Breaking Through the Earth

Sun Hang put force into his arms, pulling the shovel out of the dirt.

This time, the blood-like liquid didn't seep out slowly; instead, it shot out from the soil like a fountain.

The two women screamed again.

"That much blood?" Sun Hang didn't hesitate. He plunged the shovel back into the dirt and used his thigh as a lever to lift the top layer of soil.

A mass of swollen, white rotten flesh appeared before Sun Hang.

Its surface had a cut that matched the shape of the shovel. Inside the cut, there was a sticky, stringy substance like serum, and small blood beads continuously seeped from the broken tissue. Fine mycelia emerged from deep within the tissue, pulling the cut section together as if threading a needle... In just five to six seconds, the cut had healed, leaving only a slightly raised scar on the surface of the rotten flesh.

However, what surprised Sun Hang was that even though this "Tai Sui" was exposed to the air, only tens of centimeters away from him, he still couldn't detect any "aura belonging to food."

In his subconscious, this mass of swollen, white rotten flesh had been labeled "inedible."

"How could this be... The 'Tai Sui' parasitizing people's bodies are all edible?" Sun Hang was filled with confusion.

A short distance away, the two men and two women had already knelt on the ground, repeatedly kowtowing to the rotten flesh in the soil, saying, "Lord Tai Sui, please forgive us! Lord Tai Sui, spare our lives! Lord Tai Sui..."

"What are you afraid of? It's just a piece of rotten meat that can't move..."

Before Sun Hang could finish speaking, the four of them convulsed simultaneously. They rolled back and forth on the ground, mouths agape, but no sound came from their throats. Their eyes bulged as if they were about to pop out of their sockets... The look of agony on their faces was something that couldn't be faked.

Sun Hang immediately ran towards the male believer closest to him, but before he could get close, a bloody, mangled mass suddenly burst out of his chest, falling to the ground with a "splat," and then quickly burrowed into the soil.

The man, with a gaping hole in his chest, shakily got up from the ground. He staggered a couple of steps towards Sun Hang, and as soon as he raised one hand in front of him, he fell face-first onto the ground.

The other three were the same. After that mass left their bodies, their life force drained away within seconds, turning them into corpses.

This scene couldn't help but remind Sun Hang of the scene in the classic horror movie Alien where the fully hatched alien larva burrows out of its host's body...

"Huh... strange, when did I watch this movie?" Sun Hang froze for a moment, but then a flood of memories that didn't belong to him surged. He quickly stopped himself from reminiscing and focused all his attention on the matter at hand.

The rotten flesh exposed on the ground showed no obvious movement, but after more than ten seconds, accompanied by a chilling sound, hundreds of irregular chunks of flesh appeared at the edges of the apartment building's windows. These chunks wriggled and crawled, then, like lemmings at the end of their life's journey, they jumped down from the windows dozens of meters high.

Upon landing, these chunks of flesh splattered into a pulp of meat... But even so, they were still wriggling...

"It seems there won't be any survivors in the entire cult organization," Sun Hang sighed softly. This was their predetermined fate, and his arrival had merely brought this day forward by many days.

The smashed pulp was also "absorbed" by the soil. Sun Hang slowly retreated to the tiled area—he vaguely guessed that "Tai Sui" had recalled all the "seeds" parasitizing humans, likely preparing for a "decisive battle" with him.

"Let me see... how strong can an Oddity that has been dormant for seven years and devoured countless lives and flesh be," Sun Hang took a deep breath and murmured in a low voice.

Hopefully, this would be a hearty meal.

The ground began to tremble, and the moss-covered soil cracked open. A huge, pale limb burst out of the earth—it was a human arm magnified hundreds of times, or to be more precise—a giant, deformed, humanoid arm.

This giant arm swept towards Sun Hang almost without hesitation, but Sun Hang had already retreated out of its attack range several seconds ago. The giant arm missed, and its palm, larger than a door panel, slammed into the side of the apartment building with a deafening roar.

The surface of the already precarious building instantly developed ominous cracks. After a brief "delay," a corner of the apartment building suddenly collapsed... A few seconds later, the entire building turned into a pile of rubble, burying the giant arm beneath it.

Sun Hang covered his nose and mouth. The sky filled with dust obscured his vision, but a strong premonition of danger made him instinctively drop to the ground—just as he completed the action, a powerful gust of wind swept past right above his head!

This gust of wind also tore away the dust that obscured his vision. Sun Hang could now see clearly that the giant arm that had emerged from the earth had multiplied into three, and besides that, there was a massive head nearly ten meters in size.

Of course, Sun Hang wasn't sure if this oval-shaped object... could be considered a "head."

Its surface was devoid of hair, smooth like the egg of some giant creature. On its front were its only "facial features"—an irregularly shaped oral cavity, almost circular, filled with dense rows of teeth inside.

Even Sun Hang felt his scalp tingle, and if a person with trypophobia were standing here, they would likely have fainted on the spot.

Two completely different voices appeared in Sun Hang's mind. One, somewhat cowardly, urged him repeatedly, "Run, run, run! I'm definitely no match for this thing! I'll die, I'll die, I'll die..."

The other voice was filled with contempt: "No matter how large its volume, it's just a low-level Oddity... Don't forget, it's just prey... and I am the Hunter."

But as Sun Hang's breathing gradually stabilized, the second voice grew louder, gradually overpowering the first...

It is prey, I am the Hunter.

It is prey, I am the Hunter.

No, that's not right.

It is food... and I am the predator.

"Such a massive amount of food... I'll need a large enough utensil..." Sun Hang muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping over his surroundings.

A moment later, he raised his right arm, his fingers forming a loose grip.

The rubble of the apartment building began to tremble, and then, countless broken and deformed steel bars emerged from the debris. They intertwined and squeezed each other like living insects... By the time these steel bars reached Sun Hang's hand, they had transformed into an Aberrant Long Blade, fifteen meters in length.

The steel bars "cast" into this Aberrant Long Blade weighed several tons, but Sun Hang felt no weight at all as he held it... It felt as natural as an extension of his arm. With a gentle swing, it sliced an "inch-deep" gash into one of Tai Sui's giant arms.

At that very instant, Sun Hang smelled the distinctive "scent" of "food."

He finally understood why he couldn't smell it before—Tai Sui had protected itself by wrapping its true body completely in a layer of overgrown "rotten flesh." This layer of "rotten flesh" was like the epidermis of human skin; it was "dead." Only by cutting through this outer layer composed of dead cells could one reach Tai Sui's true body.