Hermit Purple caught Sasuke and gently placed him on the ground.
Sasuke rubbed his hair that had been blown into a mess by the wind, then jogged over to regroup with Ryosuke.
He poked the huge snake head, "Is the White Snake Sage dead?"
Ryosuke nodded.
The system prompt had made it clear, "slain," not "defeated." Which meant that this reptile, who had lived for a thousand years and gained immortality, truly was dead.
The Sage Art: Inorganic Reincarnation stopped, dust returned to dust, soil returned to earth, the ground restoring its former stillness.
Ryosuke looked around. White Snake was still standing there dumbly, snake eyes fixed straight on the White Snake Sage's head.
Not far away lay Tagorihime's corpse.
That woman's brain worked faster than White Snake's. When she saw the White Snake Sage weakening, she feared that after Ryosuke killed her master, he'd kill her too. So she transformed into a snake and fled in advance.
At that time, the White Snake Sage, in order to escape Ryosuke, had gone mad and unleashed Inorganic Reincarnation, the earth heaving.
If Tagorihime had stayed put, she would have been fine. But she ran outside the boundary of Ryuchi Cave. Could the White Snake Sage really have spared her life at the cost of his own?
So this snake maiden, who had served the White Snake Sage her whole life, died under her own master's Sage Art, going ahead of him to the underworld, to continue her service down there.
"What a pity," Ryosuke said sincerely.
That was 400 soul fragments. Since she was going to die anyway, better she died by Ryosuke's hand.
After this round, Ryosuke had more or less figured out the personnel structure of Ryuchi Cave.
At the top was the most powerful White Snake Sage. Below her, the civil officials were the Three Goddesses, serving tea and water, testing visitors seeking the Way.
The military officials were Manda, Shinya, Aoda, and others, snakes that had given up transforming into humans.
Still, to slaughter every last being in Ryuchi Cave just to sort out the family tree… was a bit too much like hell.
Ryosuke walked up to Aoda.
"Why didn't you run?"
Aoda said, "I… forgot."
The battle between Ryosuke and the White Snake Sage had been too earth-shattering. Aoda had been so focused on watching that he completely forgot to flee.
"Ever eaten a person?" Ryosuke asked again.
Aoda shook his head, "I wanted to, but… it was never my turn."
White Snake appeared, raised a palm.
Aoda shrank back, glanced at Ryosuke, didn't dare dodge, and could only take the slap.
White Snake pulled out the memory disc, glanced at it, and nodded to Ryosuke, "A fellow who's always been bullied, indeed has never eaten a person."
The disc was reinserted.
"Do you know where the White Snake Sage's little cakes are hidden? Take me there, and I'll spare your life," Ryosuke said.
Aoda nodded and bowed busily, "Master, this way please."
Aoda clawed at the soil in front, and before long, a downward passage appeared.
Obediently, he led the way, with Ryosuke and Sasuke following behind. After seven turns and eight twists, the view suddenly opened wide.
It was a bright underground cavern. Below was a pool of crystal-clear, slightly viscous liquid, like melted jade.
Ryosuke's gaze fell into the pool, and his brows furrowed slightly.
More than two hundred men and women, all exceptionally handsome or beautiful in appearance and figure, were soaking within.
All of them were completely naked, stripped of every hair on their bodies, lying there bare, their peaceful expressions making them look like fetuses returned to the womb.
Aoda explained, "They were all taken from different countries. The White Snake Sage used Sage Art, mixed with her saliva, to create this pool of liquid. It preserves their bodies in peak condition, pure and spotless inside and out, so that…"
"When eaten, the taste is at its best."
Hermit Purple activated, pulling all two hundred people out of the pool. Ripple power flowed through the vines into their bodies, stimulating their vitality. Within seconds, coughs rang out.
Dust and filth dirtied their bodies, but their souls awoke, grounded in reality. Once they figured out what had happened, all two hundred dropped to their knees before Ryosuke.
Ryosuke sat on the ground, met the eyes of each one in silence, then after a long pause said, "Get up. Wait outside for me."
"I'll take you home."
Home.
Just a simple word, yet in their blank eyes burst forth a light made of longing and memory.
Sasuke led them back to the surface.
Every single one of them had looks that, in Ryosuke's familiar world, would be enough to make them influencers or stars.
But here, they had almost become livestock fodder.
For a thousand years, no one knew how many living people had been chewed up as snacks by the White Snake Sage.
Ryosuke grasped the huge snake head of the White Snake Sage.
"You really deserved to die."
Aoda's eyelids twitched, then he heard Ryosuke call his name and hurriedly stretched his head forward, "Master, I'm here."
"Money. Where is it?"
Before the fight, the White Snake Sage had said that if Ryosuke left, she would give him a vast sum of gold and treasure.
Ryosuke didn't lack money, but research, development, the spread of theory, all required funds.
Aoda led the way again, winding left and right. This time it took longer, nearly a hundred meters of descent, until finally, Ryosuke found the treasure cave.
The moment Ryosuke stepped inside, he suddenly sensed something odd.
He detected the White Snake Sage's life force.
'Not dead?'
'Impossible. If she weren't dead, how could the system have issued a "slain" notice?'
Star Platinum appeared, pushing aside the gold and jewels blocking the way.
At the deepest part of the treasure cave, Ryosuke saw a shattered "golden egg."
He picked up a piece of the broken shell.
On the outside it was plated with gold, looking like real gold, but inside it was actually a genuine snake egg.
On the ground still lingered sticky traces of snakes crawling. From within came faint traces of the White Snake Sage's life force.
Ryosuke held the eggshell.
"Orochimaru's old kin… could it really be she didn't die?"
Ryosuke picked up a luminous pearl nearby, held it to the burning candle flame, the firelight passing through and casting a hazy reflection on the wall.
"Hermit Purple."
Purple vines wrapped around Ryosuke's arm.
'Target, White Snake Sage.'
He wrote the thought. No reaction.
'No reaction. Either karma is insufficient, or she no longer exists in this world.'
As for karma, Ryosuke and the White Snake Sage had battled endlessly, their karmic ties long since overflowing.
'Which means, the White Snake Sage really doesn't exist in this world anymore.'
Ryosuke thought a moment, then activated the ability again.
'Target, a lifeform carrying the White Snake Sage's life aura.'
The next second, the vision shook violently. In the picture appeared forty snakes of different shapes.
Some slithered through grass, some crawled underground, some floated in underground rivers, carried downstream.
As if sensing Ryosuke's gaze, all forty snakes turned their heads at once, venomous eyes staring back, exactly the same as the White Snake Sage's.
'So that's it.'
The true White Snake Sage was indeed dead. But an ancient thing that had lived a thousand years, how could it have no backup plan?
Most likely the White Snake Sage had some memory-sharing ability with this golden egg.
Once the main body died, the golden egg shattered, and the forty snakes carrying the body's memories scattered in every direction, avoiding pursuit.
After life settled down, they would likely devour each other until only one remained. That would become the new White Snake Sage.
But…
Would that still be the White Snake Sage?
Ryosuke didn't think so.
Neither the system nor Hermit Purple thought so.
What survived was nothing more than a new lifeform carrying the White Snake Sage's memories.
At this moment, Ryosuke didn't bother pondering the philosophical question of "whether memory equals soul."
He swept his eyes around the cavern, filled with treasure the White Snake Sage had hoarded for a thousand years.
'Looks like in this life, I won't have to worry about money anymore.'
Under Ryosuke's orders, Aoda became a porter, hauling gold and jewels outside.
While it worked, Ryosuke dragged over a gold-inlaid jade chair, pulled down a tiger pelt, and sat down heavily.
The twin fatigue of body and spirit surged up at last.
Leaning back on the chair, Ryosuke opened the system interface to check his harvest.
[White Snake Sage slain: 3000 points]
[Garaga + Manda: 1600 points]
[Yugito: 1100 points]
Plus the 714 points left after upgrading Star Platinum, and 63 points from scattered daily income.
[Total soul fragments: 6477]
Ryosuke looked at the number on the system screen and shifted to a more comfortable position.
Unknowingly, he had already accumulated quite a lot.
With so many soul fragments, Ryosuke had three options.
First, spend them all to upgrade White Snake.
Second, save them, and when he obtained an Ascension Core later, gamble for a six-star.
Third, draw cards.
'I want to draw cards!'
Ryosuke quietly pondered for a few seconds, then made his decision.
'Draw cards.'
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