The Snake King's corpse lay sprawled on the underground river's mudflats, ice crystals flaking from between its green scales.
Yin Jiu stripped off the Snake Shed Skin with hooklike, withered fingers. Three Red Centipedes writhed excitedly at his cuff. "The shed skin is mine, and I want thirty percent of the meat." A sickly-sweet, bloody vapor spilled from the Clay Jar's mouth, its centipedes' legs scraping against the walls with metallic clangs.
Liu Fengchun drove his Snake-Head Staff into the snake's corpse. The crack of breaking bone pierced the mist. The emerald tip pried out a walnut-sized Green-Patterned Poison Gland. "I'll take the poison gland, and forty percent of the meat." His withered palm brushed over the cracks between the bones, a bellows-like wheeze rising in his throat.
The silver needles on Chen Moyang's Formation Plate stabbed toward the snake's spine. "Snake bones can hold formation patterns. They'll serve well for refining formation cores." A small black iron knife flitted like a butterfly, carving out green-jade snake vertebrae, dark blue marrow still lingering in their openings.
Lu Zhao slit open the snake's belly with his Water-Splitting Spikes. Blue-black roots, fully as thick as a human thigh, coiled inside its abdomen like living things.
As his fingertips brushed them, the remnant roots released the fresh scent of vegetation. "The roots are mine. Take whatever remains among yourselves." He flicked out ten Spirit Stones, which traced arcs of light through the gloom. "If that seems unfair, these Spirit Stones will cover the difference."
"Decisive as ever, Fellow Daoist Lu!" Liu Fengchun laughed hoarsely, dipping his Snake-Head Staff in blood and drawing a cross-shaped boundary on the ground. "If we encounter another Snake King, we'll divide it the same way!"
The rank breeze along the underground river's tributary carried the smell of rust. Chen Moyang's Formation Plate hummed as it guided them, its green-jade silver needles pointing toward the Death Gate at the Xun Position.
Whoosh!
Liu Fengchun thrust his Snake-Head Staff forward, emerald light piercing a snake's eye in a crack in the rock. Before its foul blood could spray, the Red Centipedes in Yin Jiu's sleeve had burrowed into its skull to suck out the marrow. Seven unranked Ink-Scaled Snakes shriveled like paper in an instant.
Lu Zhao traced the air with two fingers held together, three Ice Cones sealing the path in a triangular formation. His Water-Splitting Spikes drew on the underground river's moisture, freezing off the snakes' retreat with a crack. The Frost Rat Puppet pounced and tore at them, its Ice-Explosion Rune Patterns blooming into frost flowers across their bodies-the party crushed over the snake corpses as though treading an icy path.
The South Cliff Karst Cave suddenly opened before them. Chen Moyang abruptly pressed down on his violently shaking Formation Plate. "The Water Scorpion nest is empty!"
Claw marks as large as bowl rims remained on the rock walls, and bronze-colored shell fragments littered the ground.
The Demonic Beast's corpse that had once guarded the entrance had vanished without a trace. Only half a scorpion's tail remained, driven deep into a rock crevice, its venomous hook dull as rotten iron. The flesh at the severed end looked dissolved, oozing blue-green slime.
"A swarm of Ironclad Water Scorpions..." The openings in Yin Jiu's mask contracted. "Over thirty, all first-tier low grade. Their tail hooks can corrode iron armor." His withered finger pointed at the jagged tooth marks along a shell fragment's edge. "Torn apart alive."
A chill climbed the four men's spines. Whatever could slaughter the entire swarm was likely even more vicious than the Snake King they had just faced!
While the others hesitated over whether to enter, Lu Zhao said, "Let my puppet take a look before we decide."
"The puppet will scout ahead." Lu Zhao formed a hand seal and touched his brow. His Divine Sense slipped like threads into the Rat Puppet's compound eyes, and a ghostly blue field of vision suddenly unfolded.
The stench of rotting flesh, mingled with the sweet fragrance of green vines, rushed into his sensory channel. Sticky fungal mats covered the cave walls, and scorpion shell fragments were embedded in the rock like shattered bronze armor.
A slime trail over two feet wide dragged across the ground, its rank, bloody vapor condensing into frost crystals.
"Squeak... crack..."
The rat's claws crushed half a scorpion pincer, and ghostly blue frost mist instinctively shielded its body. Rounding the narrow passage into a suddenly open space, it continued on for a while before seeing:
Snake shed skins piled together! Old and new skins overlapped like scales. The bottom layers had hardened, while the slime on the newest layer had yet to dry, wrapping undigested scorpion pincers and severed limbs. At the center of the heap, half an Ancient Bronze Vine twisted like a python, its surface crusted with resinlike blood scabs.
The view shifted upward-
Hundreds upon thousands of crystal stalactites hung from the ceiling, azure marrow dripping from three broken ends. The liquid hissed as it hit the ground, and finger-long crystal clusters sprang up instantly! Amid the clusters, the veins in a green vine's leaves pulsed like blood vessels. Its roots twined around three broken vines, with a half-rotted snake skeleton beside it.
Hiss!
A sound tearing through the air shattered the deathly silence! Before the view spun wildly, the last thing it caught was a dark shadow sweeping through a rock fissure: a scarlet tongue forked like blades, scales reflecting a ghost-fire green.
Lu Zhao's eyes snapped open, the bone-piercing cold from the Rat Puppet's destruction still lingering in his palm. "There are piles of snake shed skins inside. The Young Green Vine's stem is seeping blood and forming scabs, and its roots are wrapped around a snake corpse."
"My puppet has already been destroyed by the Snake King. Our Divine Sense only reaches a few yards into this cave. It's time we went inside ourselves to take a look."
At Lu Zhao's words, solemn expressions appeared on the others' faces, and they tightened their grips on their magical implements.
After passing through the narrow passage and reaching the open space, they all looked tense as they first entered the cave. Lu Zhao swept the area with his Divine Sense.
He bent down and picked up a bowl-sized snake scale from a crack in the ground. Its blue-black edges were serrated, and blue-green scorpion blood stained its inner surface. "The Snake King fought here." His fingertip tapped the dents in the scale. "The scorpion venom pitted it, but didn't penetrate."
Yin Jiu kicked aside half a scorpion pincer. The flesh at the break had melted like wax. "Snake venom! Ink-Scaled Snake venom dissolved the Ironclad Water Scorpions." The Red Centipedes in his Clay Jar suddenly began battering frantically against its walls, their feelers curling and blackening.
Chen Moyang dabbed at the slime on the rock wall. "It's wood poison! That green vine is secreting venom!"
Lu Zhao suddenly plunged his Water-Splitting Spikes into the grass beside the cave. The icy blades lifted it, revealing a large pool of foul black blood and drag marks on the ground, fully as wide as a small vat.
"Two Snake Kings fought to the death here." A cold gleam flashed in his eyes. "The victor obtained the Remnant Roots of the New Sprout... and swallowed everything the loser had!"
After they walked on for a while, their view pierced the green mist, revealing a hair-raising sight deep within the cave-
The green vine's full form came into view: its main stem was as thick as a thigh, its surface cracked with weblike blood scabs. Seven secondary vines as thick as bowl rims resembled bulging blood vessels, driven deep into the dead Snake King's abdomen at the cave ceiling!
The Snake King's body was nearly two feet thick, yet the vines had bound it into a blue-black cocoon of flesh. Where the vines parasitized it, its scales curled back and festered, exposing blood-red roots writhing beneath its skin.
With every contraction of the roots, amber demonic blood seeped between the corpse's scales, traveling along the vines toward the flower bud at the top.
Most horrifying was the millstone-sized flower bud: its covering was translucent as a fetal membrane, revealing a curled, snake-shaped embryo inside. With each pulse, the embryo expelled thick green mist. When the mist touched the stalactites, the stone marrow actually turned into flowing, green-jade liquid!
"Crack, crack."
Two ghostly green lanterns lit up in the depths of the cave.
A fifty-foot Snake King slowly slithered out of the shadows. Vines covered its body, but above its neck, its savagery was fully revealed. Three bone spikes grew from its forehead in a triangular formation, the central spike inlaid with green patterns whose light resonated in rhythm with the embryo inside the demonic vine. Its amber slit pupils were frozen like an icy lake.
At the sight, Liu Fengchun, the oldest of the four, seemed to recall something.
"This is bad! This beast has formed a symbiosis with the green vine!" he shouted, retreating swiftly.
Seeing this, the other three abandoned all concern for appearances and shot backward as well.
"Don't worry. That Snake King won't leave the range of the green vine's roots," Liu Fengchun said.
At this, everyone let out a breath of relief.
"Elder Liu, what does it mean for the green vine and the Snake King to form a symbiosis?"
Lu Zhao spoke up to ask. At his words, the other two also turned toward Liu Fengchun, their meaning plain without saying.
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