The Samsara Jade

Chapter 17

The roar of the giant monster hit Li Chen like a solid wall of heavy stones. The terrible sound blasted away the purple fog, creating a massive, empty circle in the air. 

Li Chen stood his ground. Just a few minutes ago, he had absorbed a huge amount of the deadly purple miasma. His body felt bloated and packed with dark Qi. He had felt the power of the Third Level of Qi Condensation rushing through his veins. He felt invincible. He held Enforcer Mo’s long blue sword tightly in his hand, ready to fight the giant beast. 

"I am not afraid of you!" Li Chen shouted. He pushed all his new, dark Qi into the blue sword. The blade glowed with a fierce, blinding light. 

The giant monster looked down at him. Its green eyes, the size of carriage wheels, showed no fear. They only showed annoyance. To the ancient beast, Li Chen was just a tiny, noisy insect. 

Suddenly, a massive shadow moved in the fog. It was the monster’s tail. 

The tail was covered in thick, dark grey scales. It was as wide as a house and as long as a river. It whipped through the air with terrifying, blinding speed. The air itself seemed to scream as the tail ripped through it. 

Li Chen’s enhanced senses saw the tail coming. He raised the glowing blue sword to block the attack. 

CRASH! 

The moment the giant tail touched the sword, Li Chen realized his terrible mistake. 

The blue sword, a high-quality weapon of the Enforcement Hall, instantly shattered into a thousand tiny, broken pieces. The metal snapped like dry wood. 

But the tail did not stop. It slammed directly into Li Chen’s chest. 

The force was unimaginable. It was not a fight; it was an execution. 

Li Chen was launched backward through the air like a broken doll. He flew over a hundred feet in a single second. 

The dark Qi inside his body, which he thought was so strong, instantly collapsed under the massive pressure. He smashed violently into the rocky floor of the chasm. 

BOOM! 

The ground beneath him cracked and broke apart. A deep, narrow crevice suddenly opened up in the rocky floor. 

Li Chen fell into the dark hole, tumbling down another thirty feet before finally hitting the cold, hard bottom. 

"Argh!" Li Chen screamed in absolute agony. 

His body was completely ruined. The massive impact had forced the unstable, bloated miasma energy out of his meridians. The dark Qi leaked out of his skin like air escaping from a broken balloon. 

Worse, his legs, which had just been hastily healed by the wild poison, shattered into dozens of pieces again. The bones snapped. The muscles tore. He was thrown back into the exact same broken state he had been in before. 

High above him, the giant monster approached the crevice. The ground shook with its heavy footsteps. 

Thump. Thump. Thump. 

The monster lowered its massive, terrifying head. It tried to push its giant jaws into the crack in the earth to eat Li Chen. But the crevice was too narrow. The monster’s head could not fit. 

Furious, the beast raised a giant, scaled claw. It slashed at the rocky ground above Li Chen. 

SKREEE! 

Bright yellow sparks flew as the massive claws scraped against the hard stone. Huge chunks of rock fell down into the crevice, narrowly missing Li Chen’s head. 

Li Chen lay at the bottom of the dark hole, covered in his own blood. He could not move his arms. He could not move his legs. He could only watch in terror as the giant monster tried to dig him out. 

But the stone of the Beast Chasm was incredibly hard. After ten minutes of angry digging, the monster gave up. It let out one final, frustrated roar, and turned away. The heavy footsteps slowly faded into the distance. 

Li Chen was left alone in the deep, dark crevice. He tried to gather his Qi. He tried to heal himself again. But his dantian was completely empty. 

The powerful Third Level cultivation he thought he had achieved was completely gone. He was back to being a broken, weak boy. 

"Why?" Li Chen whispered, tears of pain and frustration leaking from his eyes. "I absorbed the poison. I broke through. Why did the power disappear?"

"Because it was fake," a weak, tired voice echoed in his mind. 

It was Old Kui. 

"You ate too much, too fast," the ancient dragon-turtle scolded him. "You swallowed a massive amount of wild poison, but you did not digest it. You just let it fill your body like water filling a cheap clay pot. The power made you feel strong, but it was just a bloated illusion. It was not real cultivation."

"But I felt it," Li Chen argued weakly. "I felt the Third Level."

"A fat pig is heavy, but it is not a strong dragon," Old Kui said strictly. "When that beast hit you, the cheap clay pot of your body broke. The false energy leaked out. You are lucky you did not explode from the inside."

Li Chen closed his eyes. The pain in his shattered legs was unbearable. "Then what do I do now? I am broken again. I cannot move."

"Now, you learn patience," Old Kui replied. His voice was fading fast. "You are trapped in this hole. The beast cannot reach you. This is the perfect place. Over the next few days, the ambient poison in the fog will naturally seep down into this crevice. Do not eat it all at once. Take it slow. Let the Chaos Root truly digest the ambient poison. Let it forge your body properly. If you survive, you will understand true power."

The voice vanished. Old Kui was asleep again. 

Li Chen was alone in the dark. And so began three grueling days of immobility. 

…

The first twenty-four hours were a waking nightmare. 

Li Chen lay on his back on the cold, hard stone. He could not move his body at all. His shattered legs throbbed with a hot, stabbing pain. Every time his heart beat, it sent a wave of fresh agony through his broken bones. 

He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was terrified. 

Slowly, the heavy, glowing purple fog from the chasm above began to drift down into the narrow crevice. 

The toxic air surrounded him. It touched his skin. Because his false Qi was gone, the miasma started to burn him again. Small blisters formed on his arms. The terrible hissing sound of acid eating flesh returned. 

"No," Li Chen told himself. "I will not panic. I will do it right this time."

He did not open his mouth wide and suck in the fog like a wild vacuum. Instead, he calmed his mind. He ignored the terrible pain in his legs. He focused entirely on the Heavenly Void Devouring Art. 

He activated the Swallowing the Heavens' Breath technique, but he kept it very, very slow. 

Instead of a rushing river, the purple miasma entered his body like a slow, steady drip of water. 

Drop. Drop. Drop. 

The toxic energy entered his pores. It traveled slowly down into his dantian. The Primordial Chaos Root, sensing the small amount of food, did not act wildly. It acted like a careful blacksmith.