Chapter 189: Human Caterpillar

What he had thought to be dirt was something else entirely.

It was blood. Old and new mixed together into a dark dried paste, scattered with fragments he did not want to identify and did not need to, because his body understood before his mind caught up and he doubled over retching.

A severed hand, still twitching faintly, landed a foot from his knee, flung free by one of his Senior Brothers' strikes, and Yang lost what little remained in his stomach. He heaved again and again, bent double over the red smear that coated everything, and when he finally forced his eyes open he noticed his palms were stained the same deep red, soaked through the sleeves of his robe. He remembered, with a fresh wave of nausea, exactly what that taste had been earlier in the dark, and understood clearly what he had licked from the back of his own hand.

He gagged again, dry this time, nothing left to bring up, and forced himself to breathe through his mouth in slow careful pulls until the worst of it passed. He shut his eyes and tried to picture the clean air of Soaring Cloud Peak, anything to push back the smell and the taste that seemed to come alive again inside his mouth.

When he opened his eyes he forced his gaze to look at his Senior Brothers instead of the ground. All five were painted in varying degrees of the same red that coated the floor, most of it clearly not their own, though Senior Brother Yuan Shen had a long slanted gash across his back that welled fresh blood with every movement.

The trouble, Yang realised as he watched, was that the creature could regenerate. Every time a head was severed, the body attached to it simply liquefied where it stood, collapsing into the same reeking sludge that coated the ground, and within a breath or two another area of that sludge crawled and reformed at the rearmost end of the chain, rebuilding a fresh segment to replace the one just lost. His Senior Brothers could sever every head on the thing given enough time, but the creature was regenerating itself from the floor faster than they could whittle it down.

Suddenly Yang noticed a shift in his Senior Brothers' tactics and understood immediately. The only way to actually kill this thing was to reach the foremost head, the one that radiated pure malice and seemed to be controlling the whole chain.

Senior Brothers Fan Xiao and Qing An fell back first, letting the creature focus on the remaining three, who pressed harder and forced its attention fully onto them. The moment its attention was fully committed, Senior Brothers Fan Xiao and Qing An struck from either flank, each seizing one of its front arms and twisting it down toward the ground with their full strength. Senior Brother Song Weilong used the opening to vault onto its back, driving his boot into the spine of a lower segment for leverage, grabbed a fistful of the front head's matted hair, wrenching it back to bare the throat as the main head let out a furious shriek.

Yang watched him press his blade to the exposed neck as Senior Brothers Zhen Hao and Yuan Shen kept the rest of the chain occupied, hacking at limbs and heads as fast as they regrew, buying Senior Brother Song Weilong the time he needed.

It was not a clean cut in any way. The creature bucked and thrashed, the whole segmented mass convulsing and letting out horribly painful screams as Senior Brother Song Weilong sawed through skin, muscle, and cartilage. The sound that came from the foremost head's mouth was a piercing scream that broke down into wet gurgling. Blood sprayed from the severed trachea, and Senior Brothers Fan Xiao and Qing An visibly strained to keep it pinned as they got showered with the foul blood and the whole body renewed its struggle.

With a final wet sound the head came free and dropped to the bloodied ground. The creature let out one last piercing shriek from every mouth still attached along its length and then dropped to the floor.

His Senior Brothers did not pause to catch their breath. Immediately they moved through the rest of the chain, severing every remaining head and limb with brisk efficiency, making certain nothing was left intact.

Only once they were satisfied that it was truly dead did Senior Brother Fan Xiao break away and cross the distance to Yang in a single burst, dropping to one knee in front of him and gripping both his shoulders. Yang winced at the pressure. Even with his improved body due to his cultivation and whatever strength the beast cores had given him, being flung, dragged, and slammed around like a rag doll for however long that fight had lasted in the dark had left every muscle in his body aching.

"Are you okay?" Senior Brother Fan Xiao asked, his eyes sweeping over Yang from head to foot, searching for injuries.

"Just sore all over," Yang winced.

Senior Brother Fan Xiao looked him over more carefully before letting go off his shoulders. He took out a pill bottle from his storage ring and made to take a pill out before noticing the blood on him and just passed the bottle to Yang. "Take one and keep the rest with you." Yang popped open the top and carefully spilled a single pill into his mouth by tilting the bottle, before closing it and placing it in his own storage ring.

"Thank you, Senior Brother. I am already feeling better."

And it was true. Looking around at his Senior Brothers, who were taking pills and elixirs to address wounds that were far more serious than anything he had received, Yang was well aware that he had come out of this remarkably well.

"I am sorry I could not be of more help, Senior Brother," Yang said.

"You staying away from danger was help enough. It allowed us to fight freely without thinking of protecting you," Senior Brother Fan Xiao assured him, before adding, "and if it weren't for you—" He paused as he thought over his words, "your special physique, I wouldn't have been able to restore all of our senses."

Yang realised it had been Senior Brother Fan Xiao who had been the one the bead had communicated with. It made sense after all he was the strongest amongst them, otherwise the bead could have done the same with Senior Brother Qing An as soon as they had landed. But then again, Yang also wondered whether the bead had needed time to assess the situation before it could act, which could also explain why it had not done the same the moment he and Senior Brother Qing An had landed.

"Are you truly feeling well, Chen Yang?" Senior Brother Fan Xiao asked again even more scrutinising than before.

Yang nodded. The soreness had faded, but the adrenaline had receded now that the immediate danger was past, so he was becoming aware of a deep tiredness and faint dizziness that had not been there before.

"I am very tired and a bit dizzy," he admitted. "But there is no pain anymore."

Senior Brother Fan Xiao looked thoughtful. "The fatigue is likely from your physique reaching out to me. Making that kind of external connection would have drawn on it considerably."

Yang was unsure how much he should say, especially in a place like this where who knows what danger was listening in. After all, they were still standing in the bloody sludge.

"The connection is not usually physical," he said carefully. "This was different from how it normally operates. I do not usually feel effects like this afterward."

Yang thought it over and decided to take a peek into his sea of consciousness, and was shocked. The bright webbing that seemed to cover the entirety of his sea of consciousness, instead of the bright pulsing gold it had become, was muted. The world buds still seemed to look alright, as was his soul, but the webbing all over pulsed slower and had dimmed compared to what it was before.

Yang surfaced back and looked worried at Senior Brother Fan Xiao and shared, "It feels very weakened."

Senior Brother Fan Xiao got a small frown on his face. "How long does it usually take to recover?" He paused before continuing. "This intuition of yours may be the only thing that allows us to get out of this place," he said as he looked around. Yang followed his gaze and realized the other Senior Brothers were busy looking all over the place trying to see if there was a way out.

"It has never been like this before," Yang admitted. "It is usually dormant and only stirs when I am in danger." He paused. "It needs qi to recover. Or any kind of energy."

Senior Brother Fan Xiao just said, "Beast cores," to himself as he realised the reason Master had sent Yang here.

"Yes."

"That is why Master sent you here." He was quiet for a moment, then reached into his storage ring and produced a jade box, which he passed to Yang. "I collected these when we cleared the demonic beasts after crossing into this world. I had been holding them back because this is not a good place to be advancing."

Yang opened the box. It was filled to the top with demonic cores, grey and smoky compared to the bright clarity of the beast cores he had consumed in the forest as a child, but similarly sized. Thin, hair-like lines ran through the crystal, and on closer look there were also faint hints of yellow threaded through the grey.

Yang also didn't want to risk it here, but since this was the only way he could help, and maybe even their only chance of getting out, Yang was more than willing to do it here. Even if he advanced multiple realms and missed the opportunity to take the remaining Molten Body Pills, it would be worth it. It's not like they would be of any use to him if he died.

He was also pretty sure that he would be mostly safe as long as his Senior Brothers were alive and with him. Yang's relatively unharmed condition compared to his Senior Brothers was clear enough proof of that.

"I am willing to take the risk, Senior Brother," Yang said. "Our lives and getting out of here is more important."

Yang took a deep breath and quickly swallowed the demonic core as Senior Brother Fan Xiao stood close to him.

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