Chapter 224: Blood Butterfly Meat Pool

Pitch black. So dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

After falling into the Ground Skin Infant’s mouth, Lian Mu was plunged into darkness. It felt like she’d been buried alive. When she reached out to feel her surroundings, all she touched was sticky, slimy muck.

Her palms, already covered in cuts, stung with a cold, piercing pain the moment they made contact.

She tried channeling her spiritual energy, and the sticky substance peeled away on its own. When she lit a flame to take a look, she realized she was wrapped inside a sack of mud. All around her was damp, black sludge.

Looking down, she saw a floor of human bones beneath her feet. There were even tattered sect robes among them, faded with age but still recognizable as belonging to the Crimson Sky Sect.

She was inside a demonic creature’s belly?

Lian Mu poked at the black sludge again. It recoiled from her touch. She raised her sword and stabbed it in. The sludge immediately swallowed half the blade. But when it reached the Jiao Pearl embedded in the sword, the pearl flickered twice, and the sludge quickly spat the blade back out.

The Wealth Bringer sword came back not only covered in black sludge but also with a bit of reddish-brown soil. She was definitely underground.

It seemed this demonic creature didn’t dare eat her. Even the sludge was keeping its distance.

Lian Mu thought for a moment. She couldn’t just sit quietly in its stomach.

She gathered her spiritual energy, conjured a ball of fire in her palm, and flung several fireballs around her.

After a while, she used the Jiao Pearl to condense water, held her breath, and flooded the entire mud sack.

Once she withdrew the water, she began punching and kicking the walls around her.

The black sludge finally couldn’t hold up. It shuddered violently, and the walls started to ripple.

Lian Mu spotted a small opening above her. Quick as lightning, she jammed her sword into it.

The ground beneath her jolted, and the sludge surged in from all sides. With a squirming motion, it expelled her straight out.

She was spat out of the ground, covered in black muck. As daylight hit her eyes, she looked down and saw the furious face of the Ground Skin Infant.

Her mouth twitched. She raised her hand and punched its other eye. The creature’s last remaining eye went blind. It let out a sharp screech, its stone teeth grinding furiously, then quickly burrowed into the earth and fled.

Since it had run off on its own, Lian Mu didn’t bother chasing it. She brushed the sludge off her body, slightly regretting her decision to jump into its stomach.

Truthfully, when she’d leapt in, she hadn’t been sure of the outcome. It had been a gamble—a bet that it wouldn’t eat her.

After all, for a demonic creature to touch her spiritual blood, it would have to pay a steep price. The Ground Skin Infant didn’t seem like the kind of fool who’d risk its life for a single meal.

Besides, if things had gone south, she could have released the Ice Jade Cold Flood Dragon and let it tear through the creature’s gut.

The stench clinging to her made her feel, for a moment, like she was already a corpse. The scene she’d witnessed inside its belly lingered in her mind.

Those disciples from Immortal Sects, reduced to bones like the ones she’d seen, were far from the only ones. Death on this land was as common as dust.

She regretted not asking Qu Ruotian for a couple more cleansing talismans.

Just as she finished cleaning off the sludge and was about to look up, something cold and wet dripped onto her forehead. She reached up and touched it—blood.

Startled, Lian Mu looked up. Hanging from the withered tree above her was a massive gray cocoon. Its underside was soaked and dripping blood.

The sudden sight of something so large put her on high alert. She thrust her sword into the cocoon and felt it sink into flesh.

Frowning, she sliced downward along the blade’s path, splitting the cocoon open. Inside was a half-melted human corpse.

She took two steps back, only to bump into another gray cocoon behind her. Glancing around, she realized that the branches of the entire withered forest were covered in them.

Lian Mu: “…”

Even though the cocoons held only corpses, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just escaped a tiger’s den only to step into a wolf’s lair.

Carefully avoiding the cocoons, she picked her way through the seemingly safer gaps in the forest. She hadn’t gone far when one of the cocoons suddenly began to move.

She stopped and focused on it. A small slit opened in the center of the cocoon, slowly widening until it reached the bottom.

The cocoon writhed, and a swarm of Red Butterflies burst forth. All that remained inside was a curled-up skeleton.

Seeing the butterflies, Lian Mu immediately understood. The Ground Skin Infant had brought her to one of the legendary deadly zones—the Blood Butterfly Meat Pool.

She kept her guard up, but the Red Butterflies didn’t fly toward her. Instead, they settled on nearby trees, their dazzling wings gently fluttering like rippling red silk.

She began to slowly back away. As she stepped on a brittle branch, it snapped with a loud crack. The butterflies stirred, fluttered briefly, then settled again, appearing harmless.

One Red Butterfly flew right past her, completely ignoring her.

Lian Mu: “?”

She continued to move away from the area, but no matter how far she walked, she couldn’t escape the forest of gray cocoons. The place was massive, and she seemed to be in its center.

As she walked, she spotted a familiar figure in the distance.

“Xu Xianxing? You’re here too?”

Xu Xianxing turned and gave her a small smile. “What a coincidence. You’re here as well. Did you get separated?”

Lian Mu sheathed her sword. “More or less. A demonic creature dragged me here, and I got split up from Senior Sister and the others. You’re alone too?”

“I lost track of them.” Xu Xianxing looked helpless. “I was attacked by a demonic creature too. I stumbled into this forest by accident and haven’t been able to find my way out.”

Lian Mu asked, “Don’t you have a silver kite? Why not just fly out?”

“It broke.”

Lian Mu was about to say he could just fix it, but then she noticed something was off. He didn’t look quite the same as when he’d entered. She looked him up and down. “Where’s the fox-fur coat you were wearing before?”

“It’s way too hot for that,” Xu Xianxing replied. “I’ve been thinking of switching to a body cultivator’s uniform.”

“Really? You were freezing in the desert and wore that coat every day. But now that we’re in the Shifang Nether Soil, you’re hot?”

Lowering his voice, Xu Xianxing said, “Tonight’s a red moon night. I’ve been feeling overheated. It’s that demonic creature that attacked me—its influence is still affecting me.”

Lian Mu placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been here longer than I have. Found a way out yet?”

“I have. Want to come with me?” Xu Xianxing offered. “I can lead the way.”

“Sure. You go first, I’ll follow.”

Xu Xianxing turned and began walking in a direction. Lian Mu followed closely behind, chatting as they went.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Ying You in ages. Wonder which zone he’s in now.”

Xu Xianxing asked, “He moved faster than you?”

“Yeah. He’s the top Chief Disciple of Azure Profound Sect. I’ve only got Three Spirit Roots—I can’t compare. I’m still in the Abyssal Circle. He’s probably already made it to the Red Scorched Circle.”

“Nothing fun in the Red Scorched Circle,” Xu Xianxing said. “The Abyssal Circle suits cultivators with Three Spirit Roots better. Stay here longer, kill more demonic creatures, and you’ll keep up just fine.”

Lian Mu smiled. “Exactly. Like killing one more demonic creature—like you.”

With that, she slashed at his neck. The blade bit into his skin, but not a single drop of blood came out.

As soon as “Xu Xianxing” saw her make a move, the skin on the top of his head split open, and a swarm of Red Butterflies flew out. His entire body then began to collapse, leaving behind only a vague, empty husk.

The Red Butterflies scattered in all directions. Lian Mu released a burst of fire toward the withered trees around her, but her feet refused to move.

When she looked down, she saw that the once solid ground had somehow turned into a pool of flesh and blood. Her legs were sunk deep into it, held fast by the sticky, pulsing mass.

From the dead trees above, fat caterpillars dropped one after another onto her body, spinning silk as they began to wrap around her.