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For Alex, trapped inside the snake's heightened sensory neural network, the feeling was overwhelming.
Even without a human body, the absorbed lust translated directly into a burning, phantom arousal.
"Ahh… fuck… what is this heat?" Alex's human consciousness felt very pleasurable; melting warmth pooled in the very center of the snake's body.
The snake's primitive mind didn't understand anything about sex, but she understood how to pleasure her own body by bumping and coiling into nearby sharp stones and seabed.
She also started to understand that devouring this raw, polluted lust made her stronger.
As time passed, she basked in the surrounding erotic charge, her silver scales flushing slightly pink within the dark water.
Every slight piece of empathic energy gathered from tens of thousands of mutated marine creatures flooded her mana circuits.
Acting as an intense, continuous aphrodisiac effect, sending shivering jolts of pure pleasure rippling down her spine from head to tail.
It was a very sexual, intoxicating high, a desperate, building heat without any physical release.
Alex was forced to endure the mind-melting arousal of a beast gorging itself on raw lust, feeding the nascent Empress's soul that was slowly taking root.
[ Day 39: The growth rate become terrifying. You are now eight meters long. Your cold blood runs hot with a perpetual, maddening heat. You are trapped in a constant state of sensory overload, unable to relieve yourself… The line between your human shame and the beast's gluttonous, intoxicating pleasure begins to blur… However, you begin to adapt to the continuous pleasure, and slowly start to enjoy it.]
Eventually, the absorbed energy reached a tipping point. The serpent's body length already reached fifteen meters long, and she was as thick as a strong man's waist.
However, compared to other deep-sea creatures, you felt it was nothing. Creatures as big as 15 to hundreds of meters are as common as ordinary fish in the deep sea.
[ Day 51: Host mental stability begins to stabilize as days pass by as you slowly adapt to the snake's body. ]
Feeling that she might get attacked during her evolution, the serpent began to swim upstream day by day, from its original small territory into shallow waters towards a nearby island.
[ Day 65: Pre-Ecdysis phase initiated. Every movement feels like thousands of needles pressing into your flesh. The large accumulation of absorbed lust and Yin energy condenses into a burning, liquid mana core within your heart, fiercely accelerating the serpent's physical evolution.]
Then, the evolution began.
Pain hit first, from deep within the small mana core, and spread as the snake's body started growing larger.
The silver skin along her entire fifteen-meter length tightened until it felt like she was trapped in a suffocating, shrinking tube.
The snake thrashed violently against the shallow sea floor, coiling and uncoiling in the darkness, smashing her body against the jagged rocks to seek relief.
"Ahhhh, damn it, why's it so painful… It wasn't like this when I began my shedding!!" Alex screamed in his mind, feeling the unbearable pain.
It felt like his flesh was boiling beneath a layer of steel. Finally, the first old scales cracked right behind her head.
The peeling started. Long, translucent sheets of old skin began to rip away.
But as the freezing ocean water rushed in and touched the raw, newly formed, glowing silver scales underneath... the pain instantly vanished, replaced by an excruciating, blinding wave of hypersensitivity.
Every single drop of water brushing against her new skin felt like a masterful, wet tongue licking her bare nerves.
Thrashing against the rough rocks no longer felt like a desperate attempt to scratch an itch, but a full-body, orgasmic shiver tearing through her long body.
The snake let out a long, vibrating, high-pitched hiss of pure, unadulterated pleasure that echoed through the surroundings, attracting nearby creatures.
[ Day 67: Memory Point One - Initial Evolution Successful. You are successfully ascending from an Ordinary Mutated Snake to a Spirit Beast. ]
[ Awakening the hidden Pure Yin Attribute… and Void Yin Body!! ]
As the snake evolved into a Spirit Beast, new senses were opened, and old senses seemed to have been enhanced beyond their original limits.
The water was no longer just cold and salty. It became a living, breathing map.
She could actually feel the presence of other predators miles away just by the displacement of the water, tasting the residual mana fluctuations they left behind in the currents.
But the major change that occurred to her body was the change in her hunger. It shifted again.
Eating meat still mattered to sustain her twenty-meter-long body.
But the hunger caused by the newly awakened Void Yin Body was higher and more demanding than ever.
It wasn't a craving for food; it was a deep, throbbing ache in the center of her mana core that begged for raw empathic energy.
It made her crave the hot, invisible pulse of lust, fear, and desire.
However, before the serpent could even adapt to her new body, her glowing silver scales and large size attracted unwanted attention.
Shadows passed overhead, blocking the dim light of the trench. They were not sea monsters.
They were small and large ships.
The men above waited patiently, hiding their presence while the silver serpent finished her agonizing evolution to a Spirit Beast.
As experienced hunters, they knew a serpent was at its absolute most vulnerable right after shedding its old skin.
Suddenly, the water above exploded.
Heavy, weighted nets and thick ropes dropped from the surface like a falling cage.
These were not ordinary ropes; they were woven with dark, glowing runes that burned violently the second they touched her spirit energy.
The silver snake thrashed wildly. She coiled her twenty-meter body, whipping her massive tail and snapping her jaws, biting through several thick strands.
But the burning nets clung to her sensitive, newly formed scales, searing her flesh and sending sharp, hissing jolts of blinding pain straight into Alex's human mind.
One ship quickly became two, and soon two became five.
Men plunged into the water, while others hauled the thick chains from the wooden decks above.
They were not regular fishermen. Through the chaotic, bubbling water, Alex saw them clearly. They were definitely martial artists.
Their bare arms and chests carried physical strength uncommon in normal humans, their skin tanned dark by the sun and covered in thick, jagged scars from past hunts.
They wore reinforced leather armor made from sea-beast hides and wielded long, barbed spears.
To travel this far out into the treacherous Azure Sea, every single one of them had to be a powerful person, easily rivaling Expert-level awakeners.
More nets fell, layering over her like a suffocating metal web.
Barbed hooks pierced her silver tail and sides, digging deep into the muscle.
No matter how violently she thrashed or released freezing blasts of Yin water, the combined brute strength of dozens of martial artists slowly overpowered her exhausted body.
As they pulled, the snake's large body was dragged upward against her will. The crushing pressure of the sea faded, replaced by a strange lightness.
Then, she broke the surface.
The light was blinding. The harsh, burning glare of the sun stabbed into her vertical pupils, forcing them to narrow into thin slits.
Cold, dry air touched her wet scales, scales that had never known anything but the deep, freezing ocean.
Human voices shouted loudly from the wooden decks of the ships. It was a harsh, guttural, ancient language.
Even Alex couldn't understand exactly what they were talking about, but looking at the wild, greedy excitement in their eyes, he didn't need a translation.
They were looking at her not just as a monster, but as a priceless treasure.
Through the shattered memories leaking into his mind, Alex realized exactly where these men came from.
They belonged to a nearby island city, a large, heavily fortified coastal fortress built entirely for hunting and trading the sea monsters.
It possessed a sprawling, lawless black market, 'The Blood-Stained Shallows,' that gathered powerful martial artists, wealthy sect elders, deacons, and corrupt nobles from the nearby large islands.
They usually came there to buy exotic Spirit Beasts for their mana cores, their blood essence, and for the most beautiful, humanoid sea monsters or sea races... to be sold as high-priced slaves and dual-cultivation playthings.