There Are People Here?!

Yu Sheng said goodbye to Eileen, but this time, he did not hang up immediately afterward.

It was not because that thing on the other end had turned vegetarian. Rather, this horrifying giant beast seemed to have fallen into some kind of dazed state for some reason.

It stood in the night wind, its dozens of chaotic eyes layered across its mass of flesh staring fixedly at the prey before it with a strange "gaze." Though it sounded odd, Yu Sheng truly felt that he could see "confusion" in those eyes—the sort of confusion one had after their mouth and stomach had spent half an hour reconciling accounts and still failed to match them.

Eileen was still anxiously calling out something in his mind, but all of Yu Sheng's attention was fixed on the horrifying monster before him. Eileen's voice seemed distant to him, as though separated by a heavy curtain. He tensed his muscles, his heart pounding like a drum, while every twitch of muscle and pulse of blood vessels on the monster's body was reflected clearly in his eyes.

Although he had made certain preparations when he "revived" in the ruined temple earlier, truly facing the crushing pressure of death again still left Yu Sheng enormously tense.

The only difference from last time was that the fear mixed into that tension had greatly faded, replaced by a kind of... excitement that even he found unfamiliar.

Then, he suddenly sensed something.

Muscles contracting. Filthy, viscous blood gathering. Hunger surging from deep within. An order to feed emerging from a muddled mind—in that incredibly brief instant, alarm bells rang in his heart, accurately outlining the shape of the danger.

The monster was about to attack. From the left, but that was only a feint. Its true killing blow would be a barbed, bladed serpent tail whipping over from behind.

The monster lunged. A huge maw suddenly split open at the end of one of its limbs and snapped at Yu Sheng's left side—but before it leaped, Yu Sheng had already reacted. Without much thought, he abruptly twisted aside according to the warning in his mind, then immediately lunged forward. He moved so fast that even he could scarcely believe it.

He noticed that his previously sprained waist had somehow completely healed as well. Ever since "reviving," this body of his had remained unbelievably healthy.

The giant beast missed, and the serpent tail that had launched its sneak attack from an awkward angle merely grazed the prey's back. Yu Sheng felt the pressure of wind from behind him. The sensation of brushing past death made every hair on his body stand on end, but more than the terror, he felt disbelief:

He had actually dodged it?! What the hell had just happened?

But he had no time to think, because another wave of danger came from behind. This time, there was not enough time to evade. He had only just rolled to his feet awkwardly after landing when he saw a claw crashing down toward his head.

In his urgency, he could only instinctively raise his hands, using frail human arms to block the claw that descended like a falling meteor.

With a thunderous bang, the blast of air scattered grass clippings and dust for several meters around. Excruciating pain swept through his body. Yu Sheng felt as if more than a dozen bones had shattered at once. He let out a muffled groan and, unable to catch his breath, staggered back two steps—

But he had blocked it. He had truly blocked that strike.

Yu Sheng stared at his hands in shock. His left hand was bent at an unnatural angle; the bones had clearly been broken. Yet the pain was fading at an astonishing speed, and the twisted bones seemed to be slowly mending.

He clearly remembered the monster's first attack on him. He remembered its true strength. Every inch of muscle on that thing could effortlessly crush a human body, and Yu Sheng was absolutely certain that if the monster had pounced with all its strength, he could never have blocked it—not even if every bone in his body broke.

But the monster clearly would not give him much time to think. After adjusting itself for only a second or two upon landing, the hungry beast let out a chaotic, furious roar and pounced once more at the troublesome "prey" before it.

A bone-piercing gale struck him. The flying monster was like a Little Shan falling from the sky. Yu Sheng reacted in advance again, rolling clumsily to the side before jumping to his feet and dodging a tail sweep powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks. Yet the next second, before he could steady himself, the retracting tail knocked Yu Sheng to the ground. Then the giant beast actually split open down the middle, and a disgusting, writhing "long tongue" like a tentacle shot through the night, tightly binding the off-balance Yu Sheng and dragging him back with a violent yank.

Yu Sheng braced himself with both hands to keep that "long tongue" from snapping him in half at the waist—at least, not quite so quickly. He watched helplessly as he was dragged before the monster. A huge hole had split open in the middle of its body, where countless sharp teeth rose and ground against one another like an enormous, ravenous mouth.

At the instant before he was dragged into that giant maw, Yu Sheng kicked off fiercely. The rock beneath his feet cracked with a bang, and the tremendous recoil even pulled the monster off balance.

Yu Sheng had no time to wonder why he possessed such strength. Seizing that brief chance to breathe, he nearly exhausted all the power in his body, roaring as he tore apart the long tongue wrapped around him. Then he snatched up a sharp shard of rock from the ground and lunged at a murky eyeball trembling madly on the monster's side.

The long tongue snapped, and the monster released a bloodcurdling roar. Blood sprayed from the middle of its body as it staggered and struggled to regain its balance, its dozens of eyes watching the prey before it with madness and hunger—

It smelled so good. So good...

The scent of blood drilled into his nostrils, stimulating the nerves of the hungry and awakening some long-dormant... instinct.

It really smelled so good.

Yu Sheng felt his heart hammering wildly. He felt something so scorching it was almost boiling surge through his blood. A wild joy gradually rose from within him. He tried hard to discern what that joy was, and finally, he understood.

It was the joy of being about to feed, the reward of hunger about to be satisfied.

That giant beast. That heap of layered flesh. That muddled, fallen spirit. That...

Prime meat.

The sharp shard of rock slowly crumbled into powder in his hand. He breathed heavily, feeling everything around him slow down.

He pounced on the monster, and the monster pounced on him. Food embraced food—through the haze, he suddenly felt as if he had never eaten in more than twenty years, or at least had never eaten "real food." He embraced the grotesque limb at the monster's side, while the monster "embraced" him with even more terrifying strength, snapping one bone after another throughout his body.

But Yu Sheng seemed not to feel it. He had already bitten into the monster's flesh. Unlike last time, when it had been a final, furious and desperate counterattack before death, he now had a new mindset—

He would not die. He would come back.

This monster could kill him once, twice, or countless times, but he would always come back.

And each time, he would understand better than before how to deal with this monster.

Perhaps it would take a long time.

But he would enjoy this fine meat bit by bit.

More than a dozen eyes on the monster's side trembled madly. A few of them seemed to sense something and finally began slowly focusing on Yu Sheng.

A huge maw full of sharp teeth had already bitten into Yu Sheng from the side, yet those eyes seemed to gradually fill with fear.

Yu Sheng felt his body being slowly torn apart by the monster. He knew that he had still lost this time, as was only natural—he would die, eaten by this monster.

At least this time, he still could not win.

No matter what, he had lasted far longer than expected this time. He had originally thought he would die on the spot after a single exchange, yet he had actually traded blows with the monster.

"Eileen..." Before his consciousness sank into darkness, Yu Sheng tried calling out in his mind.

Eileen's voice rang out almost immediately. "Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng, are you okay?! I kept calling you just now, but you ignored me..."

"I'm fine. I just said goodbye too early. Now I'm really hanging up..."

Then he ignored Eileen's frantic shouting and simply waited quietly for death to descend.

Yet just before that heavy darkness fell, he suddenly heard a voice nearby—a clear voice, one that truly existed in this valley.

"Don't be afraid! I'm coming to save you!"

Yu Sheng's consciousness was already extremely hazy, but he suddenly jolted awake for a brief moment of clarity. A thunderous impact exploded in his mind—

Someone?!

There were people in this place?!

He struggled to open his eyes and looked toward the source of the voice. He saw a figure rushing in from afar. Vague and fragmented, he could make out what seemed to be a raggedly dressed girl, but the next second, he saw other outlines flying through the night behind her.

What was that?

A tail?

A fox?

A person?

No, it was a subsonic headbutt.

Yu Sheng watched in despair as the figure shouting that she was coming to save him accelerated a second time in midair like an extended-range artillery shell, lowering her head and charging straight ahead. The monster chewing on him happened to turn slightly to the side—very likely on purpose—so he became the target of that figure's direct collision.

"Holy f—..."

He only managed to force out two syllables through clenched teeth.

The girl charging over had not even seen what was ahead.

The subsonic headbutt slammed into Yu Sheng's chest, and then he no longer had a chest.

Everything below his neck was gone.

As if it had evaporated.

"Miss, you f—... missed..."

Then Yu Sheng was saved to death.