Chapter 98 (1/2): Slaughterhouse

Hua Jian shook her hand hard twice, only to find that the Seed was deeply rooted. She could only try to pull it out with her hand.

But as soon as she tried, she realized this method was useless too.

The Seed rooted in her palm seemed to have become a part of her body; pulling it out would be like tearing off a piece of herself.

This was simply not something a normal person could do.

“What should I do, what should I do, am I going to become its nourishment?” Hua Jian anxiously turned to Linglong, hoping she could give her some reassurance.

Linglong had already come to her side when the Seed began to change. She lowered her head and carefully observed the Seed in Hua Jian’s palm.

After hearing Hua Jian’s question, she fell silent for a while before voicing her thoughts, “It doesn’t seem like it’s treating you as nourishment, but rather, it’s fusing with you.”

As she spoke, the Seed had already sunk completely into Hua Jian’s palm, leaving only a thin, pitch-black shell outside.

An indescribable sensation welled up from Hua Jian’s palm and spread to her chest.

When that strange power reached her chest, Hua Jian felt as if a power she had never possessed before suddenly appeared inside her.

She closed her eyes and tried to examine her body internally but found nothing out of the ordinary, as if the Seed that had rooted within her was just an illusion.

Yet the new power she possessed was real, no doubt about it…

A cluster of colored Magic Mist condensed in her palm with a thought. It looked similar to the Magic Mist she had used before, but in fact, it was entirely different.

“That’s its Magic Mist!” A Meng was the first to realize the peculiarity of this colored mist—it was exactly the Seed’s power, the Magic Mist that could draw people into a Dreamscape!

Had Hua Jian actually mastered it now?

The Seed had been absorbed by Hua Jian right in front of A Meng.

Logically, as the guardian spirit beast, A Meng should have been furious, but now she couldn’t muster any hostility toward Hua Jian at all.

On the contrary, her previously divided thoughts strangely converged at this moment.

In her eyes, Hua Jian had become the Seed itself, and from the bottom of her heart, she felt the urge to protect Hua Jian.

“I remember that spirit creatures can’t just be eaten raw like this, right?” The corner of Hua Jian’s mouth twitched. She really couldn’t make sense of the situation now.

Why did this Seed, which had been dead for so many years, suddenly sprout and root the moment it touched her?

Why did it bury its roots in her body, and why did it fuse with her?

Does this seem right? Definitely not, right?

Just thinking that a plant might be sprouting inside her, Hua Jian felt a pang of guilt.

Why did it sound just like those winter-insect summer-grass stories? She’d be the insect, and in a few years, the grass would sprout from her body.

“Hahaha…” From a distance came the crazed laughter of the Chai Family Patriarch.

He had already absorbed a few drops of the Spirit Liquid of the Soul and was feeling quite marvelous.

But just as he tried to continue his efforts, he found that the Spirit Liquid of the Soul dripping from the Colored Pillar above his head was no longer falling onto him.

Each drop that fell from the pillar seemed guided by an invisible force, flying toward Hua Jian and merging into her chest despite her frantic, unwilling waving.

One side wanted it but couldn’t get it; the other didn’t want it but was force-fed. It was truly a joke of fate.

At the same time, the golden light of the Colored Scroll in the sky faded, turning into a streak of light that shot toward Hua Jian.

In almost the blink of an eye, it seemed Hua Jian had obtained all the treasures of the Secret Realm.

Yet what drove the Chai Family Patriarch to the brink of madness was still to come.

The Colored Pillar above his head shattered, and a stream of condensed Spirit Liquid of the Soul gushed out.

Outside, every drop of Spirit Liquid of the Soul was a priceless treasure. Now, in this place, it was pouring out in a stream!

If he could acquire all of it, his Chai Family would surely become a renowned power in Central Continent, perhaps even rivaling the Sacred Sect…

Yes, that was truly what he thought now. Such was the price of absorbing the Spirit Liquid of the Soul.

He had gone completely mad, unable to realize that such a vast amount of Spirit Liquid of the Soul was not something a mere Chai Family could possess.

But all he could do was dream, because the stream was already flying toward Hua Jian, just like before, merging into her chest.

“I think…something is growing in my chest.” Hua Jian pointed at her not-so-well-developed chest and frowned.

It wasn’t her who was absorbing the Spirit Liquid of the Soul, but rather something unknown inside her, yet she could clearly feel its growth.

Not caring whether it was improper, Hua Jian loosened her collar and saw a colored pattern forming on her originally fair chest.

The pattern resembled a blooming flower, ethereal and dreamlike, as if not of this world.

As the Spirit Liquid of the Soul continued to pour in, the pattern formed rapidly, soon reaching half completion.

Or rather…it was becoming a budding flower.

The Flower Pattern was formed, and with further infusion, the little flower grew, but it was clear that the Spirit Liquid of the Soul was not enough—the flower could only reach its current state at most.

As the flower grew, Hua Jian gained more abilities, most of them being derivatives of the colored Magic Mist. Perhaps that was the unique aspect of this little flower.

Before she could fully sense her new abilities, the Chai Family Patriarch, consumed by greed and envy, was already charging at her, demanding she spit out all the Spirit Liquid of the Soul she’d absorbed.

He had now truly stepped into the Ling Emperor stage, and though he was already crazed, he indeed possessed Ling Emperor strength.

None of those present could stop him.

A Meng rushed to block him desperately but was sent flying into a stone wall with a single punch.

A Meng, a peak Ling King, was instantly defeated—such was the power of the Chai Family Patriarch.

A frontal confrontation was impossible. Hua Jian took a deep breath and, in a flash, thought of the only possible way.

If she couldn’t fight him head-on, then she’d have to go about it the shady way!

She hadn’t even fired her Big Air Bullet yet!

With the fastest speed of her life, she grabbed her gun, fired without even aiming, and at the same time, she activated her newly acquired powers at full force.

Colored mist surged from her, centering on her, and the first to fall victim was Linglong.

The fact that there was no friendly fire setting in the real world was truly infuriating.

All the abilities Hua Jian had mastered were wide-range, indiscriminate controls, making it all too easy for allies to fall before enemies.

Not only Linglong fell, but also Chai Xianyun and the Ling King woman from Wanhuagu—one by one, they succumbed to the mist.

Chai Xianyun, being a Spirit Master, couldn’t withstand it at all and fainted on the spot.

The Ling King woman held out a bit longer, but after the Chai Family Patriarch shattered Hua Jian’s fired Jieqi Bullet with a punch, the condensed Jieqi exploded, filling the cave.

Under the assault of both types of hallucinogenic powers, she too lost consciousness.

Jieqi and the Magic Mist of the Secret Realm didn’t just add up; instead, the overlapping mists reacted in ways even Hua Jian hadn’t expected, greatly amplifying their hallucinogenic effect.

Even a determined Ling King couldn’t last long in such a mist, let alone the already crazed Chai Family Patriarch.

After his Qi deviation, the Chai Family Patriarch’s soul was even more vulnerable to hallucinations than an average Ling King, and even the Wanhuagu Ling King couldn’t compare.

Struck by the Jieqi Bullet and shrouded in colored mist and Jieqi, he was immediately drawn into the illusory Dreamscape, his body freezing in midair.

“A Meng, what do we do now?” With the Chai Family Patriarch under control, Hua Jian quickly asked the still-conscious A Meng, “I can’t keep this up much longer!”

Releasing such a wide range of colored mist consumed a tremendous amount of spiritual power.

Hua Jian’s energy was dropping chunk by chunk, and within a few sentences, she was struggling to maintain the mist.

Worse, as it was her first time using this ability, she had no fine control—only on or off.

She couldn’t reduce its output to target just the Chai Family Patriarch.

“His soul is lost in the Dreamscape now. Let’s go in and kill him!” A Meng had just extracted herself from the stone, but her aura was much weaker than before, clearly badly injured.

Fortunately, real-world injuries didn’t impact her fighting power much in the Dreamscape.

She flapped her wings vigorously, and as their edges blurred further, Hua Jian saw A Meng slowly disappear from her view.

Was A Meng entering the Dreamscape to deal with the Chai Family Patriarch?

“I should be able to get in too, right?”

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than her vision blacked out.

With a feeling of weightlessness, as if descending in an elevator, she opened her eyes to find herself in a new space.

Unlike previous Dreamscapes, this one had no heavenly omens above and wasn’t very large—just a few miles in each direction, with boundaries in sight.

Surrounding the space was a ring of deep, pitch-black unknown void. One glance made Hua Jian feel a trace of fear; once fallen into it, there would be no return.

Boom! Swoosh!

At the center of the space, a stitched-together monstrosity radiating black energy was battling several people.

Among them, Hua Jian recognized the little dragon girl and A Meng, as well as a woman with a snake’s tail.

As for Chai Xianyun, who had been pulled in by accident, she was sitting dazedly on the grass, a bystander with no emotional investment.

Surprisingly, Chai Xianyun had grown a pair of cat ears. She really must love cats.

“You’re…Hua Jian?” The voice from behind made Chai Xianyun turn around, her eyes widening at the sight of Dreamscape Hua Jian.

The Hua Jian in the Dreamscape looked completely different from the one outside, and her current form had changed even more dramatically from the start.

The most obvious change was that several thin branches now sprouted directly from her chest.

These branches, like arm ornaments, wound down her left arm and wrapped into a colorful Floral Bracelet around her wrist.

But these were no mere accessories.

When Hua Jian tugged at them, she felt a very real sensation—just like when she’d grown the little flower sharing Soul Energy with Linglong.

Tugging hard brought a pain as if her very soul were being pulled.

I know you’re shocked, but don’t be—I don’t know why I turned out like this either. Hua Jian sighed and reached into the air, summoning her trusty repair gun.

“We’re about to kill your father. Any thoughts?”

“None. Call me cold-blooded or unfilial, I don’t want to think about anything right now.” Chai Xianyun’s face darkened with a sigh.

So much had happened recently that she felt utterly exhausted and didn’t care about past grievances.

The thought of watching these people kill her biological father should have made her furious, made her want to stop them, but faced with the reality, she found herself indifferent.

“He didn’t care about you either, so don’t stress.” Hua Jian curled her lip.

Between the Chai Family Patriarch and Chai Xianyun, it was probably just a biological tie. “And even if we don’t act, your father won’t survive.”

For cultivators, Qi deviation meant death. The Chai Family Patriarch’s fate had been sealed when he went mad for the Spirit Liquid of the Soul.

With that, Hua Jian tapped her toes and, like a fragrant breeze, flew toward the massive stitched monstrosity that was the Chai Family Patriarch.