"What kind of monster is that?"
Ye Hua dismounted and kept her bull away from the monster's territory, sneaking closer with Feng Wu and Hua Di instead.
"The smell of blood is so strong," Hua Di said.
Ye Hua's gaze fell on the woods near the monster. Many of the trees were stained with blood. Following the bloodstains deeper with her eyes, she spotted a torn-off human leg hanging from a branch in the shadows.
She tapped Feng Wu and pointed at the leg in the shadows. He had to squint for a while before he finally saw it.
Clearly, another contestant had challenged this monster before them, and the outcome had been gruesome.
With a leg missing, that contestant's chances of surviving were terribly slim.
Feng Wu stared gravely at the monster. It resembled no creature he knew. Its head bristled with spikes, making it look almost like a spiked flail, while eyes crowded the gaps between the spikes. It was utterly revolting.
It had four arms of different sizes. The front two were joined by crystals, while the rear two were an indistinguishable black mass.
Its body was shaped somewhat like an eggplant, with a mass of extraordinarily long spikes on its back. Rather than spikes, they were more like spears.
Finally, there was its tail, which looked rather like a multisection staff, with crystals connecting each segment. Feng Wu suspected those crystals might be its weak points, but that was only a guess. He had no evidence to support it.
"Have you ever seen a monster like this?" Feng Wu asked.
Hua Di shook her head. "No."
"Neither have I," Ye Hua replied.
Feng Wu frowned. "This is a kind of monster we've never seen before, and a contestant has already met their end here. The wisest