Chapter 143: Dragon, Gecko, Snake

"Is this the remains of the Doom Vine? Why is it so small?"

Pushing open the final door, both Ye Bai and Dao felt a surge of desire in their eyes, which immediately subsided. Neither spoke a word, walking along the doorframes to opposite sides.

Ye Bai's right thumb pressed against the hilt of the Stunning Rainbow Saber, his fingers resting on the concealed ink blade.

Both knew better than anyone the value of the Doom Vine. Whoever obtained it meant securing a set of bio-armor for the future. Ye Bai had already witnessed the power of Level 3 armor; calling it a life-saving divine artifact and a trump card was no exaggeration, and right now, what he lacked most was precisely something capable of preserving his life.

Dao stepped closer to the Doom Vine step by step, but stopped about a meter away without advancing further. He knew his own condition well: he had lost consciousness five times in the labyrinth, whereas Ye Bai had only fainted three times. If a fight were to break out now, he would undoubtedly be at a disadvantage. If Ye Bai turned out to be ruthless and merciless, he might not even make it out of here alive.

With this thought, Dao released his grip on the ink blade and looked over at Ye Bai, only to find that Ye Bai was looking back at him.

Dao forced a wry smile at the corner of his lips. "I thought that after going through all kinds of hardship to emerge from the labyrinth, we would be safe and sound. I never expected the final trial to be a test of human nature. I give up; the Doom Vine is yours."

"You give up?" Ye Bai was extremely surprised. He had assumed Dao would contend with him for it. While the two of them wouldn't necessarily fight to the death, such a massive benefit wasn't something easily surrendered.

"Yes, you heard me right, I give up." Dao repeated, then retreated backward, standing in a corner far away from the Doom Vine.

"However, I have a request, and I hope you will agree."

"Speak." Seeing that Dao had truly relinquished the Doom Vine, Ye Bai let down his guard. He gained a new perspective on Dao and decided that if he encountered any other benefits in the ancient castle later on, he would give a bit more to Dao.

"I want to know the origin of the medicine you gave me."

"Medicine?" Ye Bai didn't touch the Doom Vine; instead, he turned around to look at Dao. "Why do you want to know this?"

Regarding the matter of the Medicine Spirit, Ye Bai dared not make a decision lightly. Besides, with Dao's strength, obtaining something for treating external injuries should have been simple.

"You probably don't know this, but as Demon Hunters, our physiques cannot accept ordinary medicine. Or rather, those medicines commonly bought on the market are useless to us, as if we have an innate immunity to them."

"Yet the medicine you gave me for treating external injuries was actually able to heal my wounds. This is the first time I've ever seen medicine capable of treating our injuries."

Dao had rarely seen his master take action, and perhaps this was one of the reasons why.

"Then haven't you tried the Medicine Family in the Green Forest Main City?" Ye Bai looked at Dao's expression, sensing no falsehood, yet he still found it hard to believe that Demon Hunters possessed such a fatal flaw.

"I have, but it wasn't me—it was my master. But it had no effect at all." The medicine in Ye Bai's hands seemed to offer Dao a glimmer of hope; Dao was willing to trade the Doom Vine just for this information.

"Huh? Wait, let's get out of here quickly." Before Ye Bai could finish considering whether to tell Dao about the Medicine Spirit, Dao's expression changed drastically as he ran toward Ye Bai.

"Quickly take the Doom Vine and let's go." Dao drew his ink blade, the traces on it already scrambled.

At that moment, Ye Bai also noticed that the enlarged Doom Vine above their heads had vanished.

Ye Bai turned around, grabbed the Doom Vine, and dashed toward the patterned door, which had already begun to shift.

"Dao, are you still there?" Unable to believe it, Ye Bai found himself still standing at the entrance of the ancient castle. The situation had been so urgent moments ago that he hadn't been able to worry about Dao, who had also fled through another door.

The moment he stepped through the door, the entire labyrinth dissolved into a single white point of light and vanished before Ye Bai's eyes. If not for the Doom Vine clenched in his hand, Ye Bai would have thought the whole thing was an illusion.

He had believed he understood the labyrinth well enough, but now it seemed he was wrong.

"I'm here, Ye Bai, where are you?" Just as Dao's voice came through, the entire labyrinth lit up with a red glow once more, and Dao spotted Ye Bai not far away.

"What just happened?" Ye Bai walked over and asked.

"I'm not sure either. I just felt an anomaly in the ink blade, and then the route we took following the Doom Vine was completely disrupted. As for the ink trails left on the doors, I can't sense them at all anymore."

"Right, you got the Doom Vine, didn't you?" Dao added after finishing his sentence.

"Yeah, I got it." Ye Bai understood the subtext in Dao's words. "My medicine was bought from the Medicine Family. If you get hurt in the future, you can go look for a girl named Medicine Spirit. Just say I sent you, and she will give you medicine."

Time and again, Dao had saved him, and he had saved Dao. They had saved each other—perhaps this was what it truly meant to be 'human.' If Ye Bai still didn't share this information with Dao after all this, wouldn't he be failing to act like a human being?

...

"What do you think is drawn on these cave walls?"

Two men and a woman walked forward, the girl in the lead wearing a cold expression. Closely following her was a man of extraordinary bearing; one could tell at a glance that he came from a prominent background. The man walking at the very end kept quite a distance from the other two, looking as though he had suffered some devastating blow, his eyes completely lifeless.

"Geckos? Or some kind of mutated beast? But they're too small for that; they look more like pets."

The man of extraordinary bearing continuously murmured his analysis by the girl's ear. The girl's expression remained unchanged, showing no sign of impatience, yet she showed no intention of engaging either.

Finally unable to endure the silence within the dark-red environment, the man who had talked the entire way blurted out to the girl, "Bai Wan'er, what on earth are you thinking? Can't you hear a single word I say?"

The young man felt as though things had completely flipped. Back when he was among the Earth-Core clan, anyone who wanted to speak to him would be ignored unless he deigned to listen. Why had things reversed so drastically upon reaching the surface, turning him into the one begging someone else to speak? The sheer contrast left Tian Xin struggling to accept reality.

The three of them were none other than Bai Wan'er, Li Feng, and Tian Xin, who had entered the ancient castle from another direction.

Walking at the very front, Bai Wan'er suddenly stopped in her tracks, turned around, and gazed at Tian Xin, who was a head taller than her. As for Li Feng, she had long since given up on him; within the limits of her capabilities, ensuring he didn't die was enough—whatever happened afterward had nothing to do with her.

Bai Wan'er raised her head to stare at Tian Xin, her cool and striking countenance making Tian Xin feel somewhat uneasy inside.

"W-what is it?" Tian Xin asked in a low voice.

The corners of Bai Wan'er's mouth twitched slightly before she turned back around and said, "Do you think a gecko is worthy of being depicted here? Why don't you try enlarging it by dozens or hundreds of times before looking again?"

"Enlarge it? A gecko?" Tian Xin stopped in his tracks and began to observe the 'gecko' on the wall. "Enlarging it by dozens, hundreds of times... isn't this an underground dragon?"

*We've wandered into a dragon's territory!* Tian Xin felt a profound shock rippling through his heart. "Bai Wan'er, we've stumbled into a dragon's domain! This isn't something we can handle. What should we do now? Bai Wan'er!"

"Bai Wan'er?" Tian Xin suddenly froze in place. "Bai Wan'er? Where are you?"

Tian Xin could hardly believe his eyes. In the span of mere moments, Bai Wan'er had vanished. "Li Feng?"

Suddenly remembering Li Feng whom he had already forgotten, Tian Xin spun around, but there was no one there.

"Dragon... where on earth is this? Is this still the same place as before?" Bai Wan'er continued walking alone at the very front, completely unaware that everyone behind her had vanished entirely.

Abruptly, Bai Wan'er halted her forward steps. "Tian Xin? Li Feng?"

Receiving no response, Bai Wan'er called out once more, yet still, there was no reaction whatsoever.

"How is that possible? Did they disappear? Just a few steps apart, and she felt nothing at all—how could that be?"

Bai Wan'er slowly turned around, seeing nothing whatsoever in the cave filled with dark-red illumination.

"Where did everyone go? Who is playing tricks?" A heavy shock gripped Bai Wan'er's heart, though her face betrayed nothing. She slowly turned back around.

Suddenly, with a thunderous *boom*, Bai Wan'er felt as though her brain had been struck by a massive blow, and immediately after, she lost all sensation.

How much time passed, she did not know. In a patch of green grass lay a woman dressed in white robes. Suddenly, a three-legged deer bounded out from the forest, stopped beside the woman, and lowered its head to lick the girl's cheek with its tongue.

"Mmh..."

The girl sleeping on the grass let out a sound, startling the three-legged deer, which leaped back into the forest.

The girl slowly opened her eyes. The sunlight was somewhat blinding, causing her to shut them immediately.

Suddenly, her lips moved. "Wait... sunlight?"

The eyes she had just closed flew wide open once more.

"Shouldn't I be in the ancient castle's cave? Where is this place?" Bai Wan'er's mind was somewhat dazed as she gazed at the scenery before her, which somewhat resembled the Godwood Mountain Range.

"What is this? So cute!"

As Bai Wan'er sat on the grass, her skirt and her beauty forming a picturesque scene, a rabbit suddenly bounded into view—except this rabbit had no tail.

"Is this a dragonfly?" Bai Wan'er slowly stood up, raising a slender hand as a dragonfly with only a single pair of wings landed gently on her finger.

"Could this be the world before the Dark Epoch?" Many mutated beasts nowadays evolved from ancient animals; Bai Wan'er had once seen photographs of old-world creatures, among which was the rabbit.

"Where on earth is this?" Bai Wan'er found it hard to believe that a paradise-like place still existed in this world, though she had yet to walk beyond the grassy plain.

Suddenly, the sunlight in the sky receded, and billowing dark clouds rolled in. In the blink of an eye, the sky grew dim and gloomy, leaving only startled animals crying out frantically among the trees.

Not far from where Bai Wan'er stood, a fierce battle between a gecko and a snake was underway. Neither animal was large; combined, they didn't even reach the size of a palm.

*Rumble...*

As if the heavens were angered, the dark clouds churned, and purple lightning flickered faintly within them.

*Hisss, hisss...* The coiling snake continuously flickered its red tongue from its mouth, its body arching upward as it stared down fixedly from a commanding height at the gecko below.

The gecko refused to show weakness, likewise darting its tongue in and out. Its four limbs clung tightly to the tree trunk, its slender tail twitching rhythmically, lifting a foot with each shift of position as it sought an opportunity for a fatal strike.