Abyss-Tainted Ape

Sensing danger approaching, Lloyd could not help but suck in a cold breath. He immediately took out his longbow, nocked an arrow, and peeked down from the edge of the hill.

Below, amid the dense Pine Forest, a massive black shadow as huge as a small mountain was swaying upright on two legs toward the hill where he stood, making the ground beneath Lloyd's feet tremble even more violently.

Thud, thud, thud!

"Everyone, get ready to fight!"

At the sight of the shadow, Lloyd immediately roared at his companions. The Guard Squad members did not dare be careless either, drawing their bows and nocking sharp arrows, ready to launch a coordinated assault at any moment.

"Stay calm. It hasn't entered range yet!"

Seeing that one companion beside him was so nervous he could barely control his bowstring, Lloyd hurriedly patted him on the shoulder, signaling him to pull himself together.

But in the next instant, another companion behind Lloyd panicked. He discovered that Ye Chen, the outsider who had been staying at the rear of the group, had vanished without anyone noticing.

"Where's that outsider!? Where did he go—!?"

Lloyd was greatly alarmed. Turning around to search, he indeed found no trace of Ye Chen. But the black shadow was about to reach the foot of the hill, and Lloyd had no time to worry about anything else.

"That bastard probably ran away! Forget him! We just need to stand together and avenge Ponsen!"

Lloyd's resolute roar stirred up the Cold Wind Village Guard Squad's memories of their leader, Ponsen. At the thought of that kind and dependable man having become a victim in the Alpha Ape's jaws, every face filled with grief and fury, sweeping away their initial panic and fear.

"That's right! Let's avenge the boss together and skin that beast alive!"

The group raised their bows and roared, their morale soaring. At the same time, the enormous black shadow finally arrived beneath the hill, closing the distance to the Guard Squad to fifty meters.

As the distance narrowed, the shadow's face remained shrouded by the forest's darkness, but Lloyd and the others could make out that its terrifyingly thick hands seemed to be clutching something.

Its left hand held a dripping lump that continually spilled liquid onto the ground, while its right hand gripped something long and repeatedly brought it to its mouth. Its movements looked exactly like someone walking along while gnawing on chicken feet.

"What is it holding?"

The group's previously fierce fighting spirit wavered again when they noticed the strange objects in the shadow's hands. Once the distance shrank further, even Lloyd, their leader, could not stop his face from turning pale.

The dripping lump in the shadow's left hand was a corpse whose limbs and head had been bitten off, blood constantly dripping from it onto the ground. What it held to its mouth and chewed in its right hand was a mangled human arm—an arm of flesh and bone alike being fed into its mouth.

At that moment, the Guard Squad finally realized that what the shadow gripped was their former leader, Ponsen.

The leader who had once trained Lloyd and the others had now been torn apart. Like the dead beasts scattered throughout Cold Wind Pine Forest, he had tragically become the Alpha Ape's meal.

Hiss.

As the air at the tip of their noses seemed to turn frigid beyond measure, the black shadow's true form finally stepped fully into the light: a giant ape with a round, bulging belly, appearing openly before them.

Its fur should have been snowy white, but great patches of black sludge clung to its hide, staining its body half-white and half-black. Faintly, countless tiny tentacles could even be seen writhing through its fur.

Upon seeing the terrified expressions of the Frost White people, the giant ape stretched its mouth into a crooked grin and let out a sinister cackle. Then it tossed Ponsen's arm into its mouth and chewed it into pulp, producing a burst of cracking bones.

"Fire—!"

Lloyd, whose resolve was clearly several times stronger than everyone else's, immediately issued the order for a fight to the death before his companions' will to fight completely collapsed.

His roar brought the people around him back to their senses. They all feared the towering demon before them, but even so, with arrows on the string, they had no choice but to fire. They would never sit still and await death.

Meanwhile, Ye Chen was crouched silently atop a tall pine tree near the people from Cold Wind Village, watching the situation below.

Before heading toward the location Ponsen had marked, Lloyd had told Ye Chen that the Alpha Ape had attacked Cold Wind Village a few days ago. The Guard Squad had fought it head-on then and discovered that no gunpowder weapon could severely damage the Alpha Ape's body. Bullets would lodge in its thick hide, achieving nothing beyond causing bleeding wounds.

Afterward, under Ponsen's leadership, the Guard Squad changed its strategy. They ultimately decided to use arrows coated with deadly poison as their primary weapon against the Alpha Ape.

Ponsen had carefully prepared this poison, and its toxicity was extraordinarily potent. No beast in Cold Wind Pine Forest that had been contaminated by it had ever lasted more than ten seconds; all of them had died sudden, violent deaths.

Therefore, even though bows were far weaker than firearms, as long as the arrowheads could cut through the target's skin and allow that deadly poison to seep into the Alpha Ape's body, the Cold Wind Village Guard Squad still had a chance of defeating this terrifying beast.

And now, the youth hidden among the treetops wanted to witness whether this plan was truly feasible.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The Guard Squad fired five arrows at once, their poisoned tips streaking straight toward the giant ape. Yet faced with this attack, the Alpha Ape neither dodged nor defended itself. It merely stuffed Ponsen's remaining torso into its mouth in one bite, allowing the sharp arrows to rain across its body.

Thk, thk, thk, thk, thk.

The five arrows struck the Alpha Ape's belly and chest. Just as the Guard Squad expected, though with some difficulty, the arrowheads still pierced shallowly beneath its hide.

"It worked!"

At the sight, several Guard Squad members could not help cheering. In their eyes, this stupid, arrogant beast must have thought they were using ordinary arrows, which was why it had taken no defensive measures. In just a few seconds, it would surely suffer for its arrogance. Heh.

The Alpha Ape stood motionless, chewing Ponsen's corpse in huge bites, when its body suddenly convulsed.

However, just as the group thought the poison was taking effect and prepared to cheer, it let out a loud belch instead, leisurely telling them that it had merely eaten too quickly and choked a little. There was no need to be so nervous.

"The poison hasn't built up enough! Keep firing—!"

Feeling mocked and humiliated, Lloyd flew into a rage and immediately ordered his companions to begin another round of shooting.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Poison arrows rained down upon the Alpha Ape's body again, yet it only grinned playfully and advanced toward the Cold Wind Village Guard Squad with heavy steps. Even as poisoned arrows filled its belly and chest one after another, its expression remained unchanged.

The Guard Squad was too busy firing to notice the details of their target. Only Ye Chen, secretly observing everything, could sharply see that whenever a poison arrow pierced the giant ape's hide, the black sludge clinging to its body rapidly swept over the wound, forming an extremely tiny vortex that absorbed every trace of dark green toxin coating the arrowhead.

It seemed the Abyss had devoured all of the toxins for the Alpha Ape. The Guard Squad's strategy had failed completely.

From the treetop, Ye Chen calmly reached that conclusion in his heart. Then he flicked open his revolver's cylinder and let fresh blood from his arm drip into the chambers, where it rapidly condensed into a scarlet Blood Bullet.