Chapter 698: Ascending the Steps

Shortly after the Bai family members appeared, Ershen immediately felt unstable emotions coming from the other side of her upper body.

"These are all fake! Illusions! We're still inside the earth dragon's belly! All these are illusions caused by this place!"

While feeling the other's similar emotions, Ershen frantically tried to convince herself in her mind.

"Don't doubt Wusheng Laomu! Have you forgotten? Wusheng Laomu saves all sentient beings! Return to the Vacuum Homeland! Your whole family is there, and they're all fine. These are all illusions! They're all fake!"

As soon as Ershen finished speaking, she heard Bai Lingmiao's sorrowful voice in her ear. "I know, I know! I know they're fake, I just..."

Immediately after, Ershen felt an overwhelming wave of extreme sadness surge over her from the other person.

"Even if you've become the Saintess of the White Lotus! You're still so useless!" The resentful Ershen peered through the hazy red veil at the chaotic surroundings.

Her hand, with its black nails, gently pressed against her abdomen, feeling the maggots writhing beneath her skin.

Ershen looked at Li Huowang. When she saw that he was helpless in this situation, she knew they were in deep trouble.

If even Li Huowang couldn't solve it, then the situation had likely reached its most critical point.

There was no time to worry about anything else now. If they couldn't find a solution soon, they might all die here!

With a glimmer of hope, Ershen formed a lotus hand seal over her abdomen, and her sharp-toothed mouth opened as she quickly chanted, "When chaos first opened, a spiritual light flashed, first there was Wusheng, then there was heaven. Wusheng gave birth to the Taiji Mother, who then added the Two Principles; after the Two Principles came the Four Symbols, and only then were the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams completed..."

As she chanted, the twin lotus mark on both their foreheads flickered rapidly. Ershen attempted to invoke Wusheng Laomu, but she always felt a faint, indistinct barrier, preventing a clear connection.

As time slowly passed, Ershen felt her connection with Wusheng Laomu growing weaker.

The two shared one body; Bai Lingmiao also felt what Ershen was feeling at that moment. With a trembling voice, she told Ershen, "I have a way out."

Hearing the choked voice in her mind, Ershen retorted irritably, "If you had a way, why didn't you say so sooner!"

"But this way requires us to die."

"What's the use of that! You might as well have said nothing!"

"But at least this way, Senior Brother Li and Suisui can survive, right? I don't want them to die."

"...........Alright!"

Pain, endless pain, pulled Ershen back from her recent thoughts.

Surrounded by evil spirits, she felt them tearing at her hair, ripping off her fingernails, gouging out her eyeballs, and wildly biting her body.

Did she regret it? Ershen didn't think so. Once something was done, no matter the cost, she would never regret it; she just felt a little unwilling.

"Miaomiao!" Ershen heard Li Huowang's muffled shouts from beyond the layers of evil spirits.

"What's the use of shouting! Quickly ascend and escape, Cang Qiang! If even my death isn't enough to help you ascend, then, Li Huowang, you truly deserve to die!"

Ershen violently opened her mouth and ferociously bit an evil spirit's face. Her sharp fangs sank in, directly tearing off the creature's head.

Meanwhile, the hollow-eyed Bai Lingmiao shed tears of blood, feeling her body gradually slipping away. For some unknown reason, the pain inexplicably made her feel much better inside.

At this moment, Li Huowang had already charged into the horde of evil spirits. Ignoring the spirits biting him from all sides, he frantically searched for Bai Lingmiao.

But after searching around, when he only found Bai Lingmiao's two eyeballs and a small, mutilated part of her body, he let out a heart-wrenching roar.

Everything he had experienced since leaving Qingfeng Temple flashed through Li Huowang's mind. Li Huowang truly understood what it meant for one's heart to be twisted by agony.

Bai Lingmiao was dead. The girl he had once sworn to bring home and marry was dead.

Even to the very end, she had still valued his life more than her own!

The Daqian Scroll lay spread on the ground. With a shattered expression, Li Huowang's hands trembled, and he ground his teeth, making a grating sound.

He tightened his grip on the long awl inserted into his abdomen, twisted it forcefully to the left, then pulled it out with a fierce tug.

Large clumps of worms, wrapped in torn flesh, gushed out.

"Ahhh!" Li Huowang raised the long awl, still bearing his own flesh, and violently plunged it into the bamboo slip emitting an eerie red glow in front of him.

"Clang! Clang!" Eerie black sparks flew.

Simultaneously, a dozen tentacles wrapped around various torture instruments, and plunged them into Li Huowang's body, then pulled them out, again and again.

Flesh, blood, and maggots splattered into the air.

As both his mind and body plunged into extreme agony, Li Huowang felt a familiar gaze from beneath him.

Li Huowang's facial features began to merge together. Suddenly, his body split open piece by piece, like fish scales, then rapidly vibrated like insect wings.

And when this unprecedented situation occurred, Li Huowang finally sensed Ba Kui again, high and deep in the air, and saw the captivating aura emanating from its body.

Under Ba Kui's aura, Li Huowang's pain, both physical and mental, began to gradually transform, forming into another substance.

The next moment, an extremely terrifying agony spread from Li Huowang, infecting everything around him.

Maggots, evil spirits, and other surviving people all collapsed to the ground, twisting in desperate pain and letting out wails.

At this very moment, the nearby walls also seemed to come alive, splitting open with distorted faces that screamed and cried.

Immediately after, the entire ground began to tremble. Low growls echoed from all directions—it was the sound of the earth dragon, which also felt extreme pain.

"Ahhh!" The shattered Li Huowang stood up, his body arched, and he screamed heartbreakingly at the gaze emanating from the ground. He plunged his hands directly into the ground.

Li Huowang's head swelled larger and larger. Bang! One of his heads directly exploded, followed immediately by a second.

Just as the third head, pierced by a sword, was about to reach its limit, finally, with Li Huowang's violent pulling, the ground suddenly split open, and they fell out through the fissure.

They fell rapidly, and soon the sound of wind filled the air. Li Huowang saw the deep night sky outside beneath them.

For some reason, they had become inverted inside the earth dragon's belly at some point.

Li Huowang and the others continued their descent without slowing down, still falling at an extremely fast pace towards that black expanse.

Li Huowang detected Ba Kui's presence within it, and also heard something else: the eerie cry of a crane.