Aura was pnning to take a nap, but he found that blindly tolerating the tiny insect's actions had only made things worse. The tiny insect wouldn't stop talking, so Aura couldn't fall asleep at all.

  He subconsciously began accumuting his frost energy, once again wanting to freeze this noisy insect, but he suddenly had an idea and sent her a mental message instead.

  "Is such a piece of trash worthy of being called a king? Noisy little insect, if you're angry, why don't you come over here and bite me to death?"

  Aura made a very provocative statement. If this had been the previous Bck, then even if she'd known that the other party was only provoking her, she still would have aimed her mandibles at the butterfly's body and bitten him a few times.

  This was an instinct flowing in an ant's blood. Even if the enemies they encountered were completely unknown, they always had to try attacking with their mandibles first.

  But now, her life was about to come to an end. Bck, who was pretending that nothing was wrong on the surface, was actually extremely sensitive to the topic of life and death in her heart.

  Bck surprisingly didn't argue with Aura, and only asked, "Do you really want to die? Isn't it good to be alive?"

  Aura was surprised that such a tiny insect could see through his provocation, but he didn't think too much about it and continued sending mental messages.

  "He's a garbage tentacle insect, and you, tiny insect, are even worse than garbage."

  This time Aura not only transmitted his mental message to the tiny insect, but also mocked System, the tentacle monster. If that tentacle insect named System was angered, Aura thought that he might die faster, and then he would be completely free.

  However, neither the tiny insect nor System had any reaction to his mental message. Aura also detected an unbearable emotion in System's expression and through [Mental Connection]—pity.

  An indescribable sense of humiliation appeared in his heart. Such a rubbish thing, was he even worthy of pitying him?

  He was a...

  Aura seemed to have remembered something vaguely, but after thinking carefully, he found that he couldn't remember any specific details.

  He only knew that he used to be an extremely powerful existence, and even something countless times more powerful than this tentacle insect would have had to look up to him.

  He couldn't accept this kind of pity at all.

  As he looked at the tentacle insect's expression, Aura pnned out his words several times in his head. In the end, he couldn't come up with any sarcastic sentences.

  He knew that the other party had seen through him. Even if the words he said were mean and vicious, the other party would only look at him with a more compassionate expression.

  Aura wanted to ask System not to look at him like that, but his dignity didn't allow him to.

  At this moment, the unknown tiny insect sent him a mental message again.

  "Why? Why do I want to live, but I'm about to die? And you want to die, but you can live for a long time?"

  Aura could feel a kind of envy from the tiny insect's mental message. This feeling of envy made him feel uncomfortable.

  How long had he lived?

  From the moment he'd first emerged from his chrysalis, Aura had known that his lifespan was only seven years. Just seven years!

  If you want to envy someone, you should envy the giant dragons with a lifespan of thousands or tens of thousands of years. What's the point of envying a rubbish butterfly!

  "You!" Aura wanted to mock the tiny insect, but he suddenly thought of something and said, "It's only a few years of life. Even I can give it to you. So, after you get the lifespan, you and that rubbish tentacle insect should get out of my sight."

  A strange bst of frost energy gushed out from Aura's body, condensing into what seemed to be snakes made of white mist. The snakes wrapped around Bck and drilled into her body.

  Seeing this, System wanted to rescue Bck from the snake-like tendrils of freezing mist. However, he sensed that Bck didn't seem to feel any pain at all. Instead, she felt very comfortable.

  It seemed that this white mist only looked cold without actually being cold. It was just a strange energy that exuded a frost aura.

  System watched carefully.

  Soon after the white mist poured into Bck, her body began growing at an incredible speed. Bck seemed to have leveled up, but her body was still growing at a speed visible to the naked eye. A long time passed before Bck finally stopped growing, and she appeared to have gained more than one level.

  This white mist was like food or experience points pouring into Bck's body.

  Shortly after Bck stopped growing rger, her gray exoskeleton began to melt. She curled up, and a gray pupa slowly formed around her. Her mind fell into a deep sleep.

  Under the power of this butterfly formed from the remnant soul of the Lord of Gciers, Bck, who had been about to die due to her lifespan coming to an end, unexpectedly entered her second pupation.

  ...

  System, who had been watching Bck's changes, didn't know that Aura, who had provided the white mist, was already in great pain.

  Aura had thought that it would be easy to upgrade the life level of this tiny insect to metamorphosis, extending her lifespan by a few years. However, when he'd used his [Upgrade Technique], he found that the ability had taken a great toll on his body. In other words, he possessed too little power in his current form.

  Also, with his current body, using [Upgrade Technique] actually consumed his lifespan. In just a few minutes, more than a year of his lifespan had been drained.

  He'd originally pnned to upgrade the tiny insect to metamorphosis, then continue upgrading her life level, eventually turning her into a magical creature and making the tentacled garbage feel ashamed.

  However, now, even though he'd only upgraded the tiny insect from mortal to metamorphosis, his body had become weak and powerless.

  Still, Aura forced himself to continue upgrading Bck at the cost of burning his own body's vitality...

  ...

  System was more and more surprised to see Bck's changes. Not only had Aura upgraded Bck's level to meet the conditions of [Pupation], he'd also directly allowed Bck to begin her second pupation immediately.

  And now, Aura seemed to be forcing the pupation process to accelerate, hastening Bck's emergence.

  However, System soon felt Aura's exhaustion, and he also watched as the color of the icy blue deformed butterfly's body gradually became dull, transforming into a color that was more gray than blue.

  System decisively stretched out his tentacles and pulled Little Bck's pupa away from the deformed butterfly, and the mist that looked like swimming snakes disappeared.

  Bck had successfully begun her second pupation. Perhaps in just half a month, she would break out of her pupa.

  Aura seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep from exhaustion. After some thought, System brought the butterfly back to the nest.

  This deformed butterfly was determined to die. If he was left outside, he'd probably be discovered and killed by carnivorous insects or birds in a short time.

  While this would undoubtedly fulfill Aura's wish, there were many ways to seek death, and dying while unconscious was obviously unfair to him. Even if Aura wanted to die, he should at least know when it was happening.

  These were System's thoughts when he used his tentacles' [Perception] ability on the deformed butterfly.

  However, even after wrapping his tentacles around Aura for a long time, System still didn't find any special abilities in the butterfly's body. Instead, he discovered that Aura, a male dragon, seemed to have turned into a female butterfly.