After Kali forced the black, purple, and red viscous-looking pill down his throat, the disgusting and rotting flavor it had made his stomach churn and puke. He didn't avoid the reflex as she felt the food rising and going out from where it entered. "Bleurgh! What the- Ugk."
Kali warned Yasenia, "My love, you can let him go. I don't want you to be close when the effects begin to show. It can be dangerous for you."
Yasenia looked at Kali and saw that she was calm even while this was going on, so she guessed that whatever she fed him wouldn't come out so easily. She listened to her dear fox and stopped holding him down with her claw. Then, she walked beside Kali.
Kali used her tail to pat Yasenia as the terror about to happen unfolded.
As Yasenia guessed, the thing Kali fed him didn't come out with his vomit. She could even see a small bulge on his throat.
Even though Lu Hao really wanted to spit out whatever Kali forcefully fed him, he couldn't. The reason? The instant the thing was about to be washed out by the vomit, the pill seemed to become alive and used strange tentacles to grab onto the throat walls and literally crawl inside.
The feeling of a foul, nasty thing forcefully crawling down his throat as he puked was disgustingly terrifying. He began coughing and gagging, trying to vomit it but unable to. "What did you *Gag.* make me swallow!?" *Cough! Cough!*
Kali looked at how his throat bulged as the pill went down, no matter how much he struggled, and a smile crept up her face. 'So it worked as intended. That's good. Whenever I find them, the other nine will also be unable to escape it.'
Kali saw the tear-faced Lu Hao cursing and trying everything in his power to spit it out, so she decided to explain to him. "I created this, especially for all of you. I made them even before I got to know Yasenia, my lover."
One of the other nine who were constricted in Kali's roots exclaimed, "No way, you are the Heavenly Dragoness's lover? Liar! Everyone knows that she had no Fox-kin lover!"
Kali laughed and caressed Yasenia's head. "Well, she is right here, so even if I can lie, she can't, right?"
After dropping that bomb that made them dizzy, Kali ignored them and continued explaining to Lu Hao. "At the time I created them, I was honestly on the verge of insanity. Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised when I say that all the materials that pill is made of come from the [Parasite Gnawing Forest]."
Yasenia and our girls instantly got a chill running up their spine. Evelyn exclaimed out of shock, "No way you entered that cursed place!"
The reason for their reaction is that not even Transcendent Realm cultivators dare approach that forest.
The creatures living there are all parasitic, and not even plants escape from having this trait. That forest has been there for an extremely long time, so every creature inside has evolved to become even more parasitic than the previous one.
The things that live there are so dangerous that if even one of the strongest ones were to land in a bad place with the appropriate condition, it could exterminate whole biomes by itself, spreading from host to host extremely quickly. Moreover, most parasites are not symbiotic, and they use their hosts only to propagate at the cost of the host.
The only reason those creatures can't leave that forest is that the seniors have built barriers around it to prevent the vermins from escaping. The entry of it wasn't prohibited, but if someone entered and managed to exist alive, they would have to be in check for months after exiting. Another thing to point out is that the creatures living there don't have intelligence.
In short, things there have evolved in such a manner to battle for power when infesting the same host that their spread abilities and infecting prowess were terrifying.
Of all the known creatures, only these living beings can defeat cultivators up to two realms higher in cultivation. A parasite lodged into a host, even if weak, can become something dangerous for the cultivator faster than they could even realize.
After hearing about it, Kali felt Yasenia biting her dress and jumping backward, Yanking her away from Lu Hao. Angel even created a dome to protect all of them from it in the next second.
Andrea scolded with a trembling voice, "Kali, my friend. Can you give us a heads up whenever you are going to use such a thing the next time?"
Kali blinked and laughed, "Sure. I have some more of them in my ring. I forgot about their danger to other people since I've worked with them for a while."
Angel, Andrea, Evelyn, and Cecile felt their muscles twitching as they looked at the gently smiling fox lady. They couldn't help but find her much more terrifying than before.
Of course, Lu Hao also knew about these things since they were taught how to handle them in most sects. The power a parasite had was big to that extent. In the past, some sects specialized in them, and they were all attacked by the rest of the Sky Continent, demonic and righteous side, and eventually exterminated.
Lu Hao's face turned as white as a sheet of paper the second he learned where the thing crawling down his throat came from, and he started screaming. "Lunatic! Crazy woman! How could you even dare approach that cursed place!? Ahh! I want to kill you!"
Kali sighed, "Well, I will admit that you are not wrong. I was crazy at that time. Once I gathered my senses after what you did to me, the thirst for revenge flooded my insides, wanting nothing more than to cause a painful death to all of you."
Yasenia moved closer to Kali and rubbed her body on hers, growling lovingly to comfort her. Kali smiled and hugged the beautiful dragoness. "What I didn't know was that my bloodline makes me immune to parasites. My aura is enough to make a two-realm higher parasite bow down to me and obey me. Quite a discovery that was. However, since the use of them is one of the few prohibited things in our Continent, I never delved deep into it."
Yasenia protested, "I didn't know about that!"
Kali laughed, "You didn't ask~."
Yasenia turned her head and snorted. "Next time, you tell me without me asking."
Kali thought Yasenia's gesture was too cute and began scratching and kissing her. "Hahaha, you are so cute, my love."
Yasenia squinted and couldn't keep her false indignation for long as she started purring at Kali's caresses.
A piercing scream of pure unadulterated pain suddenly cut their small, tender moment. "AAAAHH!!"
The others, even though they knew they shouldn't, couldn't help but feel real pity for him. That way of dying was going to be a real nightmare.
Angel approached Kali and grabbed her sleeve. "Kali! What did you feed him? He is screaming much more than those Yasenia tortured!"
Kali hugged Angel and surrounded her with her two tails. Then, she thought about how to explain it without making it too scary for her dear friend. "Well, I fed him a pill created from three parasite species. When they go inside a host, they will fight for dominance. One of them lives in the nerves, the other lives in the organs, and the other lives in the bones, so when they fight, those areas are damaged but at the same time healed to feed themselves and gain dominance of the whole host."
Their faces twisted in fear. 'No matter how gentle, I have to remember not to piss Kali off.'
Kali saw Angel's pale face and kissed her forehead. "Don't worry. He won't die since the parasites keep their host alive while fighting until only one of them is left. Then, until they find another host, they will continue to keep him alive and feed on him."
From afar, Angel looked like a trembling rabbit between a hungry fox's claws. Although Kali wanted to make it sound not so terrifying by skipping some steps about that painful process, it was scary to think about it nonetheless.
Yasenia and the others almost rolled on the floor, laughing at the image they portrayed.
The situation would have been fun if there weren't nine cultivators trembling in fear around them while one of them was almost screaming her lungs out. "MISS KALI, PLEASE LET US GO! I WILL BECOME YOUR SERVANT, YOUR SLAVE! BUT PLEASE LET US GO FROM YOUR ROOTS AND GET AWAY FROM HIM!"
Who was the one shouting? Surprisingly, or not, his lover.
Kali looked at them for a second and decided to comply with her wish. When the roots holding them in place near Lu Hao disappeared, they all jumped outward and got distance between the screaming and rolling man that had her skin bulging, as if some creatures were crawling underneath.
Then, Kali strapped Lu Hao onto the [Flower Bed] to aid the parasites that would be losing with automatic healing, effectively lengthening the fight for dominance going on inside Lu Hao, and nodded.
After she got everything in place, she said. "Let's go! It is too noisy here."
Angel and the others nodded obediently. Who would dare defy this terrifying poison master?
Kali laughed and carried Angel away with a princess carry. Angel blushed and hugged Kali's neck and let her move her. The soft tails that worked as support below her felt very comfy and fluffy.
Of course, our cute, lovely baby girl was very loved by everyone, so it was normal for Kali to want to pamper her a bit.
The others followed behind with smiles, happy that Kali wasn't affected, and managed to get revenge on one of them. Evelyn asked curiously, "Aren't you afraid he will live?"
Kali smirked and said, "I'm afraid he will die. That is why I strapped him onto the Flower Bed. Moreover, I freed the other nine from their bindings, so I don't think they would do something about the situation. It will also be too dangerous even to touch or approach him since the parasites would have proliferated enough to infest other nearby living creatures that touch him in a minute."
Evelyn whistled, "You've got all bases covered! What if they kill him out of pity?"
Kali shrugged, "Lucky him. But who would risk their lives to kill him? They are not that kind of people. The fear that parasites provoke is too much for them to risk themselves doing something like that. Didn't you see how seven out of nine ran away? The other two only seemed to be looking on with shock. When they snap out of it, they should also ran away with the others."
Cecile asked curiously, "Why didn't you kill the other nine? They are probably as bad as him since they were together, right?"
Kali looked at Cecile and thought about it seriously. "That's because I don't want to be consumed by revenge. I want to take revenge on my aggressors, but those around them, even if they are bad people, are not my problem. Unless they provoke us, I will leave them live."
Kali patted Yasenia with her left tail and said with a smile, "My future is with Yasenia and Valeria and all of you. I want to leave that past behind and move on. Killing people unrelated to my revenge can bring extra trouble, something I wouldn't like."
The fluffy tail felt nice, making the dragoness's tail wag and walk with small skips.
After some seconds, Valeria also appeared and held Kali up with Angel, carrying both of them between her arms.
Yasenia wanted to protest since the comfortable tail couldn't reach her from high up there, but looking at their happy faces, she just smiled and walked beside Valeria.
Angel and Kali also beamed as it felt very comfortable to be carried by the Nature Spirit Queen. Her body was soft, her scent relaxing, and her beautiful face and three-meter-tall stature made them feel comfy and secure.
In that manner, our group left and moved on with their travel. Slowly approaching the finish line for the Secret Realm.