Players’ NPC daddy

Chapter 1385: Shedding Skin and Rebirth
[Special Mission: Morning Star's Road to Rebirth/Opened]

"Ah~ It's really opened. Is it so casual?" The task prompt that appeared made Blaze sigh helplessly. He didn't expect that even such a rigorous and sacred ceremony would have loopholes.

But it's normal if you think about it. There are two conditions to start a challenge: the challenger and the beast to be captured.

At the end of the road to rebirth, you will become a skinner who can skin wild beasts. Any wild beast will suddenly lose its mind and be captured alive.

"Look at your familiar trick of letting go, and look at Weimar and the princess, both of them have fur that looks like yours. Could it be that they are wearing your fur as well?"

"How many leopards in this world have obsidian-like markings?" Smoke Mirror shook his tail, and even though his mouth was tied, he opened his lips to speak.

"But I didn't go there with good intentions. The reason why there are only two of them left in the Weymark family, [Xiu Tekutli], is because I killed all the others."

Blaze paused, then returned to normal.

He was almost used to the Smoky Mirror's way of speaking, and whenever he opened his mouth he would say something that challenged other people's sensitive points.

“They are [unqualified], right?”

"Hey~ I thought you would at least knock me against the tree a few times. You would only realize it after venting enough." Smoke Mirror frivolously patted Blaze's butt with his only free tail.

Of course, the shot didn't hit the target this time. The snake that followed Blaze, who liked to be silent and reduce his presence, reached out and pinched the tail.

The cold eyes told Yanyanjing that if she did such an offensive thing again, she would pull out the tail.

"How scary~" Smoke Mirror slid the tail out of the snake's hand, shook it provocatively, and did not dare to go beyond the line.

"How many people would be able to resist the urge to disseminate the imperial decree and take advantage of the power of the gods after seeing the deity in the legend in front of them? How many people would not use the deity's inner trauma to profit from it after knowing it?"

"Too many~"

Blaze had no way to blame him for this, as the smoke mirror had definitely killed more than just the family of Xiu Tekutli.

Today, humans in the first layer of the ground world maintain a sense of purity, which is probably due to the help of the smoke mirror in the coming-of-age ceremony.

But Blaze would not say that it was because of the help of the Smoke Mirror that humans today were able to support Quetzalcoatl. Simple good and evil could not describe the Smoke Mirror. She was just doing this out of temporary interest, and maybe she was having fun in the process.

Just as she had once tempted him to open her belly, she was simply tempting him. The consequences for not resisting the temptation would not be great, but those who resisted would be rewarded, such as the night leopard fur on Wemark and the princess.

The best way to deal with smoke and mirrors is to not think about their behavior.

Blaze held up the smoke goggles and looked around. The challenge had begun, but the surrounding environment had not changed at all.

So how should the challenge be carried out?

"Just like everyone's growth path and opportunities for maturity are different, the content of the challenges is completely different, so the tests I have witnessed cannot be used as a reference." Smoke Mirror reminded.

"Even if you said it, I wouldn't believe it." Blaze turned his head and heard a slight peeling sound. The trial might have already begun.

And the source of the sound came from... a snake! ?
Blaze turned her head suddenly and saw the snake looking at her hands in astonishment. Countless cracks were spreading from her hands to her whole body, and then her skin was peeling off.

But after the skin peels off, what is exposed is not flesh and blood, but even colder white skin. This is [Skin Shedding].

"Oh~ What a coincidence! The Skin Peeling Lord symbolizes the shedding of skin when plants mature and the molting of snakes. Not only does her body consist of plants, she also possesses the characteristics of a snake." Smoke Mirror broke free from the restraints on her mouth, poked his head out to look at the snake, and a low laugh came from the depths of his throat.

"She is now like a ripe...ripe fruit that has been peeled."

"What are you looking at?" Blaze turned Gungnir so that the smoke mirror could only face the snake with its buttocks. "So this is a good thing?"

The snake kept its distance warily, fearing that something might happen to harm Blaze.

Fortunately, she was only forced to shed her skin, and her body was not affected in any other way.

"[The God of Life is hiding beneath the surface of death, ready to burst forth like a budding seed]"

The faint sigh of the Smoke Mirror brought a cold wind, and the shed skin of the snake fell to the ground, growing and sprouting like a seed.

"Come back here." Blaze called to the snake, then distanced himself from the growing skin.

The peeled skin is the snake's slough, which, to some extent, can be said to be a clone exclusive to snake monsters.

In the abyss of the past, the snake skin of the Dark Yujiamei God was active as some kind of creature, and now the snake's skin began to grow under some force.

The snake's real name is Nidhogg. It has the characteristics of a snake and is also a dragon. Needless to say, the characteristics of a dragon are that one drop of blood can create a life.

The saliva and blood of lower-level dragons will cause poisonous weeds and snakes to grow on the earth. The blood of higher-level dragons, that is, ancient dragons, can directly grow lower-level dragons from the earth.

In addition, planting dragon teeth in the ground can produce dragon tooth soldiers.

The skin fragments of the snake that fell on the ground grew rapidly, forming huge, cocoon-like bulges. Then a pair of ferocious hands tore open the bulges, and the ferocious dragon men broke out of the shells. They stretched their bodies wantonly and roared fiercely at Blaze and the snake.

As they roared, transparent liquid spurted out. It was their saliva. The moment the saliva touched the ground, thick corrosive smoke rose from the ground. The moment it splashed onto the trees, the trees withered and died.

[Black Dragon Skin Poison Soldier LV150]

[A dragon soldier that grew from the slough of the Root Dragon, the poisonous snake Nidhogg]

"They look like your followers? Can you command them?"

Blaze tilted his head towards the snake, which frowned and stared at the dragon-skinned poison soldiers with its lavender vertical pupils.

"No, they are my followers, but I did not create them."

"It seems that this is the test of the Skinner." Blaze threw the smoke mirror away and walked towards the dragon-skinned poison soldiers holding Gungnir.

"Come on, just treat it as a preview."

(End of this chapter)