Chapter 273: Fifth.

There was no use of lingering around, thinking whether he should do it. The dark purple plum-sized object was both mysterious and fascinating, as well as tempting and repelling at the same time.Lee didn’t know whether the sensations were caused by the spark itself or his past mental trauma, or the rational fear of the pain he was about to experience. But it didn’t matter. He resolutely swallowed the object, and froze, bracing himself for the inevitable agony.

It didn’t come, though.

Lee felt the spark slowly moving through his digestive system, but carefully strengthened the path with water and earth particles to protect himself in case of an unexpected physical injury. For the first time he could observe one of his sparks settle down in his Dantian, effortlessly, almost naturally. It comfortably positioned right in the middle of the other four, almost as if taking the role of arbiter in their constant conflicts ... but then Lee’s vision changed.

He found himself in a dark cave, surrounded by slowly moving round bodies that resembled larvae. And he was hungry. He couldn’t stand up, nor push himself up – in fact, he could only wriggle his body in order to move. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

Soon, a person arrived carrying a large container and dumped its contents right in front of Lee, over body of one of the larvae. With his hole being Lee sensed it was food, and twisted and turned to get to it, sucking and gnawing everything on his way.

The surrounding larvae did the same, and he felt angry at them for taking away his meal. The more Lee ate, the more starved he felt, and when there was no more food left, he plunged his teeth in the larvae that the food was dumped on earlier. He didn’t care for the taste – he only felt hunger. The larvae tried to escape, but Lee kept biting until it stopped squirming.

This was a strange experience. Somewhere deep within Lee’s consciousness was a thought that this was a dream or an illusion, but it quickly disappeared beneath the overwhelming hunger.

When he was done with the first larvae, he attacked the next one, and then another one. He mercilessly feasted on all of them, but only got hungrier in the process.

But then the real horror began. When the person with the food container arrived, Lee bit on the guy’s leg first, and then plunged his teeth into his belly. It was soft and flavorful, and to taste the insides was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced.

The problem was, Lee didn’t even notice how fast he consumed the person. It was too small! He wanted more!

He wiggled through the cave the person arrived from earlier, and soon was met with a pleasant surprise. There were two more people standing in his way. Clearly they had arrived to help him out, although the long objects they were holding and poking him with didn’t taste that good.

Growing increasingly annoyed, Lee stretched and twisted until he managed to catch one of the people by the leg, and the feast continued. The other one ran away, but Lee knew he would find them sooner or later – surely there was nowhere to run in the caves.

Turns out, he didn’t even have to look for anyone. Soon enough, people began to arrive one after another and all he had to do was to bite and swallow. They were eager to please him, although some didn’t know their place and in their eagerness hurt him.

Changing the tactics, Lee began to eat the impatient ones first. He lost count how many people he had feasted on, but it was a thrilling experience. He squirmed around the caves, looking for more, but at some point realized his food was running away from him.

This was unacceptable!

He grew angry, and rushed after them, but the hateful people were quicker. But he was not going to let them go! He decided he would eat them without chasing because he was hungry and it was his right! He began biting in the direction of the people escaping, and strangely enough, every time he did, his teeth reached the food he was longing for.

Lee ate and ate, until there wasn’t a living soul left to find. He had cleaned up all the larvae and people, and the caves were dark and empty. Sadness overtook him, and he decided to rest, but just as he dug into the ground to take a nap, more people arrived and began to hurt him.

Food acting disrespectfully was unacceptable, but food was still food. Lee ignored the pain and kept eating, and to his great delight more and more people came to become a part of his feast.

But then that one hateful person arrived. No matter how Lee tried, he couldn’t bite them. The moment he bit, the person vanished and right after that Lee felt piercing pain that forced him to twist in agony. It didn’t last long, though, and soon everything turned dark.

Lee patiently waited, but nothing happened. The darkness didn’t disappear.

’What a weird dream!’ Lee thought to himself, ’Right! A dream! No, a hallucination!’

He finally realized it wasn’t him actually experiencing the nightmare of feasting on people. But then again, after he lit up a torch, he realized he hadn’t sat completely idly.

Giel’s cultivation chamber was completely wrecked. The beautiful rune formations were completely destroyed, and no matter where Lee looked, there were claw and bite marks all over the place.

It was confusing since he should’ve been locked here alone, but glancing at the bleeding hand that was holding the torch, Lee realized he had been alone!

All of his nails were broken to the point that he could see bones sticking from his fingertips. And that wasn’t the worst part. The moment the pain registered in his brain, he realized that what truly hurt was his mouth.

It was stuffed with jagged shards of rock, so tightly packed he couldn’t even cough them out. And it wasn’t just his mouth. His stomach bulged with rocky debris, swollen until his torso looked like a barrel of ale.

’What the hell have I done?!’ Lee cursed, got on his knees and tried to pick the stone shards from his mouth.

Likely there wasn’t another person in the world who could’ve survived the moronic adventure he had put himself through. The problem was – he wasn’t out of the water yet.

Along with the stone shards, Lee picked the remains of his teeth, and while he knew they would grow back – that was in case he actually lived through this. The more time passed, the more difficult his breathing became, and the increasing agony throughout his body didn’t help either.

This time he couldn’t pass out, though. He lied on his side, forcing his lungs to operate by using the wind particles, at the same time using water to flush the stone shards out.

At first it was like tiny waves hitting an unmovable dam. He could move one or a couple shards at the time at most, allowing the old proverb of water sharpening stone acquire completely new meaning.

Bleeding through both ends, bit by bit Lee continued to remove the stone shards from his body. The pain didn’t allow him to pass out, but the challenge was to battle the heavy bloated feeling that was forcing him to give up and fall asleep, even if it was a short nap or a moment of closing eyes.

Lee knew that if he did that, he would wake up only after reincarnating again, but he was not going to spend his childhood in the damned Hollowreach, to not speak of his unwillingness to experience it at all over again.

He had no clue how long it took him until he removed the last stone shard, but when he did, he passed out with one thought.

’From now on the only food I’ll eat will be milk!’