Chapter 42: Eternal Hell
There was indeed nothing in this underground cavity.
There is no light, no water, no animals, no plants, only an ancient air that has been sealed for who knows how long. It smells like a hollow can that has been sealed for tens of thousands of years and is then suddenly opened.
Just a slight sniff and the blood bar would drop a small amount of an inch.
There is even an abnormal status added directly to the system interface: "Poisoned".
“Ahem…”
Li Qing coughed violently several times and his face turned pale.
He shook off the rotten cockroach corpse on his fist and took two or three seconds to finally come to his senses:
"really…"
"You brainless guy followed me!"
Looking at the huge piece of meat in front of him that almost filled half of the hole, Li Qing smiled.
Now is the most critical moment for him and Meat.
However, theoretically speaking, now is actually the last moment before his death. In literary works, it is a time for this character to recall his past life.
After all, as Giorno worried...
There is nothing in this underground hole, so naturally there is nothing that can help him attract hatred.
The only one who could move was Li Qing. If he tried to move or climb toward the ground, the piece of meat would devour him mercilessly.
But if he didn't move, not only would he be trapped underground together with the piece of meat, the toxic air that had been stored in the underground cavity for tens of thousands of years and whose composition was unknown would be enough to kill him within a few minutes.
so…
Li Qing still moved.
He walked slowly to the wall, clung to the rock, and crawled towards the tunnel that the piece of meat had just opened up with its body, connecting the ground and the underground, with an angle of nearly 90 degrees.
In order to take the shortest route and get back to the ground as quickly as possible, Li Qing even walked close to the bloated piece of meat.
At this moment, he was only a few centimeters away from the twisted and hideous body of meat.
But the piece of meat ignored him.
"Hahaha."
"It's just a brainless thing after all."
Li Qing slowly climbed up the nearly vertical tunnel, chuckling and muttering to himself:
"I led you down into this underground cave, not to die with you."
"Although there is nothing moving in this underground hole that can help me attract hatred, it does not mean that there is nothing deeper underground..."
As if to confirm Li Qing's words...
The piece of meat completely ignored Li Qing who was quietly slipping away from behind him, and instead concentrated on throwing himself headfirst onto the ground.
It was digging, further and deeper into the earth.
"This is Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano with dozens of recorded eruptions over the past two thousand years."
"The last eruption was only a few decades ago."
"Under the land near such active volcanoes, there are often magma chambers that store a large amount of active lava very close to the surface."
"Yes..."
"Under this underground cavity, dozens of meters below, there is an underground lake, an underground lava lake!"
"The vast amount of magma gathered underground surges back and forth in the lava lake like waves in the sea - this is the bait that can attract your attention."
Li Qing carefully controlled his speed and slowly crawled toward the ground.
However, the piece of meat took the completely opposite direction and continued to dig deeper into the ground.
One meter... five meters... ten meters... twenty meters... thirty meters...
The piece of meat finally found what it wanted.
It crashed through the top wall of the underground magma chamber and opened the seal that trapped the fire demon.
The piece of meat suddenly knocked a big hole into the top wall of the magma chamber, and the balance of air pressure was instantly broken.
Just like an old-fashioned popcorn machine whose internal air pressure reaches a critical point under heating, the hot lava that was originally flowing quietly in the magma chamber instantly found a pressure release point and suddenly burst out from the gap at the top.
Bang!
The underground world, which had been silent for ten thousand years, suddenly heard a dull explosion.
The viscous lava, with a temperature of thousands of degrees, instantly engulfed the piece of meat and continued to gush upward along the channel created by the piece of meat.
Squeak squeak squeak ~
Below Li Qing, in the tunnel covered by lava, a faint sound similar to that of barbecue could be heard.
The vitality of meat is indeed very strong.
Even now, Li Qing still doesn't know——
He had been running for his life and had hardly attacked, so of course he didn't know:
There is no upper limit to this monster's vitality. In fact, it can never be completely killed.
But what Li Qing knew was:
The ability of this piece of meat is not "indestructible" but "super-fast regeneration".
This means that its body can be destroyed, but it can regenerate again very quickly.
After two or three bullets, this piece of flesh can immediately repair its damaged body.
So...what if the bullets hitting it are thousands or tens of thousands of them, as fierce as a storm, and will never stop?
The endless lava under the ground is just like this "never-ending storm".
At this moment, Li Qing could sense:
The defenseless body of the piece of meat was rapidly carbonizing and wilting under the burning of the lava.
However, relying on its own terrifying vitality, its body is proliferating fresh flesh and blood tissue at an astonishing rate.
The old flesh and blood burned into charcoal and was washed away by the boiling lava, while the new flesh and blood continued to wither under the endless heat.
The damage caused by high temperature is enormous, and the energy it can absorb is basically used to repair its own body.
In this way, the endless vitality of the piece of meat and the endless heat of the earth started a tug-of-war, a tug-of-war that seemed to never have a winner.
"He's not dead yet?!"
Li Qing was slightly surprised.
According to his original idea, he actually wanted to use the huge damage caused by the lava to completely wipe out this monster.
But he didn't expect that the vitality of this piece of meat was far, far beyond his imagination.
But anyway...
The piece of meat was trapped after all - it was trapped in this endless sea of lava.
Its body continued to multiply and carbonize in the lava, and the end result was that it sank deeper and deeper into the endless magma.
And the piece of meat itself is very happy.
It had no idea that its body was suffering enormous and endless damage, but instead its attention was attracted by the lava constantly surging in the magma chamber.
There are surging waves of lava everywhere, and every "wave" is a wonderful prey that the meat is obsessed with.
The constantly surging and rolling underground magma attracted the piece of meat, which acted completely on instinct, and made it actively swim towards the deeper, hotter, and more lava-filled underground.
"This guy can survive in lava..."
"What a complete monster!"
After seeing the true vitality of the meat, Li Qing couldn't help but sigh with lingering fear:
Come to think of it, he almost ended up killing himself and Mother Earth along with him.
Fortunately, luck is also part of strength.
And Li Qing's strength in this area seems to be quite good:
"Fortunately... Fortunately, the damage caused by the lava was great enough that it used all the energy it absorbed to repair the wound."
"Otherwise, I'll send it into this underground magma chamber. Not only will I not be able to kill it, but I'll help it find 'food'."
"Whatever!"
"Since I can't die..."
Li Qing took one last look at the lava sea below him, whose "water level" was rising higher and higher:
"Then you can enjoy this eternal hell of fire!"
