Where Immortals Once Walked

Willow flew into a rage and slapped the ghostspawn twice across the face—of course, with gloves on.

The ferry-crossing ghostspawn shrieked and thrashed. Willow had no intention of holding back. She kept at it until its nose and mouth were bleeding and its face puffed up like it had been stung by an entire hive of bees.

While she was slapping it silly, He Lingchuan said quietly to Doorboard, “I took half its leg off earlier. In just this short time, it’s already grown back.”

And there was not even a scar.

“This underground palace[1] is boosting its regeneration too much,” Doorboard muttered. “Might as well kill it now before it causes more trouble.”

“Did you not notice the stomach squirming faster?” He Lingchuan jerked his chin at the ghostspawn. “The louder this thing screams, the more agitated the cave... No, the mother gets.”

“Are you saying that this underground palace actually has emotions?” Doorboard stared at him. “This job is way above our pay grade. They never should’ve sent patrolmen in here.”

Unless they meant to give us combat pay, anyway.

Most of their daily work was just beating up stray monsters and patrolling the highland. This was the first time he had ever seen such a bizarre underground palace.

He Lingchuan seemed to think for a few moments before saying, “We might actually have two options. The first is killing the strongest ferry-crossing ghostspawn. Once its magical energy disappears, this underground palace might go with it. As for the second option, it’s making this ‘stomach’ throw us back up.”

Everyone shuddered.

Willow jabbed a finger at the injured kid. “Throw us up? Even if that works, we’ll end up like him, won’t we?”

Everyone here had been drunk enough to kneel by a wall and vomit. They all knew it was not just food that came out, but stomach acid and bile as well.

If they let themselves get vomited out, they would be covered in the viscous liquid that was inside this supposed stomach that they were in.

He Lingchuan spread his hands. Personally, he had little to fear. After all, he had already died four or five times. A little stomach acid was not going to scare him.

Yes, he was that kind of utterly irresponsible captain.

Of course, nobody was choosing that route unless all other hope was gone. Doorboard cleared his throat and said, “I wonder how the other two squads are doing.”

“Well, at least one of them hasn’t finished their job. The strongest ghostspawn is still alive.” This underground palace is most likely its handiwork. “It’ll be a lot tougher than the earlier ones. Be ready.”

He stepped over, raised Fleeting Life, and sliced the captive from head to toe into three neat chunks.

The patrolman holding it jumped despite himself. Fleeting Life’s killing edge did not even flash; by the time the sound of the saber reached their ears, the cuts were already done.

He Lingchuan had seen enough of these things to know they were tricky. Who knew if it could keep moving without a head? To be safe, he chopped it into more pieces and snuffed out every last trace of life.

If they were going to face the final boss, there was no point lugging this nuisance along.

The saber was light and smooth; by the time it rang home in its sheath, the green blood had not even started to seep from the wounds. He Lingchuan gave the remains a little kick.

Everyone instinctively stepped back only to watch the hunks of meat shrivel in on themselves, shrinking until white bone showed through.

Ten breaths later, even the bones dissolved. Not a scrap of the creature was left.

If not for the injured patrolman on the ground, it would have been as if the ghostspawn had never existed.

Even Skinny felt a chill. “Did it just get absorbed?”

Willow commented, “Well, this is the stomach.”

Now that the ghostspawn was dead, it seemed that the supposed mother simply took it back.

From whence it came, so it returned—completing a neat little cycle.

But to He Lingchuan and the others, that little detail was terrifying. If the mother was even reclaiming the last drop of its own offspring’s nourishment, how savage would the final boss be?

They used the brief lull well. Willow bound up the injured patrolman’s hands and shoved a weapon into his grip.

Willow then said, “Everything comes down to this fight. If we lose, none of us is getting out.”

There was no point in hoping for help from the other squads now. He Lingchuan and the others made what preparations they could. Then he took a deep breath and said to Doorboard, “Do it!”

Doorboard nodded, stepped up to the edge of the hollow, and brought his large axe crashing into the wall.

He brought it down once, then twice, then thrice...

The whole cavern shuddered again, racked with pain and fury, yet helpless to deal with the tiny parasites gnawing at its insides.

The vines and rock wall were hacked to pieces, and blood fountained from the wounds and streamed down into the pool.

Where the two liquids met, they hissed as hot iron plunged into water, throwing up choking white vapor and a rank, acrid smell.

Doorboard did not stop. He hacked and hacked, continuing to bring down his large axe again and again.

If this underground palace were the ferry-crossing ghostspawn’s nest, bound to them by blood, then breaking it apart and letting it bleed was the best way to weaken it.

And if the creature was as vicious as they feared, it would not take that lying down.

The acid mist grew thicker. Everyone pulled cloths over their faces, but even so, their eyes stung.

Doorboard had swung his axe fifty, sixty times now. The blade of his axe was crusted with paste-like muck. The underground palace was bleeding like mad, spasming in agony, the “stomach” clenching hard—yet it could do nothing to the ulcer full of humans.

Doorboard grunted and said at last, “I think I’m about through.”

Everyone perked up upon hearing that. “Can we make it through?”

“There’s light coming through,” Doorboard said, genuine excitement in his voice. Finally, a third option. “Let me open it up a it more.”

He Lingchuan’s heart gave a little jump.

Light?

Why would there be light on the other side of a stomach wall?

Willow was delighted. “Could it be the other squads?”

Doorboard hacked down again, then wiped his face with the back of his arm. “Got it! I’ll open it up a little more.”

He hewed vertically and horizontally, carving out a proper hole. Once the blood drained off, they would be able to pass through.

Looked like there was another tunnel beyond.

Willow asked, “Who’s going first?”

Skinny said, “Wait, let me try something first!”

He crept up to the opening, but he did not climb through. Instead, he fished a hazelnut out of his clothes and tossed it through.

The hazelnut rolled across the floor, then suddenly swelled into a copy of Skinny.

Well, a convincing illusion of him, anyway. In the dim light, it could have fooled his own mother.

It strode out into the open, took a couple of steps, and then it vanished.

The trick had no offensive punch at all, but it was excellent at confusing the eye. If anything was lurking out there, it should have pounced.

Doorboard raised his shield in front of himself and strode through the opening.

Then, his voice floated back. “All clear. Come on.”

Skinny slipped through at once. Willow followed, then the newbie patrolman and He Lingchuan. The ones behind had to hurry as the hole Doorboard had opened was already knitting shut again.

By the time He Lingchuan squeezed through, one foot nearly got stuck in the rock.

On the floor, they found a dropped bundle of glowgrass.

So this is where the light was coming from.

Clearly, the other squads had passed through this way at some point. Something must have happened to make them drop their light.

Whatever the case, leaving the flesh-melting stomach behind was cause enough for relief, even if they still had no idea where this new passage led.

Willow had just bent to pick up the glowgrass when lights flickered ahead, and several figures rushed toward them.

Steel sang out as both sides bared weapons and dropped into fighting stances.

Then Doorboard let out a breath. “Oh, it’s you guys.”

It was another patrol squad, the one led by Xu Chun.

He Lingchuan’s eyes slid past them, counting heads. “Where are the others?”

Including Xu Chun, there were only four.

He had marched out with a full squad of ten men.

Xu Chun shook his head and said gravely, “They’re gone.”

The three survivors kept flicking glances left and right, eyes wide and twitchy like startled birds.

He Lingchuan asked, “What was your ferry-crossing ghostspawn like?”

Xu Chun answered, “It had an army of bone puppets.”

Skinny thought he had misheard. “What did you say?”

Xu Chun expounded, “Skeletons made of bone and bedrock. There were countless, and some could attack from range. In those narrow tunnels, they were a nightmare.”

“You only ever walked through tunnels like that? No other kind of area?”

“We did go into a stone chamber once. It was much wider than this one and perfectly symmetrical, and it had a spiral passage on each side,” one of the patrolmen said. “The bone puppets came out of there. We cut them down by the batch, but they never stopped coming. We had no choice but to fall back. We lost four men in the process, then that ghostspawn itself came in and killed two more.”

The memory was clearly still fresh; all four men went pale just thinking about it.

“What’s that ghostspawn’s talent? What can it do?”

The four were completely silent. Finally, Xu Chun gave a bitter smile and said, “We don’t know.”

“You lost six people and still didn’t see how it moved?” Willow did not bother being polite.

“It was too fast.” Xu Chun knew he had failed his men. “All I know is that the bone puppets can fuse into its body to form armor that’s exceptionally sturdy. I couldn’t cut through it. We injured it twice, and every time, more bone puppets crawled into the wounds and patched them shut. It was like we couldn’t kill it at all.”

He had watched the creature drag his own men away into the dark, and there had been nothing he could do. The taste of that helplessness was horrible.

He Lingchuan asked, “If it had such a massive advantage, why let you go?”

“We were nearly backed into a dead end, but then the ghostspawn just... stopped attacking, turned around, and ran. The bone puppets went with it. They came like a tide and retreated the same way. We have no idea why.”

They had stumbled around in the dark after that until they ran into He Lingchuan’s group.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to kill all of the ghostspawn before this body lets us go,” Skinny said, sharing their best guess. When Xu Chun heard Skinny refer to the underground palace they were in as a body, his expression became indescribable.

Then Willow flicked a few tiny grass seeds onto the four men and watched them closely for a few breaths. Only after nothing changed did she say, “They’re clean.”

The seeds were called thief’s mustard[2]. They discolored in the presence of monster qi or curses. It was a standard tool in any patrol kit, and Xu Chun’s men did not protest in the least. Once she was done, he rolled his wrists and said, “Let’s move. You still have your full squad?” And it looks like only one of them’s injured.

“We’ve been quite lucky so far. We haven’t run into the hardest thing here yet. These ghostspawn don’t seem to like grouping up. They each carve out their own little home field. From what you described, your team probably met the strongest one already, specifically the youngest. It’ll be the hardest to take down.” He Lingchuan pointed back at the wall that was already healing. “Behind that is the stomach. The acid pool down there will melt flesh and bone. It’s another ferry-crossing ghostspawn’s main arena. It could spit acid, heal at a terrifying pace, but it wasn’t too bright. It tried to kick us in but failed. Then, we killed it.”

The two squads traded intel, checked weapons and supplies once more, then lifted their glowgrass and pressed on, hoping to join up with the third squad.

1. Note that it’s not actually a palace, but it honestly isn’t too bad of a description, so I decided to just use the usual translation for the word. ☜

2. This might be similar to catnip based on its name in Chinese. ☜