A perfected being descended

The cave's interior was even larger than Lin Yan had imagined, like a vast, naturally formed cavern.

Yet everything inside it was enough to drive anyone with trypophobia mad on the spot.

Snakes!

Everywhere he looked, there were snakes!

Venomous snakes covered the cave floor, the walls, and even the stalactites overhead in dense coils.

They came in every color and size, the largest as thick as buckets, the smallest no bigger than fingers.

They tangled together in layer upon layer, like a constantly writhing, nauseatingly colorful carpet.

"Hiss-"

"Hiss, hiss-"

The sounds of countless flickering tongues merged into a symphony that made his scalp crawl.

In a corner at the very back of the cave, Lin Yan finally spotted Leorio.

He lay motionless on a small patch of clear ground. His face had darkened, and his lips were a vivid purple. Clearly, he had been severely poisoned and had fallen into a deep coma.

Beside him was a girl wearing a green hunter's uniform and a round hat.

Ponzu! The Bee Handler!

She crouched on the ground, her hands clamped over her ears, her body trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.

Tears and mucus streaked her face. Muffled, incoherent sobs kept escaping her lips, and she was clearly on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Around the two of them, a swarm of fist-sized black bees beat their wings desperately, forming a buzzing barrier that kept the approaching venomous snakes at bay.

But the bees' numbers were dwindling at a visible rate.

"Whoosh-"

Every so often, a venomous snake sprang from the mass, caught a bee precisely between its jaws, and dragged it back into the swarm.

The bees struck back with their stingers when attacked, but that tiny amount of venom barely bothered these enormous cold-blooded creatures.

The defensive line formed by the bees was already on the brink of collapse.

Worse still was the corpse at the center of the mass of snakes.

It belonged to a tall, thin woman in unusual traditional clothing-Babon, the Snake Handler whose number Leorio had drawn as his target.

She had died horribly. Countless bite marks covered her body, leaving almost no patch of skin intact.

Her eyes bulged wide, her mouth hung open, and utter terror had frozen on her face.

A visible stream of Nen, like black mist, poured endlessly from her corpse.

That was the "deathly aura" Lin Yan had sensed earlier.

Filled with spite and resentment, that Nen acted like a stimulant on every venomous snake nearby, driving them into an abnormally frenzied, aggressive state.

Babon had evidently been turned on by the very snakes she controlled.

And now, this disaster was about to drag Leorio, Ponzu, and anyone who tried to enter straight into hell.

There was no way out.

It was an utterly hopeless situation.

Any violent movement or powerful burst of Nen would be like a spark dropped into a powder keg, instantly detonating the immense resentment surrounding Babon's corpse and sending the entire swarm completely out of control.

At that point, rescuing anyone would be out of the question. Even whoever entered would be swallowed in an instant by the endless sea of snakes.

Holding his breath, Lin Yan withdrew without a sound and put the vines back in place.

"How is it?"

Gon and Kurapika, who had been waiting anxiously, immediately gathered around him.

Lin Yan's expression was grave. In as few words as possible, he explained the situation inside.

After hearing his description, Gon and Kurapika looked just as grim.

"Then what do we do? Leorio..." Gon paced frantically. All he wanted was to charge inside at once and drag Leorio out by force.

"Don't act rashly! Absolutely not!" Kurapika grabbed him. Although his own hands were trembling slightly, reason kept him clearheaded. "Lin Yan said forcing our way in would set off that resentment. None of us would survive! That's Nen that grows stronger after death. It's extremely dangerous!"

"But we can't just stand here and watch Leorio die in there!" Gon shouted, his eyes reddening.

"Both of you, calm down!"

Lin Yan's voice was low, but it carried a power that steadied their hearts.

Looking at the frantic Gon and the equally worried Kurapika, he raced through countless ideas.

A frontal assault wouldn't work.

Neither would sneaking in.

There were too many snakes. There wasn't even anywhere to put a foot.

Fire? No. The cave was enclosed. The smoke would choke their own people to death first.

Flooding it? Even less realistic. There wasn't enough water anywhere nearby.

He had to find a way to rescue them without disturbing either the snakes or that resentment.

Or... approach it from another angle.

Was there a way to suppress the snakes directly, so they wouldn't dare move?

Countless Taoist texts flashed through Lin Yan's mind.

Talismans for subduing demons and exorcising evil? His cultivation wasn't advanced enough.

Snake-repellent powder? There was no time to prepare it.

Since techniques couldn't break this deadlock, he could only overwhelm it with the very essence of the Dao.

What did Taoist cultivation seek to cultivate?

Refining Essence into Qi. Discarding the False and Preserving the True. Returning from Acquired to Innate, transforming life itself and ascending to a higher level of existence.

In the ancient Daoist Scriptures, accomplished cultivators were called "perfected beings."

What was a perfected being?

A body of pure yang, golden muscles and jade bones, Repelling a Hundred Evils, dragons and tigers in attendance, all beasts submitting!

Snakes were creatures of cold yin. They favored baleful yin and feared pure yang.

This required no complicated technique. It was nature's starkest law-

The absolute dominance of a higher predator over those beneath it!

Lin Yan's dantian embryo had only just formed. Although he was still far from the realm of a "perfected being," what circulated within him was no longer ordinary energy. It was innate true qi, tempered countless times and imbued with a trace of "pure yang."

He had never tried this method before.

It worked in theory, but he had no confidence that it would be effective in the Hunter world.

Yet right now, it seemed to be the only option.

As Lin Yan deliberated, a piercing scream suddenly rang out from Ponzu inside the cave.

"Aah-!!"

Her voice was filled with despair, collapse, and the utter terror of facing death.

This was bad!

Ponzu had reached her limit. Her defensive line of bees could collapse at any moment!

Lin Yan's eyes snapped open. A pale golden gleam flashed like lightning deep within his pupils, then swiftly vanished.

In that instant, his entire bearing changed. His formerly restrained aura began to rise to another level, like an ancient sword drawn from its sheath.

"Gon, Kurapika, back away. Get outside the swamp!"

Lin Yan's tone turned exceptionally stern. "Remember, no matter what happens next, don't come near me, and don't make a sound!"

"Lin Yan, what are you going to do?" Gon instinctively felt an inexplicable pang of dread and reached for Lin Yan's sleeve.

But his hand caught nothing.

Lin Yan's figure seemed to fall into a strange rhythm with the space around him. He walked toward the darkness without looking back, leaving only a quiet promise:

"I'm going to bring them home."

Before his words had faded-

Boom!

An indescribable aura rose from Lin Yan's slender figure.

Gon and Kurapika's breathing caught abruptly. Their bodies tensed on instinct, their pupils contracting sharply.

It was neither a deliberately projected intimidation nor cold killing intent.

Gon's animal instincts screamed warnings in his mind. Standing before him was no longer a boy, but a slowly rising sun holding back its boundless radiance.

Or an ancient True Dragon coiled atop Kunlun, looking down upon all living things.

That intimidation, rooted in the very essence of life, made both their bodies instinctively freeze. Even their breathing became cautious.

Lin Yan reached the cave entrance, parted the vines without the slightest hesitation, and walked inside.

Ponzu's scream still echoed through the cave.

A gap had already been torn in her defensive line of bees. More than a dozen venomous snakes were hissing as they lunged at the unconscious Leorio!

"No... stay away..."

Ponzu shut her eyes in despair, flailing her hands wildly.

It was all over.

Yet the sounds of biting she expected never came.

Even that nauseating hissing abruptly vanished without warning.

In its place came a deathlike silence.

An absolute, suffocating silence.

Trembling, Ponzu slowly opened her eyes a crack, tears blurring her vision.

Then she saw a sight she would never forget.

A figure was walking slowly inward from the cave entrance, silhouetted against the faint light.

He walked slowly, every step seemingly measured, steady and firm. His soles struck the damp ground with clear, rhythmic taps.

He emitted no terrifying killing intent and made no threatening gestures.

His hands even hung casually at his sides.

Yet as he approached, the tens of thousands of frenzied venomous snakes throughout the cave froze in place, as though someone had pressed pause.

The snakes about to lunge at Leorio stiffened in midair, then seemed to lose all their strength and fell heavily to the ground with a series of thuds.

They neither attacked nor fled.

Every snake, from the enormous pythons to the tiny venomous snakes, pressed its head firmly against the ground, its body curled into a trembling ball.

That was not stillness.

That was... submission.

It was the humblest obeisance of countless living creatures before their "king," arising from the depths of their genes.

At that moment, the entire snake pit sank into a strange, reverent terror.

And the source of that terror was the seemingly ordinary man walking inside.