Inside the monster, Yun Fei tumbled down the slippery canal that was the oesophagus. He held on fast to a dagger that stabbed into one of the folds of the flesh wall.

Panting hard, he felt glad that he was able to grab a hold and stop himself from falling further. He was aware of the place where all the food ends up, as just another piece of meat gulped into the gullet. He sure as hell didn't want to reach there.

He had read that some animals had stomach acid so strong that they could digest metal. For a monster of this scale, it felt right to assume that there would be no surviving for someone of his cultivation level if they came into contact with it.

Yun Fei wanted to escape, he didn't want to die inside some snake that fell out of the sky.

Just as he had this thought, the flesh walls above him contracted heavily. Like a wave in the ocean coming to crush him, peristalsis. If he kept hanging at this place, he'd probably be made into mush.

He ran ahead, the snake was thankfully almost parallel to the ground, making his movement easier.

To his horror, the contraction followed in his wake. Rushing even more, he focused on the path ahead. He didn't want to unknowingly dissolve in a pool of acid.

After running for a little bit of time, Yun Fei encountered exactly what he had predicted. The flesh cave opened up to a wider area filled with a completely colourless pool of liquid. It sloshed around a little each time the snake negotiated obstacles.

He still had to worry about the contraction chasing him. He ran up the wall of flesh and reached a rough ridged partion that was just on the border of the stomach and oesophagus.

He hung there using two daggers and waited for the contraction to arrive. According to him, the contraction wouldn't continue to this place and he'd be safe here.

His conjecture proved to be correct as the movement stopped just before him. Allowing him to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

One thing that Yun Fei thought eerie was that, the transparent pond was too clean. He couldn't see any kind of residue or leftovers.

He took out a blunt dagger and threw it into the pond. There wasn't any kind of splash, the blunt dagger just disintegrated with a soft hiss as soon as it submerged. It left nothing but transient bubbles behind it.

Yun Fei broke out in cold sweat, he understood why there weren't any bones or clothes even though the snake had swallowed some people before him.

Exhaling a deep breath, he thought,

'If I didn’t have Sun Ming's eye technique, it would be very hard for me to survive this darkness.'

He took out the dagger which he had carried with him for the longest time. Its blade was still without blemishes and it was the sharpest that he had ever encountered.

While hanging by one hand, he used the dagger with the other and dug into the flesh wall. He wanted to create a place to rest.

There were too many things happening since the other night. Yun Fei was continuously thrown into tense situations. Even his injuries from the last night's fight hadn't completely healed.

He kept digging with his dagger while carefully maintaining his position. The wet sounds of the rhythmic squeeze were like an infuriating clock. Remains and even more debris came tumbling down vanishing without trace, on contact with the acid.

After some time, he was finally able to dig out a hole in the flesh where he could sit. It was just a shallow flesh cave permeating with a weird bloody smell. Still, it was the best he had right now. He climbed into it and allowed his taut nerves to finally relaxed.

The pressure of the situation finally started bearing down on him. His adrenaline fueled instincts had served him well this far. This moment made his situation undeniable, in the belly of the beast with no path forward.

Yun Fei was not under any immediate danger, but his mood was pretty bleak. He knew this and that was the reason he started meditating to get himself into the best state possible. He would think of a way to get out after he had recovered.

A gaunt man in bluish grey robes rushed through the landscape. His pure white hair and long goatee trailed behind as he stepped through the air as if it were solid. Hands clasped behind his back, his dignified posture would seem leisurely to any bystander.

However, the only people who would even be able to see the old man instead of just an imperceptible trail among the clouds would be people with exceptional cultivation.

Duan Xiang had been in the Atlas forest when he perceived the incident near Sungon city. He had known of its great scale, even before being informed by his frantic subordinates about the scaled nightmare on the loose.

Technically, all such incidents would be handled by the city lord of Sungon city. However, he was, currently, the most senior member in the area. Hence, it was his responsibility to ensure that there were no excessive damages in this situation.

The closer he drew to the area, the stronger his feeling had become. The core from this beast would be very beneficial for his cultivation.

This was the prime reason behind his haste. He couldn't miss this chance; he didn't have the leeway to.

Duan Xiang was already old. People hadn’t counted on him advancing to the Nascent Soul stage. However, with some luck and a lot of hard work, he had ultimately succeeded.

Now, if he wanted to advance further. He had to do his absolute best, he couldn't put something this lucrative off. Who knew when he would get such a good window again, maybe he would be already dead by the time opportunity knocked on his door again.

Currently, the demonic beast had been severely injured. Its aura, left behind like potent skunk, was only on the level of Nascent Soul 2nd stage. That was a level above him. But the gap was small enough that he could try his hand.

Duan Xiang narrowed his eyes, putting on another burst of speed. His thin face had a serious expression as his lips curved a little upwards.

He had finally caught up.

His Qi blared, flowing within his meredians and then transforming according to his cultivation technique.

Duan Xiang tweaked his pace, gathering more momentum. Pushing off of invisible steps, he moved forward like a thunderbolt, blindingly. His palm lit up with an ethereal glow, expanding like a halo.

When he finally reached his range, he raised both of his hands. The white palms that had formed in front of his hands, crackled with power.

Both of them flew out one after the other, reaching a gigantic size before falling on the snake. The imprint left the impression of a six-fingered giant slapping the scales, causing the resilient serpent to buck in pain.

A weird shriek rang out as the snake increased its speed using the momentum driven into it by the giant transparent palms.

Duan Xiang knew that taking down the snake wouldn't be so easy. He also increased his speed and prepared himself for a battle of attrition.

Yun Fei wiped his sweat and sat down heaving. For hours, he had been digging away into the flesh of the snake. It was unbelievably tough; even after all his efforts, he had only managed to barely break through its visceral layer.

Digging up from the inside was much easier than trying to penetrate its scaled skin outside. But even then, the area that Yun Fei had excavated didn’t even gather the snake’s attention. Compared to its impossibly large body, it was lesser than a small ulcer.

Due to its high cultivation and regenerative powers, the area that Yun Fei dug up kept visibly reducing unless constantly restricted by his Qi and this was when the snake wasn't even paying attention to him.

‘A day should’ve already passed since I got swallowed. Just when will I be able to escape?’

The only silver lining in this situation was that this place was very suitable for cultivation. It was also one of the reasons he was digging deeper.

When he was recovering, he had found out that there was a higher amount of Qi the deeper he went into the flesh. It was a lot better than even the dwelling Devanshu had found.

He knew that because of this incident, they would postpone the examination for some time or maybe directly include the people who survived the land slide but such predictions were hardly reliable.

In the end, the association didn’t have a pressing need for new recruits; the supply was never a problem, only the demand.

Yun Fei wouldn't mind staying here for a longer time to increase his cultivation if he didn't have to go and join the association.

In fact, Yun Fei had almost decided to keep cultivating inside this snake when he dug through a capillary of the snake. The blood of the snake tasted so good and was so rich with Qi that his mind blanked out for some time.

He wanted to keep drinking it but the capillary closed itself very soon and the blood was redirected. Still, this feast had completely recovered the Qi in his meridians. Even the chaotic flow of Qi in his body was completely recovered.

This feeling of being completely bloated with Qi filled Yun Fei with a contented ease. If he could have access to such rich Qi, his cultivation progress would skyrocket. At least for the Qi condensation stage.

'Ahhh, such a nice opportunity but it's impossible for me stay here and cultivate. It will be a sure death for me if I am not able to escape soon enough.'

Yun Fei had noticed that the snake had never stopped moving full speed from the moment the heron had dropped it on the mountain. He was a little curious about why it was in such haste but he soon understood the reason.

Periodically, he coud feel the snake take blows which would shake its whole body, goading it forward. He attributed this to the attacks by the human experts on the snake.

A monster on loose in their area would be a bad news for any force and they wouldn't just leave it alone. Yun Fei predicted that currently, human cultivators on the same level of the snake were after it.

They wanted to chase the snake out of the territory or even kill it. Even a normal animal had a lot of useful things for the people. He could only imagine what attraction the body of such a strong beast would have for the cultivators.

If Yun Fei was able to move out of this snake while it was still being chased around, there would be a very high chance that the snake would just leave him alone and keep moving.

'It probably only swallowed me because I was in its path, the last time.'

However, if he wasn't able to escape from inside the snake and the snake escaped from the human experts. It would spell the death of Yun Fei. He wouldn't ever be able to escape without alerting the snake or making it not care.

He still thought that there was a high chance that the human experts would be able to kill the snake. After all, the snake was already injured in its struggle with the heron.

While he was thinking about these things, his dagger hit into another capillary and blood spurted out. Yun Fei moved with a gluttons speed and started, greedily sucking the delicious and nutritious discharge.

This past day, he had kept slashing at the flesh and then cultivating to recover his energy and the Qi expended. His skills in digging had improved tremendously.

Yun Fei thought that he'd probably be one of the best in the whole city at this. He put his Qi in the daggers and used them with improved technique.

While digging for a day he had also discovered a very interesting thing about his trusty black dagger.

The dagger offered no resistance when his Qi passed through it. He had thought that this was the case with every weapon. But after using a normal dagger, he had realised that he was mistaken.

The other ordinary daggers hampered his Qi to such degree that he wasn't even able to pass Qi through them at the start. After trying for some time, he could do, it but the difference was still very large.

It was like moving through quick sand and moving through air. This property of the black dagger was also one of the reasons that he was able to dig to this degree.

If he didn't have it, it would take a very large amount of time to reach where he was now.

Now that the new-found capillary was also closed up and redirected through somewhere else. Yun Fei sat down cross legged and took out the Qi Condensation manual.

He was going to try and move towards the 5th level of Qi Condensation. There wasn't really much else to do except digging, cultivating, and wishing that this damn snake was dead already.