Plague Rat stood beside the mist sphere, his hands outstretched as death qi surged wildly within him.
He grit his teeth, his face turning purple from the strain. "Hurry up! Lord Rat is about to give out! These things are too heavy!"
Over a hundred hundred corpse patchwork were already stuffed inside the mist sphere, struggling and pressing their rotting bodies against each other as pus flowed down the inner walls.
Seen from within the Ghost Domain, it looked like a massive pot of rotten meat soup.
Plague Rat didn't dare relax for a second; if even a bit of that soup leaked out, it would be a catastrophe for the Earth Dissolving Cave.
Scorpion Demon was also helping, dragging his injured leg.
He didn't dare get close to those hundred corpse patchwork, so he stood on the periphery, driving back the terrified little demons. "Get lost! Don't block the way! Do you want to die?!"
The little demons scrambled to hide; some squeezed into rock crevices, some climbed stalactites, and others simply lay flat on the ground, clutching their heads and trembling.
Chen Zhou stood at the tunnel entrance, staring at the giant hand still squeezing its way out.
The thing was dragging itself out of the crack inch by inch; with every movement, the rock wall cracked further, and debris showered down.
Although the seventh-stage giant hand was lower in cultivation than his current level, the problem was that he couldn't just kill it recklessly.
If such a massive thing were to shatter, how many marks would it leave behind?
Chen Zhou didn't dare gamble, so he used Hate Prison.
Countless bone spikes emerged from the void, carefully avoiding the giant hand and interweaving around it to pin it within a relatively small area.
The giant hand struggled, and the bone spikes screeched with friction upon impact.
Chen Zhou frowned.
This thing was incredibly strong; although his Hate Prison could lock it down, the consumption was not small.
Trying to control it without harming it was indeed a hassle.
He looked to the side; Plague Rat's mist sphere had grown to over twenty feet high, filled with the dense shadows of the hundred corpse patchwork.
Wu Gou and Jian Huaishuang were still stuffing more inside, their speed increasing.
But the hundred corpse patchwork were emerging even faster.
From all directions, gray-green figures were crawling out of the small caves.
Some were grabbed by Wu Gou just as half their bodies squeezed out of the rock cracks and were thrown directly into the mist sphere.
Others were wrapped in Jian Huaishuang's white paper as soon as they stood up from puddles and were kicked away.
Yet, their numbers continued to swell.
From the corner of his eye, Chen Zhou saw a hundred corpse patchwork reach the edge of a rock wall, reaching out to grab a little demon hiding in a crack.
The little demon looked like some kind of mole, thin as a rail and huddled in the deepest part of the crevice, shivering all over.
Watching the rotting hand draw closer, he squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.
"Aaaah!"
Hearing the scream, Scorpion Demon turned back irritably; seeing the monster so close, his expression shifted.
He lunged over with a limp, and before the hundred corpse patchwork could grab the little demon, he chopped down hard with a pincer.
Crack!
The rotting arm was severed instantly.
The severed arm fell to the ground, twitching twice before rapidly melting into a shallow humanoid mark.
Scorpion Demon didn't have time to look; he grabbed the little demon by the scruff of its neck, yanked it out of the crack, and tossed it back. "Scram!"
The little demon tumbled to the ground and scrambled away.
Scorpion Demon panted heavily, staring at the humanoid mark on the floor.
The mark was writhing, its edges curling as if something was about to crawl out from within.
His face turned ashen.
It was over.
The Earth Dissolving Cave was contaminated.
The surrounding little demons recoiled in unison.
Some covered their mouths, some stared wide-eyed, and some simply collapsed to the ground as their legs gave way.
Having lived in the Earth Dissolving Cave for decades, they knew all too well what this meant.
A piece of rotting flesh squeezed out of the newly formed humanoid mark.
The flesh writhed and rolled on the ground, merging together to quickly form a new hundred corpse patchwork.
The thing stood up wobbling and walked toward Scorpion Demon.
Scorpion Demon took a step back, then another.
But behind him was a stone wall; he had nowhere left to retreat.
Scorpion Demon closed his eyes, prepared to fight to the death with his pincers, but suddenly heard the sound of something tearing through the air.
He opened his eyes to see a pitch-black bone spear pinning the hundred corpse patchwork in front of him firmly to the ground; defiled earth seemed to come alive, wrapping around the creature layer by layer until it was encased in a grayish-white cocoon.
The bone spear was pulled up, flying back to Chen Zhou's side, and then Chen Zhou delivered a kick.
The gray cocoon flew out, landing precisely into Plague Rat's Ghost Domain.
Plague Rat cried out, "My Lord, it's really going to burst!"
Scorpion Demon froze, looking at the black-robed figure in the distance; he felt he had caused a disaster and that doom was imminent.
But Chen Zhou only gave him a glance before looking at the humanoid mark on the ground.
He raised an eyebrow and suddenly smiled.
"You did the right thing. It should have been done long ago."
Scorpion Demon was stunned, not understanding what he meant.
Chen Zhou continued, "In times like these, those who would step up to save others are few."
Scorpion Demon opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry; he didn't know what to say.
In his nearly five hundred years in the Earth Dissolving Cave, he had robbed others and been robbed. He had beaten the weak and been beaten by the strong.
But he had never saved anyone.
Today was the first time.
He didn't know why he had done it.
He just saw the little demon being grabbed, heard the scream, saw the look of despair, and had lunged forward as if possessed.
Perhaps it was the feeling he got when the little black rat saved him earlier that made him want to try it.
Scorpion Demon didn't know how to explain his irrational behavior.
Chen Zhou turned his head back toward the giant hand.
He felt Scorpion Demon had done the right thing; since it was unavoidable now, there was no need to be so restrained—decisiveness was key.
He raised his hand, and the bone spikes of the Hate Prison suddenly tightened before twisting violently.
Crack!
The giant hand was severed at the arm, crashing to the floor and instantly igniting with black Hatred Fire.
In the flames, the giant hand twitched and contorted; rotting flesh fell away piece by piece, turning into pus before being evaporated by the fire.
Several humanoid marks of varying sizes formed on the ground.
Scorpion Demon's expression changed drastically as he limped backward.
The little demons were even more terrified, running away for their lives.
Chen Zhou looked at everyone. "No need to hold back anymore."
Wu Gou was startled. "What?"
Chen Zhou said, "Wan Xiu has already noticed us; it's no coincidence that so many hundred corpse patchwork were activated at once."
"Passive defense won't clear them all out."
"The Earth Dissolving Cave cannot be saved."
Plague Rat was still a bit hesitant. "My Lord, are we really going to start killing?"
Chen Zhou nodded. "Kill them."
Plague Rat's heart eased; although he was a bit reluctant, he absolutely trusted the Lord's judgment.
Thus, Plague Rat grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. "You got it!"
He withdrew his Ghost Domain and slammed the mist sphere onto the ground.
The mist sphere exploded, and over a hundred hundred corpse patchwork fell out like dumplings, piling up into a small mountain on the floor.
Dark green mist surged out wildly, and the bodies of the hundred corpse patchwork began to fester at an accelerated rate.
Pustules burst, cracks tore open, and flesh fell away in chunks.
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