Butcher's Half-Body Stuns Bibi Dong!

Right after that, it opened its huge mouth and inhaled fiercely toward Chen Aniu's nose and mouth.

"Ugh..."

Chen Aniu, still asleep, convulsed all over.

His eyes suddenly snapped open. Both hands clamped tightly around his own throat, his eyes rolled back, and painful rattling sounds came from deep in his throat.

He wanted to struggle. He wanted to scream.

But that suction was like a pump, drawing the essence, energy, and spirit from his body in an endless stream.

In just a dozen breaths, Chen Aniu's once fairly sturdy body rapidly shriveled like a deflating ball.

In the end, he became a dried corpse wrapped in skin and bones.

After finishing all this, the green snake let out a satisfied burp, twisted its body, and climbed back up along the roof beam, disappearing into the dark rooftop.

The whole process happened extremely quickly.

The people of Douluo outside the light screen had not even reacted before Chen Aniu had already breathed his last.

Immediately after, the image on the heavenly screen faded again, and several lines of large text slowly appeared.

Participant: Chen Aniu (Heaven Dou Empire, ordinary blacksmith)

Current Status: Deceased

Cause of Death: Died after being drained of his essence by the Essence-Sucking Snake Demon hidden in the village while sleeping soundly in a ruined house.

Looking at the death notice on the heavenly screen, the entire Douluo Continent fell into utter silence once more.

For a moment, a chill ran through everyone's heart.

If Wang Xiu's previous death had been because he arrogantly ran into the darkness outside, then Chen Aniu's death had completely shattered the last trace of luck in everyone's hearts.

Hiding inside the glowing barrier was useless!

That village, which had looked safe, actually had man-eating demons hidden even on the roof beams!

Was this what a higher-dimensional world was like?

It was practically deadly danger at every step!

On the sports field of Shrek Academy.

Dai Mubai swallowed, feeling his back already soaked through with cold sweat.

"This is way too freaky..."

"You can guard against the black fog outside, but not the poisonous snakes inside the house. This place doesn't give people any way to live."

Tang San's expression was also grave to the extreme.

He prided himself on being an expert in poison and had studied all kinds of venomous snakes quite deeply.

But that green snake in the heavenly screen, which could directly drain a person's essence from a distance, had already completely exceeded his understanding.

That was not an ordinary poisonous creature at all, but a kind of demon he had never even heard of.

Just as everyone was still feeling a lingering wave of fear, Yu Xiaogang suddenly let out a long breath.

He reached up and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and the stiffness on his face seemed to ease a little too.

"Everyone, there's no need to be afraid!"

Yu Xiaogang abruptly turned around, his voice even louder than before.

"Did you see that?"

"That was merely a soul-beast snake that can suck human flesh and blood! This proves that my theory is correct!"

"This so-called world of Tales of Herding Gods isn't some higher-dimensional space at all. There are villages here, and there are snake-type soul beasts too. In essence, it's no different from our Star Dou Forest!"

At this point, Yu Xiaogang once again regained that confident air of lecturing the world.

"The reason Chen Aniu died was because he had no soul power at all. He was an ordinary person."

"If it were someone from our Shrek, as long as they released their martial soul in advance and stayed on guard, how could a tiny snake-type soul beast possibly launch a successful sneak attack?"

"So, this place actually isn't anything impressive!"

Yu Xiaogang spoke these words with ringing conviction, and they sounded as if they made quite a bit of sense.

Even Ma Hongjun and Oscar beside him could not help nodding, feeling much more reassured.

Only Tang San frowned slightly.

He kept feeling that Teacher was thinking of that world too simply.

The blood-red large characters on the heavenly screen faded bit by bit until they vanished completely.

The people of the entire Douluo Continent were still immersed in the lingering aftershock of that heart-pounding fear.

Although Yu Xiaogang's words just now had given them some verbal comfort, how could the feeling of directly facing an unknown horror dissipate so easily?

On Shrek Academy's training ground, Tang San let out a soft breath of stale air, his brows slightly furrowed.

He kept feeling that these Great Ruins were not that simple.

If deadly monsters could even be hidden inside the barrier of glowing stone statues, and even up in the beams where people slept, then where in this place was actually safe?

Just as everyone was lost in their own thoughts, the image flickered, and the third screen of light lit up completely.

This time, the one appearing before everyone was an old hand from a soul-hunting team on the outskirts of Star Dou Forest, a rank thirty-five Battle Soul Elder, Liu Dao.

Completely different from the first two, the moment Liu Dao's screen lit up, the light around him was already more than bright enough.

The sun hung high in the sky, piercing through the dense leaves and scattering great swaths of golden light.

Clearly, where he was, that terrifying night had already passed, and the daytime of the Great Ruins had arrived.

When the people of Douluo Continent saw the glaring sunlight, they could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.

The night in the Great Ruins had been far too oppressive. Now that they could see daylight, it at least made them feel a little more at ease.

The place where Liu Dao had landed was a vast primeval forest.

The environment here was absurdly huge.

Any random tree was so thick that it would take a dozen people joining hands to encircle it. Its bark was covered in thick moss, and its massive crown thrust straight into the clouds, with no top in sight at all.

The wild grass on the ground was also extremely lush, almost reaching half the height of an adult.

As an old hunter who had spent years making a living on the outskirts of Star Dou Forest, Liu Dao appeared extremely experienced.

He did not shout and yell like Wang Xiu, nor did he run around like a headless fly.

In the image, he half-crouched behind the thick root of a great tree, his sharp eyes sweeping alertly over his surroundings, even keeping his breathing very low.

"Martial soul, possess."

Liu Dao lowered his voice and shouted softly.

His martial soul was the Iron-Armored Pig, and three soul rings, one white and two yellow, slowly rose from beneath his feet.

A layer of grayish-brown hard keratin immediately emerged over the surface of his skin, greatly increasing his defense.

When the people of Douluo Continent saw his steady and methodical actions, they all nodded in approval.

"This Liu Dao really is worthy of being an old hunter. His vigilance is much better than that arrogant Soul Emperor from Spirit Hall," Dai Mubai said quietly from the side, arms folded.

Liu Dao stayed close to the tree roots, using the cover of the tall wild grass as he carefully edged forward.

After moving only a short distance, he suddenly stopped. His ears pricked up, as though he were listening carefully to something.

Just then, a dull sound rang out from the heavenly screen.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sound had a clear rhythm to it. It sounded like some massive heavy object was smashing into wooden planks, or like someone was chopping meat with force.

Every time the sound rang out, the soil beneath Liu Dao's feet trembled faintly along with it.

The people of Douluo Continent all held their breath too, staring fixedly at the screen of light without blinking, afraid they would miss even a single detail.

Everyone was curious. In these Great Ruins full of monsters, just what could be making such a sound in broad daylight?

Liu Dao slowed his breathing, lay prone in the grass, and inched bit by bit toward the source of the sound.

After crawling forward about a dozen meters, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

There was a broad river, its waters surging endlessly and splashing spray everywhere.

And on a flat slab of large bluestone by the riverbank, a human figure appeared.

At the first sight of that person, whether it was Liu Dao inside the heavenly screen or the people of Douluo outside the screen of light, all of them froze.

It was a man.

His upper body was extremely burly, his muscles bulging high in distinct slabs, and his bronze skin was covered in terrifying crisscrossing scars.

He held two broad-backed butcher's knives used for slaughtering pigs and was hacking madly at a huge chunk of meat on the chopping board.

What made people's scalps crawl was that this man actually had no lower body!

Below his waist, there was nothing at all. The wound was smooth, as if it had been cleanly severed in one stroke by some sharp weapon.

Yet he was hovering eerily in midair just like that, the two butcher's knives in his hands swinging so tightly that not even water could get through. As the flashes of blade-light flickered, his meat-cutting movements actually carried a smooth, flowing beauty.

"Is... is that still a person?" Ma Hongjun's mouth fell open, his jaw almost dropping to the ground.

A cripple who did not even have legs could still hover in midair so full of life and vigor, chopping meat?

But the attention of Bibi Dong and the other top experts was not on that crippled man at all.

Their gazes had all been drawn to the thing beside the man's chopping board.

That was not ordinary meat at all!

On the large bluestone beside the chopping board lay a strange beast's head as big as a small hill.

A single horn grew from that head, giving off a metallic sheen, while both sides of its cheeks were covered in palm-sized black scales.

Even though it had already been chopped off, that head still radiated a terrifying pressure that made every soul master's heart pound with fear.

With just one glance, Bibi Dong clenched her fists hard, her expression changing drastically.

She could sense it clearly. The aura the monster had given off while alive—the one now being chopped up like an ordinary meat pig—was absolutely no weaker than the two hundred-thousand-year soul beasts deep within the Star Dou Forest.

It might even have been stronger!

And now, this terrifying existence, powerful enough to sweep across Douluo Continent, had actually been casually minced into paste like offal?

In the screen of light, Liu Dao had clearly sensed that pressure too.

His legs had gone weak from fear, and he lay flat in the grass, not daring to breathe too loudly, terrified that if he made the slightest sound, that legless Butcher would casually split him in two with a single chop.

Just then, from the little grove behind the large bluestone, there came a burst of cheerful footsteps.

"Grandpa Butcher, is breakfast ready? Grandpa Village Chief said he's hungry."

Along with a crisp child's voice, a boy who looked about ten years old, wearing a rough short jacket of beast hide, came skipping out of the woods.

The boy walked up beside the large bluestone, looked at the freshly chopped pile of minced meat, and sniffed.

Then, under the horrified gazes of countless people across the entire Douluo Continent, the ten-year-old boy stretched out a fair, tender little hand and directly grabbed the leg of the strange beast, a leg several times thicker than his entire body.

As if he were carrying a freshly skinned chick, he lightly hoisted that leg onto his thin shoulder.

"Grandpa Butcher, I'm taking this leg back to roast and eat, okay?" The boy grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth, looking utterly innocent.

Butcher did not even lift his head, still focused on chopping the meat.

He merely waved the bloodstained butcher knife in his hand casually through the air, as if swatting away a fly.

"Go on, go on. When you roast it, remember to save a bite for Blind Man. He worked hard keeping watch last night."

Along with Butcher's offhand words, and that casual slash, a nearly invisible, transparent blade of energy tore through the air in an instant.

The next second, a towering mountain several thousand meters away from the riverbank suddenly let out a thunderous, earth-shaking boom.

The peak that pierced into the clouds was sliced clean off.