Chapter 543 - 540: Senluo Island

Chapter 543: Chapter 540: Senluo Island

"It’s simple. Just jump down and don’t think about a thing."

"When we passed through here by boat before, we’d just fall straight down the waterfall and heal ourselves at the bottom."

Xi told Li Luo not to worry and even gave her a demonstration. Without a moment’s hesitation, he leaped from the mouth of the cave into the bottomless Sea of Clouds.

Li Luo watched Xi’s figure vanish and swallowed hard.

Just then, the Block flew to her side. It was only then that she remembered she didn’t have to use such an extreme method.

"I’ll be counting on you."

Li Luo carefully climbed on top of the Block, gripping its edge tightly. To be safe, she also brought out Xiaozhi and used it to bind herself securely to the Block.

Once Li Luo was secure, Mo Ling controlled the Block, slowly flying into the Sea of Clouds.

A powerful gust of wind hit them instantly. Xiaozhi immediately unfurled a purple net, blocking the gale.

Just like that, Li Luo passed through the Sea of Clouds without incident. A small lake appeared below, likely formed by the impact of the waterfall.

Arriving above the lake, Li Luo immediately spotted Xi in the water.

He was floating face down on the surface, looking like a corpse.

The Block slowly descended next to Xi.

"Are you okay?" Li Luo shouted.

Xi slowly raised a hand. "Wait for me... I’m still healing..."

And so, only after Xi had fully recovered did he slowly start to move his arms and swim, following the floating Block to the shore.

Li Luo recalled Xiaozhi, jumped off the Block, and rolled Xi, who was lying on the shore, onto his back.

"How are you?"

"A little tired. Let me rest for a bit." Xi collapsed limply onto the ground. The ball of light on his head had dimmed considerably, and he was soaked, looking utterly wretched.

"So you had another way? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?" Xi said, a hint of complaint in his voice.

"I forgot," Li Luo answered honestly. "Besides, you jumped so decisively I didn’t even have time to stop you."

Hearing Li Luo’s words, Xi sheepishly touched the ball of light on his head.

"I don’t know why, but I was just so excited."

After drinking the black liquid his senior had given him, Xi had been filled with a rush of energy. It felt like no obstacle was a problem, and his actions had become particularly reckless. That was why he’d jumped without a second thought.

Now that the rush had worn off, he realized just how dangerous that had been.

Still, the descent had gone relatively smoothly. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

"Hang on a second. I’ve only repaired my bones and muscles. My internal organs are still shattered, so it’ll take a little more time... When I was swimming just now, my guts got all over the place."

Xi started healing himself again as he explained this to Li Luo.

Li Luo was speechless. ’These healers rely so much on their powerful abilities that they treat their own lives like they’re nothing.’

While Xi repaired his body, Li Luo began to survey the area.

The environment on Senluo Island was indeed excellent. There was a lake, a dense forest in the distance, fertile soil, and the air was warm and humid—clearly a place well-suited for life.

However, Mo Ling, inside the Block, felt that something was wrong with the island.

’What was that thing just now?’

Mo Ling sat on his sofa, carefully recalling the strange creature he had just seen in the lake.

Its body was like a crocodile’s, but it was covered in toad-like sacs. It had the tail of a fish, and a few messy tufts of feathers sprouted from its back. Its claws were crawling with colorful mushrooms. One of its eyeballs was white, with the sapling of some unknown plant growing out of the pupil. Its other eye was completely red and filled with small, sesame-seed-like dots, making it look like a giant strawberry.

The creature looked like a chimera stitched together from different life-forms; you could see traces of all sorts of organisms on it.

A creature with such a dissonant body should have been incredibly sluggish, yet it swam about the lake with vibrant energy, completely defying the laws of physics. It even curiously followed behind Xi, appearing quite intelligent.

’What in the world is that thing?’

The thought of that stitched-together monstrosity made Mo Ling’s stomach turn.

He hadn’t just seen the creature’s exterior; he had also sunk his consciousness inside the chimera’s body and witnessed an even more grotesque sight:

Part of its skeleton was coral, part was seashell, and part was ivory.

Black mold crawled through its flesh and blood, while a soft, snail-like meat constituted its stomach.

Some of its muscle tissue was replaced by flexible, bark-like fibers. The membranes between its organs had, in some places, turned into leaves, and in others, into strange films resembling the skin of a chrysalis.

Its body was filled with all kinds of glands: the venom glands of a snake, the spinnerets of a spider, the mammary glands of a mammal, and even the resin ducts of a plant.

The nerve bundles in its brain spread in every direction, growing wild. At times they became fungal mycelium, at others they resembled a plant’s root system. The brain tissue itself was an incomprehensible liquid slurry, a "paste."

The most baffling part was that all these completely unrelated organs actually functioned properly. It was like assembling a pile of mismatched parts into a machine that ran perfectly.

Mo Ling couldn’t believe what he was seeing was a real, living creature.

’Could this be a species unique to Senluo Island? Am I just ignorant, underestimating the wonders of the Abyss?’

’Or is this just a characteristic of the island itself?’

With this thought, Mo Ling began searching the shoreline again.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Mo Ling found more of these stitched-together creatures.

Stitched earthworms, stitched water striders, stitched centipedes...

Aside from their basic silhouettes, it was impossible to tell what these creatures truly were. Their bodies and organs were composed of all sorts of strange parts.

But strangely, their behaviors were almost completely unchanged.

The earthworm burrowed through the soil, the water strider stood lightly on the water’s surface, and the centipede lay motionless, hiding under a rock...

Everything was so normal, yet so utterly bizarre.

Mo Ling’s consciousness drifted farther and farther, until it entered the distant forest.

The moment he entered the forest, the scene before him left him stunned once more.

The forest was a vibrant green and seemed to have nothing strange about it. But upon closer inspection, those weren’t leaves hanging from the trees...

Green fish scales, green pieces of shell, green chunks of meat, green feathers, and even green eyeballs... They all hung together in a tangled mess, swaying in the wind and making bizarre clattering sounds as they knocked against each other.

The green was vibrant and full of life, but what hung from the trees were not true leaves. Which meant, of course, that the branches were not true branches either.

Mo Ling couldn’t watch any longer. He recoiled in horror, pulling his consciousness back. The sight of those swaying body parts made him sick to his stomach.

’So this is what Xi meant by "rich in species"?’