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Chapter 58
🕑 Added 2023-01-07 20:51:17 +0000 UTCChen Haoran didn’t hesitate.
He cycled all the qi he could spare to his Crouching Tiger Earrings and an invisible wave of qi burst out with a Tiger’s roar. All the Lan cultivators stiffened in fear. That was all the time needed for a river of blue energy to sweep away the Ninth-Layer before they could recover. The rest of the group watched in stunned disbelief as their leader and the ground they stood on was erased. The salamander had no such issues, quickly recovering from its fear-induced paralysis and locking its jaw around a Seventh-Layer’s leg, crushing it with an audible snap.
“Save him,” snapped the Eighth-Layer, before rushing toward Chen Haoran.
The two remaining Seventh-Layers looked between themselves. Through silent agreement they split up, one going to save their fellow Lan from the salamander’s death roll while the other raised his sword to assist the Eighth-Layer in fighting Chen Haoran.
It was their last mistake.
Chen Haoran leaped above the heads of the two rushing combatants and came down like a stone on the left alone Lan in the rear. Dropping one of his swords he grabbed the back of the man’s neck and threw him to the ground. The Seventh-Layer’s breath left his lungs and Chen Haoran grimaced before slamming his foot down onto the cultivator’s elbow, snapping it with a sickening crunch. He screamed and bucked as Chen Haoran sank his sword into his other arm, pinning him to the earth.
Chen Haoran picked up his dropped sword in a hasty block as the Eighth-Layer slashed his sword at him with a furious roar. The Lan looked back at the last Seventh-Layer. “Go!” he roared. “Inform Elder Xiaobei!”
Chen Haoran leveraged his superior cultivation and forced the Eighth-Layer back with strength. It was too late however as the Seventh-Layer disappeared into the steam in a dead run.
The last standing Lan snarled at him, swinging his sword in a wide arc. “You will die this day.”
Chen Haoran battered it aside and bared his teeth as he cast his sense into the mist. “Someone’s going before either of us.”
Confusion flashed across the Eighth-Layer’s face before transforming into horror after his sense informed him. Chen Haoran took this moment, for a brief moment his scimitar became a river. The Eighth-Layer faltered and a thin red line split across his neck before his head fell over. Chen Haoran breathed out. His first use of Harmonization in combat, while only a split second, had succeeded.
Phelps came tumbling in a floating roll from where the Seventh-Layer had run into the steam. One of his claws dripping red. With the front secured Chen Haoran looked toward the salamander only to find it wringing a dead Lan cultivator by the neck. The salamander eyed him with a single, marble black eye before moving closer to the pinned Seventh-Layer. Chen Haoran snorted and cycled qi to his earrings for another pulse of tiger qi. This was less effective than the first use but his message had been conveyed. The salamander backed away into its pool, dragging the corpse in its mouth with it beneath the water.
Chen Haoran turned to the groaning Lan cultivator beneath him. This was the part that would suck. He pinned the man’s legs with his knees and checked his eyes, glassy and unfocused. He slapped the man across the face, making sure to infuse every hit with stinging qi. Clarity soon returned to his eyes and he glared at Chen Haoran with anger and wild fear.
“What is your name?” Chen Haoran asked.
“Fuck you!”
“Wrong answer.” He wished it wasn’t. Chen Haoran stabbed his second scimitar into the same arm as the first. “What is your name!” he roared at the man.
“La-Lan Aoki,” he stuttered.
Chen Haoran removed one sword. “How do I get out of this cavern, Lan Aoki?”
“Dispense with this pretense and kill me,” he said, growling in pain. “May you rot in these depths.”
Chen Haoran gripped Lan Aoki’s jaw and stared into his eyes. “If I was going to kill you I would have crippled your legs first.” He dug his knee into the man’s leg for emphasis. “I need you to walk.”
Lan Aoki stubbornly remained silent. Chen Haoran reached out and squeezed the man’s snapped elbow, shuddering in revulsion at the feel of its saggy skin and sharp bone. Lan Aoki hissed in pain and he hissed with him. “I take no pleasure in the pain I’m causing you, Lan Aoki.” He let go on the man’s elbow and scrubbed his palm against his leg. “Tell me how to get out of here and lead me through the dangers in this cavern and you might see sunlight again.”
Lan Aoki rasped out several long, painful breaths. Chen Haoran kept his gaze till his vision blurred with tears.
Finally, Lan Aoki exhaled. “Follow the river upstream.” Chen Haoran nodded and removed the grip on his jaw. “There is a waterfall, cross it and you will be able to leave.”
“There is another camp at that waterfall?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lan Aoki said. “They are responsible for transporting supplies in and out of the cavern.”
“Okay.” Chen Haoran leaned back. He cycled his qi, the warm vitality soothing his nerves. “Thank you. I mean it.”
His qi-enhanced fist snapped the man’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the man’s forever-frozen eyes. Chen Haoran closed the Lan cultivator’s eyes before rolling off his body and collapsing to the ground. “Fuck.” He looked at his bloody fingers. They curled and he clutched his chest with them. “Fuck.”
Phelps slowly floated over and settled at his side, softly crooning. Chen Haoran vigorously rubbed his non-bloody hand into the sloth’s fur. Fur was good, better than skin and broken bones.
He pressed his face into Phelp’s fur. “The things I do to live,” he mumbled. “The things I do to fucking live.”
Eventually, he picked himself up. A pulse of qi ran down his hand and wicked the blood off his fingers. He breathed deeply and centered himself before going to pat down the bodies. He’d destroyed everything the Ninth-Layer was carrying so the real harvest came from the Eighth-Layer though to call it a harvest was a stretch. Beyond some medicinal pills and monster cores the only thing of note were two strips of paper painted with a red fire burst shaped pattern. The Seventh-Layers had much the same as the Eighth-Layer, just less quantity, and he collected two more painted papers. From his sense he could feel some type of dormant qi within the paint. He wasn’t in the mood to try testing them out however.
He fed some of the cores to Phelps and patted his head. “Good thing you were there huh, my little ninja sloth. We woulda had a rough time if he’d called for help.” Phelps squealed at him. “Here I was thinking you were the cavern version of Lan Fen, maybe you’re the cavern version of Song Yuelin instead?”
Slowly the small smile he’d managed to form faded. “The Lan family huh?” Of all the people he would have thought he’d meet down here, they were the last ones on his list. “I thought I’d see Song fucking Yuelin before even dreaming of meeting the Lan family.”
In fairness, he thought he’d left them all back in Clearsprings City. Who would have thought they’d make like moorlocks and spread underground too? It was obvious why though. The abundant Water energy was far above anything that could be found in Clearsprings City and since Water nourished Wood, as a primarily Wood-element focused clan the only ones who’d benefit more than them from the caverns were Water spirit roots like Chen Haoran.
And Metal.
Like Lan Fen.
The Lan family was here. Was Lan Fen unaware of this? She had never mentioned it in her plans before. There was no way she wouldn’t try to destroy it if she knew about it. Had her plan been successful and the Lan family was chased out of Clearsprings City the Spa Caverns would be the perfect place for them to retreat to.
He tried to imagine for a moment that Lan Fen did not, in fact, know that her family had access to such a large and precious territory that stood to ruin all her plans.
Chen Haoran found that he could not, in fact, imagine such a thing being possible.
That still didn’t explain why she never made any attempt to come here. At the very least seeing as how he entered the cavern with none the wiser it didn’t seem that difficult for Lan Fen to sneak in, especially since with her Metal Spirit root she’d benefit from the Water Attribute energies as well. Why then had she not come here after reacquiring some of her cultivation?
Chen Haoran frowned. “Confidence,” he spoke into the empty air.
He ran over and slung Phelps over his back who squealed at Chen Haoran for interrupting his meal but acquiesced to the sudden motion. Ignoring his irate sloth, Chen Haoran gathered the bodies and quickly tossed them into the salamander’s pool before rushing off into the steam.
Lan Fen never did anything she was not completely confident in. If she was not confident in coming to the Spa Cavern then what would stop her? A Liquid Meridian realm obviously. The Lan family didn’t have that many to begin with though, and with her sensing it would be trivial to avoid them given the size of the cavern and with the chaos Lan Fen had been causing the majority would be in Clearsprings City holding down the fort with the Patriarch-
Chen Haoran felt a thunderbolt race down his spine. He felt less shocked when he grabbed lightning with his hands.
“Patriarch Lan is in this cavern.”
