All color was drained from Yan Ling's face when she saw the scene in front of her, the image of the snake's maw clamping down on Liang Chen forever burned into her mind. It shook her so bad that she needed two seconds to properly process what had just happened, stretching out her arm and giving a shout so hoarse that one would think her throat had been scraped bloody.
"Little Freak, no!"
Had she done it again? Had she once again failed to react because of her fear, once again losing someone because of her own slow reactions? Was she going to be forced to relive that nightmare all over again now that she felt like she was getting close to overcoming it?
While Yan Ling was once again sinking into her past nightmare, Yan Ying was also turning pale, his arm was outstretched, trembling faintly. He was even slower than Yan Ling, but he still let out a shout that bordered on despair.
"Little Chen!"
Had he done it again? Had another child died because he chose to not take action? When the serpent started to flee, to conserve more of his energy, Yan Ying had chosen to not step forward and try to force it back with a few attacks. This had allowed it to charge at Yan Ling, forcing Liang Chen to take her place. It wasn't really his fault, even if he stepped forward, the snake would likely just ignore his attacks and charge past him, but he still couldn't help but blame himself.
But even while he blamed himself, he was also happy. He was so happy, so happy that his sister was fine, that she hadn't been eaten. But at the same time, he hated himself for how relieved he felt when he saw that Liang Chen had taken the place of his sister.
Yan Ying quickly regained himself, completely ignoring the serpent, which had already fled past Yan Ling, not even stopping after swallowing Liang Chen. He ran over to Yan Ling, who was kneeling on the ashen ground, her fingers digging into the dirt as she muttered to herself with blurred eyes.
"No... Not again, not again. I did the same thing again..."
Other than the people from the Storm Wolf sect, no one else cared about the well-being of Liang Chen and Yan Ling. They swarmed after the serpent, quickly slowing it down with attacks so that they could surround ut. The silver-eyed Yuan Xuefeng held a triangular talisman made from black jade that was engraved with a pagoda, pushing it towards the serpent as he shouted loudly.
"Don't let it flee further! Surround it from all sides!"
Each time he pushed out the jade talisman, a strange ripple would pass through the air and push down on the serpent. Each ripple would act like chains that tied down the serpent, sealing its movements. As the honorary disciple of the Sealing God Empyrean, he used a cultivation technique that gave him the power to seal things.
Yan Ying didn't even glance at the battle that was starting up again a bit away from them, kneeling down next to his sister and grabbing onto her shoulders. He quickly shook her body, loudly calling out to her.
"Ling'er, calm down! Little Chen was swallowed whole, so he is likely still alive! The stomach acid of the Nethersky Wyrm Queen is very powerful, so I don't know how long he can last, but he should still be alive!"
Yan Ying himself wasn't very confident in the words he was speaking, but he needed to say something that Yan Ling could grasp onto, something that he himself could grasp onto. It worked as intended, Yan Ling's eyes quickly regaining their clarity.
"Alive? Right, alive!"
She grasped onto that thin glimmer of hope with all her might, holding it close to her chest. He was still alive, she could still save him! She didn't have to live through that nightmare once again! She couldn't change the past, but she could change the present, change what was happening right now. She quickly stood up, her eyes burning with determination as she glared at the serpent.
"I won't let it repeat itself, not this time!"
She swiped the interspatial ring she had received as a reward for the last trial, which already held all her items, pulling out a palm-sized piece of paper that was light yellow in color. Strange symbols were drawn onto the paper, a force far stronger than anything even Yan Ying could produce radiating from it. This was a life-saving talisman her father had given her, the symbols were drawn using his own blood.
Liang Chen had already slid down the throat of the serpent and entered its stomach. It was pitch black around him, and it reeked horrendously. Strangely enough, as Liang Chen was lying in its stomach acid, he let out several heavy breaths, laughing lightly.
"Hah, hah, hah. Oh boy, I've really done it now."
He hadn't thought too much about it as he did it, but jumping in front of a massive serpent and pushing someone else out of the way was a rather insane thing to do. His entire body ached from when the serpent slammed its mouth shut on him, but he still managed to raise his arms, holding his hands in front of his face and letting out another laugh.
"It's so dark in here that I can't even see my own hands, could really use a nice candle or something."
Liang Chen had no idea what else he could do. The only way he could drive away the fear and despair that was threatening to swallow him was by making jokes and laughing. So he continued to laugh and make jokes.
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The stomach of the Nethersky Wyrm Queen was incredibly large, so after struggling a little, he managed to sit up, leaning against the inside of the beast's stomach. He placed his hand against the wall of the stomach, tapping into his lightning seed and drawing out as much lightning as he could handle in his wounded state.
Arcs of golden and azure lightning lit up the inside of the stomach, allowing Liang Chen to see that the flesh in the stomach hadn't even gotten singed in the slightest. He tried for a bit longer, but in the end, he could only let out another laugh.
"Hahaha, so even the flesh on your inside is so strong that I can't wound it? You ridiculous thing you."
He leaned his head against the wall of flesh behind him, closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths. As he continued to breathe, he felt the entire stomach thump periodically, a low thundering sound resounding throughout the body of the Nethersky Wyrm Queen.
"That thundering sound... Its heartbeat maybe?"
Liang Chen's thoughts started to move slightly. He stopped leaning against the wall of flesh, doing his best to stand up. But it seemed like his legs had given out underneath him, either from fear or from his wounds. Since his legs didn't want to listen to him, he could only use his arms and crawl forward.
He crawled through the stomach acid, he crawled through the dissolving remains of other people and beasts. He had long since activated his Poison Soul technique, but his entire body was still engulfed in pain as he crawled, eliciting another laugh from him.
"Hahaha, you know, your stomach acid really burns like hell, it even goes right through my Poison Soul technique."
He couldn't see where he was going, he could only use the sound of the Nethersky Wyrm Queen's heartbeat to guess at his current position. When he first started cultivating and was preparing a bath of Demonic beast blood, he had killed quite a few snakes, so he was a little familiar with their anatomy. He knew that there was one point where their stomach got very close to their heart.
Crawling was both painful and hard, but he continued to do so, even when it felt like his fingers were melting. He didn't want to die, he wasn't going to die here, he wouldn't let himself. Not once had the idea to just lie down and accept death struck him, not even when the maw of the serpent slammed down on him and he was swallowed. After a few agonizing minutes of crawling, Liang Chen reached the spot where he felt certain he was closest to the heart.
"This seems to be as close as I can get, but there is still quite a bit of flesh between me and my target, huh?"
The flesh around him thumped loudly, the sound of rushing blood clearly audible. Liang Chen had a plan in mind for how he would escape, and maybe even kill this beast. His Lightning Seed had gathered up large amounts of lightning, even storing that one bolt of violet lightning.
He couldn't fully detonate the Lightning Seed within his body, he was certain that it would end up tearing him apart and kill him. What he wanted to do was take the seed out from his body and place it against the body of the snake, completely shattering and detonating it. He would lose the Lightning Seed and would have to create a new one, but it was far better than dying. But when he moved to put his plan into action, he immediately encountered a problem.
"You won't move huh? Guess I'll have to use something else then."
The Lightning Seed wouldn't move. No matter how much he ordered it to leave his body, it didn't budge an inch, stubbornly refusing. He didn't know what caused the thought to sprout in his mind, but he felt like the seed didn't want to move because there was something growing within it, so it didn't want to leave before it finished growing.
But Liang Chen was flexible. If his Lightning Seed didn't want to leave his body and detonate for him, he would simply use something else. His mind connected with his Ascended Tower, causing it to tremble and slowly move. There were several roots from his Lightning Seed that grew into the Ascended Tower, so as he started to pull out the tower, these roots were obviously forced out of the tower.
The moment the roots were forced out of the tower, they started to wriggle around, as if they were searching for their home. They couldn't find their tower, so they settled on a new home, Liang Chen's flesh. The roots sank into his body, digging into his flesh, his bones, his veins. Even more pain started to flood his body, but he simply grit his teeth, a mad glint in his eyes.
His Ascended Tower slowly left his body, appearing above his palm. His Ascended Tower was four floors tall and made out of golden stone that glimmered with electricity, a scale-like pattern growing around his tower, switching between violet and emerald green. He gazed at the tower, the corners of his lips curling upwards.
"You thought you could kill me just by swallowing me? You really underestimated my stubbornness, I will survive. It doesn't matter if I have to start over from scratch or try something new, I will survive, and I will continue moving forward."
His Ascended Tower contained far less energy than his Lightning Seed, but it had still been baptized by the crimson and the violet lightning, so it contained a bit of their might. Detonating this tower would force Liang Chen to rely on his Lightning Seed while he started cultivating from scratch again, but that was a small price to pay.
The tower started to tremble and crack, arcs of lightning and a faint mist of poison gathering around it as the energy within it grew more violent. Liang Chen raised the tower high, holding it as close to the wall of flesh as he could, a mad laughter sounding out.
"You won't be able to see it, but let me light up some wonderful fireworks!"
After Liang Chen finished laughing, a rainbow-colored sun bloomed above his hand. A beautiful sight that contained terrifying power.