After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 388: Chapter 387: No One’s Allowed to Leave the Table

Acquiring such a large piece of Emperor’s Liquid Paste was a blessing from the heavens, but sometimes, you can choke on your blessings.

Of course, Hee Lingchuan was completely ignorant of the principles at play. He didn’t even have a moment to wonder if the God-slaying Pill’s violent display was normal. He just frantically guided the True Power along his meridians, pushing it toward his Chest Acupoint.

However, the torrent of True Power was far too violent; his Main Meridians couldn’t withstand it. Hee Lingchuan felt his whole body swell, inflating like a leather ball. If he couldn’t divert the flood immediately, the moment his meridians ruptured, he would explode with a BANG and splatter all over the cave.

’What do I do?’

’The cleared meridians can’t hold it all, so... so...’

’I’ll just have to use the uncleared ones, too.’

’I’ll die if I destroy them in the attempt, and I’ll die if I fail. Either way, it’s death.’

Hee Lingchuan wasn’t the type to sit and wait for death. The thought was the deed. He immediately guided the bulk of the True Power torrent toward his Extraordinary Meridians.

He had only opened two Extraordinary Meridians before. The rest were supposed to be cleared slowly, with painstaking effort. He couldn’t worry about that now. He sent the raging True Power to directly assault the Ren and Du Meridians.

These were the two most important of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. They formed the body’s core axis, the path where yin and yang energies rose and fell. The Ren Meridian, in particular, was the shortest route for True Power to travel from the Dantian in his lower abdomen to his Chest Acupoint. Since Hee Lingchuan practiced the Meridian Technique, these were the two channels he most wanted to open. Unfortunately, they were also the most difficult, so he had planned to save them for last.

’Might as well go for broke today.’

’Either they open, or I die.’

The pain of forcibly breaking through the barriers with True Power felt as if someone were punching holes through his meridians with Steel Nails.

Normally, he would have screamed in agony, but now he couldn’t even make a sound. All he could do was grit his teeth and endure.

’If I can’t take it, I die.’

The Extraordinary Meridians, normally blocked solid, were forced open little by little by the torrent of True Power. The resistance grew stronger, yet the torrent’s clearing speed paradoxically increased, like a locomotive picking up speed after a difficult start.

From Guanyuan, Qi Sea, Divine Que... all the way to Jiuwei, Midcourt, and the Chest!

Yet the True Power didn’t stop. It bypassed the Chest and continued its upward assault on other acupoints.

At the same time, the Du Meridian was also being forcibly expanded.

While waiting for these two runaway armies to converge, Hee Lingchuan had no choice but to guide the rest of the True Power through several Circulations in his Main Meridians.

About a quarter of an hour later, the Ren and Du Meridians were forcibly opened.

As the qi in his body began to circulate, Hee Lingchuan let out a long sigh of relief. He immediately felt a splitting pain from the two newly opened meridians.

The violence of the True Power had inevitably damaged the meridians themselves.

Fortunately, this was when the protective properties of the Emperor’s Liquid began to manifest, rapidly repairing the damage.

Hee Lingchuan had no time to inspect his internal injuries, because the divided torrents of True Power had finally converged and were now charging straight into the major acupoint in his Chest!

After so many detours, he had finally reached this step.

To expand a singularity into a second Dantian required explosive power.

Without the Emperor’s Liquid, Hee Lingchuan wouldn’t have possessed such power at his current stage. The conventional method was to repeatedly purify and compress the True Power in his Qi Sea until it was absolutely condensed, then use that exquisitely pure energy to assault the Chest Acupoint.

Even then, failure was a distinct possibility. After all, every person’s constitution is different; there is no one-size-fits-all formula.

Today, however, he was borrowing the power of heaven and earth. His concern wasn’t a lack of explosive force, but the opposite: what if the Emperor’s Liquid was so powerful it blew his Chest Acupoint to pieces?

Helian Chen had advised him to open his second Dantian at the Chest Acupoint primarily because the spot between the eyebrows was too close to the brain. He feared that a single moment of cultivation deviation could leave Hee Lingchuan a drooling idiot. It was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

However, the Chest Acupoint was one of the body’s well-known fatal points. The consequences of it being struck by an enemy were dire, to say nothing of an internal self-detonation getting out of hand.

In the blink of an eye, the power of the God-slaying Pill surged into his Chest. Before it could even be fully compressed, it detonated, violently carving out a new Qi Sea!

After the first explosion, the God-slaying Pill’s power was nowhere near depleted. A second explosion immediately followed, then a third.

This kind of power was simply not something a human body could withstand. Hee Lingchuan immediately spat out mouthfuls of blood, feeling as if a gaping hole had been blown through his chest.

He immediately tried to guide his True Power away from his Chest, but it was too late. The power of the God-slaying Pill was rapidly gathering, brewing for a fourth blast.

’I’m screwed,’ Hee Lingchuan thought bitterly.

The Floating Life Blade seemed to sense the danger and began to tremble slightly. As its master, however, Hee Lingchuan couldn’t spare the Heart Power to pay it any mind.

’Is this it? Is this how I die?’

...

To an observer, Hee Lingchuan still sat cross-legged on the ground, perfectly still.

Except for the twitching muscles in his face and the ceaselessly throbbing veins in his neck.

In the tall grass outside the cavern, insects sang in a grand chorus. Frogs and venomous snakes had traveled from afar, looking for an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The tiger lay sprawled on a large rock near the cavern entrance, oblivious to anything unusual.

The Eye Spiders were right beside it, feasting heartily on two tightly wrapped grasshoppers that dangled from a single thread of silk.

Not a single creature knew that Hee Lingchuan was walking through fire, hovering on the very brink of life and death.

Nor did anyone notice that the large clump of moss deep within the cavern had gone from dry to wet, completely regaining its vitality. It was now splitting and growing outward at an astonishing rate.

It had no legs, but it could advance toward the cave entrance step by step through replication and growth.

In other words, it was advancing on Hee Lingchuan’s back.

It could no longer be called a clump of moss. It was now a living, thick Fungal Mat. Spores sprouted from its surface like bamboo shoots after a rain. They began as tiny dots, but within a few breaths, they blossomed into white, red, or red-and-white mushrooms.

After spreading their caps, they began to tremble. With each quiver, they released a large amount of dust into the air.

In just that short time, hundreds of mushrooms sprouted from the Fungal Mat. The dust bursting from them filled the entire cave.

This toxic dust had a strong hallucinogenic effect. Any creature that inhaled it would quickly fall into a coma or a state of madness.

But Hee Lingchuan, with his eyes closed, was completely unaware.

He was currently in a state of Inner Breath and was not breathing through his mouth or nose.

It was the Mirror hanging at the cave entrance that sensed something was wrong.

”Hey, there’s something behind you! Hey!”

’Hee Lingchuan pointed me at the entrance to watch for enemies from the outside. Who knew the threat would come from inside the cave!’

’Damn it! I can’t turn around! I can’t see what’s going on back there!’

The Mirror yelled, but Hee Lingchuan didn’t respond.

’This is bad.’

’If my new master kicks the bucket, and I don’t have a Mirror Slave, I’ll never get out of this cavern by myself!’

’What do I do? What do I do?’

While the Mirror’s thoughts were racing, the Fungal Mat had already reached Hee Lingchuan.

At that moment, another type of creature appeared on the mat:

White ladybugs.

They hadn’t flown in from outside the cave. Instead, they crawled out from within the Fungal Mat. It was unclear if they had always lived inside it or if their eggs had just hatched.

As soon as they emerged, they began to devour the mushrooms. Their bodies grew rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye. In no time, they went from the size of sesame seeds to hazelnuts.

Only then did it become clear that they had an antenna-like appendage on their tails connecting them to the Fungal Mat.

By now, the Fungal Mat had ”crawled” next to Hee Lingchuan, surrounding him silently.

As if counting down—three, two, one—the Fungal Mat suddenly folded inward and with a SNAP, it enveloped Hee Lingchuan completely!

It was as if he had wrapped himself tightly in a blanket. From head to toe, not a single strand of hair was visible.

The ladybugs on the Fungal Mat simultaneously received a command. They swarmed onto Hee Lingchuan’s body, gathering in groups of three or four, and positioned themselves over several of his major acupoints.

Sharp, needle-like mouthparts extended from their mouths, piercing through his clothes to accurately strike the acupoints.

This included, of course, the Qi Sea and Chest Acupoints.

The True Power in Hee Lingchuan’s body was immediately and continuously siphoned away.

If an old resident of this forest were to witness this, they would know the Cannibal Mushroom was hunting again. This creature feeds on living prey. The ladybugs living on the Fungal Mat have a symbiotic relationship with it, extracting nutrients from victims to nourish the mat in return.

Of course, in the order of consumption, True Power came first, then flesh and blood.

The Cannibal Mushroom had awakened when Hee Lingchuan was refining the God-slaying Pill. It had lain in wait for a long time, only launching its sneak attack after Hee Lingchuan was completely absorbed in his Meditation.

The day after the Emperor’s Liquid eruption, there were plenty of scraps to be picked.

If it couldn’t get the scraps, meat would do just fine.

The ladybugs began to suck with a GULP GULP GULP sound. Both they and the Fungal Mat were overjoyed:

The True Power inside this prey was simply too abundant!

It was like going to a humble diner expecting only fried noodles, but then discovering they served a royal banquet—and you weren’t allowed to leave until you finished everything.

That’s right. You couldn’t leave until you finished it all.

These several hundred ladybugs sucked with abandon, and the True Power was transported to the Fungal Mat through the tubes in their tails.

The latter slowly expanded, each of its mycelial threads growing thicker, longer, and more vibrant. Mushrooms erupted from the Fungal Mat in waves, hundreds at a time. The process of growing from small to large and then bursting took only a few seconds.

The Mirror shouted, ”Hey! Hey! What’s going on?!”

It released an Evil Ghost to act as its eyes and finally got a clear view of the disaster unfolding in the cave.

’What the hell is this thing... wait, no, it’s a Cannibal Mushroom!’

’Damn, it’s completely wrapped up Hee Lingchuan! I don’t know if he’s alive or dead!’

Just as the Mirror was about to alert the tiger to come to the rescue, the Fungal Mat’s color had already turned a deep red, and it was rapidly expanding toward the cave entrance.

CLANG! The Mirror was knocked to the ground, falling into a small corner. From there, it had a perfect view of everything inside the cave.

’Er... It’s not like I haven’t seen a Cannibal Mushroom mat before. Why is this one so violent?’

In truth, the Fungal Mat wasn’t having a good time either.

It had been happily feasting on Hee Lingchuan’s all-you-can-eat buffet, and then it got full.

This was the first time the Fungal Mat had ever gotten full without completely draining its prey. It ordered the ladybugs to release Hee Lingchuan, planning to resume feeding after it had digested the newly acquired True Power.

Besides, the prey was pumped full of the ladybugs’ venom; it couldn’t even lift a finger.

However, just as the ladybugs tried to pack it in, they discovered a fatal problem:

Their proboscises wouldn’t retract!

The True Power in Hee Lingchuan’s body was now sucking back on their mouthparts, holding the ladybugs in place. It turned them into unwilling conduits for the gushing True Power, which surged ceaselessly into the Fungal Mat.

Now, nobody was allowed to leave the table!