Eternal Hellfire

This underground cavern was indeed empty.

There was no light, no water, no animals, no plants. Only a stagnant, ancient air that smelled like an empty can left sealed for tens of thousands of years before being suddenly opened.

A single whiff caused his health bar to drop by a small inch.

Even worse, an abnormal status appeared on the System interface: "Poisoned."

"Cough cough."

Li Qing coughed violently, his face paling.

He shook off the mushy cockroach corpses clinging to his fist and, after a two- or three-second delay, finally came to his senses:

"Just as I thought."

"You brainless brute followed me down here!"

Gazing at the massive meat mass that almost filled half the cavern, Li Qing smiled.

This was the crucial moment of decision between him and the meat mass.

However, theoretically speaking, this was actually the last moment before his death. In a fictional work, this would be the part where the character gets to reminisce about their life before kicking the bucket.

After all, as Giorno had worried.

There was nothing in this underground cavern, so there was nothing to help him draw aggro.

Li Qing was the only one capable of movement. As long as he made any attempt to move or climb back to the surface, the meat mass would devour him without mercy.

But if he stayed still, not only would he eventually be trapped and die in the underground along with the meat mass, but the toxic air stored in the cavern for tens of thousands of years, with its unknown composition, would be enough to kill him within minutes.

So.

Li Qing moved.

He walked at an unhurried pace, reaching the wall and clinging to the rock face, climbing towards the nearly 90-degree tunnel that the meat mass had just carved out, connecting the surface and the underground.

In fact, to take the shortest path back to the surface as quickly as possible, Li Qing stayed very close to the bloated meat mass.

At this moment, he was only a few centimeters away from the meat mass's twisted, grotesque body.

But the meat mass ignored him.

"Hahaha."

"It's just a mindless thing after all."

Li Qing chuckled to himself as he slowly climbed up the near-vertical tunnel:

"I didn't lure you into this underground cavern to die with you."

"Although there's nothing animate in this underground cavern to help me draw aggro, that doesn't mean there isn't anything deeper underground..."

As if to confirm Li Qing's words.

The meat mass completely ignored Li Qing, who was quietly slipping away from behind it. Instead, it focused entirely on plunging downwards.

It was digging, further and further into the deeper underground.

"This is Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano with a record of dozens of eruptions over the past two thousand years."

"The last eruption was only a few decades ago."

"Beneath the ground near such an active volcano, there are often magma chambers containing large amounts of active lava, located extremely close to the surface."

"That's right."

"Beneath this underground cavern, tens of meters further down, lies an underground lake, a lake of molten rock!"

"The massive underground magma, gathered like waves in the ocean, surges back and forth in that molten lake—this is the bait that will capture your attention."

Li Qing carefully controlled his speed, slowly climbing towards the surface.

The meat mass, on the other hand, took the completely opposite direction, continuously digging deeper underground.

One meter. Five meters. Ten meters. Twenty meters. Thirty meters.

The meat mass finally found what it was looking for.

It crashed through the roof of the underground magma chamber, breaking the seal on the fire demon.

With the sudden large hole in the roof of the magma chamber caused by the meat mass, the air pressure balance was instantly broken.

Like an old-fashioned popcorn machine whose internal pressure reached a critical point under heating, the scorching lava, which had been flowing quietly in the magma chamber, instantly found an outlet for the pressure and erupted violently from the gap above.

Bang!

The underground world, silent for ten thousand years, suddenly let out a muffled explosion.

The sticky lava, with temperatures reaching over a thousand degrees Celsius, instantly engulfed the meat mass and continued to surge upwards along the passage it had carved.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle~

Beneath Li Qing, the tunnel covered in lava faintly emitted sounds like roasting meat.

The meat mass's vitality was indeed strong.

In fact, Li Qing still didn't know—

He had been fleeing for his life before, not really attacking, so of course he didn't know:

This monster's vitality had no upper limit; it was actually impossible to kill completely.

But what Li Qing could know was:

This mass of flesh's ability wasn't "invincible," but "super-regeneration."

This meant its body could be destroyed, it just regenerated very quickly.

A few bullets would hit it, and this mass of flesh would immediately repair its damaged body.

So what if what hit it were thousands, tens of thousands of "bullets," fierce like a torrential downpour, and never-ending?

The endless lava underground was precisely this "never-ending torrential downpour."

At this very moment, Li Qing could sense:

The mass of flesh's completely defenseless body was rapidly carbonizing and withering under the lava's scorching heat.

But with its own terrifying vitality, its body was also growing fresh flesh and blood at an astonishing speed.

The old flesh, burned to charcoal, was washed away by the scalding lava, and the newly born flesh continued to wither under the endless heat.

The damage from the high temperature was immense; the energy it absorbed was basically all used for its body's repair.

In this way, the mass of flesh's endless vitality and the Earth's endless heat were locked in a tug-of-war, a tug-of-war that seemed impossible to resolve.

"It's still not dead?!"

Li Qing was slightly surprised.

According to his original plan, he had intended to completely obliterate this monster with the super-massive damage produced by the lava.

But he hadn't expected that this mass of flesh's vitality would far, far exceed his imagination.

However, no matter what.

This mass of flesh was still trapped—it was trapped in this endless sea of lava.

Its body continuously regenerated and carbonized in the lava, and the ultimate result was sinking deeper and deeper into the endless magma.

And the mass of flesh "itself" was quite happy.

It hadn't noticed at all that its body was suffering immense and unending damage; instead, it was completely captivated by the surging lava in the magma chamber.

Everywhere there were surging lava waves, and each "wave" was a perfect prey that made the mass of flesh's heart ache.

This continuously surging, constantly rolling underground magma thus attracted the mass of flesh, which acted entirely on instinct, causing it to actively swim towards deeper, hotter, and more lava-filled depths.

"This thing can even survive in lava..."

"What a complete monster!"

After witnessing the true strength of the mass of flesh's vitality, Li Qing couldn't help but sigh with lingering fear:

Come to think of it, he had almost messed up and killed himself along with Mother Earth.

Fortunately, luck was also a part of strength.

And Li Qing's strength in this aspect didn't seem bad:

"Fortunately... fortunately, the damage caused by this lava was great enough that it used all the absorbed energy to repair its wounds."

"Otherwise, sending it into this underground magma chamber not only wouldn't kill it, but I would have found 'food' for it."

"Oh well!"

"Since it can't die..."

Li Qing took one last look at the rising 'water level' of the lava sea below him:

"Then enjoy this Eternal Hellfire!"