The Samsara Jade

Chapter 15

Li Chen thought of his murdered family. He thought of the arrogant faces of the Azure Sword Sect elders. He remembered the feeling of power when he killed Deacon Lin. He refused to die in this dirty hole. 

"If the heavens want me dead, I will eat the heavens!" Li Chen thought wildly. He moved his hands away from his mouth. 

He opened his mouth wide. He closed his eyes. And he activated the Heavenly Void Devouring Art. 

Li Chen took a massive, deep breath of the deadly purple miasma. 

At the exact same time, he used his mind to forcefully open all the millions of tiny pores on his melting, blistering skin. 

He turned his entire body into a giant, hungry vacuum. 

WHOOSH! 

The glowing purple fog around him suddenly swirled violently. It did not just float gently into his mouth. It rushed toward him like a wild river crashing into a deep hole. 

The thick, toxic clouds were sucked violently into his nose, his mouth, and directly through the open pores of his skin. Agony. Total, absolute, mind-breaking agony. 

The moment the purple miasma entered Li Chen’s throat, it felt like someone had poured a bucket of boiling liquid iron down his neck. 

The acid burned his tongue, it melted the inside of his throat, and it flooded into his lungs with the force of a hot fire. 

"AHHHHHHHHH!" 

Li Chen let out a horrible, blood-curdling scream that echoed loudly off the chasm walls. His body violently convulsed. His back arched off the muddy ground. His hands curled into tight, shaking claws. 

Tears of blood leaked from his eyes. Every single nerve inside his body was screaming in pure panic. 

The poison was trying to turn his internal organs into liquid mush. But then, the dark tattoo on his chest reacted. 

The small, dark vortex in the center of the dragon-turtle tattoo suddenly spun with furious speed. It began to glow with a deep, bottomless black light. 

The Primordial Chaos Root, hidden deep inside his dantian, finally woke up fully. 

It sensed the massive amount of energy entering the body. It did not care that the energy was wrapped in deadly poison. To the Chaos Root, food was food. 

A powerful, dark suction force exploded from Li Chen’s stomach. It acted like a massive, unstoppable black hole. 

Before the purple acid could completely melt Li Chen’s lungs and heart, the dark gravity of the Chaos Root grabbed the poison. It violently ripped the purple miasma out of his blood and organs, dragging it all down into the dark vortex in his stomach. 

The internal battle was completely terrifying. 

Li Chen lay shaking in the mud, feeling his stomach turn into a violent battlefield. The highly corrosive poison fought against the dark power of the Chaos Root. 

But the Chaos Root was an ancient, godly thing. It was absolute destruction. 

Like a giant stone wheel grinding up tiny grains of wheat, the Chaos Root crushed the purple poison. It chewed it up ruthlessly. It ripped apart the burning acid, completely destroying the toxic shell, and dug out the pure, wild, ancient spiritual energy hidden inside. 

The terrible burning pain in Li Chen’s chest suddenly stopped. 

Instead of pain, a massive explosion of cold, pure, dark Qi flooded his body. 

Because the purple miasma had been gathering in this chasm for thousands of years, the energy hidden inside it was incredibly thick and rich. It was a hundred times more powerful than the thin rain energy Li Chen had eaten back in the courtyard. 

The Chaos Root poured this massive river of dark Qi back into Li Chen’s ruined body. 

The results were instant and miraculous. 

First, the dark Qi rushed to his skin. The horrible yellow blisters that covered his chest and arms popped, but they did not leak blood. Instead, black impurities and dead skin were pushed out. 

Beneath the dead skin, new flesh grew at a visible speed. It was not the soft, pale skin of a weak boy. The new skin was smooth, tight, and incredibly tough. It glowed with a faint, healthy light. The dark Qi acted like an invisible shield just under the surface, completely blocking the acid fog from burning him anymore. 

Li Chen stopped shaking. He opened his eyes. He watched in pure amazement as the terrible burns on his hands completely vanished, replaced by perfect, strong flesh. 

"It works," Li Chen gasped. He took another deep breath of the purple fog. 

This time, there was no pain. The fog rushed into his lungs, the Chaos Root instantly grabbed it, crushed the poison, and turned it into pure power. It was like breathing in sweet, cool mountain air. 

"More," Li Chen whispered. "I need more."

He sat up in the mud. He crossed his broken legs as best as he could, ignoring the terrible grinding of his shattered bones. He closed his eyes and began to circulate the Swallowing the Heavens' Breath technique at full speed. 

The suction force from his body increased by ten times. 

A massive whirlpool of glowing purple fog formed around Li Chen. He was sitting directly in the eye of a toxic hurricane. The deadly miasma rushed into him from all directions. 

The dark Qi inside his body grew rapidly. It was a massive, rushing river of power. The Qi flowed down to his shattered legs. 

CRUNCH. POP. SNAP. 

Loud, sickening noises filled the air, but Li Chen did not scream. He smiled. He could feel his broken bones moving. 

The dark Qi grabbed the dozens of sharp, broken bone pieces in his legs. With brutal force, it pushed them all back together. It acted like magical, unbreakable glue. It sealed the cracks. It rebuilt the torn muscles. It created stronger, thicker blood vessels. 

In less than three minutes, his shattered legs were completely healed. In fact, they were much stronger than they had ever been. 

But the energy from the miasma did not stop there. It kept coming. The Chaos Root kept pumping out huge amounts of dark Qi. 

Li Chen felt his cultivation base expanding rapidly. The barrier holding him at the First Level of Qi Condensation trembled. 

BOOM! 

A muffled explosion echoed inside Li Chen’s body. A ring of dark air blasted out from his skin, pushing the purple fog away for a second.