The natural shelf where Yu Han’s group had hidden provided a precarious viewing point. If not for the talismans, the slithering Redgrass Beak Vipers below and the flying Redgrass Viper Hawks above would have already noticed them.

Pale green bog moss crept right up to the edge of the cenote’s throat, making the footing treacherous. But the limestone was pockmarked with small solution holes, creating a lace-like pattern that extended down into the darkness. In some places, tree roots had forced their way through the rock, dangling down like gnarled ropes.

They followed the mossy shelf around the edge until they found enough leeway to step on the solution holes, grab the dangling roots, and latch on to the columns leading down.

“D-Don’t slip,” Huang Niuniu said.

Li Yao was the first to slide down. He jumped down halfway from the column, landing on a dry rocky patch between the flowing, bubbling red pool.

He was followed by Fang Zhao, Huang Niuniu, and finally Yu Han.

“Don’t break the column,” Huang Niuniu urged from below.

“Are you calling me fat?” Yu Han said, cursing.

She looked away, and Yu Han safely descended.

“In hindsight, we could have used rope,” he complained as he thumped down after a light jump. Thankfully, the concealment talisman shrouded the sound.

The day was dying. There wasn’t much light. These Beak Vipers didn’t have the tongues of snakes, so maybe they couldn’t sense with heat, but had to rely on their hawk-like eyes? The Viper Hawks could probably detect them if close enough.

“How do we do this?” Li Yao asked.

“Take out the beasts one by one,” Yu Han said. “Once it’s safe, Fang Zhao goes into the pool. If your Cyclic Lifeblood Conversion Art works, all good. If not, well, at least we tried.”

Fang Zhao nodded. He had to be the most anxious out of all of them.

“If you need to use the lanterns, potions, and elixirs, go ahead,” Yu Han added.

“But—”

“Pay us back later,” Yu Han emphasised. Protagonists in stories always end up using most of the good stuff in their death-defying breakthroughs. I can’t say this is much more than a gamble, but Johan, you need to trust in others and trust in fate. We are too far away from Level 10 to use the Rot-Negating Body Tempering Elixirs.

In reality, Yu Han was Johan with another brain. They were one and the same. Letting Fang Zhao use their share of stuff felt like pulling a tooth out. But he had decided to nurture connections of goodwill, no matter how small. Come on, me! Don’t think about ROI. Just… live in the present.

“I won’t need them,” Fang Zhao said. “But if I do, thanks. My debt grows, but—”

“Shush.” Li Yao raised a hand.

The bubbles rising from the depths of the pool created rippling patterns across the surface, distorting the reflections of the stalactites above. Sometimes larger bubbles emerged, spreading out in rings that caught the wan light, making the whole pool glow momentarily before fading back to deep crimson.

A bubble burst, and from it, a Redgrass Beak Viper slithered out. It was barely ten feet away.

The air carried a sharp, metallic scent mingled with the earthy decay of the surrounding bog that not even the helmet could fully block.

The beast slithered towards them.

At the edges where the pool met the cenote walls, mineral deposits had created delicate rimstone dams, forming tiny terraces that held small pools of the red liquid. They caught and reflected what little light reached them, creating an eerie constellation of blood-red mirrors around the main pool's circumference.

And as time passed, these mirrors rippled. More Redgrass Beak Vipers slithered out of them.

Their numbers rose. A few dozen, then hundreds. On the edges of the cenote throat, the speleothems, the limestone shelves, and the walls of the rimstone dams, Bloodgrass Viper Hawks perched, numbering just as many.

“W-What’s going on?” Huang Niuniu squirmed.

“Quiet, Cow Girl,” Li Yao said.

As one, the creatures opened their mouths. Monsters, Primals, all. A single drop of blood fell from each of their snake and bird tongues, falling into the pool.

Where each drop landed, a red light would appear. These motes of light headed deep within the cenote, far beyond where the natural light reached. They illuminated small islands, walls, and dams full of blood-red ferns. In the light, the blood in the pools looked even more vibrant. Fresher, as if rejuvenated.

“Lesser Nurturing Bloodferns,” Yu Han gasped.

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There were enough here for—

“There have to be thousands of stalks!”

The light flowed deep and vanished. A rumble came, as if in reply.

The hundreds of creatures flew and slithered deep into the cave. Sounds of munching on vegetables came. Another hour went by.

The piece of sky they saw from the cenote hole, peeking through the canopy above, lost its iridescence. Now it was the dark of night, but the clouds gleamed in unnatural hues, soft prisms of blue, violet, green, and grey.

The beasts returned. The Bloodgrass Viper Hawks flew out, while the Bloodgrass Beak Vipers climbed up the columns and slid into holes. Before long, only a few dozen Beak Vipers remained.

“They’re probably going out to hunt,” Li Yao said. “Or sleep.”

“What matters is that they aren’t here,” Yu Han said. He held his halberd. “Wait half an hour. Then we strike.”

“H-Han’er.” Huang Niuniu held his arm. “What was that growl? If there are more than a thousand bloodferns, doesn’t that mean there’s a Level 10 beast here?”

“Was it a growl though?”

“The sound that came when the red light went deep into the cave. It has to be!”

“I don’t know,” Yu Han said. “It didn’t sound like a growl to me.”

“W-What if it was?”

“Then it was a growl. We have Fei Rui, we take the risk and if things go bad—” Yu Han stopped before he could jinx himself. Fang Zhao was here. Who knew what his luck would attract? “This area barely has any Level 4s. But Let’s be careful and proceed as if there was a level 10 boss. Just clear out this area. We don’t need to go in for the Bloodferns—if we can’t get any, we’ll pay the fine. But the main thing is to check if Fang Zhao can level up here.”

The best way to make an area beast-free would be to use the beast-repelling incense balls. But it had its weaknesses. If one used the incense ball in a beast’s lair like this one, it might agitate them instead, as if there was an interloper invading their homes. Usually, it was used in the wild to repel beasts from specific areas like camps.

The work went smoothly. Elite-grade talismans were really something. The beasts didn’t notice them even when they were barely a foot away. Of course, according to the description, this type of concealment talisman shrouded the smell, sound, and sight of the user from leaking out. But if they went at it with abandon, the effect of the talisman would break. Either way, it had a limited duration. One they were rapidly reaching.

The group killed one snake after another, making sure to finish the job in one strike so that the monsters and Primals couldn’t raise any death screams. Immediately after the kill, Fang Zhao would store the corpse.

They moved away from directly under the cenote’s opening. If the effect of the concealment talisman wore off while Fang Zhao was in the pool, the circling birds and slithering snakes would notice immediately.

This part of the cavernous space was dimmer, only illuminated by indirect lighting.

「No more snakies and birdies,」 Fei Rui said. 「Maybe. I don’t sense any. Maybe they’re good at hide and seek? Maybe they’re in the bloody bool. Pool. Bloody pool.」

“It’s all or nothing,” Fang Zhao muttered. He took off his Coveralls, then the outer layer of his robes.

Yu Han and Li Yao didn’t mind, but Huang Niuniu hid behind Yu Han’s width and one-mindedly guarded their rear. She held the knife now, not the whips. Lotus Razor and Pale Spine made too much noise.

As Fang Zhao dipped a toe in, the red water bubbled.

“It smells like blood and wine,” Fang Zhao said. “There’s something else. It’s preserving the blood!”

“Is it hot?” Yu Han asked.

“It’s not scalding. Only a bit hotter than the hot springs.”

There was no point if the boy was boiled alive either. “Any signs of flesh melting?”

Yu Han assumed that some variant of acidic substance was making the blood and flesh of the corpses fall off. It might be the same thing keeping the blood fresh. But he’d seen living Redgrass Beak Vipers swim in the pool without receiving damage, whereas when the monsters threw in the corpses of their brethren, they’d sink and dissolve. Either these Redgrass beasts had built-in resistance, or the substance did not harm living beings as mentioned in the Four Meditations.

Fang Zhao remained unharmed.

After some minutes, he walked into the shallows. It gradually grew deeper as he waded in. Finally, he settled into a cross-legged position with only his head sticking out.

“All good?” Yu Han asked.

Fang Zhao nodded.

“Use another concealment talisman when it runs out,” Yu Han said. That would hopefully keep the slithering beasts in the pool from noticing him.

Fang Zhao had mentioned before that he didn’t need to go into a complete trance during Cyclic Lifeblood Conversion. Though the trance certainly did help, he could remain mindful of his surroundings while doing it too.

The red-eyed boy took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. His black hair stuck to his forehead. As he breathed in to the rhythms of Calm Before the Storm Breathing Technique, the red pool around him swirled.

His Bloodline Art needed a Cultivation Art as a crux.

The swirling of the water soon turned into a whirlpool with him at the centre.

“It’s… working!” Fang Zhao said a little too loudly. “One, three, seven… It’s working.”

“Hey man, keep it quiet.” Li Yao gripped his swords tighter. Fang Zhao’s voice echoed in the cavern, though it shouldn’t have. Did the talisman wear off? The rapid whirl of blood was just as noisy. Like the gales of a storm.

“Twenty, thirty… fifty.” Fang Zhao spoke as if he was trapped in an illusion. The whirling of the blood-red pool caused the water to sometimes rise far above his head level at the edges of the whirl, blocking their view of him. Sometimes it would dip, revealing his full body sitting cross-legged on a stone slab under the pool.

Long minutes passed. Had it been an hour already?

“Eighty. Ninety… ugh,” the red-eyed boy growled. “L-Lifeforce dropping. Ninety-five. Ninety-nine.”

You can do it. Yu Han clenched his fists. His own heart rate accelerated. Huang Niuniu hugged his arm with all her strength. Fei Rui had dropped down too, perched at the very edge of stone and pool, eyestalks honed on Fang Zhao.

“One-hundred and one, One-hundred and six—”

“Did he do it?” Li Yao gasped.

“No. No. No no no no!” Fang Zhao roared. “Ninety-seven. One-hundred and three. No! No! You will not take any more of my True Qi!” His voice broke through any concealment the talisman had created.

Hissing and flaps of wings came from the other parts of the cenote cavern.

「Yu Han, it’s coming,」 Fei Rui started growing.

The pool water around Fang Zhao had now swirled into a whirlpool that just about covered this part of the body of water. As the water roiled, a bed of bones and goo-like flesh revealed itself from the deepest part. The blood-soaked water moved so fast that wind itself picked up speed.

The birds cawed, the snakes hissed.

“No! I will not give up!” Fang Zhao took out a Lantern of the Blue-Veined Underspore and devoured it. Was his lifeforce so low?

Behind, a large dome rose in the red, disregarding the whirling currents.

The dome got bigger and bigger until it burst apart, revealing a titanic Redgrass Beak Viper as thick as a truck wheel. Just the part of its body above the bloody water rose higher than a single-story building.

“Fuck,” Yu Han whimpered.

「It’s not a monster,」 Fei Rui said, now to his full size of a mini-truck. 「But it wants to eat us. So it’s a baddie!」

The dark brown eye of the Primal beast radiated penetrating, predatory malice. It eyed Fang Zhao, then Fei Rui and the three humans around the crab, with sniper-cold precision.