Chapter 2090: Chapter 2090: Palace

Even within the whale's belly, the swirling darkness was at a boiling high temperature.

Zen was unable to set aside the Sun-resisting Umbrella since he still needed its protection, so all that he could do was to stay put and watch what happened around him.

Fortunately, the protective light curtain from the Sun-resisting Umbrella was truly solid, although Zen and the curtain were being violently thrown about in the giant whale's body.

But as long as Zen held the Sun-resisting Umbrella tightly in his grasp, the protective curtain could not be broken!

Assured of this knowledge, Zen felt somewhat relieved.

“Splash...”

As soon as Zen managed to focus on examining the world within the whale, he became aware of a creepy feeling under his feet. The slow convulsive shivers felt like the peristalsis of some massive body part.

With the Sun-resisting Umbrella in his hand, he continued to roll head over heels into the depths of the whale's inner darkness. He realized that he might be travelling in the whale's esophagus.

When Zen finally managed to find some stability and rise to his knees, he saw a flickering cyan light up ahead!

“Cyan flame?”

Zen's attention was instantly roused.

At the same time, he saw some of the big fish being sucked into the cyan flame.

The gigantic whale had no teeth. Instead, it just swallowed both the fish and Zen whole into its stomach. As a result, and fortunately for Zen, they reached the whale's gut alive, and were not chomped into fish bait.

But when the fish tumbled into the cyan flame, their bodies began to twist madly as if they were in agony. The tenacious fish bodies rolled and bounced in the flame. Soon, Zen saw that these big fish were being burned alive by the flame. They began to sizzle and pop and soon melted little by little, leaving behind only fish bones and triangular heads.

As the burned fish corpses sank into the cyan flame's depths, even the bones gradually disintegrated.

“Is the cyan flame in the whale's body more powerful and intense than the Sun Essence Flame?” Zen was both surprised and awed.

These big fish had been merrily able to survive in the Sun Essence Flame. With such specially resilient bodies, they should not be afraid of any type of flame. However, they were actually consumed and turned into nothing by the cyan flame!

'No, this can't be right... The Sun Essence Flame is supposed to be the strongest fire in the divine land. The cyan flame, shouldn't be more powerful than that. The cyan flame is only equivalent to the gigantic whale's intestinal juices, and here it is used to digest the fire-resistant gigantic fish. The cyan flame might have evolved from this severe environment over countless divine eras!' Zen thought. Zen's face became somewhat fretful. “I wonder if this light curtain is strong enough to block the cyan flame...”

As if summoned, Zen felt another powerful peristalsis wave under his feet, which lifted him up once again, sending him falling toward the cyan flame's burning light.

Falling along with him there were dozens of big fish and numerous fist-sized shrimps.

“Splash...”

The liquid-like cyan flame burned so hot and it constantly fluctuated around Zen.

Soon the big fish and shrimps began sizzling all around Zen as they were melted and rapidly dissolved by the cyan flame. Zen looked at the light curtain, feeling somewhat nervous.

'Just hold on...'

Zen prayed fervently in his heart.

A few seconds later, the light curtain still didn't show any signs of failing. Zen heaved a sigh of relief.

What the hell kind of place was this?

Even powerful masters at the Other Shore Realm couldn't possibly have survived here without this Sun-resisting Umbrella for protection, let alone Holy Beings.

As he thought of this, a question popped into his mind.

It was only in a palace of the sun that the ship, called the divine land, could be controlled.

The Sun-resisting Umbrella was the key to gaining entrance to the palace. Without it, how could anyone possibly hope to control or steer the ship?

Neither Harper nor his mother had told him about this matter. For the time being, Zen couldn't find an answer to this dilemma. Perhaps the Yellow Emperor Guards had used some other method to affect the direction of the divine land's flight. After all, Harper had already lost his ability to enter the sun... Ṛä𐌽Ồ𝐁Ęs̈

Zen allowed himself to become immersed in the puzzles and conjectures that raced in his mind as he waited patiently in the whale's stomach. From time to time, with a loud roar, loads of big fish, small fish, and more of the weird shrimps were quickly gulped into the whale's stomach and digested by the burning flame.

“This gigantic whale certainly has a huge stomach, and an appetite to match!” Zen sighed.

He had waited here in the roiling stomach for several hours now, and during this time, the gigantic whale had been constantly feeding, consuming more and more food…

After sighing, Zen began to become worried.

Since Zen was waiting here in the stomach where the food was being digested, he would probably be fully digested and excreted in the end.

This embarrassing way left no doubt that he would die then.

But the problem now was that the protection of the light curtain meant there was no way that the whale could digest him.

“Something that cannot be digested...”

Zen's eyes flashed as a brilliant thought occurred to him.

All living creatures would vomit if they swallowed something disagreeable that they couldn't digest. The foreign matter would then be expelled from their bodies.

Since that was the case…

Zen jumped up on the flying sword and shot upwards at best speed.

“Bang!”

He smashed heavily into the stomach wall over his head.

Evaluating this impact, Zen took advantage of the situation and continued to charge down!

“Come on!”

Inside the stomach's space, surrounded by the soft stomach walls, Zen jumped up and down and madly dashed back and forth, slamming into the stomach lining.

The cyan flame also danced around, following Zen. However, the flame was unable to break through the light curtain that was enveloping Zen, and it could not hurt him at all.

The gigantic whale was blissfully swimming in the sea of fire, devouring all creatures in its path with a loud noise.

This massive creature was the king of this sea of fire. Creatures at the top of the food chain had no enemies and knew no fear.

Today, it had eaten something strange, but it did not care. Anything that was swallowed into its stomach would eventually be digested.

But this time proved to be the exception.

The whale suddenly felt a pang of discomfort in its body, and intense pain in its stomach.

Even though it was not very intelligent, the gigantic whale instantly realized that it had eaten something not digestible, and it regretted having swallowed that strange creature…

Feeling the great pain, its huge body began twisting, and its stomach began to shrink violently!

Zen, who was still dashing around inside the whale's body, also sensed the change. The space around him began to contract rapidly!

“Okay, now's the time!”

Zen held the Sun-resisting Umbrella tightly in his hands while standing at the ready on the flying sword.

As soon as he readied his position in the air, he felt a tremendous force building under his feet, which violently shot him out.

“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...”

He tumbled about as if caught in a windstorm and quickly passed through the dark interior of the whale's esophagus and finally saw the light of the sea of fire ahead!

“I'm being chucked out!”

Zen quickly stabilized himself on the flying sword with a deft move of his tiptoes.

After spitting Zen out, the giant whale did not depart. Instead it stared at Zen with its big eyes.

Probably it wanted to make a mental note of what Zen looked like so that it would not make the mistake of swallowing such a strange thing again. Then the whale turned and dived down into the sea of fire with its massive tail sending out fiery ripples.

It was not until the whale had left that Zen heaved a sigh of relief, slowly wiping his sweaty hands on his clothes.

Zen had been an unwelcome tenant in the whale's stomach for several hours. He had no idea how far it had traveled with him inside, or even what distance it had covered in that time.

Just as he turned around to check his surroundings, Zen saw a faint structure rise from the heat waves, not far from his upper right.

“That is...”

Zen narrowed his eyes, his eyebrows raising in anticipation. His face suddenly beamed with joy.

There was a magnificent golden palace floating on the horizon!