After the Immortal Disappeared

"Grab the blood vessels... I mean, grab the vines and climb out!" Hee Lingchuan slid down the stone wall. He reached out a hand, then immediately snatched it back. "Right, gloves!"

The moment his skin touched the wall, a searing pain shot through it, as if his flesh were being roasted, followed by a tingling numbness.

There was also a slimy substance left on his palm.

Hee Lingchuan quickly sprinkled some Medicinal Powder on it. After it foamed up, he rinsed his palm with his Water Bag, and only then did the pain begin to fade.

The slime was acidic and poisonous—decidedly unfriendly to humans.

Gloves were standard issue for Patrol Guards, so the team put them on. Once equipped, they could touch the stone walls without getting hurt.

The team slid more than ten feet down the wall before realizing they were in a massive cavern. At the bottom was a murky, viscous pool.

Bubbles would occasionally break the surface of the pool. One glance was enough to know this place was trouble.

Liuu suddenly cried out, "Quick, look in the pool!"

She thrust the Fluorescent Grass Bundle as far forward as she could. In its bright glow, the team saw that the pool wasn’t placid at all; something was constantly churning beneath the surface.

’What is that stuff? It’s whitish, with a hint of red.’

Just then, one of the objects rolled over, and the team got a disturbingly clear view.

It was a person.

Or rather, the upper half of a corpse, severed at the sternum. Flaps of peeled-back flesh hung loosely, failing to conceal the bone beneath.

Half of the face had dissolved away, while flesh still clung to the other. Its lips were pulled back into a grotesque smile, but the eyes were gone, leaving only two gaping sockets.

One of the new Patrol Guards retched and threw up.

The others fought down the churning in their own throats. Skinny clamped a hand over his mouth.

Severed limbs and flayed remains littered the entire bottom of the pool!

This was clearly where the Jindu Cub digested the humans it captured.

The sight was so grotesque and horrifying that it couldn’t have been much different from the legendary Blood Pool Hell.

Door Panel muttered, "Just how many people has this thing eaten!"

They’d dealt with their share of Cannibal Demons, but they had never seen one that feasted with such abandon.

The young Patrol Guard was still vomiting uncontrollably from the shock. Door Panel was about to warn him not to lean over too far when something suddenly flashed from the stone wall behind the boy!

"Watch out!"

But he was too late. His comrade was positioned lower down, and a powerful shove sent him plunging into the pool.

The Patrol Guard reacted quickly, instinctively grabbing at the thing that had pushed him and pulling it down into the water with him.

It was the Jindu Cub from before.

With a SPLASH, they both hit the water.

The splash was muted, suppressed by the viscous liquid.

The Patrol Guard began to flail and scream in agony.

Hee Lingchuan recalled the sting he’d felt from just touching the wall with his palm. For someone completely submerged, the pain must be at least ten times worse.

When the man resurfaced, his head, face, and clothes were all giving off faint wisps of white smoke.

The Jindu Cub had separated from the Patrol Guard as they fell. It took advantage of the commotion to sink to the bottom and vanish. This was its domain; the corrosive, acidic environment didn’t harm it in the slightest. In fact, it was beneficial.

Its prey had fallen in. There was no need to fight. It just had to wait for the pool to dissolve the human.

In the end, all these people would become rich nutrients for it.

The moment the Patrol Guard fell, Door Panel grabbed a coil of rope and tossed it down. "Grab on!"

But the acidic water had splashed into the man’s eyes as he fell, corroding them until everything was a milky blur. He couldn’t see the rope, and the excruciating pain throughout his body left him disoriented and panicked.

Liuu frowned and fired a Sleeve Arrow.

Her aim was true. The arrowhead pierced the man’s left arm and then, with a POP, expanded to set the hook firmly.

The man cried out in pain again. With a grim expression, Liuu activated the retraction mechanism and began forcefully pulling him out of the pool.

The line of the Hooked Rope was extremely durable and only slightly affected by the pool’s acid. The arrowhead was completely immune.

’It seems this pool doesn’t dissolve metal very well.’

However, just as she bent over to haul the man up, another claw materialized from the rock wall behind her, aiming to shove her in as well!

Liuu had one hand straining to pull the man up and the other clinging to a vine; she didn’t have a third hand to fight back.

But how could they fall for the same trick twice? Skinny was ready. The moment Liuu bent over, he slid down toward her. Just as the claw touched Liuu’s shoulder, Skinny slammed a pickaxe into the back of its hand and yanked!

They didn’t need to discuss it beforehand; this was the unspoken coordination born from long-term partnership. All four of them had been ready.

This monster’s skin wasn’t as tough as its compatriot’s. The pickaxe strike sent green blood flying. A few drops splattered onto Skinny’s face, and the pain made him frown, his eye twitching, but he didn’t instinctively turn away. Their intel said that each Jindu Cub had different abilities; they couldn’t afford to be careless with any of them.

Sure enough, the Jindu Cub shrieked and lunged at him.

It made no difference to the cub which opponent it took down. But just then, the whir of a mechanism sounded from behind, and another Sleeve Arrow arrived, punching a bloody hole through its shoulder blade!

Hee Lingchuan had made his move.

He had deep pockets, and the custom arrowheads he’d bought from the Magical Artifact Shop on Spirit Island were far superior to Liuu’s. Their hardness, strength, and piercing power were on a completely different level. That swindler Bai Guo might have charged him a fortune, but he’d delivered quality goods. The arrowhead punched through the monster’s shoulder, then exploded to set the hook. The attached Flying Rope remained completely unharmed by the creature’s corrosive acid.

The shot was a success. Hee Lingchuan yanked back on the Hooked Rope. Having learned his lesson, he wasn’t about to give the monster a second chance to escape.

So now Skinny and Hee Lingchuan had it hooked on opposite sides, each pulling hard in a different direction.

The creature was effectively pinned. It struggled desperately, but there was little hope of escape.

Just then, Door Panel pointed to a large cavity about thirty feet away.

"Get the wounded over there!"

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a cave, just an alcove, but it was more than large enough to shelter four or five people.

The rescued Patrol Guard was still giving off smoke. Though he was conscious again, he was trembling from the pain.

As for the captured monster, it was struggling frantically. The rock face was already steep and difficult to stand on, and Skinny, not being as strong as Hee Lingchuan, was dragged around several times.

At that moment, Hee Lingchuan found himself missing the Magical Artifact his old man owned—the Silk Rope. With that thing, this creature would have been automatically bound in less than two breaths.

Thankfully, Door Panel arrived. He was tall and powerfully built, and his equipment was just as robust. He pulled out two sets of Lock Chains. One he used to bind the monster’s legs, the other for its arms. As Hee Lingchuan eased his rope, Door Panel cinched his chains tight, securing the monster’s limbs.

The two sets of chains could then be linked together, further restricting the monster’s movement.

This dual-locking system was most effective for capturing ape-like Demons, and it seemed to work just as well on Jindu Cubs.

Worried it might try to merge with the rock face, Door Panel simply slung it onto his back.

The monster shrieked and kicked against the rock wall several times.

Then, the entire cavern began to squirm.

It was truly squirming, compressing and grinding in a strange rhythm—up, down, left, and right.

The place was actually working with the Jindu Cub to attack them! The Patrol Guards shuddered and scrambled for the alcove.

Halfway there, one Patrol Guard lost his footing. A shifting wall slammed into his forehead, and he stumbled backward.

Below him was the pool.

Luckily, Hee Lingchuan was nearby. With lightning reflexes, he grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him to safety.

The Patrol Guard’s face was white with terror. "Th-thanks!"

"Just go!" Hee Lingchuan had no time for pleasantries. "Quick!"

The whole group stumbled into the alcove in a sorry state. One of the other guards took charge of the captured monster while Door Panel and Skinny carefully removed the injured man’s clothes and sprinkled Medicinal Powder on his wounds. "You gonna make it?"

"I’ll... but my eyes... I can’t see." The young man was trembling all over. Some of the acid had gotten into his mouth as well, burning it and slurring his words.

’He was only sixteen. If he went blind, how would he get by?’

Liuu patted his shoulder, her voice firm. "You closed your eyes quickly. Once we get out and get you some medicine, you’ll probably be fine."

The young man calmed down a little and took some Medicinal Powder to rinse out his mouth.

Door Panel gestured at the young man and gave Liuu a doubtful look, as if to say, ’Are you for real?’

Liuu shot him an annoyed glare and mouthed back:

’How should I know?’

’When you’re surrounded by danger, you’re supposed to encourage people, not let them break down or give up, right?’

Hee Lingchuan, who had been keeping watch, suddenly announced, "The way we came is sealed."

Everyone looked up. Sure enough, the passage they had used to enter had shrunk to a mere slit, and then vanished completely.

The Patrol Guard holding the monster said worriedly, "I don’t see an exit. How are we supposed to get out?"

The entrance was gone, and below them was the Cannibal Pool. How were they going to get out of here alive?

"If we assume this Mine Cave is a mock-up of a human body created by the Jindu Cub," Hee Lingchuan proposed, and no one disagreed, "then we should be inside the ’stomach,’ right?"

"Yeah," Liuu said, also surveying their surroundings. "Then there should be two passages. One at the bottom of the pool..."

Everyone looked at the pool. No one thought that was a viable exit.

"...and the other should be directly above us." Liuu tied a Fluorescent Grass Bundle to an arrow, drew her bow, and fired it upward.

The Light Arrow flew forty feet. It revealed no opening directly above them, but there was a large, concave fold diagonally upward.

"The cardia?" That was the opening connecting the esophagus to the stomach. Skinny sighed. "So we can only climb out after it opens?"

"Even if we could get up there, the passage above is nearly vertical," Door Panel added, realizing the difficulty. "This ’body’ has a bad temper. It’s not going to let us ascend easily."

The Patrol Guard holding the monster couldn’t help but ask, "So... what do we do?"

The group exchanged uncertain glances.

Liuu walked up to the monster. "Can this thing understand us?"

Door Panel replied, "According to the intel, some of them can."

"The intel from the city gets more useless by the day. What’s that supposed to mean, ’some of them can’? That some of them can’t?" Liuu snapped her fingers twice in front of the Jindu Cub. "Can you understand me? Lead us out, and you might get to live."

The Jindu Cub went still.

’Is it working?’ Liuu raised an eyebrow. ’Looks like my luck isn’t so bad.’

But in the next second, the Jindu Cub went PTHOO and spat at her.

She dodged just in time, and the green saliva splattered against the rock wall.