Chapter 152: Mother of Ice Worms

Gloomy clouds hung like the darkest ink-black seawater. Palm-sized snowflakes condensed from the overcast sky, whipped into a frenzy by the howling gale. They danced wildly in the freezing air, blanketing the boundless icy plain and settling over the White Dragon Lord.

Recovering from the disorientation of the extreme-distance teleportation, Amos looked around and found himself on a massive frozen plain. Countless years of fierce wind had smoothed away every jagged edge in the landscape, rendering the earth as perfectly flat as a master craftsman's design.

Twin streams of white mist jetted from the White Dragon's massive nostrils. His exhalations carried warm, moist vapor from deep within his body that instantly crystallized into frost the moment it met the freezing air.

Amos felt his breathing catch. This was the adverse effect of suddenly stepping from the normal material plane into the thin atmosphere of an Elemental Plane.

But relying on a Dragon's formidable adaptability, the White Dragon quickly grew accustomed to the unique environment of the Elemental Plane of Ice.

He stretched his body and loosened his joints, then raised his head to gaze out at the boundless world of ice and snow.

The sky was a hazy gray. Snowflakes drifted through the air, and the earth lay buried beneath ice and snow. Besides white, there were no other colors to be seen.

Even a dragon's Transcendent Tier vision could pierce no further than the hazy gray blur at the edge of the horizon. The landscape surrounding the White Dragon Lord looked completely identical in every direction.

Without a single landmark for reference, the White Dragon Lord felt disoriented and uneasy.

According to his gathered intelligence, while the Elemental Plane of Ice was desolate, its terrain was varied. It held deep frozen valleys and towering ice mountains, and even across the plains, bottomless chasms would occasionally tear the landscape apart.

Moreover, the plane was not devoid of life. Flesh-and-blood creatures like ice worms inhabited deep subterranean snow caves, and semi-elemental beasts like ice scorpions lay in ambush beneath the snowpack. The most abundant inhabitants, however, were pure elementals—Ice Elementals—which either wandered the frozen surface or slumbered in hidden depths.

No matter how he looked at it, his current surroundings were anything but normal.

Suddenly, a call echoing from the very depths of his soul rang out in his mind.

Come here.

The voice was as tender and intimate as a lover's whisper. A hazy veil seemed to wash over the White Dragon's eyes, blurring his vision and intoxicating him with a profound sense of bliss.

The sweet calls echoed in his mind, one after another.

He lifted a leg to walk toward the voice. But as the movement tugged at his physical body, Amos jolted awake. He reacted in a split second, spitting out a rapid incantation.

"Soul Veil!"

An invisible membrane of peculiar energy wrapped around the White Dragon's soul, insulating it against the strange energy carried by the voice.

The endearing whispers continued to echo in his mind, but they could no longer affect the White Dragon Lord. Amos felt a sharp chill of realization.

That was close!

Fortunately, his study of Soul Magic had vastly enhanced his soul's strength. A stronger soul naturally yielded more condensed spiritual power, substantially boosting his resistance to illusions and mental attacks. Otherwise, he really would have fallen prey to whatever unknown creature was lurking nearby.

The White Dragon Lord's expression flickered as his thoughts raced like lightning. He had teleported to the Elemental Plane of Ice using the exact planar coordinates provided by the Winter Commander, Motznovi.

And yet, the very instant he set foot in this realm, he had suffered an ambush from an unknown entity.

Was his luck simply that terrible, or had the Winter Commander set him up?

The White Dragon leaned heavily toward the latter. The Winter Commander had intercepted the Sea Giant prophet's legendary magic, Roar of the Sea God, on his behalf. While it hadn't suffered critical damage, the blow had left Motznovi in a wretched state.

Therefore, it had every reason to seek revenge.

Amos's guess was entirely correct. The instant the White Dragon Lord entered the Elemental Plane of Ice, the Winter Commander sensed his arrival. Teleporting to a spot several thousand meters away, it watched the White Dragon stand frozen in the snow, gloating over the scene.

"Bwahahaha! That's what you get for offending the great Motznovi. It's time you had a taste of a surprise!"

Motznovi roared with laughter, glancing at the enormous snow crater situated a short distance from the White Dragon. The pit had a radius of at least a thousand meters, resembling a gargantuan sandbox—only, instead of sand, it was filled with white snow.

At the very center of that snow crater lived an entity that even Motznovi feared: Roncalis, the mother of ice worms.

In this bizarre world, even the most insignificant creature could chance upon an opportunity to become a powerful existence.

Roncalis was precisely such an existence. She had risen from utter obscurity. Originally, she had been an ordinary ice worm—one a mundane human could easily crush between their fingers.

Nobody knew what Roncalis had experienced. From a mere thirty-centimeter worm with a lifespan of less than five years, she had grown into a gargantuan monstrosity stretching an astonishing hundred meters long. Her strength had reached High-Tier Legend, and she commanded immense psychic energy, particularly excelling in mental illusions.

Beyond her tremendous size, Roncalis possessed an unimaginably tough hide. Ordinary attacks did little more than tickle her, and she boasted incredible magical resistance. Even Motznovi was incapable of breaking through her defenses.

However, Roncalis relied entirely on her formidable defenses and insidious psychic illusions; in all other aspects, she was unremarkable.

Her massive, corpulent body gave her an astonishing appetite, but it also rendered her incredibly clumsy and slow. Therefore, she opted for the strategy of waiting by a stump for a hare.

Roncalis had claimed a massive frozen plain, establishing her lair right at its center. By remaining perfectly still, she minimized her energy consumption while projecting potent psychic illusions to beguile any creature wandering near her nest.

Lured by these blissful hallucinations, countless beasts had stumbled into the snow crater, sliding to the very bottom. There, they became nothing more than food for the mother of ice worms, their very bones dissolving in her powerful stomach acid.

Imagining the sheer terror on the White Dragon Lord's face when he tumbled into the ice pit—and Motznovi subsequently pulling him out of the illusion—filled the Winter Commander with the sweet thrill of vengeance.

Just as Motznovi was happily indulging in these fantasies, it suddenly frowned.

Forget it, better not take things too far. If I accidentally get this rare atavistic white dragon killed, the boss will swallow me alive.

A sharp chill ran down Motznovi's spine at the thought of that figure seated upon the throne flying into a rage.

I'll wake him up just before he falls into the snow crater.

Thinking this, Motznovi watched as the White Dragon lifted a leg. The elemental gleefully crossed its arms, settling in to watch the show.

But then, the White Dragon pulled his leg back.

The Winter Commander blinked in shock.

What is going on?!

Could it be that this white dragon—who hasn't even reached the Legendary Rank—actually broke free from the mother of ice worms' psychic illusion?

How is that possible?!

Motznovi was utterly astounded. Even a genuine legendary practitioner, caught off guard, would find it impossible to resist the mother of ice worms' psychic illusion.

Oblivious to Motznovi's shock several thousand meters away, the White Dragon Lord was busy analyzing his current predicament.

First, he couldn't tell whether a magic array or a living creature had dragged his mind into this illusion.

He carefully scrutinized the fabricated world around him but failed to spot a single flaw. His expression darkened. Finding no problems at all was the greatest problem of all.

The architect behind this illusion clearly possessed a level of ability that vastly eclipsed his own, leaving him entirely blind to any anomalies.

His eyes could no longer be trusted to see the truth, but what his spiritual power scanned couldn't be faked.

Amos projected his spiritual power outward. The instant he did, he slammed into tremendous resistance. If extending his mind usually felt as effortless as waving a hand through empty air, doing so now was as grueling as throwing a punch through thick quicksand.

The sensory range of the White Dragon Lord's spiritual power, which normally stretched across a five-hundred-meter radius, was violently compressed to a meager three meters around his body.

Almost the instant he extended his spiritual power, a furious shriek tore out from deep beneath the earth.

A terrifying tide of psychic energy smashed against the spiritual field the White Dragon Lord had propped open. He felt as though a heavy sledgehammer had just struck his skull. His vision swam, his legs nearly gave out, and scalding dragon blood began to trickle from his nostrils.

The Winter Commander, who had been eager to enjoy the show, was seized by shock and alarm. It noticed the ground trembling—a clear prelude to the mother of ice worms bursting from her subterranean lair.

At the bottom of the snow crater, the mother of ice worms—having remained dormant for nearly thousands of years—smashed furiously through the ice layer. Plumes of snow and shattered ice erupted dozens of meters into the air before raining down in all directions.

"Hiss!"

The mother of ice worms reared her front half into the sky and spread her circular maw, a gaping abyss as wide as her own massive body. Spiraling rows of triangular, razor-sharp teeth were exposed, thick strands of viscous liquid stretching between them.

Amidst the shower of falling snow and ice chunks, the massive ice worm let out a furious roar. A turbulent tide of psychic energy expanded outward like a rising tide in every direction.

The mother of ice worms discovered that her ever-victorious mental illusions had actually been resisted by a lowly white dragon.

If a creature of the Legendary Rank Level had resisted her illusions, the mother of ice worms wouldn't have been this angry. But this white dragon lacked the unique planar laws that defined a legendary powerhouse, which meant he had not yet stepped into the Legendary Rank.

For a white dragon who wasn't even a legend to resist her bewitchment was a profound humiliation that the mother of ice worms could not accept.

The mother of ice worms, over a hundred meters long and thicker than the widest girth of a blue whale, slammed her front half back into the earth.

The surface snow was blasted into the air, and the ice sheet beneath cracked under the tremendous weight.

Ripples of movement cascaded down her segmented, corpulent body as she charged at the White Dragon. Her gaping maw, lined with rings of razor-sharp teeth, was wide enough to swallow him whole.

When the mother of ice worms erupted from beneath the surface, the deafening explosion assaulted Amos's ears. Without time to wipe the blood from his snout, the White Dragon hastily pulled out the Skull of the Caucasus and invoked Ancestor's Shelter.

Centered on the Skull of the Caucasus, a dome of blood-red light enveloped the White Dragon's body, greatly increasing his resistance to negative states. Completely freed from the illusion's influence, Amos caught a terrifying glimpse of the colossal ice worm and turned to sprint for his life.

Charging at an enemy who was only slightly stronger than you was called bravery.

Charging at an enemy whose strength far eclipsed your own was called stupidity.

Obviously, the White Dragon was not stupid at all. He executed a flawless, unbroken sequence of running away in one smooth breath.

In the distance, Motznovi remained concealed within the ice. The elemental stared in gloomy dismay at the charging mother of ice worms and the frantically fleeing White Dragon. It wrestled with the urge to intervene, but seeing that the White Dragon wasn't in immediate mortal danger, it decided to wait and observe a little longer.

Amos sprinted wildly for his life. It wasn't that he didn't want to fly, but rather that the mother of ice worms' terrifying psychic pressure remained firmly locked onto him. The mental weight bore down on the White Dragon like a physical mountain, preventing Amos from taking flight.

Behind the White Dragon, the massive ice worm slithered forward like a snowplow. It bulldozed over the footprints the White Dragon left behind, carving a straight trench that exposed the sheer ice beneath, with high walls of packed snow on either side.

Psychic Shock!

The mother of ice worms continuously battered the fleeing White Dragon with her powerful psychic energy.

After being weakened by the Skull of the Caucasus, the psychic shock struck the White Dragon, but each impact still felt like a needle violently stabbing into Amos's brain. The sharp pain only spurred the White Dragon to run even faster.

The mother of ice worms was not fast, and the White Dragon gradually widened the gap between them.

Seeing the little dragon who had utterly humiliated her about to escape, the mother of ice worms flew into a rage. Abandoning all concern for energy conservation, she continuously contracted her massive body, coiling inward like a compressed spring.

Having gathered enough force, she violently released the tension. The mother of ice worms exploded into the air, tearing through the howling wind. She traced a parabola through the sky, aiming to crush the sprinting White Dragon ahead with terrifying speed.

The moment the mother of ice worms launched herself, the White Dragon Lord felt the ground tremble. He glanced back, only to see the horrifying sight of the massive ice worm soaring through the sky straight toward him.

She can do that?!

Heart leaping in surprise, the White Dragon Lord immediately moved sideways, narrowly escaping the fate of being crushed into meat paste beneath the mother of ice worms' corpulent body.

A deafening boom echoed as her massive body slammed back onto the ground. The fat on her body rippled back and forth. Unable to withstand the sheer weight of the ice worm, the thick ice layer beneath shattered completely, kicking up snow that battered against the fleeing White Dragon Lord's tail.

The mother of ice worms hastily changed direction, aggressively slithering after the White Dragon, who had once again widened the gap between them.

This time Amos had learned his lesson. Instead of fleeing in a straight line, he sprinted in a zigzag pattern, infuriating the massive and clumsy mother of ice worms into a howling rage.

The mother of ice worms launched herself through the air a few more times, but quickly realized she could do nothing against the White Dragon who was wholly dedicated to fleeing. Frustrated, she was forced to give up.

Letting out one final, resentful screech at his retreating back, she turned around and began to slither back toward the ice pit.

The moment the mother of ice worms gave up, Amos immediately spread his wings and vaulted into the sky. He flew to a safe zone and landed upon an iceberg, panting heavily.

The frantic escape just now had burned through a massive amount of the White Dragon Lord's stamina, leaving the White Dragon breathing violently.

Suddenly, Amos detected a faint pulse of magical energy from behind him.

He hastily stood up in defense, just in time to see the Winter Commander, Motznovi, stepping out of an ice wall.

"I have to admit, you really impressed me this time! As expected of an atavistic bloodline!"