Chapter 1561 The Perilious Snow Forest
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Blue runes floated around me as I swallowed the blue crystal, the wound on my neck slowly regenerated back, the ice covering it falling down. My body, which was rather flimsy looking and weak, gained a bit more musculature, and there were runes resembling bears growing around the wound area.
I felt stronger, much stronger than before. And this sensation, it is as if I had inherited the polar bear's might into my human body. I never got to ever experience my own original body becoming stronger. It was… an exhilarating feeling.
"Hahh…"
I continued eating the Polar Bear meat, my stomach never got full, so I ate and ate. I ate the fur, the bones, the brain, everything. When I finished eating, I had absorbed the Polar Bear's essence.
The azure eyes staring at me from above blinked once, as if acknowledging what I had done. Alright, I think I should just continue hunting then. Is that what you want me to do?
I kept lurking across the forest, while increasing the ability to manipulate the frost of my hands and legs. The Polar Bear's runes around my body only strengthened me slightly, nothing more for now.
Eventually, I came into contact with several smaller beasts. Frost Rabbits, dog-sized rabbits with three sharp frost horns, charged at me from all sides.
They were a dozen, and aggressive meat-eating rabbits at that. Fighting them and evading their attacks reminded me of my early years as a dragon, when I had to fight all those horned snow rabbits to survive.
As much as I tried evading their blows or blocking them, I was pierced a few times, but I managed to catch them all. Using my arms as freezing spears and changing my legs into axes served well at hunting down these critters.
After eating a dozen of them and moving on, more runes appeared around my body. Every time they imprinted into my body; my Azure Ice Aura continued to grow stronger. Was this divinity, or something else entirely?
This energy felt slightly similar in density and power as draconic energy, but it wasn't that. It was something else. Something that was being bestowed upon me.
"Hahh…"
As I finished eating my meals, I looked into the snowstorm-covered sky, the snow never stopped falling, and the pine tree seemed endless. The looming figure only watched in silence.
"I'll get to the end of this, just you wait."
Embraced by the cold snowstorms, I kept moving. I made sure to persecute the smallest of critters first, anything that I saw, was caught. Frost Rabbits, Snow Rats, Mini Snow Golems, Pygmy Polar Bears, and even Ice Crows.
As I kept hunting and devouring small creatures, my power only increased slightly more before I didn't gain anything out of them. Then, I shifted my gaze to the largest beasts I've been evading.
I hunted another Polar Bear not long after. The battle was not as arduous as before, but this one was older and clever, evading my lethal frost spears and managing to get some nasty wounds on my chest, leaving me bleeding, I managed to kill it by surprising it with a piercing blow into its head, splattering its brains out.
After eating the second polar bear, I hunted Snow Wolves. They worked in packs, hunting these bastards was hard due to their team tactics and sharp bites. Between evading their powerful jaws and their deadly claws, I had to balance both my wounds and my attack prowess. My arms and legs could regenerate, but the rest of my body would die if I took too many hits.
I couldn't take on the whole pack of twelve, so I just hunted them down separately, taking them down one after another like a lurking shadow. They persecuted me but I hid above the trees. I jumped over their heads when they passed from below me and cut their throats.
"GRRHHH…"
"Hahhh… You're the last."
I confronted the cleverest of all the wolves, a giant Alpha Frost Wolf, as hulking as the polar bear. Its azure eyes glowed brightly, as its magic powers activated. A barrage of spears made of ice was fired at me. I had Ice Immunity before, but not in this body.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
I evaded the attacks as I ran quickly, modifying my legs to resemble the nimble legs of rabbits. I leaped off the snow-covered floor and shapeshifted my arms into a single giant hammer, slamming the wolf in the head as it fired its magic.
It was a risky gamble of a move, half my body was impaled by ice spears, but I managed to smash the monster in a single strike. While vomiting blood, I slowly took out the spears from my body, looking at the holes bleeding off, I covered them on ice and ate the Alpha.
"Gulp, gulp… Hmm, this is starting to become tasty after a while."
The wolves' runes resonated with the alpha's runes, covering my wounds and healing them. My body felt so strong I was unrecognizable. No longer was I dumb-looking walking stick, I was hulking with barbarian muscles, and I hadn't noticed, but my hair turned white, growing all the way down my shoulders.
"I might as well make myself some clothes…"
I made pants and something to cover the rest of my torso with the Alpha Wolf remains and the Polar Bear remains. Mostly out of embarrassment of going around ass naked than anything else. I was still freezing below the snowstorm.
After hunting more wolves and bears, I came into contact with Frost Cobras of over ten meters tall. With lethal poison that freezes you when it injects inside your system. I cut their heads with my axe-shaped frost legs and sword frost arms.
And then, magic wielding Frost Horned Deer attacked, with beautiful white fur, they were cunning magicians that tried to overwhelm me from afar. I caught them one by one and pierced their hearts, eating their cores after drinking their blood.
The more I battled and hunted, while below the endless snowstorm, the more connected I felt with this forest I had brushed off back then. As I explored, slept, and survived, slowly, the Snow Forest was growing inside of me, and I was becoming part of it.
"You're the last one…"
However, I wasn't going to stay here forever, I'm leaving today.
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