My Journey to Godhood as a Caterpillar

Yun Jhin found himself looking at a small child, the kid was around 5-6 years old and he was huddled in a dark alleyway, his knees to his chin, the snow around him almost buried him alive, his life was slowly disappearing from his tiny body, but he held on with strong willpower, but willpower wouldn't help him from frostbite and his constant reduction of life force.

Yun Jhin looked at the small child with an apathetic expression on his face as he said slowly:

"I have been quite unlucky in a few lives as well."

The child didn't die, a rough middle-aged obese man saved him from the snow, he grabbed him by his long brown hair and dragged him towards a nearby house, inside the house Yun Jhin's former self stopped shivering as the man came to him and dropped a blanket to heat his little body.

Yun Jhin continued to observe what happened as he shook his head, his young self looked with dazed eyes at the man as he said:

"Sir, why would you help me..."

The obese middle-aged man laughed as he patted the little kid's head and said:

"Ah you see it's my hobby to help those young and in need, I have had quite a lot of young children like you in my care."

The man then smiled wretchedly as he felt that the kid's body heated up enough and then his hand started to snake around the young child's undeveloped body, Yun Jhin shook his head as he forcefully cut the image that came afterward, even though he vividly remembered the moment he didn't want to live it out again.

The scene changed, a draped blanket was the only thing that kept Yun Jhin's little body from not being naked, near him stood the corpse of the middle-aged man, a knife implanted in his stomach, he bled out to death.

The kid then started to move backward in fear apprehension and disgust of the older man, he kept his distance from him as he started rocking back and forth, it was his mechanism to cope with what happened, out of the man's closet a bunch of dead bodies fell out, they were poor young men and women just like Yun Jhin, however, the difference between them is that they were corpses and he was alive.

Yun Jhin ran out of the man's house and shouted so hard all of his neighbors were alarmed when they came and saw the grisly sight they immediately called the authorities to investigate. Yun Jhin was taken into custody by the authorities and then sent to an orphanage...

Yun Jhin's life wasn't good at all, he kept bumping into problems, most of the other foster children were beating him up most of the time, even though the staff of the orphanage didn't mistreat him the other children would steal his food and toys.

Till one day when the military came and found out that Yun Jhin had a high talent for cultivation, they enrolled him into the military and gave him a cultivation technique. However, things didn't turn out as well as Yun Jhin thought.

As he grew he thought that he would keep his distance from everyone, that he would be able to keep a steel heart in front of every person he would know and knew, but this woman he met, it melted his heart and his defenses, she was beautiful and kind to him, they worked in the same squadron and they deeply fell in love.

But just like all tales, he had a rival, this rival of his didn't like to play nice and due to an accident on the battlefield, his future lover perished under friendly fire... Yun Jhin was heartbroken and became mad, he killed all of his teammates and defected.

He started to dabble into dark cultivation technique as he thought he could revive his former lover, necromancy, death decay, that was what he lived in for hundreds of years, in the end, he revived his former lover, but her soul was gone, she was an empty shell that he crushed under his boots as he realized that all of his humanity perished the moment she died.

The only woman that was good to him, the only woman he loved, killed by his rival due to jealousy and an unfortunate accident.

He then started to seek further cultivation, but his body gave out on him and he died...

His next life he tried again, and again, and again, but he died as well. He failed every time as he became numb through reincarnations and realized that he couldn't do anything, he gave up on his goal, he didn't care about his only light as it snuffed out, he became a monster, he realized that the weak were preyed upon by the strong.

He realized that he couldn't believe anyone, he realized that hatred was his only friend, hatred, and power!

His hatred changed from people as he continued to cultivate, he realized that people weren't the things that he hated the most, they could be controlled, manipulated and used however he wanted, but the thing was, he couldn't control death, he couldn't live as much as he wanted to, in the end, he would one day become white sparkling bones that everyone would forget after a certain time, no matter how many accomplishments he had in his life.

He realized that to become something, to become the something that he wanted, his distorted personality made him seek eternal life, from a normal human his life was always wretched which in turn transformed him into a monster, that's what he thought but when Yun Jhin thought about it back then.

He enjoyed killing... the moment the knife entered the obese man's belly he felt exhilarated and full of life, the moment he killed his comrades made him happier than when he was loved by that woman, the moment he resurrected her, he realized that he could give her soul back, but he didn't.

He knew that if he did that his humanity might have a chance of coming back, and his dark twisted soul didn't want that, he was evil to the bones and that was his nature, people would think that the environment you lived in would shape your personality and this was true for most of the people, however, sometimes there would be people who would have an innate quality that wouldn't change no matter what happened.

Yun Jhin kept a passive face as he looked at his former lives take place in front of his eyes, he kept looking and shook his head as he saw a particular memory.

After so much time passed in Yun Jhin's first life he finally reached the Emperor realm, he thought of himself invincible in the world only to get killed later in a fight with a fellow Emperor realm expert, Yun Jhin chuckled as he saw that memory and said:

"Ah, I was so foolish, but that was my first life anyways..."

He kept looking as he saw his former lives continue and then he stopped, all the images stopped, everything stopped, his breathing stopped, his blood circulation, even his life.

Yun Jhin frowned as he looked around and then his heart started to beat again, bum bum bum, new blood started to circulate in his body, it was a strange feeling like he was something he was never before, the feeling of evolution was strange and familiar at the same time.

Yun Jhin's main body started to change as it grew up to 2 meters in length and 500 kilograms in weight, his body was as thick as two adult men put together and it grew yellow scales over it, even though he was still a caterpillar he wasn' any normal caterpillar.

He grew dark-colored eyes and scaled wings, horns grew out of his head and he also gained claws instead of the normal caterpillar feet, he exuded an aura of majesty and power as his power increased.

His ki started to appear in his body, it was a deep imperial yellow color, the character for 'dragon' was imprinted on his back as his evolution stopped, but he didn't wake up as he didn't finish his breakthrough in the ki cultivating realm.

There weren't any things such as heavenly tribulations in cultivation, however, there were tribulations of self, only talented people could trigger these tribulations and if you passed them, the cultivation speed of the realm they were in would be way faster than normal.

Yun Jhin encountered such a tribulation, it was the past self tribulation that only reincarnators got, however this type of tribulation was almost nonexistent in Yun Jhin's eyes, he has reincarnated for countless years and lives, technically speaking the more you reincarnated the stronger the tribulation, but with Yun Jhin's experience, the tribulation couldn't do anything to him anymore.

Yun Jhin sighed as he felt his new body generate tons of ki, as his body was quite long and strong, the amount of ki it stored inside was way higher than a human or even some other special cultivation beasts.

His host body was already destroyed into a shower of blood as he grew out of his skull into a big dragon caterpillar.

His eyes were still closed but then suddenly they snapped open, his dark-colored sclera was like a mirror, nothing remained around him, the whole royal palace broke down into cinders as he opened his new mouth and incinerated the place with his dragon flames.

The palace burned down into cinders even though it made out of stone and not wood, the fire took the attention of every survivor in the capital and they rushed to see what's happening, however, all the saw was Yun Jhin's new majestic body take flight from the palace and flying into the direction of the ocean.

A system notification came when he started flying towards the ocean:

[Host has successfully evolved into a dragon caterpillar (weak form), the host can reach rank 5,000]

[If the host wants to evolve the dragon bloodline further, the host has to eat 100,000 cultivators with a dragon bloodline at the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm or above!]

Yun Jhin looked at the notification as his new face didn't betray any of his emotions, but a smile appeared on it as he said:

"It seems the Long Empire will have to be useful as well..."

He started flying towards the Long Empire's location as he flapped his wings faster, he concocted a new plan combined with his former one he knew what to do, the dragon stone was in his spatial bag and he was ready to deliver it to the Long Empire pronto.