Mutated Tao

Chapter 698: Ascension

When the illusion of the Bai family appeared, the Second Deity immediately sensed how unstable her other self's emotions had become.

They are fake! They are illusions! We are still in the stomach of the Earth Dragon. This place can conjure up hallucinations! The Second Deity knew what Bai Lingmiao was thinking and tried to persuade her.

Do not doubt the Heavenly Mater! Have you forgotten that she guided everyone to the Void Home? Your family is waiting for you there! These are merely illusions!

But Bai Lingmiao’s sorrowful voice came from beside the Second Deity. “I know. I know they are fake, but…”

The Second Deity then sensed the intense sadness flooding over from her other half.

I can’t believe you’re still so useless despite becoming the Saintess of the White Lotus Sect! The Second Deity looked through her red veil at the chaos around them.

She pressed her red fingernails on her belly and felt the wriggling worms inside.

The Second Deity then looked at Li Huowang. She understood how dire the situation was when even Li Huowang didn’t have a plan to deal with it.

There was no time to think things through. If they didn’t come up with a plan now, everyone would die right there and then.

The Second Deity had one last hope. She quickly made a lotus seal with both hands and positioned it in front of her stomach. Her mouth was filled with rows of sharp teeth as she chanted quickly.

“In the beginning, when there was nothing but chaos, a divine light burst forth. From the formless void came the Heavens. The void gave birth to the One, and the One gave birth to Two. The Two formed Yin and Yang, forming the Four Symbols, and from there the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams were created.”

As she chanted, the conjoined lotus engraved on their foreheads flashed. The Second Deity was trying to invite the Heavenly Mater to possess their body, but there was a thin barrier interfering and preventing the Heavenly Mater from manifesting.

As time passed, the Second Deity felt her link to the Heavenly Mater weakening.

Bai Lingmiao felt the same. Her voice trembled as she said, “I have a plan.”

The Second Deity huffed indignantly and said, “Then why didn’t you say so?!”

“Because we might need to die.”

“Then what’s the point?! Might as well not say it!”

“But then at least Senior Li and Suisui can live. I don’t want them to die.”

“Fine!”

Pain. Unbearable pain. It hurt so much that the Second Deity even winced at her own thoughts.

She felt the evil entities gnawing off her hair and fingernails. They gouged out her eyeballs and bit into her body. Did she regret it? The Second Deity didn’t think so. She didn’t regret her actions, regardless of their cost.

“Miaomiao!” She heard Li Huowang faintly, his voice coming from outside the wave of evil entities.

“What are you shouting for? Hurry up and use the Cang-Qiang Ascension to escape! You deserve to die if you waste my life and don’t use the Cang-Qiang Ascension!”

The Second Deity opened her mouth and bit into one of the evil entities. Her sharp teeth ripped apart the evil entity’s head.

But her other half, Bai Lingmiao, had already lost both of her eyes as she cried tears of blood. She felt her body dissipating slowly, and for some reason, the pain in her heart made her feel better.

Li Huowang had run into a group of evil entities. He ignored their attacks as he tried to find Bai Lingmiao.

After searching around, he only found her two eyeballs and tattered clothes. He howled as intense pain came from the deepest recesses of his heart.

Memories of Bai Lingmiao accompanying him when they escaped the Zephyr Temple surfaced in his mind. He vividly recalled everything they had endured together.

Li Huowang felt as if his heart had been put through a blender. Bai Lingmiao was dead. Bai Lingmiao, the girl he had sworn to bring back and marry, was dead.

Even at the very end, she still thought that Li Huowang’s life was more important than her own.

Li Huowang placed the Profound Records onto the ground as his arms trembled. His emotions collapsed as he chattered his teeth uncontrollably.

He stabbed two stakes into his abdomen and tore his body open.

A giant clump of worms fell forward from the sudden opening in his body.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Li Huowang raised the stakes covered in his flesh and stabbed into the Profound Records, which were glowing in red light.

Swoosh! Black flames sprayed forth everywhere.

Several tentacles wielding different torture tools stabbed into Li Huowang’s body again and again.

Blood, flesh, and worms flew into the air.

When the most intense mental and physical pain merged in Li Huowang’s body, he felt a familiar gaze coming from below him.

Li Huowang’s organs rearranged and converged onto themselves. Suddenly, his skin burst open like fish scales as his flaps of skin vibrated intensely like the wings of an insect.

Facing the unexpected change in his body, Li Huowang once again felt Ba-Hui's gaze coming from the depths of the ground and noticed a bewitching scent.

Under Ba-Hui’s influence, Li Huowang’s physical and mental pain changed into something else.

The pain he had inflicted on himself started to affect everything around him. Worms, evil entities, and even the other survivors fell onto the ground as they shouted in despair.

The stomach lining of the Earth Dragon came to life. It cracked, with contorted faces crying out in pain appearing on the walls.

The entire ground shook, and a low groan could be heard. The Earth Dragon was also affected by the intense pain.

“AAAAAH!” Li Huowang stood up and stabbed both hands into the ground, right where he felt the gaze of Ba-Hui coming from.

Pop! One of Li Huowang’s heads blew apart, followed by the second one shortly after.

When the third head in the middle was on the verge of popping, the ground suddenly split open, making everyone fall through it.

They fell very quickly and soon heard the wind howling around them. Li Huowang looked down and saw the night sky.

He didn’t know what happened. Somehow, they had been inverted in the Earth Dragon’s stomach.

Li Huowang and the others didn’t slow down as they fell towards the dark sky. Just then, he smelled Ba-Hui’s voice and also a strange voice. It was the bizarre call of a crane.