Chapter 142: Shen Lao’s Anger
The passage Shen Lao led them through was unlike anything they had encountered in the Leviathan’s anatomy. These tunnels pulsed with a different rhythm—faster, more urgent, as if they were moving through the creature’s cardiovascular system itself. The walls here were lined with thick, rope-like structures that Lin realized were major blood vessels, each one thicker than his torso.
"Stay close to the center," Shen Lao warned, his body shifted to human appearance—a tall, lean man with the same midnight-blue hair. "The vessel walls are under tremendous pressure. If one ruptures..."
His warning proved prophetic as the rising temperature from the BloodGate’s activation caused the Levithan’s biology to become increasingly unstable. One of the smaller vessels burst as they passed, spraying them with scalding hot blood that hissed where it touched their clothes and skin.
"The heat is affecting her entire system," Lin observed, maintaining her ice barrier. "Her heart rate is increasing, blood pressure is rising. She’s going into shock."
The tunnel ahead opened into a larger chamber, this one clearly serving as some kind of junction where multiple blood vessels converged. But they weren’t alone. Figures emerged from side passages—other prisoners who had found their way into this part of the Levithan.
Unlike Shen Lao, these creatures had been completely broken by their imprisonment. Some were dragons who had forgotten their true forms entirely, crawling on all fours and snapping at shadows. Others were sea creatures that had been transformed by the Levithan’s digestive processes into something barely recognizable as their original species.
"Fresh meat," one of them hissed—a creature that might once have been a dragon but now resembled a twisted fusion of scales and exposed bone. "New blood for the Mother’s heart."
"They think we’re food," Suanni realized, flames beginning to gather around his mane.
"They’re beyond reason," Shen Lao said sadly, his human form tensing as the mad prisoners began to circle them. "Centuries in this place have reduced them to bare instincts."