The few remaining faces were angry at first, then they broke into curses. One old woman’s face even started bawling. In the end, they all turned to desperate pleading, begging not only the roots, but also He Lingchuan to spare them. They claimed they were only acting under someone else’s orders, and that if they were left alive, they could identify the mastermind behind it all.

He Lingchuan merely shook the severed head in his hand and paid them no attention.

Isn’t there still one mouth here that can talk?

He looked around and, seeing no new enemies, stretched out a hand to recall Fleeting Life. Then, with the tip of the blade, he hooked up the net bag that had nearly drifted away with the current.

There were only four monkey bats left in the bag, each one so full of pool water that their eyes had rolled back white.

The dozens of human-headed bats were gone. Only a few scattered remnants of black-gray flakes still clung to the net.

The aberrant creature’s severed head kept roaring, “You’re doomed! You’re going to die for this! Just you wait—”

He Lingchuan simply used its own hair to seal its mouth shut.

The trick worked surprisingly well. No matter how wide the aberrant creature opened its mouth, it still could not swallow its own hair and could only make muffled grunting noises.

He Lingchuan tossed it into the net to keep the monkey bats company.

Since when did this kind of aberrant creature start appearing in the northwestern limestone caves of the Chipa Highland?

That intelligence alone was worth reporting.

When he turned to look again at the aberrant creature’s body pinned to the rock wall, it was already close to being sucked dry into a mummified corpse.

These brown roots were clearly very pleased with their meal.

Something willing to help kill an aberrant creature at a moment like this was a friend, not a foe. He Lingchuan had no intention of interfering. He turned and began swimming back.

Getting out of the cave quickly was the right answer.

Next time, perhaps he could go to Spirit-Nurturing Isle and buy a seahorse puppet. It was a very simple puppet device, woven out of copper-patterned grass[1], which was normally coarse and stiff. However, once it was tossed into the water, it would turn into a seahorse over a meter and a half tall, able to carry a person swimming for a quarter of an hour before finally falling apart.

Whoever had the genius idea of bringing that thing to the water-starved Panlong Wasteland to sell truly deserved a prize. That seahorse puppet had sat on Bai Guo’s shelf gathering dust for a month, and it was still there now...

His thoughts had wandered. He Lingchuan pulled them back, when suddenly he seemed to catch a flicker of blue light in the deep water below.

This time, he saw it clearly.

How could entering a bat cave lead to so many bizarre encounters?

He Lingchuan simply hung the net bag on a stalactite, took several deep breaths, and dove down to investigate.

Patrolling Chipa Highland and eliminating possible threats was the duty of every soldier of Panlong City.

The water grew colder and colder. The light also grew dimmer and dimmer. This stretch of the limestone cave seemed to have no bottom at all.

Very soon, another flash of blue light flickered below. A dark figure appeared and charged straight toward He Lingchuan.

Is that a crocodile? Or a whale?

He Lingchuan tightened his grip on the changdao in his hand.

But in the next instant, astonishment spread across his face.

Is that actually another aberrant creature?!

However, this one was more than ten times the length of the earlier one. Its body stretched to over twenty meters long!

That was the length of a sperm whale, so the closer it came to He Lingchuan, the more enormous and oppressive it seemed!

He Lingchuan reflexively glanced down at Fleeting Life in his hand.

Whether I chop or stab, won’t it be no different from a little toothpick against something this big?

“Offering!” its furious shout rang directly inside He Lingchuan’s mind, unaffected by the water. “Where is my avatar?!”

Holy shit! He Lingchuan was terribly shocked.

So the thing I defeated earlier was only an avatar of this creature?

I guess that makes sense. Its body was in ragged tatters, and there were at least a hundred human faces all over it. Some were even the faces of wild beasts or monsters. It had four arms but no legs, and its lower body was just an entire mass of black smoke.

Beat the little one, and out comes the old one.

A thing like this was obviously not going to be easy to handle.

And this was underwater, where movement was hindered, and there was nowhere to dodge. He Lingchuan’s scalp tingled just at the thought of fighting the other party.

The difference between them, judging by size alone, was more than tenfold. What was he supposed to do?

That was only a moment’s thought. He Lingchuan was just about to release a smoke screen to cover his retreat back to the surface when he saw the aberrant creature let out another furious roar and point a finger. Dozens of faces on its body turned into black smoke, separated from the main body, and all chased after him together.

What the fuck!

Who could possibly fight something like this?

He Lingchuan had only just turned to flee when he heard several metallic clangs ring out from the bottom of the water. The sounds were bright, sonorous, and far-reaching, like temple bells.

The sound had only just reached his ears when two vivid scarlet chains suddenly shot up out of the dark depths below!

They were thick and agile, winding upward like flood dragons surging out of the sea.

Neither He Lingchuan nor the aberrant creature had time to react before those two chains had already coiled themselves around the aberrant creature.

They struck with the speed of hunting water boas, and from their very movement, He Lingchuan could sense urgency and greed.

The aberrant creature had only just let out a roar when the chains had already wrapped around it three times to the left and three times to the right, binding it from head to tail so tightly that not even a crack remained!

This hundred-faced aberrant creature naturally refused to submit. Its body blurred, preparing to break apart into countless shadows and escape through the gaps between the links.

But immediately, dazzling red light flared from the chains.

The moment that light shone on it, the aberrant creature’s insubstantial form was forced back into solidity.

Even that huge mass of black mist that had formed its lower half was now cinched so tightly it showed its true form at last. It was a long string of skulls, from animals to humans to creatures of unknown species.

Only then did He Lingchuan notice that countless talismanic seals were engraved on the chains. They were not the language of the ancient immortals, but every single character was radiating a gold and red glow.

The brilliance cast by those tens of thousands of seals rivaled the blazing sun, illuminating all the nearby waters.

At the same time, He Lingchuan seemed to hear waves of murmuring again, like countless voices speaking all at once. Though that sound was low and heavy, it concealed a surging force no one could deny.

“What are you?!” the aberrant creature cried, shocked and enraged. “How can you seize me? What gives you the right to seize me?!” 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

This thing is really interesting. It’s already been caught, yet it’s still questioning whether the other party is worthy.

He Lingchuan drew his changdao. There were still several fish that had slipped through the net in the water.

The shadows that had rushed out from the aberrant creature earlier had only gotten halfway when they saw the sudden change below and realized the main body had been subdued.

Their main body roared at them, “Come back! Save me!” Yet their first reaction was not to rescue it, but to scatter in all directions and flee for their lives!

If those things escape, that would be quite troublesome. These things are even harder to catch than ferry-crossing ghostspawn.

He Lingchuan was about to hunt them down and grab as many as he could when, unexpectedly, waves of red mist drifted out from the chains and floated toward the shadows.

They looked slow, but they were actually incredibly swift.

Even the shadow that had fled farthest had only gotten a little over thirty meters away before it was wrapped up layer after layer in the red mist, and then let out a shrill scream.

The red mist spun rapidly around it, while the shadow visibly shrank smaller and smaller before the eye.

It looked as though it was being eaten.

Just then, a patch of red mist happened to drift past He Lingchuan’s eyes. He focused and looked, and then he nearly choked on the water.

Isn’t this... Aren’t these—

Three Corpses Worms?

Ever since that one feeding of the divine bone amulet, he had been able to see Three Corpses Worms with the naked eye. But under the Generous Pot’s control, these little aberrant creatures rarely left the city gates to go elsewhere, and they did not harass ordinary humans.

He Lingchuan had never imagined that, at this very moment, in this very place, he would run into them.

The Three Corpses Worms were even dwelling on the chains themselves, cooperating with them in the hunt.

Everything about the scene reeked of impossibility.

The few escaping shadows were all wiped out by the Three Corpses Worms, while at the same time, the giant aberration was dragged down to the bottom of the water by the chains.

It struggled with all its might, but in raw strength, it was still at a disadvantage.

He Lingchuan could even see terror written all over its faces.

That should have been the expression it usually saw on the faces of its prey.

“Why?!” Its voice rose from the deep waters, thick with unwillingness. “Who are you? Who exactly are you?!”

He Lingchuan blew out two bubbles.

Heh, as if I could answer while underwater.

Before the chains withdrew, by the red light shining from them, he saw a gigantic red figure.

The giant aberrant creature was twenty meters long, yet beside that thing, it looked like the sort of little fish anglers used for bait.

This red figure felt deeply familiar to He Lingchuan.

Outside the soul land, this was the third time he had seen it.

It was like a whale, yet not a whale. It was vast beyond measure.

This time, he was closer to it than ever before, less than thirty meters away, and yet he still could not make out what it really looked like.

Unwilling to accept that, He Lingchuan dove swiftly downward.

The closer he swam, the more absurdly immense it seemed.

But He Lingchuan could not make out its outline or features at all, because the entire surface of the giant figure was covered in Three Corpses Worms!

Packed densely together, and too many to count.

Every inch of its body was hidden beneath writhing Three Corpses Worms, without a single patch of skin exposed.

The sight was enough to send a chill straight through the bones.

Even an old whale that had lived in the water for centuries could never grow that many barnacles.

The hundred-faced aberrant creature saw the giant figure too. For a moment, it forgot even to cry out, and only stared, dumbstruck, muttering, “This... this is real?”

Then it was dragged straight into the giant figure.

Everything fell silent again.

Strangely enough, although the distance between them was now less than ten meters, He Lingchuan had never once sensed hostility from this giant figure, just as before.

How am I supposed to greet it? Should I just wave and say hi?

Fortunately, it had no intention of paying him any attention. The giant red figure had eaten its fill. It slowly turned around and sank into the deep water.

A great ship turns slowly, and the same was true of gigantic creatures.

With a single sweep of its body, an undercurrent surged up from the bottom and sent He Lingchuan tumbling helplessly.

One small clump of red mist was flung out, brushing past his body.

In that instant, dozens of emotions surged within He Lingchuan’s heart—anger, grief, shock, fear, unwillingness... every one of them violent, every one absolute.

And among them, the most terrible was despair.

A bottomless despair, born of a scenario wherein he had nowhere to run and was faced with complete helplessness.

Even a man like He Lingchuan, who prided himself on being hard-hearted and carefree, felt his heart turn to ashes in that instant, unable to summon even the slightest attachment to the human world.

He even doubled over in pain because his heart had suddenly clenched, unable to bear such an overwhelming shock.

At the same time, his ears filled with despairing cries and venomous curses.

They did not belong to the giant monster, nor were they his own, yet somehow they sounded strangely familiar.

Enduring the pain, He Lingchuan raised his head to look and froze.

That clump of red mist that had just brushed past him was now pursuing the giant shadow away, but within it there emerged the figure of a man, his features perfectly distinct.

Even reduced to ashes, He Lingchuan would still have recognized that face.

Sun Fuping!

No matter how wildly he imagined it, He Lingchuan would never have expected that here, beneath the waters of a dark limestone cavern, within red mist woven from Three Corpses Worms, he would see this dead old enemy of his!

Sun Fuping glared at him, fire all but pouring from his eyes, his mouth moving nonstop as he hurled a crazed stream of abuse at him. His face was twisted to the utmost, not a trace of the elegance he had worn in life remaining.

The hatred of being slain, the grievance of a life stolen, such things could never be resolved.

1. This might be Fittonia? Otherwise, just some fictional plant. ☜