The Paladin in the Abyss-Chapter 743 - 764: Eat and Be Eaten

The Purple Worm, a subterranean predator and one of the largest known creatures, is renowned for its plate-like carapace, deadly stinger, and a massive maw capable of swallowing large livestock. Like most underground creatures, their vision had nearly completely degenerated, yet they possessed extremely keen hearing and vibration perception abilities, allowing them to accurately understand everything happening on the surface.

At the same time, their intelligence was even lower among animals, essentially no different from that of a regular worm. They resembled a pure, ravenous, perpetually feeding force of nature, which when combined with the unique curse of this realm, birthed the calamitous monster before everyone.

However, as its size had increased, the corrosiveness of the acid inside it had not strengthened simultaneously, and the space inside its stomach had expanded significantly. If it had swallowed other creatures of this realm that had also grown due to the curse, this wouldn’t have been problematic, but for Lancelot and his party from the outside world, this actually provided them an opportunity to struggle.

Of course, before he recklessly jumped in, Lancelot hadn’t thought much about all this.

Inside the worm there was, of course, no light source, but this obviously couldn’t pose any hindrance to Lancelot’s vision. The spacious tunnel had a radius of at least five feet, surrounded by pink flesh walls full of creases and protuberances, covered with a sticky, semi-transparent layer of yellow digestive juice.

A blue light enveloped Lancelot’s body, preventing that disgusting mucus from touching his skin and propelled the Human Knight swiftly deeper inside.

Within just a few breaths, he had spotted the figures of his two companions. Young Isa was clinging tightly to Bruto’s back, apparently terrified, while the Dwarf was still struggling, heedless of the mucus that brought intense pain, trying to grasp a protrusion on the flesh wall, but evidently without any success.

"Bruto! I’m here," Lancelot shouted downward, "Don’t move!"

"Big brother?!"

The Dwarf answered in surprise, his voice indicating he could still struggle for a while. Lancelot’s heart steadied somewhat, and he quickly formed a magical gesture with his hand, summoning a sturdy vine which wrapped around the Dwarf and swiftly pulled him to his side. Lancelot opened his arms, embracing Bruto and Isa together, his blue protective aura also enveloping his friends and instantly vaporizing all the disgusting mucus.

"Ha! Seeing you really brings relief!" Bruto yelled through Isa, "But how did you get swallowed too?"

"What are you talking about? I wouldn’t have come in here if it wasn’t to save you..."

"Wow, that’s touching! Isa, did you hear that? He came specifically to save me!"

"...to save you both."

"Hey, same thing. But what do we do next? How do we get out?"

"We’re inside that big worm’s belly," Lancelot said lightly, "It’s the one that should be worried!"

The vine that had wrapped around the Dwarf quickly grew longer, binding the three tightly together, freeing Lancelot’s hands to do something else. He had intended to pull out one of the Holy Swords from the Dimensional Bag – any one of them should have sufficed to carve a path out – but a sudden inspiration struck him, and he decided to opt for another more ’direct’ approach.

"Don’t be afraid," Lancelot gently tapped on Isa’s newly turned golden hair, "We’ll be out soon."

Accompanied by a series of complex hand gestures, the protective aura around Lancelot suddenly surged, and a vague silhouette of green vines faintly appeared in the air. The next moment, countless vine tendrils as thick as arms surged out of the aura, each tipped with many round spores. These spores quickly grew into fist-sized mushrooms at a visible speed, then the caps of the mushrooms split in the middle, revealing rows of tiny mouths filled with fine, sharp teeth.

"Damn it, you now look like an octopus with a hundred tentacles." Bruto’s face, illuminated by the spiritual light, was as green as a summer meadow, "I had forgotten you could do that."

"I almost forgot too," Lancelot shrugged, "it must be that damn curse..."

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Standing hundreds of feet away, Kalalin and Alamir were shocked to see the fearsome beast, as if struck by lightning, suddenly start convulsing violently. It coiled up like a cobra, made a motion as if to vomit, then, like a headless fly, smashed frantically against the ground, making the whole mountain shake as if in an earthquake, scaring the pair into running further away to avoid being affected by the monster’s death throes.

However, life visibly drained out of the giant armored worm, and it quickly collapsed to the ground, limp like a fish tossed onto the desert sand by magic. Less than a minute later, the creature completely stopped twitching, and to Alamir, the Priest of the Domain of Life, there was no doubt that the beast was thoroughly dead.

The two exchanged a glance and cautiously walked forward. As they came within thirty feet of the worm’s corpse, a segment of the carapace suddenly moved, nearly scaring them into running away—had they not seen the figure behind the carapace, they certainly would have.

Lancelot walked out from the corpse of the worm, carrying little Isha in his arms and holding onto the still tightly closed-eyed Dwarf. Behind him still floated a cyan vine silhouette, with countless bucket-thick vines rapidly retracting, merging back into clusters of greenish lights that flowed into the silhouette.

As all the vines retracted, the giant carcass collapsed like neatly arranged dominoes. Kalalin and Alamir looked intently and were surprised to see that none of the shells had any flesh left inside, as if devoured by some bloodthirsty locusts.

"The ability you got in the Fencer Troll’s den?" Alamir raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes." Lancelot nodded, "I was actually planning just to dig a hole and get out..."

"How do you feel now? Any kind of... sense of satisfaction from having your desires fulfilled?"

"Not at all," Lancelot said with a downcast face, "I controlled the vines to consume, turn it into energy, not connect to my stomach... even if it did, I don’t have a stomach that big."

"We also transform what we eat into energy," said the Elf Priest, shrugging his shoulders. "Don’t move, let me heal your wounds..."

After a brief rest, the group continued toward the mountain peak, and this time nothing else disturbed them. About half an hour later, what they were looking for suddenly appeared in front of them: a portal hanging in the air, internally pure white, the entrance to the Domain of the Vague.

"This is it, just like what Tijana saw in her Crystal Ball," Lancelot turned to his companions, "ready to enter the Land of the Dead?"

No one spoke, but from their eyes, Lancelot knew everyone was ready.