Was Shen Cheng Gone?

It had been smashed apart after more than a dozen chops!

The muscle fibers at the severed end curled back unevenly. Thick fluid gushed from the wound, hissing as it dripped onto the grass!

The severed length of tentacle loosened from around Liu Jialiang's waist and fell to the ground, still twitching, its suckers opening and closing.

"Run!" Lin Yang roared.

The fat man hoisted the still-twitching tentacle onto his shoulder. It was about half a meter long and as thick as a human thigh, and its weight dragged his shoulder down several inches!

Everyone ran desperately toward the ladder. Someone had cut Zhang Hao's rope, wanting to give him a chance to live too.

He ran at the back, with Liu Jialiang just ahead of him.

Something moved in the fog again!

This time there were several of them. Gray-black shadows churned through the fog like a pot of boiling water! They were moving several times faster!

One shot out from the side, heading straight for Zhang Hao at the back!

Zhang Hao was wrapped up in an instant. His bones cracked and shattered, and he let out a scream! Then he went silent.

Its other tentacles burrowed toward the fat man and the others again.

The fat man was climbing the ladder! The tentacle in his hands reacted violently and began to twitch! Then it actually fell to the ground with a smack.

The fat man and Liu Jialiang hurried back down the ladder to pick it up!

Shen Cheng glanced back!

He saw the tentacles shooting straight toward them! He understood that if he didn't buy them time, everything they had done would be for nothing!

He glanced at his younger sister inside the school gate.

Then he did something: he turned around and blocked a tentacle that was about to strike!

The tentacle was stopped by him and wrapped around his ankle.

By then, Liu Jialiang and the fat man had picked up the tentacle from the ground, and the people above were pulling them up with all hands.

Everyone saw Shen Cheng caught by the tentacle. They immediately cried out.

"Shen Cheng!!"

"Brother!!"

Liu Jialiang still tried to reach out and save him, but Shen Cheng had been dragged too far away.

Shen Cheng's voice came from the fog, muffled by the mist. "Take care of my sister!"

Lin Yang gripped a rung of the ladder, half his body already over the top of the wall.

He looked down and saw Shen Cheng's body blurred into a dark gray outline by the fog and the slime on the blades of grass.

He couldn't make out Shen Cheng's face, but he saw his raised right hand give a thumbs-up toward Liu Jialiang and Lin Yang on the ladder!

Then two tentacles shot toward him from opposite directions at once, one wrapping around his legs, the other around his waist.

Shen Cheng's body was yanked off the ground and traced an arc through the air before being dragged into the fog!

He didn't scream or cry out, didn't even let out a groan.

A dull impact came from the fog, followed by the sound of something being dragged. Then there was nothing...

Liu Jialiang lay across the top of the wall, his hand still extended, holding the pose he had taken when he tried to pull Shen Cheng up.

His fingers grasped twice at the air, catching nothing.

The fat man still had the piece of tentacle meat on his shoulder, but his whole body had frozen in place, his mouth open, unable to make a sound.

Shen Cheng's sister shouted, wanting to save her brother.

But Lin Yang had no time to mourn.

He saw more tentacles surging out of the fog, gray-black shadows churning in its depths, drawing closer and closer.

"Everyone, climb up! Now!" His voice tore through the silence.

Liu Jialiang clutched the piece of tentacle and scrambled desperately toward the top of the wall.

The spikes on the iron fence cut his hands, and blood ran down his wrists, but he didn't let go.

The fat man and several others pulled and hauled him over the top of the wall. As the piece of tentacle meat squeezed through the gaps in the fence, a patch of its skin scraped off!

Everyone climbed back into the school. There were no cheers, no relief, only the panting of those who had collapsed on the ground and silence.

Liu Jialiang put the piece of tentacle on the ground, then leaned against the base of the wall.

He looked down at his palms, covered in slime and blood, and let out a long sigh. It was as though he had bitten something to pieces and swallowed it.

Lin Yang stood atop the wall and took one last look at the fog.

No tentacles were moving in the direction where Shen Cheng had disappeared. The fog had gone still again, as though nothing had happened.

On the grass, only the skid marks left by their tug-of-war and the trampled grass remained, along with a puddle of translucent tentacle slime slowly soaking into the soil.

He turned around to face the classroom building.

Everyone was standing there, on the third-floor corridor,

watching everything that had happened below.

Everyone fell silent. Shen Cheng's sister sobbed in Jiang Yu'an's arms as Jiang Yu'an comforted her.

Lin Yang jumped down from the ladder and walked over to Liu Jialiang, looking at the piece of tentacle meat on the ground, still twitching faintly.

"Process it according to the manual. Today, everyone gets to eat."