The passage Shen Lao led them through was unlike anything they had encountered in the Leviathan’s anatomy. These tunnels pulsed with a different rhythm—faster, more urgent, as if they were moving through the creature’s cardiovascular system itself. The walls here were lined with thick, rope-like structures that Lin realized were major blood vessels, each one thicker than his torso.
"Stay close to the center," Shen Lao warned, his body shifted to human appearance—a tall, lean man with the sa midnight-blue hair. "The vessel walls are under trendous pressure. If one ruptures..."
His warning proved prophetic as the rising temperature from the BloodGate’s activation caused the Levithan’s biology to beco increasingly unstable. One of the smaller vessels burst as they passed, spraying them with scalding hot blood that hissed where it touched their clothes and skin.
"The heat is affecting her entire system," Lin observed, maintaining her ice barrier. "Her heart rate is increasing, blood pressure is rising. She’s going into shock."
The tunnel ahead opened into a larger chamber, this one clearly serving as so kind of junction where multiple blood vessels converged. But they weren’t alone. Figures erged from side passages—other prisoners who had found their way into this part of the Levithan.
Unlike Shen Lao, these creatures had been completely broken by their imprisonnt. So were dragons who had forgotten their true forms entirely, crawling on all fours and snapping at shadows. Others were sea creatures that had been transford by the Levithan’s digestive processes into sothing barely recognizable as their original species.
"Fresh at," one of them hissed—a creature that might once have been a dragon but now resembled a twisted fusion of scales and exposed bone. "New blood for the Mother’s heart."
"They think we’re food," Suanni realized, flas beginning to gather around his mane.
"They’re beyond reason," Shen Lao said sadly, his human form tensing as the mad prisoners began to circle them. "Centuries in this place have reduced them to bare instincts."
The first attack ca from above—a creature that had once been a sea serpent dropping from the chamber’s curved ceiling. Shen Lao moved swiftly, catching the creature mid-fall and snapping its neck with a single twist.
But more were coming, drawn by the scent of a human and the promise of sothing other than the Levithan’s recycled nutrients to sustain them.
A group of three forr dragons rushed them simultaneously, their movents coordinated despite their apparent madness. Shen Lao stepped forward, his human lungs drawing in a deep breath before releasing a torrent of blue fla that filled the chamber with searing heat.
The dragon fire was unlike anything Grim had seen before—not the golden flas of Suanni or the controlled ice techniques that Lin used. The blue flas clung to the mad prisoners like liquid, burning through scale and flesh as they scread for help. Their screams echoed off the chamber walls before cutting off abruptly.
"Stay behind ," Shen Lao commanded, but even as he spoke, more prisoners were erging from the tunnel network. Decades of accumulated madness had created a small army of creatures that viewed any newcor as either threat or sustenance.
A particularly large creature—sothing that had once been a great white shark but now sported additional limbs and a partially humanoid torso—lunged directly at Lin. She raised her ice barriers, but the creature’s montum carried it through, its clawed appendages grazed her shoulder drawing blood.
Lin was in shock from the news of who her father was. The creature had begun to lick the blood of his morphed claws.
The sight of his daughter being injured triggered sothing in Shen Lao. His human facade cracked, revealing glimpses of the dragon power beneath. He moved so fast that no one could even move before him. He grabbed the shark-creature by both of its arms.
"You dare touch my daughter?" he snarled, his voice echoing so much that it made the chamber walls vibrate.
What happened next was brutal. Shen Lao placed one foot against the creature’s back, gripping its arms firmly. With a motion that seed almost casual, he pulled. The sound of tearing flesh and snapping bone filled the chamber as both arms separated from the creature’s torso in sprays of blood.
The shark-thing collapsed, its anguished cries adding to the cacophony of battle. Shen Lao tossed the severed limbs aside with disgust, blue flas still flickering around his mouth.
In the next instant, Shen Lao roared and blue flas ca out of his mouth. Every creature in that chamber just watched as Shen Lao brutally maid and roasted the shark creature alive. By the ti he was done, there were only ashes left.
"Anyone else?" he asked the remaining prisoners, his voice deadly quiet.
The effect was imdiate. The mad creatures that had been pressing forward suddenly retreated, their broken minds still capable of recognizing a superior predator. They ran back into the tunnel network, leaving behind only the corpses of their fellows and the acrid sll of burned flesh.
"Are you injured?" Shen Lao asked Lin, his voice returning to normal as he examined the scratches on her shoulder.
"I’m fine," she replied, though her face was pale from witnessing his violent display. "Just scratches."
"In this environnt, even scratches can be dangerous," he said, producing a small vial from sowhere within his clothing. "This will prevent infection."
As Lin treated her wounds, the chamber shuddered more violently than before. The rising temperature was having cascading effects on the creature’s biology—not just increased heart rate, but cellular breakdown, systemic failures that threatened to make their escape route impassable.
"We need to move," Shen Lao announced. "The thermal shock is causing organ failure. She’s going to get very angry and purge everything inside of her soon."
"Which way?" Grim asked, noting that the blood vessels here branched in multiple directions.
"Up," Shen Lao replied, pointing to a passage that angled sharply upward. "Toward the gills. But the path will be treacherous—the pressure changes as her circulation fails will make the vessels unstable."
They began climbing through what was clearly a major artery, its walls pulsing erratically. Behind them, they could hear more movent—other prisoners following their path, though whether from curiosity or hunger remained unclear.
"Even in madness, they fear you." Lin said.
"Fear is sotis the only currency left in a place like this," Shen Lao replied. "I established dominance early in my imprisonnt. It was that or beco like them—a creature of pure instinct and hunger."
A blood vessel above them burst, showering them with scalding fluid that made even Shen Lao grunt in pain. The Leviathan’s body was beginning to shut down, and they were running out of ti to reach safety.
"There," Lin pointed ahead to where the passage opened into bright light. "The gill chambers."
But even as they approached their goal, the sounds behind them grew louder. More prisoners were following, and so of them were learning to overco their fear through sheer numbers.
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