Before Ryu could do much of anything, Little Silk's thread rushed forward, puncturing the corpse through in several places. Ryu could only watch as the blood, even down to the bone marrow, was all sucked away by the greedy little butterfly.
By the time Little Silk was finished, even the meat had lost its vitality, making it completely useless to eat. Let alone using it to undo the shackles of his bloodlines, it could be a miracle if his Bloodlines didn't regress instead if he dared to put just useless meat into his mouth.
Ryu sent a glance toward the little butterfly, quite speechless. But, surprisingly enough, right then, the aura of Little Silk began to change.
Before, Ryu hadn't felt much different from the little butterfly. Though he knew that something had to have changed in the almost thousand years he was absent, without his eyes, it was too subtle for him to pick up.
However, after swallowing the wolf beast whole, that subtle change became more obvious to Ryu, especially thanks to his soul's Spiritual Sense.
Little Silk was an Eleventh Order beast originally. But, right now, it seemed to be giving off the aura of a Fourth Order one.
What was amazing, though, was that while being of the Fourth Order, Little Silk had the complete aura of a True Sovereign Grade beast. It was after seeing this that Ryu finally understood what happened.
Using a special method, Ryu's mother had likely traded Little Silk's cultivation in exchange for undoing the shackles of place on her by Sacrum.
Logically, Little Silk's cultivation alone shouldn't have been enough to do this. Ryu had a feeling that his mother had done more for him than he knew, probably even harming her foundation even more just to make sure that he didn't enter the True Martial World truly alone.
Ryu smiled somewhat bitterly and shook his head. No wonder she didn't tell him about it. Her foundation had already been harmed once, saving his life, and she had harmed it again to help this greedy little butterfly to unseal itself.
While Little Silk's cultivation had plummeted, the might of a True Sovereign Grade Beast was most definitely monstrous. The current Little Silk might even be stronger than Ryu himself despite there being three cultivation Realms between them, this was especially the case since Ryu had beast Bloodlines that could be directly suppressed in the face of a stronger beast.
Ryu's current Bloodlines were only Black Grade. There was still Earth Grade and Heaven Grade before he even made it to Sovereign Grade, let alone the fact that Little Silk was at the Pinnacle of the Sovereign Grade, just a step away from Ancestral Grade.
But, the best part was that Ryu was only human. As much of a part of his strength his beast Bloodlines were, he would never experience the same kind of suppression a true beast would.
What did that mean? It meant that now that Little Silk finally gained the catalyst she needed to start displaying some of her strength, her use to Ryu, especially in this wilderness, had just multiplied several times over.
From a greedy and quite frankly useless little butterfly, Little Silk had suddenly become Ryu's greatest trump card.
"Not bad." Ryu nodded, a light smile playing on his face. It seemed that Little Silk hadn't conned him after all.
Little Silk arrogantly flapped her wings before landing on Ryu's shoulder, her little antennae sparkling with radiant energy.
Ryu chuckled but didn't say much. The little one did finally have some capital to be arrogant.
Right now, Little Silk seemed to be of the Lower Fourth Order. With her current Pinnacle Sovereign Grade Bloodline and presence, anything up to a Lower Ninth Order Common Grade beast shouldn't dare to fight her.
"Alright, let's see if we can get you to the Fifth Order, then we can venture deeper in."
"~Mii!"
Little Silk fluttered happily. She spun around Ryu, creating him a new and stronger set of robes that seemed even more beautiful than the last pair.
Ryu smiled and let the little one do as it pleased before he locked onto a new target. Feeding a True Sovereign Grade beast would be a problem, especially since there were only Common and Black Grade beasts in this region.
Still, Ryu could only be thankful. If there were stronger beasts, he would be finished. Little Silk's strength spoke for itself, so there was no questioning the caliber of beasts in this world. Without a choice, he could only hope to make up for quality with quantity.
As expected, it was difficult. They no longer had Dob to rely on and a Ninth Order Black Grade beast was beyond the two of them to handle. So, their best bet was to target Eighth Order Black Grade beasts. This was the best combination of strength and talent the could match.
In addition, these beasts had to be compatible with Little Silk to maximize efficiency, but since they were already in a dense land of cold qi, this wasn't too difficult to find. In fact, it was the easiest criteria to meet.
Ryu ignored anything that wasn't a Ninth Order Common Beast or an Eighth Order Black beast. And, he was sure to steer away from anything that was even remotely close to a beast above the Ninth Order, a population of beings that was much too large for his liking.
It took an entire two weeks and hundreds of kills before Little Silk finally broke through and entered the Fifth Order.
Their little duo had killed over 130 Eighth Order Common Beasts and over 80 Ninth Order Black Beasts. The unfortunate part was that they had likely caught themselves quite a bit of attention as well.
Beasts were intelligent. Suddenly seeing so many of the territories they had gotten used to emptied out, many raised their guards and became more alert. Toward the end, it became more and more difficult for the two to make their move.
But, with the goal reached, Ryu was still mostly satisfied. Raising Little Silk to the Sixth Order would be a tall task. Still, for now, she should be able to suppress Tenth Order Common beasts and Ninth Order Black beasts. The latter skill was especially important because Ninth Order Black beasts were in high concentrations deep into this territory. Without being able to deal with them easily, the risk would be too high.
Of course, Ryu had been ready to deal with this risk earlier, but now that he didn't have to, why not take the more forgiving route in exchange for two weeks of his time?
Feeling that the ire of the beasts was growing, Ryu began to head deeper into the mountain range of snow, his senses primed. He extended his Spiritual Sense from a one kilometer radius to two. With the beasts growing more powerful, one kilometer simply wasn't enough to react. If Ryu could help it, he would have liked to extend it more, but even with his ability to swallow souls to replenish himself, he had to be more careful.
He couldn't afford to go on a killing spree this deep into beast territory, so swallowing up large amounts of souls was a no-go. He would only fight battles here when he absolutely had to.
Ryu's eyes began to glow, the Water Character pulsing. He allowed a special sort of pull to carry his steps in a certain direction.
With the amount of concentrated Yin Qi in this region, anything that Ryu's Water Character would react to was guaranteed to be a higher class treasure. This was the benefit of a region like this.
Of course, the downside was that the likelihood a beast hadn't found it first was very low.
Such treasures were very good at hiding from Spiritual Sense, but when it came to a method like Ryu's or the instincts of a beast, they were quite helpless in this regard.
Ryu entered another forest of trees, his steps so light that he left not a single mark in his wake. His movement was fast, but not hurried. Every shift he made was calculated and filled with purpose.
It took him three more days before he had finally reached his first destination. He hid high in a canopy of trees, watching a small spring below.
It was only about ten meters in diameter, but it had an unfathomable depth. In addition, it gave off heat as though it was a hot spring, but the frigid air told a different story entirely.
'This should be the Trembling Frost Fog root. It has the effect of lowering temperature, but its odd qi also has the habit of lowering the freezing and condensation point…'
This meant that under the presence of this Spiritual Herb, water needed to become much, much colder in order to become ice. And, likewise, gas needed to become much, much colder to become liquid. This led to a state where it could give off fog like this, and yet still be freezing cold. And, by the same token, there could be a body of water here that would also freeze you to the core with a single touch.
Ryu had, of course, read up on all the Spiritual Herbs and Treasures he could find information on before leaving, and this one was very good. It met his requirements for forming his Yin Water by a great margin. It was high quality and had great evolution potential.
The trouble was…
There was an Eleventh Order blue-scaled Serpent sleeping right by it. And, it was of the Pinnacle Black Grade.