Chapter 111: Raging currents.

The Flood Dragon let out a loud and furious hiss when it saw Yan Ling's actions, quickly slithering forward to chase after them. But just as the Flood Dragon entered the river again, Yan Ling acted and made her move. She made a cutting motion with her arm, the water in front of the hole they had entered rising up and forming a furious tidal wave that pushed the Flood Dragon back.

It only managed to push the Flood Dragon back for a bit, delaying it by a few seconds. But with how fast the current was taking them away, these few seconds were the same as an endlessly long chasm that separated them from the Flood Dragon. The Flood Dragon raised its head high and continued to let out several furious hisses, thrashing around in the river to release a fragment of its anger.

Not only had it lost its treasured tree, it hadn't even been able to hold back the thieves that had stolen its treasure. Now it would have to wait even longer for its next evolution, and without the fruits from the tree, it was far from confident in taking on the tribulation that would arrive when it tried to evolve further.

While the Flood Dragon was unleashing some of its rage, Liang Chen and Yan Ling were being swept away by the violent currents. The water moved so violently that Liang Chen was unable to see anything, leaving him unable to know if he was about to hit a rock or if they arrived in a new cavern from which they could leave.

Yan Ling, who could control the law of water, did not have this problem, so it fell upon her to make sure that the two of them didn't crash into anything as they were being swept away. To make sure that the two didn't drift apart, Yan Ling made sure to wrap her arms around Liang Chen's waist, giving him a tight hug while using her law of water to control their bodies.

This was an underground river that was moving strangely fast and ferociously, so the bottom and sides of the river were filled with jagged and sharp rocks that could at any second slice open Liang Chen or Yan Ling. She couldn't afford to let her concentration lapse for even a second, her mind fully focused on their surroundings, on making sure that Liang Chen didn't get hurt because of a decision she had made.

She managed to dodge everything that they almost crashed into for the first three hours, but after that, her mind slowly started to tire out from being fully focused on such a large area for so long, resulting in minor mistakes happening.

At first, it was just mistakes like dodging a rock a bit too late and having it get a bit too close to them, but these mistakes quickly piled on and grew. And finally, she made a bigger mistake, not noticing a jagged rock before it was too late, the rock leaving a gash in Liang Chen's thigh. Yan Ling quickly corrected their position to prevent the rock from increasing the size of the wound, but the damage was already done.

Liang Chen noticed that he got wounded, but he didn't make a sound, he knew that this was a very stressful and tough moment for Yan Ling, so he didn't want to make it worse for her by making her feel bad. He even felt like laughing at himself, laughing at how he was unable to do even the slightest thing right now.

Shortly after not noticing the first rock before it left a gash in Liang Chen's thigh, Yan Ling made a similar mistake, the stress and mental exertion starting to get to her. She missed another jagged rock, only noticing it when it was already too late to dodge it. But this time she managed to react in time, spinning their bodies around so that she was the one who got wounded, the stone leaving a gash on the lower side of her back.

One wound led to another, and after following the stream for over half a day, Yan Ling's body was covered in cuts both large and small. Liang Chen was a bit better off, as she was doing her best to protect him, but he still had a few gashes on his body, the blood of the two mixing with the water around them.

And then, the water around them suddenly vanished and the two found themselves midair. The underground river had entered another cavern, the place where they came out being the top of a waterfall that was about a hundred meters high. The river they had just been in fell down the waterfall and then continued flowing through the cavern before entering another hole and vanishing from sight.

They were no longer being carried away by the current, so Yan Ling could finally relax her tensed and tired mind, nearly losing consciousness, her grip on Liang Chen loosening. Liang Chen quickly reacted, reaching out and grabbing onto her as gravity caused them to rapidly descend towards the ground. He picked her up in a princess carry and used his law of time to freeze the time beneath his feet, creating tiny footholds he could use to safely descend down to the ground.

Once his feet stepped on dry land, he took out a dry robe from his interspatial ring and tore it into strips, using them as makeshift bandages to cover up Yan Ling's wounds. He then took out a medicinal pill from his interspatial ring and had her eat it, lying her down on the ground in front of him as he spoke up.

"Don't worry about anything else, just focus on absorbing the medicinal energy and healing your wounds. Once you have managed to restore yourself a bit, you can use your law of water to speed up the healing speed."

Yan Ling gave a slight nod of her head, her mind dazed and her vision somewhat blurry. Her mind was completely spent and she had lost a lot of blood, the fact that she hadn't already lost consciousness showed how determined she was to stay conscious.

While Yan Ling was focusing on using the pill to restore her own wounds, Liang Chen switched into a dry robe and swallowed a pill to restore his own wounds. He had taken quite a few interspatial rings from the people he had killed, so he wasn't lacking when it came to pills to restore wounds. Just the six spies the two of them had killed on the way to this Fiend King's Tomb carried enough pills to last the two of them for half a year.

Half an hour after swallowing the pill, Yan Ling had restored enough to let her use her Qi and the law of water for healing. But rather than using it on herself, she turned towards Liang Chen and started to focus on healing his wounds, which were nowhere near as bad as her's. Liang Chen wanted to whack her on the head to make her focus on herself, but looking at the determined and apologetic expression she wore, he couldn't bring himself to lower his hand. In the end, he could only gently rub her head and mutter.

"Really, you should focus on yourself in times like these. Don't worry about these small wounds, they weren't your fault, they were my fault for being useless in the water."

Yan Ling didn't give a proper response, simply sticking out her tongue and ignoring Liang Chen. With her acting like that, there was nothing Liang Chen could really do, he could only take out another pill and force her to swallow it, further speeding up her healing process.

Yan Ling and the pill he had swallowed weren't the only things healing Liang Chen, his Heaven Devouring Dragon bloodline also reacted to his wounds, automatically starting to repair the broken parts of his body, strengthening them ever so slightly. With these three things healing him, his wounds were rapidly restoring themselves and vanishing. Once over half of his wounds were gone, he forced Yan Ling to stop healing him and focus on herself, adamantly ignoring her protests until she had no choice but to relent.

While Yan Ling started focusing on her own wounds, Liang Chen examined the cavern around them. This cavern was quite a bit smaller than the one where they had encountered the Flood Dragon, only stretching out about a kilometer in each direction. The same shining crystals that had been present in the previous cavern were located here, poking out from the ceiling and the walls, resembling small stars.

Other than the waterfall and the river, the cavern was completely empty, but Liang Chen was able to see a cave dug into the wall of the cavern, slanting upwards and bending slightly, preventing Liang Chen from seeing where it led. But at least it was a place they could go, they wouldn't have to ride Yan Ling's wonderful waterslide again.

There was also another fact Liang Chen noticed about the cavern, there was a very faint pressure present here, pushing down on them. It didn't seem like the pressure he had felt in the Mystic's Hidden Realm, it felt more like the gravity in this area was just stronger than it was in other places. He scanned the cavern for anything that could be causing this, but as he didn't find anything, he could only ignore it for now.

Five hours after the two of them arrived in this cavern, Yan Ling finished healing up the last of her wounds, having swallowed several pills and used nearly all her Qi to heal herself. She stood up to show that she was fine, but then quickly crouched down and covered herself, looking at Liang Chen with a slight blush.

"Turn around."

Her robe was so drenched that it completely stuck to her body, revealing nearly everything. Now was not the time to mention that he had already seen her naked once before after her clothing was turned to ash due to a heavenly tribulation, so he obediently turned around and waited for Yan Ling to dry herself and switch into a dry robe.

"You can turn around again now."

Yan Ling still looked a bit bashful, a faint blush on her ears. She tried to hide it with a calm expression, but there was no way she could hide it from Liang Chen. Of course, mentioning it would be rude, so Liang Chen acted the part of the gentleman and said nothing about her red ears, placing both his hands on her shoulders and speaking to her in a serious and comforting tone.

"Don't worry too much about what happened in the river. You did the best you could and you did it wonderfully, it is thanks to you that we managed to get out from the river with injuries that are this light, so don't be too hard on yourself."

He didn't want the wounds they had suffered because of her mistakes to weigh down on her mind, so it was best to take care of it immediately. Yan Ling looked like she wanted to say something, opening her mouth slightly, but upon seeing the gentle and caring expression of Liang Chen, she could only nod her head. Liang Chen then removed his hands from her shoulder, clapping his hands and pointing at the cave.

"There's a cave over there, it seems to lead upwards. There's not really anything else here, so I suggest we check it out."

Yan Ling's gaze landed on the cave, which was about four meters wide and three meters tall. There really was nothing else in this cavern, so she nodded her head and the two of them headed into the cave, following its slightly slanted and spiraling path upwards.