Jade feet, jade feet

The same sword strike, delivered by Lu Caiwei and by him, differed as vastly as heaven and earth.

As the loop broke, the path ahead flickered like an illusory curtain before finally revealing itself.

The white jelly skin beneath his feet darted away, vanishing without a trace in an instant.

"Forgot to kill it..." Ye Wuyou muttered.

The path ahead had appeared. He could even make out the faint, dim candlelight.

But it was only the path ahead.

The path behind him lay in darkness, pregnant with the unknown.

It was still a loop.

"There's no going back."

That was fine. Ye Wuyou withdrew his gaze and stepped forward.

Rather than stay where he was, clinging to the nebulous hope of rescue that might never come, he might as well seek a sliver of survival himself.

Even if he had temporarily escaped the trouble of eldritch corruption, who could guarantee that some new twist wouldn't crop up?

Whether it was the influence of that white jelly skin or this bizarre loop...

Both meant that those eldritch beings, those Great Dao Remnants, seemed less than docile.

However, according to Xia Anmeng, the cages imprisoning those eldritch beings each formed a realm of their own. In other words, the inside of a cage was absolutely safe.

To occupy one of those cages, he would have to eliminate the eldritch being inside it.

Ye Wuyou recalled the forms of the creatures he had seen before.

The Legless Man, the child, the white jelly skin...

Were these monsters really things he could kill?

[Mere Great Dao Remnants dare dream of killing you? Not enough to slaughter, nowhere near enough! Though your cultivation is currently only at the second realm, disposing of them is already child's play. Still, to err on the side of caution, you decide to devour every last scrap of the remnant soul within you to repair your damaged soul.]

Cut the crap. I'm not interested in eating some centuries-old relic.

[After a brief consideration, you conclude that a stinking woman over a hundred years old indeed does not deserve to pass your lips. Thus, you turn your gaze to the other one beside you. The girl is only fifteen or sixteen, a budding blossom at the perfect age to invite a taste. Besides, you saved her life, and whether she lives or dies rests in your hands. Asking her to repay you with her body is hardly unreasonable.]

[At once, you take the heavens as your quilt and the earth as your bed, with the Great Dao Remnant as your groomsman...]

Tch...

Ignoring the system's porn-addled barking, Ye Wuyou nevertheless felt a little calmer.

Previously, when he had seen those "monsters," even the normally arrogant, domineering bastard of a narrator had backed down of its own accord. This time, its arrogance knew no bounds.

The surrounding passage grew a little brighter, and he could faintly make out the dim candlelight.

They seemed to be almost there.

Xia Anmeng's voice sounded deep within him.

"I don't know whether you can see the eldritch beings, but I can sense them. Don't act rashly. They're locked in their cages and can't do anything to us. I'll pick one for us to eliminate."

Xia Anmeng sounded rather grave. She had been at the sixth realm in life and had encountered eldritch beings before.

The "divine abilities" wielded by eldritch beings could not be avoided, but some of those beings were not all that dangerous.

The familiar cages appeared before him.

Six cages slowly emerged on either side of the passage, not a single one missing.

Lu Caiwei had already raised her sword and gently closed her eyes.

She could not see the eldritch beings. At a time like this, she was better off sensing them carefully with her heart.

Ye Wuyou stopped.

A complicated expression crossed his face before finally becoming a strangely absurd smile.

"Fuck you..." he cursed under his breath.

What the hell was this?

He had considered that these monsters called "eldritch beings" might be dangerous, or that some other unexpected trouble might spring up.

But.

Who could have imagined that these eldritch beings would get out of their cages!!!

Of the six cages, three were now empty.

Perhaps because he was temporarily at the second realm, Ye Wuyou could now see the contents of the three occupied cages quite clearly.

A tree stump covered in growth rings, the same child as last time, and that white jelly skin, which looked as though half its body was about to crawl out of its cage...

Damn it, he couldn't tell whether he was imagining things, but when the white jelly skin sensed Ye Wuyou's arrival, its body even twitched a little, as though greeting him. It seemed quite excited.

Meanwhile, the Legless Man he had seen on his first visit stood in the middle of the passage, his back to Ye Wuyou.

The Legless Man had no legs, yet he was undeniably standing there. Beneath the dim candlelight, only two phantom legs appeared on the ground.

Ye Wuyou remembered Xia Anmeng explaining earlier that some eldritch beings possessed almost certainly lethal divine abilities, while others did not.

So which kind was this fellow before him?

And where were the eldritch beings from the other two empty cages now?

"I misjudged. I think I can sense an eldritch being outside its cage... get out of here, quickly," Xia Anmeng's voice sounded within him.

So you've only just sensed it!

"Can't we go straight into their cages? They're empty anyway," Ye Wuyou suggested at once.

"No. A cage can block other eldritch beings, but its doors are wide open to its original occupant. And with things as they are now..."

Xia Anmeng did not finish, but Ye Wuyou already understood her meaning perfectly.

If the eldritch beings could leave their cages, whether their earlier conclusions still held true was uncertain.

"Don't attack. Back away slowly," Ye Wuyou warned, afraid that Lu Caiwei might lash out with her sword.

But he soon realized something was wrong.

They couldn't move.

No, both he and Lu Caiwei were walking backward.

Yet the distance between them and the Legless Man never increased.

A loop?

At last, the Legless Man slowly turned around. He was still completely naked, his expression empty and devoid of all feeling.

But when he saw Ye Wuyou and Lu Caiwei, a glint of sharpness seemed to flash through his gray-white eyes.

His gaze fixed tightly on them, and then he slowly walked toward them.

He had no legs, yet the shadows cast by the candlelight seemed to have become his legs.

Ye Wuyou could only watch helplessly as the distance between them shrank little by little, until the man was right before him.

Suddenly, he found it hard to breathe.

His body had inexplicably stiffened. He could not move at all.

Lu Caiwei was equally immobilized. Even Xia Anmeng within him seemed to have fallen silent, unable to make a sound.

The Legless Man first approached Ye Wuyou, silently bent down, stared at something for a moment, then shook his head.

"A man's feet. No good."

The Legless Man had actually spoken.

Only then did Ye Wuyou realize.

The Legless Man was looking at his legs.

Then the man went around Ye Wuyou and looked toward Lu Caiwei beside him.

He bent down and stared for quite a while, then nodded, seemingly very pleased.

"Jade feet, jade feet. Good."

With that, he reached out to touch those jade feet.

[Jade feet, jade feet-outrageous! This crippled exhibitionist, this hideous freak, actually dares reach out to touch what belongs to you! You cast aside all reservations. There is only one thing left to do: show this ugly bastard what Otherworldly Men's Football really means!]

Well said.

For the first time, Ye Wuyou felt that the narrator's thoughts were perfectly aligned with his own.

His stiff, immobile body suddenly broke free of its restraints.

Then he viciously kicked at the Legless Man, who had crouched down and was just about to extend his hand.

With one explosive airborne strike, he sent the Legless Man's body scraping along the floor for more than ten meters.

Ye Wuyou stood in front of Lu Caiwei, pointing at the eldritch being before him as he unleashed a torrent of abuse.

"Fuck you! Have you taken a look at yourself, you monster?"

"Fucking jade feet?"

I haven't even touched them yet. Who the hell do you think you are!

That last line, he said only in his heart.