Chapter 470: The Living Cave III

"Now there is only one question left, why did you try to hide something like this?" Lian asked without taking his eyes off the huge egg.

Ezrak’s smile stayed still for a few seconds.

Then he raised his index finger and gently tapped his temple twice.

"Hide it? No, no... I didn’t hide it, you just finally asked the right question." He shook his head as if correcting a child’s mistake.

"What’s the difference?" The young Vorhelm raised an eyebrow, although his tone was more sarcastic and he knew that this bastard was simply hiding the truth.

The white-eyed man gave a quick look at the walls around them.

The thick veins inside the cave’s flesh were still slowly beating, and black, golden, and red fluids were moving through different paths.

"It makes a big difference, a womb doesn’t just give food, it protects, repairs, kills threats, chooses the needed materials, and keeps its child alive." He placed his hand on the living wall.

The flesh under his palm contracted like a tamed animal.

"And when it thinks its child is dying... it does some very stupid things."

"What kind of stupid things?" Lian paused at the last sentence.

"I’m not telling you." Ezrak’s smile suddenly became wider.

"Why?"

"Because you are exactly the kind of person who, if someone tells you not to touch something, the first thing you do is go and touch it."

He only looked at him for a few seconds and then let out a short sigh.

"Your understanding of my personality is very insulting."

"But it’s not wrong." The white-eyed man shrugged.

Lian said nothing, unfortunately, it really was not wrong but there was a bigger problem.

The last few minutes had proven one thing completely; cutting off the arms, destroying the organs, freezing the veins, or even burning huge parts of this cave was not enough.

This thing grew back again, every wound closed and every organ was replaced.

And if the entire cave was going to keep rebuilding itself forever, he could fight it here for several more days and in the end only waste his own mana.

So he had to find another method, besides, he felt that maybe by killing this cave he could kill that Calamity Seed as well.

His eyes stopped on one of the thick veins inside the wall.

[ True Sequence ]

The world around him did not change, but his mind began to break down the thing in front of him.

The flow of mana, nerve pulses, contraction cycles, fluid transfer paths, and the way Ezrak’s commands were received and turned into biological reactions.

Before this, he had only followed the structure of its attacks, but this time he was reading the creature itself.

Information entered his mind one after another.

One hundred paths.

Two hundred.

Five hundred.

More.

Almost every part of the cave could react independently, but .... that was exactly where the mistake was, it could react independently, but it did not have true independence.

The veins connected to larger branches, the branches connected to main paths, and the main paths eventually returned to several specific points.

Lian narrowed his eyes slightly, he had found them, three huge organs that existed in three different parts of the womb.

One was responsible for spreading blood and biological materials, one was responsible for filtering and transferring mana and the third controlled the nervous system and regeneration.

Three growth nodes.

But even they were not the highest part of the structure, the three paths came together again at a point near the Calamity Seed’s chamber.

Something else was there that was bigger and more important, and almost all vital commands passed through it.

Lian slowly smiled.

"What did you find?" Ezrak noticed immediately and suddenly felt something bad.

But he did not answer, instead he moved his right leg back, mana gathered in his legs.

The white-eyed man was still watching him when .... Boom!

[ Thunder Step ]

Lian was thrown toward the left side of the cave like a blue-purple lightning bolt.

"Oh?" Ezrak was surprised for a moment, then his smile returned almost immediately.

The living walls moved, four bone pillars came out of the floor and blocked the young Vorhelm’s path but he did not change his path, there was no need.

[ Frost Dominion ]

The air in front of him turned white. Ice spread over the bones like a wave and covered their surface in a few moments.

Lian pulled his right fist back.

[ Thunder Calamity ]

[ Glacial Reaper Claw ]

A huge ice claw formed over his hand, with lightning covering it and shining around it, and then he moved it forward.

His fist hit the first pillar.

Boom!

The ice and bone exploded together and the pieces flew through the air.

Lian passed through them and two fleshy arms came out of the wall, one toward his neck and the other toward his legs.

His body instantly turned into ash.

[ Ash Step ]

The claws passed through the ash and hit each other, and he formed again four meters ahead.

Now he was only a few steps away from the first node and he saw it behind several layers of flesh.

A nearly round mass almost three meters wide, covered in thick red veins that spread nutrients through the entire womb with every beat.

"Wait..." Ezrak finally understood and his smile disappeared, now he understood the reason for that bad feeling!

Lian placed his hand on the ground and released cold, ice passed through the skin and flesh and entered the veins connected to the first node.

"What are you doing?" The white-eyed man asked louder this time and anxiety and worry could be felt in his voice.

He did not answer, the ice reached the node.

Crack...

The red flesh began to turn white, the liquid inside it froze, the first beat slowed down, the second beat stopped halfway, and the third... never came.

The first growth node stopped moving and the entire cave shook for a moment, hundreds of veins on one side of the creature’s body became still.

"Lian!!!!!!" Ezrak’s face changed.

But Lian not only completely ignored him, he also used that same frozen network, placed his palm on the ice and lightning crawled over his fingers.

[ Thunder Calamity ]

Krrrrrrr!

Lightning entered the ice network and the electric current jumped from one branch to another and moved through the depths of the womb like a deadly disease.

"No—" The white-eyed man opened his eyes wider.

Boom!

An explosion came from another part of the cave and the second node was not even in Lian’s field of view, but the frozen network was directly connected to it.

The lightning entered the organ from inside and the mana-filtering tissues lit up for a moment.

Then ... they burned.

Golden liquid sprayed out from several exploded veins and a large part of the cave’s blue lights suddenly went out.

"Lian!" Ezrak was no longer smiling, and that coldness had returned to his eyes, because he had understood what this boy was doing.

"Now is not the time to talk, enjoy the show." The young Vorhelm moved toward the third node without stopping.

"No, now is exactly the time to talk!" The white-eyed man raised his hands.

The entire cave reacted and a bone wall grew in front of Lian.

Then a second one.

And a third.

Each one was thicker than the one before it, as if the womb had understood what was happening but he also no longer planned to break each one with his fists.

He raised his right hand, mana was pulled toward his palm and this time the skill formed faster than the first time.

A huge aura appeared.

But not fifteen meters, rather around ten meters, this time his goal was to create a smaller but more destructive palm.

[ Suppressing Palm ]

He pushed his palm forward.

BOOOOOOM!

The huge pressure hit the three bone walls, the first one broke apart at once, the second was pushed several meters inward.

The third resisted for one second and then hundreds of its bones broke at the same time.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

The broken mass was pushed inward and the third node was behind it and the palm reached it without stopping.

The huge organ was crushed from every direction for a moment.

Then.... Splatter!

It exploded and black and red liquid splashed across the walls and all three nodes stopped at the same time and the entire womb began to convulse.

The floor under the young Vorhelm’s feet moved up and down several times, the walls contracted and hundreds of mouths inside the flesh opened, but they made no sound.

The veins were beating in an irregular way, some parts began to die and some others desperately tried to repair themselves.

"You’re killing the womb!." And Ezrak truly looked terrified.

"You finally understood." Lian turned his head toward him.

"No, idiot!" The man’s scream spread through the entire cave and this time there was nothing childish in his voice.

"I mean you’re killing the womb itself!"

"That is exactly my goal." The young Vorhelm raised an eyebrow.

Ezrak started running but not toward Lian, instead he ran toward the center of the cave where the chamber was located.

"You don’t understand! If the womb completely dies, I don’t know what will happen to me either!"

"Didn’t you make all of this? How do you not know what will happen after that? You’re lying again." Lian paused for a moment.

"I made it, then I let it grow!" the white-eyed man said angrily and opened his hand toward the living walls.

"You think I still wrote down every single one of its instincts? Designed every single one of its responses? This thing has grown for years, changed, and learned!"

His white eyes stayed on the chamber for a moment.

"Even I don’t know everything it can do now."