Immortal Ascension (Or Something)

Chapter 21: Immortal Ascension

Li Huowang looked at the fruits of his labor: two fist-sized red pills with a metallic sheen, two fleshy ones that writhed like living things, and two black pills that were rotted through and stung the eyes with their smell. He nodded with satisfaction. He had put everything he could think of into them. With that much material packed in, there was no doubt—they would kill a man dead. Not a single thread of life would be left.

A single stick of incense had been planted nearby, marking the time remaining in the year. According to the method he had completely fabricated, the practice could only be performed at the moment the year turned, in order to absorb the spiritual energy descending from heaven.

Li Huowang sat cross-legged. He picked up a fist-sized red pill first, holding it at the ready. He was about to die, and he found himself unexpectedly calm.

Yes, he had prepared no backup plan at all.

Li Huowang understood clearly: he had to eat these pills himself. If he didn't, Danyangzi certainly wouldn't put them in his own mouth.

The old man might have put on a kindly face during the New Year's Eve dinner just now, but this talk of "ascending together" was nothing but an excuse to use him as a poison taster.

Yet Danyangzi had miscalculated. He had never counted on the fact that Li Huowang simply didn't care about his own life.

Li Huowang had long since grown indifferent to life and death. He never truly belonged here, anyway.

The only reason he was still alive was to watch trash like Danyangzi walk into his own grave, led by the nose.

At that moment, Danyangzi sat across from him. He too picked up a red pill.

Under both their gazes, the glowing tip of the incense slowly lowered.

Just as it was about to burn out, Li Huowang took a deep breath. He shoved the pill into his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Danyangzi, who had been about to do the same, stopped. He fixed his entire attention on Li Huowang's movements.

Li Huowang, his expression now somewhat manic, seemed not to notice. He swallowed the remaining two pills in quick succession, then closed his eyes, placed his hands in a ritual mudra on his knees, and began to meditate.

Sweat traced down his face. His seated body began to tremble. But across his face spread a look of barely restrained ecstasy.

"So much innate spiritual energy! This—this is—I see now, I see! I'm going to become an immortal!"

Hearing this, a flicker of anxiety crossed Danyangzi's eyes. Still, he did not take the pills immediately. He waited until he saw wisps of white smoke begin to rise from the crown of Li Huowang's head. Only then did he wolf down all three pills.

The moment Danyangzi closed his eyes and began to circulate his energy through the Major and Minor Heavenly Cycles, Li Huowang slowly opened his own eyes. He looked at his master, and his smile grew even wider than before.

When he saw that Danyangzi's head was also releasing white smoke, and that something black was crawling along his veins, spreading across his entire body, Li Huowang finally let his crossed legs fall open. Clutching his own abdomen, which was now screaming with agony, he burst into a wild, manic laugh.

"Hahaha! Baldy! Baldy!! You're not going to be an immortal! You're going to be a ghost! See you on the Bridge of Helplessness, you old bastard! Hahaha!"

Danyangzi seemed to hear him. But he gave no reaction. Eyes clenched shut, teeth gritted, he sat rooted to the spot, manically cycling his inner and outer heavenly cycles.

"You're still practicing? I made all that up! I copied it from xianxia web novels! Hahaha—ah, my stomach hurts so bad—haha."

Li Huowang crawled along the ground on his belly. He dragged himself slowly to Danyangzi's side. Laughing deliriously at the man's ashen face, he raised his trembling right hand and slapped him across the cheek.

"Hey. You deaf? I'm talking to you."

He backhanded him again. Danyangzi still didn't move.

Li Huowang fumbled out a pill from his pocket and shoved it into his own mouth. Instantly, the veins on his body bulged. He felt a surge of strength.

"I said stop! Didn't you hear me?" He slammed his fist into Danyangzi's face, crushing the man's protruding jaw and nose into a concave mess.

Danyangzi's eyes flew open. Blood filled his mouth. He glared at Li Huowang with venomous hatred, and with a single sweep of his Daoist robe, he sent Li Huowang flying backward.

"Get away! You heart-demons won't stop this Daoist from achieving immortality! I'm about to become an immortal! The Patriarch is coming for me!"

Li Huowang hit the ground and lay there, too spent to get up. He just stared at Danyangzi, mumbling to himself.

"Crazy. The bastard's been driven completely insane by his own obsession with immortality. Ahh… my stomach really hurts."

And so it went: one man meditating upright, the other lying flat on the ground. Time crawled by. The pain in Li Huowang's abdomen grew more and more intense. Acting on pure instinct, his body curled into a shrimp-like shape.

"Tch… why does this hurt so much? How long do I have to suffer like this? I really should have kept a knife handy to slit my own throat," he groaned, rolling across the floor in agony.

As the pain grew blinding, Li Huowang's consciousness began to blur. In his haze, he once again saw Yang Na's face.

"Yang Na… you came to get me?"

Yang Na's face melted and reformed into that of his attending physician. "Patient in Bed 14 is losing consciousness. Preliminary diagnosis: food poisoning! Get the electric aspirator—we need to pump his stomach!"

Li Huowang's eyes slowly closed. An almost inaudible whisper slipped from his lips.

"Pump my stomach… Don't you remember… you're a psychiatric hospital… since when do you have stomach-pumping machines… you hallucinations… at least make your logic consistent…"

With that last sentence, his awareness lost all contact with his surroundings.

For a moment, he felt wonderfully at ease. His stomach had finally stopped hurting.

His body felt like it was falling, falling, never hitting the bottom.

"Huowang, hold on! You promised me!" A vague, urgent female voice exploded in his ear.

He didn't know how long passed. Then, suddenly, Li Huowang's eyes snapped open. Bracing his hands on the ground, he began to vomit violently.

A grotesque mass of flesh, mixed with black fluid and a few strands of hair, along with fragments of dumpling wrapper and shreds of internal organs, poured out of his mouth. The lump of meat, lying in the black puddle, twitched a few times and then went still.

Li Huowang froze, staring at what had just happened.

He was… still alive? How was that possible?

And if he was alive, then Danyangzi—

The thought hit him like a bucket of ice water. Cold sweat broke out across his body. He whirled around instinctively, and his jaw dropped to its widest possible limit.

"Whew… Did he actually become some kind of god… or what?"

What he saw was this: his so-called master's body had completely and horribly deformed. The man's grotesque head had split open, and three huge, flesh-and-blood mouths had emerged from the crack. Inside those mouths were nested three or four smaller mouths, their foul, yellowed teeth grinding against one another as they gaped wide, wide, wide at the ceiling.

And it wasn't just the head. The rest of the body had changed too. Feathers, stuck together like asphalt, had burst straight through the skin like spikes.

"What is this? 'Three Flowers Crowned at the Summit'? 'Feather Transformation and Ascension'?"

The instant this thought flashed through Li Huowang's mind, the three mouths opened to their fullest extent. From them came, simultaneously, three voices: one of a youth, one of a middle-aged man, and one of an old—Danyangzi.

"So that's it! This Daoist gets it! I see it now! HAHAHA!!"

BOOM!! A thunderous explosion.

Danyangzi's entire body—every last inch of its twisted form—burst apart.

Blood and flesh sprayed across the entire alchemy hall.