood suddenly began to boil, even igniting into green flames.
"Hmm? The toxin's effect has been neutralized ahead of schedule! As expected—ancient-era Morning Star beings were far more robust than those today. The potion experiment had errors!"
Leilin's brow furrowed, but he still didn't abandon his work.
The opportunity to refine an ancient bloodline was far too rare, especially the blood of a rule-level being—truly a once-in-a-thousand-years chance! Leilin certainly wasn't about to give it up.
"Hsss..."
A massive phantom of a giant serpent materialized, and the air seemed to freeze in an instant. A tremendous burst of power erupted from Leilin's body, locking down both the Scorpion Man and the blood.
"Initiate Plan Two!" Leilin's voice was icy, his eyes devoid of any color.
Countless blood-red threads moved even faster, burrowing into the Scorpion Man's back and forming a sealing rune together with the potion's toxin, making the opponent's movements even more sluggish.
"Give up! I know everything about you, and I've designed specific methods to counter you!"
Leilin's voice was detached, but he was speaking the truth.
During the observation period outside, he had used the Chip to run tens of thousands of simulations, preparing countless contingency plans for this underground expedition. He had anticipated this possibility beforehand, so naturally he had prioritized countermeasures.
For dealing specifically with this kind of ancient bloodline sealing formula, Leilin had stored dozens of variations directly in the Chip.
And the Ice and Snow Empress couldn't move freely—she hadn't even fully resurrected. So before Leilin's meticulous preparations, her various means were practically destroyed in a single blow.
In Leilin's ears, her cries went from their original intensity to something increasingly shrill, growing fainter and fainter—clearly even her soul was being suppressed and weakened.
"If your true body were here, you could certainly crush me like an ant. But unfortunately, what you are now is merely a single drop of her blood, not even having completed reincarnation..."
Leilin spoke calmly, a strange light seeming to flicker in his eyes.
"..."
The opposing soul force fell silent, but then began to weaken at an even more terrifying pace.
The vast quantity of green blood contracted, retreating back into the Scorpion Man's body, and even those green blood vessels merged back into the blood.
The green blood fused together, its volume shrinking smaller and smaller, but its color growing more verdant, emitting a deep bronze glow.
"What's going on? Has she truly given up?" A trace of suspicion flashed through Leilin's mind.
But even so, he grew even more vigilant inside, while outside everything remained as before.
Following the Ice and Snow Empress's actions, all the previously scattered green blood concentrated together, forming a single drop of brilliant bronze-colored blood.
"The most primitive blood of a World Guardian?"
Leilin's gaze grew distant, a hint of excitement in his voice.
This was the bloodline of a rule-level existence—a being above the seventh rank! It even carried a trace of its original owner's imprint, capable of achieving rebirth from a single drop.
Under Leilin's influence and refinement, it began to coalesce from the Scorpion Man's body.
"Submit!" Leilin produced a notebook with a pale yellow cover. He opened it, and a hazy radiance emanated from the title page.
At its center was a circular sealing array.
"The Book of Bloodline Seal? No!" The Ice and Snow Empress's previously weakened fluctuations suddenly surged high, and even her vocal timbre became distorted—neither male nor female, taking on a dry, rasping quality.
"Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents! And its bloodline descendants! The Ice and Snow World shall be your eternal enemy!"
Her voice suddenly dropped low, becoming as if male, as though she had awakened some ancient memory, unleashing a vicious curse upon Leilin!
"I am the Bronze Empress, protector of the Ice and Snow World! I offer sacrifice to Skmgkl..." Immediately after, that voice began emitting a strange fluctuation, sending a sacrificial plea to some existence beyond Leilin's knowledge.
"Today you have indeed gained the upper hand, but you considered everything yet failed to consider the Laws! They are a power beyond your comprehension..."
"I sacrifice all the laws I carry! Power of Skmgkl, descend!"
RAGING! The emerald-green flames suddenly surged tenfold, and even the Scorpion Man's enormous Morning Star body began dissolving rapidly, melting into the green fire.
CRACK! CRACK! Numerous Rune Chains shattered, the toxin retreated, and even Leilin's bloodline extraction spell was forcibly interrupted.
"Is this... the power of the Laws? Truly inconceivable—this is merely a single drop of blood..." Leilin's face was pale from the backlash of having his spell interrupted.
But there was no time to dwell on it, because that drop of bronze-colored blood—having sacrificed its Laws and broken through the seal—transformed into a meteor and hurtled straight toward Leilin.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Multiple layers of energy shields were destroyed in an instant, and even the attacks of the Kemoyin Scales and the Crimson Pendant proved completely ineffective against the blood.
FSSSHH! The blood slammed violently into Leilin's chest, splattering outward with a violent corrosive sizzle.
Amid the copious white smoke, one could clearly see large swathes of Kemoyin scales tumbling from Leilin's chest. A puddle of green blood clung to him, continuously spreading outward in corrosion.
The Kemoyin Serpent's scales softened and fell away one after another, revealing charred skin beneath—and even the bones and flesh underneath!
"Warning! Severe burns detected on the subject's chest! Immediate treatment recommended!"
"Warning! Unknown energy erosion detected on the subject. Immediate expulsion protocol recommended!" The Chip's alerts rang out immediately.
"I burned the Laws I carried, along with the Scorpion Man's entire remains. The power unleashed would certainly cause even a Bright Moon rank to perish..."
"Bury together with me in the ice and snow! Bloodline of the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents!"
The Ice and Snow Empress's voice grew weaker and weaker before vanishing entirely.
But the terrifying green had already begun spreading from the torso to the surrounding limbs, and countless green blood vessels crawled up Leilin's face, making him look extremely grotesque and terrifying.
"Warning! Warning! Subject's life force and soul power rapidly depleting! Immediate countermeasures recommended. Countdown to genetic collapse: 34 seconds..."
The notification box the Chip displayed this time was bordered in a deeply saturated blood-red, indicating the extreme danger of the situation—one wrong move could mean death.
"Finally... it's come to this step..."
Though half his body was corroded by the green blood and he had collapsed to the ground, there was not a trace of despair on his ice-cold face. Instead, it bore the expression of a scheme successfully brought to fruition.
"Having synthesized 3,410 possible scenarios and 982 sudden contingencies, the opponent indeed chose this method of mutual destruction!"
"Cough... cough..." Even though he had made extensive preparations beforehand, the erosion of a rule-level being's bloodline—compounded by the Scorpion Man's terrifying power—caused Leilin to cough violently, blood seeping from between his fingers.
"Hsss..."
Behind him, the massive phantom of the Kemoyin Giant Serpent materialized once more, though this time the phantom wavered with unstable fluctuations.
A jade-green bronze fire began to blaze across the entire phantom serpent.
Not just the phantom behind him—Leilin could feel the Kemoyin Giant Serpent bloodline within his own body being eroded, expelled, even destroyed!
"Blood Burning!" A fierce crimson light surged in Leilin's eyes, and the purple-red Kemoyin blood within him thickened several times over, filled with a sense of madness and fury.
Massive quantities of blood surged forth, confronting the green blood head-on.
Leilin flipped himself upright. Though using the Blood Burning secret technique was like drinking poison to quench his thirst, it at least granted him temporary control over his own body.
"This design has been simulated countless times by the Chip—the success probability is as high as ninety percent!"
Leilin clenched his fists tight: "And ninety percent is enough for me to take this gamble!"
A look of iron resolve surfaced on Leilin's face: "If I cannot climb to the summit in this life, then I would rather fall into the mud and rot!"
"Mark of the Sun's Child!"
He tore off the white glove on his right hand, and the gold-red bloodline mark blazed with blinding light.
"Initiate 'Passage' protocol! Assist with magical energy! Launch guidance trajectory!" the Chip responded immediately.
BOOM!
Like the sun rising, a colossal blazing sun unfurled in the underground world.
Wherever the light and flames reached—whether earth, rock, magic, or ice—it was all utterly vaporized, causing the entire underground cavern to expand rapidly.
Those beings still within the Ice and Snow World could now see a massive solar flame rising from the direction of the Ice Castle, bringing abundant light and heat to the dark underground!
Eternal ice that had never melted for ten thousand years began to dissolve, ice mountains collapsed—the entire Ice and Snow World looked like the arrival of the apocalypse.
Vast quantities of ice turned to flowing water, then rapidly evaporated, white vapor billowing outward and shrouding the surroundings in mist, revealing the original dark-brown soil beneath.
This radius was still expanding, with every sign of completely transforming the Ice and Snow World.