Chapter 477 - Skyrocketing! The Terrifying Immortal Form, Holding His Own Against Happyland Zoo - Part 2

The reason was simple. Out of all the major powers, Happyland Zoo was the least entangled with the others. No matter what happened inside, it likely wouldn’t trigger a larger reaction from those lurking in the shadows.

Besides, he had a long history with Happyland Zoo. If it hadn’t been for the thousand-mile thread, he probably wouldn’t have made it this far, this fast, this smoothly.

So now, he wanted to pay them a personal visit.

The only problem? Traveling from Swallowcloud to Silkfloss Province was no small feat. If he brought Xie Yu along, it would take at least two months to get there. So, he decided to make use of one of his still functioning ghost items, the Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token.

At this point, it was one of the only two remaining ghost items he could still use.

In his Equipment Box, only three items still retained their glow.

「

Equipment 1: 1-mace (x30)

Equipment 2: Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token

Equipment 3: Hungry Ghost Cage (x1)

」

As for the Mirror of Sin, the thousand-mile thread, and even the Ghost Hammer, all of them had gone dark. That meant they could no longer withstand the overwhelming Yang energy in his body.

After leaving the cliff, Li Yuan took Xie Yu back to a residence they had rented in a nearby township. They returned home, had a satisfying meal, and took a bath.

Once Xie Yu had climbed into bed, Li Yuan prepared to leave.

But just as he stepped down from the bed, he heard the softest rustle behind him.

He turned slightly. Xie Yu’s eyes were shut, her breathing steady. But of course, he could see right through her.

She was obviously wide awake and pretending to sleep.

Li Yuan hesitated, then pulled out a small, black token and waved it in front of her. “I’m not sneaking out to mess around, okay? This thing is a treasure; it lets me instantly jump from place to place...”

“

Snore....”

Xie Yu continued feigning sleep.

Li Yuan kept going. “Anyway, remember I said earlier I wanted to test my strength? That’s what I’m doing. If all goes well, I’ll be back before dawn.”

Xie Yu opened her eyes, not a trace of sleepiness in them.

“You can instantly jump to other places?” She looked at him suspiciously. Then added, “So all that time in the secret chamber—”

Li Yuan coughed awkwardly. “...Yeah.”

A trace of bitterness appeared on Xie Yu’s face. She asked quietly, “Am I just a game to you?”

Li Yuan replied earnestly, “Of course not! If this were just a game, why would I tell you any of this? It’s just... there

are

some secrets I really can’t share.”

“Was it you who tried to assassinate the Emperor?” Xie Yu suddenly asked.

Li Yuan gave a small nod.

“No wonder... no wonder,” she murmured. “So your target from the very beginning...was the Emperor. Marrying me was just a step toward getting close to him.”

Li Yuan’s voice turned firm, even indignant. “Absolutely not! Never! I tried to kill the Emperor

only

because that day, he dared to flirt with you. I couldn’t take it!”

Xie Yu gave him a long look. “Just admit it.”

But how could Li Yuan admit something like that? It would break her heart.

Li Yuan shook his head over and over. “Yu’er, you can suspect me, but don’t wrong me.”

They stared at each other for a long time.

Finally, Xie Yu spoke. “So...who exactly are you going to test your strength against?”

Li Yuan replied, “I’m thinking of heading to Silkfloss Province to find—”

“Find

who

?” she sniffled, looking utterly aggrieved, like he was about to hide something from her again.

Li Yuan scratched his head. “Not who, place. I’m going to Happyland Zoo.”

Xie Yu blinked. “Zoo what?”

“Happyland Zoo,” he repeated, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. He had no excuse to lie anymore. Not to her. So he didn’t.

Xie Yu’s mouth opened slightly, and after a pause, she said faintly, “You’re lying again.”

Li Yuan hesitated, then offered, “Why don’t I take you with me? You can stay outside and watch. Just...it’s a long trip from here to Silkfloss province.”

Xie Yu shoved him lightly. “Go on, just come back early. I don’t care who you go fight.”

Li Yuan nodded, smiled at her, and gripped the Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token.

In the blink of an eye, he vanished.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Li Yuan reappeared on a desolate plain.

Bones and scattered remains still littered the landscape.

Decades ago, during a Holy Tree Temple expedition that tested the rules of Happyland Zoo, he had been here once. So now, he moved with familiarity.

He settled in quietly beneath a rocky cliff. In front of him, a luminous golden figure began to shimmer and emerge, his Immortal Form stepping out.

Worried about damaging his physical body, Li Yuan chose to leave it behind and moved forward in his golden form, striding confidently across the open wilderness.

After walking for a while, his eyes suddenly sharpened.

Under the moonlight, flashes of golden light sparkled from the grass and between the rocks. The ingots were sharp, bright, and impossible to miss.

Gold

. He narrowed his eyes. He remembered that someone had once picked up gold here and ended up summoning a ghost, ultimately losing their heart.

Their heart, huh?

His thousand-foot Immortal Form reached for its own chest. There, instead of flesh, burned the searing withered flame and the surging 8880 seed ancestral seal.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Without hesitation, he bent down and picked up the gold.

The moment it touched his hand, it began to sizzle strangely, making a sharp creaking sound.

Soon, a cold mist started to rise, and the gold revealed its true form...rotted, decaying body parts. Hearts, kidneys, livers...everything.

Li Yuan weighed the organs in his hand, his gaze calm but alert, scanning the area around him. He wasn’t about to let his guard down.

This place was one of the most terrifying forbidden zones in all of the Great Zhou’s Nine Provinces.

But minutes passed, and still, and there was no response.

So Li Yuan went back to picking up gold. He looked like a farmer harvesting wheat in a field of death, collecting treasure from one of the darkest places in the realm.

Then, just as he stooped again, he felt something tug at his foot. He looked down and saw a web. So, he shook his foot.

The withered flame flared instantly, engulfing the strands with a strange hissing sound.

The web burned away quickly, revealing what it truly was. It was long, black, wet hair—matted and clumped together, stained faintly with red and black blood. It was as if the strands had grown straight out of the air itself.

Li Yuan leaned down and grabbed the hair, giving it a sharp yank.

That finally triggered something.

The moment he pulled, the black hair twisted, revealing a swirling void within. A hollow suddenly roared to life, spewing out a massive wave of Yin energy, as if a wind tunnel had opened into the underworld.

As the Yin energy surged from the void, Li Yuan instantly felt a chill sink into his bones. Even the withered flame wrapped around his ankle recoiled a few inches, dimming slightly, retreating as though trying to escape.

From the swirling hole, a grotesque shadow scuttled outward frighteningly fast.

It was the torso of a child, armless and legless, crawling like a worm. But around this human-turned-wretch were eight

limbs

, each constructed from human organs. And at the end of each grotesque leg...a human head.

The long, black hair was sprouting from those heads. Not spider silk, but hair.

This was no ordinary spider; it was a ghost spider, and its silk was the cursed hair of the dead.

Skrich! Skrich! Skrich!

The clicking of its limbs sounded like a war drum, closing in all at once. In an instant, the heads at the end of its eight legs

bit down

on Li Yuan’s leg, while the twisted black hair of all nine heads lashed around him, wrapping his leg into a grotesque cocoon.

He could feel it. His leg was shrinking rapidly. Just from that single pounce, half his leg was gone. Nearly ten feet of golden flesh siphoned away in seconds.

And just then, another shadow flashed in the distance.

Li Yuan caught it clearly this time, a massive rat with a

human

head. But the rat wasn’t coming for him. It darted past, aiming straight for the direction behind him.

And in that instant, Li Yuan understood. It was after his physical body, the one he’d left behind. It was going to tear him open and dig out his organs.

He couldn’t let that happen. He bolted. But he wasn't fast. Not compared to the human-headed rat.

By contrast, he felt like some lumbering machine.

It reminded him of something, scenes from those old shows he'd watched before crossing over—of massive

kaiju

, slow as glaciers, every one of their attacks deadly, yet somehow the protagonist danced between their limbs like lightning. Or better yet, it was like those

titans

besieging a walled city, moving clumsily as elite soldiers zipped around their necks.

And now...Li Yuan was one of those titans. He could feel it. He was too

slow

. Against a fourth rank martial artist, his speed would've been terrifying. But here? Against this thing? He was lagging behind.

He used to think the slowness of giant monsters was just bad writing. If a creature was strong

and

fast, wouldn’t the hero just die instantly?

But now, he understood. He was simply too big. No matter how quickly the Yin and Yang energy flowed inside his form, the sheer distance it had to travel slowed everything down.

If speed wouldn't work, then maybe it was time to use his Formless Blades domain. It was one of his go-to skills, along with Dragon’s Breath and the Tranquil Sea Blade. But the moment he tried to summon it, he felt it fizzle. It wouldn’t activate.

And then it clicked. That move required access to the fourth rank Human Soul domain, a realm he could no longer enter. He couldn’t use his blade qi domain anymore.

Fine. Then Dragon’s Breath it is,

Li Yuan thought.

As his thousand-foot golden form gathered power, the withered flame inside his body roared in anticipation. The ancestral seal flared, dragging the flames into a frenzy. But there was no containment, no focus.

And so, what exploded from his fingertips wasn’t a focused breath of flame. It was a tidal wave. Not Dragon’s Breath, it was a roaring sea of fire.

The blistering, ashen-colored flames burst outward from Li Yuan’s fingertip, piling into the space around him, stirring the air like a tide rising from the void. A second wave surged violently forward, crashing across nearly five kilometers in the blink of an eye.

The human-headed giant rat was instantly engulfed in fire. Its speed plummeted, black smoke billowing from its body as it visibly shrank, its form starting to collapse.

But just as it withered, it suddenly puffed up again, like something being reinflated.

Li Yuan pointed once more. Another wave of fire howled forward, sweeping through the plain like a tidal roar.

The rat was completely pinned down.

Li Yuan stepped forward. To call him

fast

would be generous. His movements were sluggish. Perhaps this was the drawback of wielding such a massive form. Or maybe...this was a built-in limitation of the Heaven Soul itself.

He made a mental note of it.

Li Yuan advanced, flames rippling around him, while the ghost spider clung tightly to his leg. But the spider, having launched one attack already, suddenly recoiled. It hissed, pulled its limbs in tight, and scuttled backward with unnatural speed, vanishing into the swirling black void from which it had come.

With a

pop

, Li Yuan’s leg snapped back to its full size.

He walked up to the human-headed rat and grabbed it.

The beast was no more than three meters long, now trapped and wriggling helplessly in the palm of his hand.

Li Yuan lifted it close to his face and began poking it repeatedly with his finger.

Every jab from his flaming fingertip plunged into the rat’s head like a needle into tar. Each time, the rat let out a sharp, eerie

squeak

that was halfway between a cry and a curse.

Li Yuan burst into laughter. He couldn’t help it; it was just oh so satisfying.

After entering the third rank, it had become nearly impossible to judge his own strength. But now, in this bizarre trial by fire, he was finally getting a clear sense of his abilities and testing new skills.

Dragon’s Breath, Formless Blades, Tranquil Sea Blade...all relics of the past. None of them worked anymore in this third rank Heaven Soul state.

Now, all he could do was launch wave after wave of withered flame, or use his hands and feet like a walking natural disaster.

He kept poking the rat, contemplating as he went.

“Squeak squeak squeak! SQUEAAAK!”

“Hahahaha!”

The sound of man and ghost blended together in a surreal duet.