Where Immortals Once Walked-Chapter 323: Reversion

He Lingchuan fired his sleeve arrow. It shot out with a sharp whoosh, plunged straight into the ghostspawn’s abdominal wound, then punched out through its back and flared open, hooks biting deep into its bones.

He leaped up onto a high outcrop of rock. Bracing himself, he looped the cord over a rock spike that jutted out of the wall and hauled. The creature’s body lurched off the ground and rose, dangling in midair.

Suspended like that, it could not touch the rock walls or floor, not even with the soles of its feet. Without contact with the rock, thawing and recovery would both be much slower.

The others simply collapsed where they stood and gasped for air.

Skinny grabbed his waterskin and drank so fast that he choked, coughed, and nearly sprayed it all back out.

Duan Xinyu sealed a few acupuncture points on himself with unsteady fingers to slow the bleeding. He asked between ragged breaths, “H-how long... can we keep stalling it like this?”

He Lingchuan suddenly tossed something to each of them. Small, hard, and wrapped in a scrap of oiled paper, it was candy. These were sweets that he had bought from the little shop outside the Temple of Mitian, the same ones that Sun Fuling was very fond of. He had a few left over.

One by one, they tore open the paper and popped the candies into their mouths. A warm honey sweetness spread through their mouths, washing away the lingering bitterness of blood and bile.

On the brink of death, that tiny bit of sweetness felt unbelievably precious.

They ate in silence. No one wanted to ruin it with words.

He Lingchuan swept his gaze over the group. Then, suddenly, he smiled. “We don’t have to hold on much longer. Reinforcements are already here.”

Everyone snapped their heads up, eyes wide. Skinny rasped, “For real?”

“For real.” He Lingchuan’s left eye was ruined, his body soaked in blood, his whole appearance ragged and terrifying, but his words came out firm. Even now, at a time like this, his voice carried weight. “When have I ever lied to you? Haven’t you noticed how the ghostpawn is attacking like a mad tiger, all impatient and frenzied?”

Tch, and that’s supposed to be good news? Duan Xinyu thought sourly. He could not help but voice out, “How is it a good thing that it’s attacking harder?”

“It is a good thing!” He Lingchuan wiped the sweat running down his brow, lest it drip into his remaining eye and burn it as well. “It doesn’t even dare stop to heal. Before this, the thing was cautious as anything. So much as a scratch and it would retreat first, recover, and only then come back to fight. But now? It’s not taking the time. That means it’s burning through what it has left. It can’t afford to wait any longer.”

The ferry-crossing ghostspawn was frighteningly intelligent, and intelligent creatures usually cherished their own lives.

Skinny and the others had spent time working alongside He Lingchuan, and their trust in him ran deep. They naturally followed his line of reasoning. Someone muttered, “It controls the entire underground palace. Something must’ve happened outside—or inside—to make it desperate like this.”

Prompted by his words, they finally saw it clearly.

The ghostspawn was covered in injuries.

Whenever it slipped into the walls to heal, it needed time to recover—light wounds took a dozen breaths, heavy wounds took thirty or more.

But now, it had completely stopped bothering to do so.

It looks like it really is in a hurry.

“The last stretch is always the hardest. We absolutely cannot fall right now when victory is just right around the corner!” He Lingchuan knew that the only thing keeping everyone’s blades swinging now was hope, even the faintest scrap of it. “The more cornered a beast gets, the crazier it becomes. I’m sure the turning point is almost here. As long as we ride out this final wave, we’ll be the ones still standing!”

Any news that was bad for the enemy was, by definition, good for them.

Hearing that, everyone’s spirits rose.

Without another word from him, the others closed their eyes for a heartbeat, working to steady their breathing and coax back whatever strength they could.

They had to believe.

They could not afford not to.

The dead-end passage they were in was narrow, and the man-eating vines blocked much of the way. Only a few bone puppets could squeeze through at a time, and each of those, He Lingchuan brought down almost casually with a swing of his saber.

He was buying everyone every scrap of recovery time he could.

He was the least afraid of death among them. If he died, at worst, he would get booted out of the dreamscape and respawn at full health next time.

But if he logged off in a hurry, what about the people in front of him now?

Unlike him, the rest of them would not be coming back if they died here.

Barely ten breaths later, sharp cracks sounded from the frozen creature overhead.

The ice was splitting.

He Lingchuan could see its eyeballs shifting beneath the frost, rolling furiously.

The fissures in the icy shell multiplied, spread, and thickened. Then the ghostspawn flexed violently, shattering its frozen prison in a shower of shards.

Even without the underground palace’s support, its raw strength was terrifying.

It twisted twice, checking its current conditions. The sleeve arrow’s hooked arrowhead had anchored itself across most of its back. It could not wrench free, so it grabbed the rope instead and hauled itself upward, hand over hand, then launched off the jagged stone.

This time, it did not even glance at Duan Xinyu. It came straight for He Lingchuan in midair, claws outstretched, its tiny eyes filled with venomous hatred.

These prey were clearly worn down and half-broken, yet somehow, they refused to die. Only now had the creature realized who the real problem was.

It should have killed this leader long ago. As long as it successfully took this man out, the rest of the group would crumble.

He Lingchuan had now mostly grown used to his narrowed, one-eyed view of the world. He had also taken advantage of the brief lull to smooth his breath and restore a bit of internal circulation. He had scraped together just enough strength to unleash another Wave-Cleaving Slash.

Clang! Clang!

Their first two exchanges were blade-on-bone, sharp and jarring. On the third, his saber seemed to glide along a natural line, light flashing as he carved clean through.

The blow sheared off half the creature’s shoulder.

The chunk of shoulder plate hit the ground with a heavy thud. Sour-smelling blood sprayed everywhere as the creature roared in agony. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

At that exact moment, the mine shook.

This time, it was not a mere quiver, as had happened numerous times before, but rather a full convulsion. It was as though the area had been hit by an earthquake of magnitude seven or eight on the Richter scale. The entire tunnel twisted with a grating wrench, turning ninety degrees in a blink. Wall became floor, and floor became wall.

Everything within the tunnels or passages, whether it be rocks, bone puppets, humans, or the ghostspawn, tumbled together like dice in a cup.

Only the man-eating vines, sunk deep into the stone, did not tumble around. Roots locked in place, they stayed where they were, and with their immense grip, they dragged the bone puppets with them.

Now, the bone puppets clung to what had become the wall, like grotesque insects stuck on a vertical surface.

Right after the flip, a long, raw howl rolled through the depths of the mine.

The voice was enormous, echoing from every direction, yet unmistakably female. It was threaded through with terror and pain that seemed to have no end.

A woman’s voice, here, in this place, could only mean one thing.

“That should be the mother! Something’s happened to her!” He Lingchuan reacted instantly. “Quick! Take this thing down!”

They had been fighting, bleeding, and dying for this—a single turn in their favor.

Now, their opportunity had come!

The patrol guards felt their hearts bloom as if with sudden light. They surged forward together, striking the ghostspawn from all sides.

But the creature let out a shrill scream and ignored its fresh wounds. It gathered its legs under it and flung itself toward the stone wall, trying to vanish into it again.

He Lingchuan was not about to let it escape. He yanked hard on the cord.

And then the ground heaved again.

This tremor was worse than the last. Everyone felt the power clawing up from deep beneath their feet, a force that wanted to rip the ground apart. The rear wall of the dead-end passage suddenly lurched forward like a massive piston, compressing the space behind them.

“Move! Go!”

Nobody cared about attacking anymore. Every ounce of strength now went into running.

Thankfully, the earlier flip had sent most of the bone puppets up onto the “wall,” and the current floor was what had been a wall just a few moments earlier. None of the bone puppets blocked their path out of the dead-end.

The group burst out of the passage to find that the outside corridors were also changing. New slabs of rock shot up like fangs, crushing several bone puppets into powder beneath their weight.

If Willow had not shoved Doorboard out of the way just in time, he would have been flattened under a suddenly tilting boulder.

After barely ten breaths, the violent changes ceased.

Shaken to their cores, they turned back, but the dead-end passage was simply gone, as if erased by a divine hand.

The space where it had been was now just flat stone. The surrounding passage had split into two separate corridors, both narrower than before, with new timber support frames and crossbeams bracing the walls and ceiling.

The rough, organic feel of an underground palace was gone.

“It’s changed back!” Duan Xinyu croaked. “It’s back to the mine! The underground palace is gone!”

Doorboard gripped his shield so hard his knuckles popped. He looked left and right. “Where’s that creature?”

With the underground palace gone, the ghostspawn had lost its home-field advantage. On top of that, it was seriously injured. No matter how strong it was, its options were suddenly limited.

With that thought, everyone’s own wounds suddenly felt less crippling. Their strength, too, seemed to swell by a margin out of sheer relief.

“It ran,” Duan Xinyu panted, pointing to the left-hand tunnel. “I saw it go that way.”

Then what are we waiting for?

“After it!” Now it was their turn to pursue and take revenge!

* * *

The patrol guards gave chase for over thirty meters. Even the blind patrolman was pulled along by Willow, stumbling but keeping up. Then Doorboard suddenly said, “Wait, we’re missing someone, aren’t we?”

He Lingchuan was at the front. At that, he turned, ran back a couple of steps, and counted quickly.

Doorboard, Willow, Blindie, Skinny, Xu Chun’s surviving squadmate... Including me, that’s six.

“Duan Xinyu is gone.”

Everyone froze. They looked at one another, faces darkening.

Willow’s willow-leaf brows shot upward. “Damn it! That damn creature!”

The youngest ferry-crossing ghostspawn could change into human form. It had first approached them disguised as Duan Xinyu’s deputy, Wang Xu. After such a brutal fight, how had they all forgotten that?

In the cramped confines of the dead-end, everyone had to watch everyone else’s back. It had been inconvenient for the creature to change. But when their very world twisted and the mine shook, when no one could spare a thought for anyone else, it had seized its opening.

With the chaos and the dim light, and everyone covered in blood, who had had the attention to spare to check exactly who was injured where?

They all turned and sprinted back the way they had come.

If the creature had pointed them left, then it clearly must have gone right.

As they passed the spot where they had first realized Duan Xinyu was gone, He Lingchuan split the group. “Willow, Doorboard, you’re with me. The rest of you stay behind and search for Duan Xinyu!”

No one objected.

If the creature had disguised itself as Duan Xinyu, then the real Duan Xinyu was very likely in trouble. With his injured leg, he might not have been able to escape when the mine shifted.

He Lingchuan led the three-person pursuit team forward at a run. With the mine restored to its original state, there were fewer side passages branching off. The tunnel they chose was almost straight, only bending here and there, narrow and claustrophobic.

Thanks to clumps of glowgrass, they could see the tunnel path clearly. They spotted splashes of green blood, laid out clearly on the ground.

At that sight, a knot in He Lingchuan’s chest loosened. The ghostspawn could not slip freely through the underground palace anymore. The underground palace, after all, no longer existed.

* * *

Just as He Lingchuan had suspected, after “Duan Xinyu” pointed out the direction, he had run along with the others for a few steps, then turned aside and slipped into the western path.

Once out of their line of sight, it dropped its disguise and sprinted full tilt.

It knew these mine tunnels perfectly. It did not take a single wrong turn. In no more than thirty or fifty breaths, it reached the stone chamber.

The woman inside had already torn away all the “tendons,” and she now staggered toward the exit.

Her initial panic had faded, leaving only raw pain. Agony gushed from every inch of her body. It felt as though she was riddled with holes inside and out, each one steadily pouring blood.

In truth, that was not far from reality.

The creature burst into the chamber. The woman barely had time to gasp before it crashed into her, slamming her to the ground. Its jaws opened wide.

“Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me! I’m your mother!” she screamed, thrashing, trying to fend it off. Despite her screams, the ghostspawn bit straight through her arm, tearing it off at the shoulder. Bone crunched between its teeth.

She blacked out instantly.

Meanwhile, its wounds began to close at a speed visible to the naked eye. Even the half-hand it had lost grew back, new bone and flesh knitting together in breaths.

The ferry-crossing ghostspawn drew nourishment from its “mother.” The more grievous its injuries, the more frenzied its feeding.

Very quickly, the bone armor across its body finished regenerating. New spikes budded from its shoulders and elbows like jagged spears.

It slung the woman up over one shoulder and turned toward the exit.

It could not stay here. It needed a new nest, a new place to root its lair.

But it had not gone more than a few steps before it stopped abruptly.

It stared into the darkness of the opposite tunnel, eyes narrowing. Slowly, it backed up two steps.

A few breaths later, He Lingchuan and the others appeared from a side passage.

They had followed the trail of green blood right to this fork. One turn, and they saw the ghostspawn crouched low, body tensed, its gaze fixed forward as it growled.