The Infernal Plane: Book 5 of the Coiling Dragon Saga

by Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi

  57

  Head Out, Stay Behind?

  Phusro’s voice still echoed in their ears, but he himself was gone.

  “That Phusro… really is weird.” Bebe blinked his eyes twice, still feeling rather dazed.

  Linley lowered his head to look at the hundred plus interspatial rings hovering in his palm. Amongst them were mostly the interspatial rings of Gods, but also many of Highgods. “So many interspatial rings, with even Highgod interspatial rings amongst them. This is really a treasure that just fell down out of nowhere.”

  Linley felt joyful.

  “That Phusro actually gave us so many interspatial rings.” Delia sighed in amazement as well.

  “So like I said, that guy’s head isn’t working. However, it’s broken in a good way.” Bebe chortled.

  Linley shook his head. “Bebe, you can’t say that. Phusro’s experiences and ours are different. A trillion years of depression, of silent endurance. Only an extraordinary person would be able to endure so much. After finally being released one day, he was just venting.”

  Delia nodded slightly as well.

  Whether it was his attack on Learmonth or his chat with Linley’s group, it was all a form of venting.

  “Oh.” Bebe nodded in understanding, his eyes shining. “After venting, he casually tossed these little baubles to us. Phusro really is stingy though. Why didn’t he give us Elquin’s interspatial ring? That old fellow’s wealth is definitely astonishing.”

  Linley and Delia were momentarily speechless.

  “Just kidding.” Bebe chortled, and then looked at the hundred plus interspatial rings in Linley’s hand. “Boss, so many interspatial rings. How many treasures do you think are inside them? I’ll take a look first.” Bebe clearly seemed quite eager. “I love investigating the treasures within interspatial rings.”

  “Why the rush?” Flipping his hand, Linley stored away all of the interspatial rings.

  “Right now, we need to first decide what we are going to do next. We can look at interspatial rings later.” Linley glanced at his surroundings. The volcano range had disappeared, causing this area to once more return to its flat surface. The hazy, dim light of the Violet Moon shone down from the night sky.

  The gauze-like violet moonlight shone down, filling the world with an ancient, vast aura.

  Delia frowned slightly. “Linley, the Infernal Realm is filled with countless dangers. It will be very hard for the three of us to rely on our own ability to reach the Rainbow Prefecture’s Bluemaple City.”

  Linley agreed as well. The three of them were all Gods. Although a Fiend’s star rank could not be distinguished, others would still be able to distinguish someone’s general level of strength. They would know Linley’s group was at the God level and not the Highgod level! Highgod Fiends, bandits wouldn’t dare to irritate.

  But God-level Fiends, bandits wouldn’t fear either.

  “To take on a mission, we would have to go to a city. The distance between each city in the Infernal Realm is vast! There’s no way for us to take on a mission right now,” Bebe said resignedly as well.

  Linley glanced at his surroundings, thinking back to some of the geographical information he had read before regarding the Infernal Realm. Moments later, he decided, “We are indeed in a bit of trouble. The closest city to us is at least eighty million kilometers away. Eighty million kilometers… who knows how many dangers we would encounter on the way over?”

  “Eighty million kilometers?” Bebe and Delia both felt their heads ache as well.

  Linley looked towards Delia. His mind couldn’t help but be filled with the scene of himself and Delia falling into the golden magma pool. In that moment, he had truly believed he was going to die.

  “For the sake of Delia, we can’t keep on taking risks like this,” Linley said to himself.

  Delia and Bebe looked towards Linley. At times like this, they left the decision to Linley. Linley stared into the distance, then spoke. “How about this. Up ahead there seems to be a large mountain range. Let’s go and temporarily live there for a while and train quietly. When Delia completely fuses her Highgod spark, we will head out!”

  “Live there?” Bebe was rather surprised.

  “What is it?” Linley looked towards Bebe.

  Bebe immediately shook his head. “Nothing. Boss, your words have merit. Let’s wait until Delia is a Highgod. At least on the surface, others will see that she is a Highgod Fiend, which should be frightening enough. When we head out, it will be much safer.”

  This was indeed Linley’s plan. Although Delia was only a One Star Fiend, who would be able to tell from the surface?

  Others could only be certain that she was a Highgod Fiend!

  Bandit groups didn’t want to deal with Highgod Fiends. Who knew how many stars the Fiend might have? It might be a Seven Star Fiend!

  “Huh?” Linley suddenly noticed that Delia had taken his hand. He couldn’t help but to turn and look at her, and she gestured towards him with her eyes. Only now did Linley notice that Bebe was acting strangely. Instantly, Linley understood. “Bebe is most likely thinking of Nisse.”

  “Bebe,” Linley said.

  “Huh?” Bebe raised his head, looking towards Linley.

  Linley immediately said, “Bebe, how about, let’s travel as fast as possible. Perhaps we can first go to a city to take on a mission, or buy a metallic lifeform of our own. Either way, we can hurry to Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture as soon as possible.”

  Bebe understood.

  Salomon and Nisse, if they wanted to return to the Jadefloat Continent, would first have to go to Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture. Linley’s suggestion… was to give Bebe a chance to catch up to Nisse.

  However, this sort of hasty trip would definitely result in them meeting with many bandits on the way over. Who knew how many dangers they would face? Although Linley and Bebe were both strong, and would be able to deal with any ordinary bandit squads, if they were to encounter a bandit squad of thousands of Gods, what would they do?

  It was too dangerous!

  “Boss, thanks,” Bebe said gratefully, but then shook his head and sighed. “However, there’s no need.”

  Linley and Delia exchanged a glance.

  Bebe continued, “This sort of hasty travel is very dangerous to begin with. It’s best to do as Boss said at first, to first take up residence for a time… as for Nisse, to be honest, right now, I really hate that Salomon! Although I hate him, I believe that with Nisse by his side, at least her safety won’t be a problem. As for myself and whether or not I’ll be able to meet her again… I’ll leave that up to fate!”

  Although Bebe wanted to be together with Nisse, this sort of hasty trip would result in danger to both Linley and Delia. Bebe naturally wouldn’t do that.

  Linley’s group headed towards the northeast, advancing roughly a hundred kilometers, at which point they discovered a very wide mountain range. In the ancient mountain range, enormous trees that were a thousand meters high and needed dozens of men to encircle could be seen everywhere. Wild grass grew everywhere, and all sorts of strange creatures could be seen.

  Every part of this place revealed its ancient heritage.

  Although Linley’s group had discovered several small tribes while travelling those hundreds of kilometers of flat land, these small tribes were formed by the puny Saints of the Infernal Realm. Generally speaking, tribes formed by Deities were able to control an area of land spanning thousands of kilometers.

  Linley, Delia, and Bebe casually chose an unremarkable mountain, and midway up the mountain, Linley utilized Bloodviolet to carve out a large hole, creating a deep cavern residence for them to temporarily live in.

  This cavern residence was newly made. Linley, Delia, and Bebe sat down and began to inspect those interspatial rings.

  “So little. This one only has a few hundred thousand inkstones. It definitely belongs to a God-level Fiend.” Bebe seemed to have tossed Nisse to the back of his mind, and
was excitedly investigating the rings. “Whoah-oh! This one is badass. It actually has several hundred million inkstones. It definitely belongs to a Highgod Fiend!”

  “I’ve searched seven interspatial rings but none of them exceeded ten million,” Delia spoke out as well.

  “No rush. I expect that you have only been searching God-level Fiend rings. Whoah. This one is impressive. It actually has… twenty billion inkstones!” Seeing the contents of this interspatial ring, Linley was shocked. This was the largest sum he had ever encountered.

  “Twenty billion inkstones?” Bebe and Delia looked over as well.

  Their prior total assets were only worth a hundred million inkstones. Twenty billion was definitely a shocking figure to them.

  Actually, as Phusro had only taken away Inigo and Elquin’s rings, the remaining rings included the white-horned elder’s. Since the black-horned elder’s had contained over thirty billion, the white-horned elder’s ring naturally wouldn’t be much inferior either. As for the Edward brothers, they were all Five Star Fiends. All of them possessed astonishing wealth! Actually, tens of billions of inkstones to Five Star Fiends was a normal sum.

  After all, ordinary Highgods would have more than a hundred million.

  As for some Seven Star Fiends, their assets were most likely in excess of a trillion inkstones. Inigo, as the second young master of his clan, also had a terrifying amount of wealth. Thus, the two most valuable interspatial rings had been taken away by Phusro.

  “No rush. Let’s keep investigating. We haven’t even searched 30. There are many left. Let’s keep going slowly.”

  He had to admit that this sort of searching through the interspatial rings for wealth was indeed something that filled a man with excitement and hope. It wasn’t tiresome at all.

  “Whoah, my heavens. This one has thirty billion inkstones,” Bebe cried out in shock.

  “What’s going on with me? Up until now, the most I’ve found was around seven billion inkstones.” Delia laughed.

  “I found another one that has nearly thirty billion inkstones.” Linley laughed as he put another interspatial ring to one side.

  A few moments later, they completed their review of these hundred plus interspatial rings. The fortune within the most valuable one was actually sixty billion inkstones, while the least valuable one contained a pitiful hundred thousand! The difference was truly astonishing.

  “All together… let’s calculate…” Bebe’s eyes were shining. “Wow, all together, we have two hundred billion!”

  A truly astonishing figure!

  “There were actually six rings that contained more than ten billion inkstones! I imagine that these six belonged to the three Edward brothers, the white-horned elder, Sperry, and those other two Highgod Fiends,” Linley said. Actually, although they had more than a hundred interspatial rings, the most valuable ones were actually these six, which all contained over ten billion. These six combined alone neared two hundred billion.

  The other hundred plus interspatial rings, all combined, had a value of just barely ten billion, not even twenty billion.

  “Quality, not quantity!” Bebe sighed. “These are all just Five Star Fiends and Four Star Fiends, but they already have such astonishing wealth. What about Six Star Fiends? Or especially the likes of Elquin, a Seven Star Fiend? Who knows how much wealth he has.”

  Wealth was something that accumulated like a pyramid.

  The more powerful a person was, the more extravagant the amount of wealth they had.

  “I expect that even all our wealth combined is still nothing more than a rounding error in Elquin’s wealth,” Linley said.

  One could imagine just by thinking about it. Who knew how many experts Elquin had killed, and how vast a fortune he had built up?

  Still, although a fortune of over two hundred billion inkstones was nothing to the likes of these ultimate experts or those major clans, it was still a massive amount of money to ordinary Highgods. Linley’s group of three began to quietly train within this cavern estate.

  Delia focused on fusing with her divine spark.

  The cavern in which Linley’s group was living in was very large. In the Infernal Realm, generally speaking, every few thousand kilometers, there would be a tribe or a bandit group that would hold domain over that area. This mountain range where Linley lived in was no exception. It had bandit groups as well.

  “Motherfucker, it’s been a year since we’ve made money.” A long-green-haired man was flying in mid-air, staring into the distance while cursing in a low voice, “There’s too many damn bandit squads in the Infernal Realm. Those who dare to travel by themselves are increasingly rare. Even those who do come out, travel alongside a Highgod. It seems I wasted my time today again. Forget it. Time to go back.

  The green-haired man flew in the air, heading back towards his lair.

  “Huh? Someone’s here?”

  The green-haired man suddenly disappeared like a gust of wind, then re-solidified atop a tree below as he stealthily stared towards a location midway up a mountain. “Just now, I saw someone fly in there. Can it be that this cave has someone in it?”

  “Since when did someone move into this mountain range?”

  The green-haired man revealed a smile on his face. “Who cares who it is. I’ll go inform the leader first. I hope it’s someone with money!” The green-haired man didn’t investigate clearly, immediately flying back to his lair.

  58

  Disaster Descending From the Skies

  Within the dark caverns. In the empty main hall.

  Three Linley’s were seated in the meditative position, dressed in a long yellow robe, a light green robe, and a sky-blue robe. The strange thing was, the yellow-robed Linley actually seemed to be teleporting around, occasionally appearing in different areas throughout the main hall.

  This cavern estate had been formed by Linley using his sword, and the walls and the floor all had sword scars.

  While Linley and Delia were training, Bebe was extremely bored.

  “Training is so complicated.”

  Bebe sat there on the floor of the main hall, lying against the stone, his head upraised and carrying that straw hat. “Why is it that I can never settle down to train? It’d be wonderful if I could be like the Boss. He actually starts grinning mid-training!” Bebe mumbled as he looked at the three Linleys.

  Bebe didn’t like to train. In the Forest of Darkness, even the easiest ‘Essence of Darkness’ mystery had taken him nearly 20 years to master, and that was with Beirut’s assistance!

  Taking off his straw hat and looking at it, Bebe naturally began to think of Nisse, a hint of grief appearing in his eyes. “I wonder how Nisse is doing.”

  Moments later.

  With a flip of his hand, Bebe put the straw hat back on his head. “Forget it. No point to thinking randomly. Motherfucker, the more I think about it, the more miserable I feel. Better to focus on my training!” Bebe gritted his teeth. “I refuse to believe that I have no talent in training in the Laws. I’m a Godeater Rat! Grandpa Beirut helped me so much. If it was the Boss, he probably would have easily gained insights into those three profound mysteries by now. I need to work harder. I can’t lose face. At the very least, I need to master those three types of profound mysteries.”

  Bebe shut his eyes and began to quietly train as well.

  A long time later, the light-green-robed Linley stood up as well. In his heart, he said to himself, “So the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves could actually reach such a level. Not only could it create unique vibrations within the insides of something, it could also simultaneously attack from outside. Combining the inner and outer aspects is indeed a very powerful material attack. Only, how would one use the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves to attack the soul?”

  Linley was pondering this. Suddenly, he discovered that Bebe was training intensively as well. He couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s rare to see Bebe working so hard.” But right at that moment…

  “Boss
, you finished your training?” Bebe immediately opened his eyes.

  “And I was just praising you at how hard you were working.” Linley laughed.

  Bebe stood up. “Boss, you have no idea. When I’m training in the Laws of Darkness, I’m extremely sensitive to any nearby movements. As soon as you stood up, I immediately woke up as well. Right, Boss. Your divine earth clone keeps on flickering around. What’s that about?”

  “Can it be that you have forgotten how in the past, Haydson was able to change his physical location with his technique?” Linley said with a laugh.

  “Right, it does seem really similar. Boss, you figured it out?” Bebe said in pleased surprise.

  “Not even close. I’ve just started with the basics.” Linley laughed.

  He had been training in this technique for quite some time. It belonged to the ‘Worldwalker’ profound mystery, one of the six profound mysteries of the Elemental Laws of the Earth. Actually, getting a basic understanding of the Worldwalker profound mystery wasn’t that hard; the ‘Worldwalker’ profound mystery and the ‘Essence of the Earth’ profound mystery were actually somewhat linked.

  In order to completely master the profound mysteries of the ‘Essence of the Earth’, one had to be able to reach an extremely high level of merging with the earth essence.

  As for the Worldwalker mystery, it required a person to be completely merged into the earth essence, and then travel through the earth essence, instantly appearing somewhere else. From the outside, it looked like teleportation, but in reality, it wasn’t.

  Upon reaching mastery in the ‘Essence of the Earth’, training in the ‘Worldwalker’ technique became much easier.

  “Bebe, as I recall, when you were in the volcano range, it seemed like you used a technique which destroyed even that Highgod artifact of Elquin. What was that all about?” With regards to this, Linley hadn’t yet had a chance to ask in detail.

  Bebe pursed his lips. “This was a life-saving measure that Grandpa Beirut had given me. He said it was enough to deal with most Highgods. However, Grandpa Beirut originally told me that the energy in the black pearl was only enough to be utilized three times. I’ve already used it once, and I only have two more remaining.”