These faces flared first with fury, then spat curses. An old crone's face even broke into wails, which finally devolved into desperate pleading—begging not only the roots that had mysteriously appeared, but also begging He Lingchuan to spare it. They claimed they were merely driven by another, and that if spared, they would reveal the mastermind behind it all.
He Lingchuan gave the severed head in his grip a shake, ignoring them entirely.
Didn't he still have a mouth right here that could confess?
He looked left and right, saw no new opponents, and reached out to recall Fusheng. Catching the mesh bag that had nearly drifted away on the tip of the blade, he flicked it up.
Only four monkey bats remained inside, their eyes rolling back after swallowing bellyfuls of pool water.
The dozens of human-headed bats were gone, leaving only scattered flakes of black-gray debris clinging to the net.
The monster's severed head roared continuously, "You're a dead man! Just you wait—"
He Lingchuan simply used its own hair to gag its mouth.
Surprisingly, this trick worked wonders. No matter how large the creature's maw was, it could not swallow its own hair and could only let out muffled whines.
He Lingchuan tossed it into the net to keep the bats company.
When had such a monster appeared in the northwestern karst caves of the Chipa Plateau?
This piece of intelligence was well worth reporting.
Looking back at the monster's torso on the rock wall, it had almost been drained into a desiccated corpse.
The brown roots were clearly thoroughly pleased with its flavor.
Whoever helped fight the monster at a moment like this was a friend, not a foe. He Lingchuan paid it no more mind and turned to swim back.
Getting out of the cave quickly was the proper course of action.
Next time, perhaps he could go to Yunling Island to buy a seahorse puppet. It was a very simple puppet mechanism woven from bronze-pattern grass, thick and stiff, but once tossed into water, it turned into a half-zhang-tall seahorse that could carry a person swimming for a quarter of an hour before falling apart.
Bringing such a contraption to the arid Panlong Wasteland to sell—who knew which genius had come up with that idea? That seahorse puppet had sat on Bai Guo's shelf for a whole month, still gathering dust to this day...
Sidetracked. He Lingchuan reined in his wandering thoughts. Suddenly, there seemed to be a flicker of blue light in the deep water below.
This time, he saw it clearly.
How could entering a bat cave bring about so many bizarre occurrences?
He Lingchuan hung the net bag on a stalactite, took several deep breaths, and dived down to see for himself.
Patrolling the Chipa Plateau and eliminating potential threats was the duty of every soldier of Panlong City.
The water grew colder and the light dimmer; this section of the karst cavern was unexpectedly bottomless.
Soon, another flash of blue light shone below, and a dark shadow emerged, charging straight toward He Lingchuan.
A crocodile? A whale?
He Lingchuan tightened his grip on his long saber.
Yet immediately afterward, astonishment crossed his face.
It was another monster!
Only this one was over ten times the size of its predecessor, stretching well over six zhang—more than twenty meters long!
That was the length of a sperm whale. As it drew closer to He Lingchuan, it appeared all the more towering and oppressive!
He Lingchuan unconsciously glanced at Fusheng in his hand.
Whether chopping or stabbing, against a behemoth like this, wouldn't it be like a tiny toothpick?
"Tribute!" Its furious bellow echoed directly in He Lingchuan's mind, unaffected by the water. "Where is my avatar!"
*Holy shit,* He Lingchuan thought in shock. So what he had defeated earlier was only an avatar of this thing?
Indeed, it wore a patchwork cloak of rags, but bore over a hundred human faces on its body, including several belonging to beasts or monsters. It possessed four arms but no legs, its lower half a massive swirl of black smoke.
Hit the small one, out comes the old one.
Such a creature looked like pure trouble.
Moreover, they were underwater, where his movements were hampered and there was nowhere to dodge. He Lingchuan's scalp went somewhat numb.
The disparity between them was greater than tenfold in size alone. What was he supposed to do?
It was merely a split-second thought. Just as He Lingchuan was about to deploy a smokescreen to cover his retreat to the surface, the monster let out a roar and pointed a finger. Dozens of faces across its body detached as black smoke, converging on him in pursuit.
*Damn it all, run! Who could fight this thing?*
Just as He Lingchuan turned, several sharp metallic clangs resonated from the bottom of the water, sonorous and far-reaching, like the tolling of temple bells.
The moment the sound reached his ears, two vivid red chains suddenly shot out from the pitch-black depths below!
Thick and supple, they coiled and wound like flood dragons bursting from the sea.
Before either He Lingchuan or the monster could react, the two chains had wrapped around the beast.
The strike was as swift as an anaconda striking prey. He Lingchuan could even sense an eager greed in their movements.
The monster had just let out a roar when the chains wrapped it three times left and three times right, binding it firmly from head to tail!
Naturally unwilling to submit, the hundred-faced monster blurred its form, attempting to dissolve into countless shadows and slip through the links.
Yet dazzling red light instantly flared from the chains.
Bathed in this radiance, the monster's dematerialized form was immediately forced back into solid flesh.
Forced from ethereal to corporeal.
Even the great cloud of black mist at its tail was squeezed into revealing its true shape: a connected string of skulls, ranging from beasts to humans to unknown species.
Only then did He Lingchuan notice that the chains were engraved with countless talismans and seals. They were not in the ancient immortal language, but every glyph radiated a golden-red brilliance.
The light released by tens of thousands of talismans rivaled a blazing sun, illuminating the surrounding waters.
At the same time, He Lingchuan seemed to hear waves of whispering, like countless voices speaking in unison. Though low, that swell of sound harbored a surging power no one could deny.
"What manner of thing are you!" the monster cried out in shock and fury. "How dare you seize me! How are you worthy of seizing me!"
*Fascinating creature,* He Lingchuan thought. *Already captured, yet still asking if its captor is worthy.* He drew his saber; there were still several escapees loose in the water.
The shadowy figures that had surged out of the monster earlier had seen the sudden upheaval below halfway through, their true body restrained.
The true body bellowed at them, "Come back, save me!" Yet their first instinct was not to rescue it, but to scatter and flee for their lives!
If they actually escaped, it would be troublesome. These things were even harder to catch than ferry ghost imps.
Just as He Lingchuan prepared to close in and hunt down as many as he could, puffs of red mist drifted from the chains toward those shadowy figures.
Seemingly slow, they were actually astonishingly fast.
Even the shadow that had fled the farthest, covering merely a dozen zhang, was engulfed by the thick red mist, letting out a piercing wail.
The red mist swirled rapidly around it, and the shadow's volume shrank at a rate visible to the naked eye.
They seemed to be... devoured?
Just then, a puff of red mist drifted past He Lingchuan's eyes. He focused his gaze and nearly choked on water.
Weren't these... weren't these—
Three Corpse Worms?
Ever since he had fed the divine bone necklace that one time, he had been able to see Three Corpse Worms with the naked eye. But under the control of the Dafang Pot, these little monsters rarely left the city gates to go elsewhere, nor did they harass ordinary humans.
He Lingchuan had never expected to encounter them here at this exact moment.
The Three Corpse Worms even perched upon the chains, coordinating with them in the hunt.
Everything about this defied reason.
The few fleeing shadows were completely wiped out by the Three Corpse Worms, while the giant monster was dragged toward the depths by the chains.
It struggled frantically, yet remained outmatched in strength.
He Lingchuan could even see sheer terror written across its faces.
That was an expression it should have seen on its prey's face.
"Why!" Its voice carried up from the deep water, laced with profound bitterness. "Who are you? Who on earth are you!"
He Lingchuan blew two bubbles.
*Hah. As if I could answer underwater.*
Before the chains retracted, he caught sight of an enormous red silhouette by the crimson light they gave off.
The monster was over six zhang long, but beside this silhouette, it was like a small fish meant for an angler's hook.
This red figure looked remarkably familiar to He Lingchuan.
Outside the realm of souls, this was the third time he had seen it.
Resembling a whale yet not a whale, colossal beyond measure.
This time, the distance between him and the giant shadow was closer than ever before—less than ten zhang away. Yet he still could not discern its true form.
Unwilling to let it go, He Lingchuan dived rapidly.
The closer he swam, the more absurdly massive it seemed.
Yet He Lingchuan could not make out its shape or facial features at all, because the surface of this colossal shadow was covered in Three Corpse Worms!
Dense, packed, countless.
Every inch of its body was covered by squirming Three Corpse Worms, without a single patch of skin exposed.
The sight was genuinely chilling.
Even an ancient whale living in the water for centuries could never grow so many barnacles.
The hundred-faced monster saw the giant silhouette as well. For a moment, it forgot to scream, staring dumbfounded and muttering, "Is this... is this real?"
Then, it was dragged straight into the colossal shadow.
Everything returned to silence.
Strangely enough, even though the distance between them was less than several zhang, He Lingchuan never sensed any hostility from this giant shadow, just like before.
How was he supposed to greet it? Wave and say hi?
Fortunately, it had no intention of paying him any heed. Having fed its fill, the colossal red shadow turned leisurely and dived toward the deeper waters.
A large ship was hard to turn, and so was a giant beast.
With a single shift of its body, an undercurrent surged from the depths, tossing He Lingchuan head over heels.
A small puff of red mist was flung outward, brushing across He Lingchuan.
Fury, sorrow, astonishment, dread, indignation... In that instant, dozens of emotions detonated within He Lingchuan's heart, each savage and unyielding.
And most terrifying among them was despair.
Bottomless despair, inescapable despair, powerless despair.
Even someone like He Lingchuan, who prided himself on being unfeeling, felt his heart turn to cold ash in a flash, unable to muster the slightest lingering attachment to the mortal world.
He even bent double in agony as his heart contracted violently, unable to endure such intense stimulation.
At that moment, his ears were filled with cries of despair and venomous curses.
They belonged neither to the monster nor to himself, yet they sounded strangely familiar.
Enduring the pain, He Lingchuan forced his head up to look, and froze.
The puff of red mist that had just brushed past him was chasing after the giant shadow, but within it emerged a human figure, its features clearly discernible.
Even if that face turned to ash, he would recognize it.
Sun Fuping!
Even in his wildest dreams, He Lingchuan could never have imagined that beneath the deep waters of a karst cave, amidst the red mist woven from Three Corpse Worms, he would see this dead old nemesis!
Sun Fuping glared at him, eyes spitting fire, his mouth moving ceaselessly as he unleashed a frantic barrage of curses, his face twisted into an extreme grimace with not a shred of his former gentility remaining.
A feud of bloodshed, a grudge of taking life—irreconcilable to the end.
Chapter 489