I'll Tear You to Shreds

The ape beastman below got to his feet, clutching one eye, and let out a beastlike roar:

"I'm a fourth-rank beastman! You're an ugly female without even a rank, so how could you hurt me?"

He pounded his chest with both fists. "I'll tear you to shreds!" With a leap, he lunged at Feng Rumeng.

Feng Rumeng fired out her nanowires, sending them crisscrossing toward the airborne ape beastman. She wrapped them around his upper body, twisted at the waist, and slit his throat with her nano dagger.

The ape beastman clutched his throat and swept her away with his other hand.

Feng Rumeng slammed into a tree trunk and spat out a mouthful of blood. She fell straight down, stopping halfway to the ground.

The ape beastman's blood ran down his body and dripped onto Feng Rumeng's head. He struggled for the last time, and when he couldn't tear the wires apart, he bit them. The wires didn't break, but his teeth did.

Feng Rumeng hung in midair below, her toes only a few meters from the ground. The ape beastman's struggles sent her swinging back and forth, and she felt as if her arm were about to break.

Ever since hitting the back of her head, she had been dizzy and aching, her senses muddled. All the swinging made her vision blur.

Once the ape beastman above had completely stopped moving, Feng Rumeng pressed the switch. The other end of the nanowire came free from the tree trunk, and she landed and ran. A dull thud sounded behind her, the ground shook beneath her feet, and dead leaves plastered her face.

Feng Rumeng breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at the ape beastman on the ground. "Finally dead."

She staggered over and put the Beast Crystal pouch on his body into her space.

The merfolk in the tree heard the commotion ahead and curled up behind the trunk. He had only just poked his head out when Feng Rumeng crashed down on top of him.

The merfolk grunted, the pain making his vision go black. Once he recovered, he sat up with the person in his arms and surveyed their surroundings. After making sure no beastmen were chasing them, he held her close and curled up behind the trunk.

He poked Feng Rumeng's cheek with a finger, then quickly drew it back.

When Feng Rumeng didn't react, he gingerly touched her nano bracelet. Whoosh! A nanowire shot into the tree ahead.

The merfolk laboriously sprang up with a flick of his tail, holding Feng Rumeng tight. Following her example, he fired and retracted the nanowire, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk.

After an unknown length of time, he found a bird's hollow. The large bird was particularly fierce and pecked him with its beak. He endured the pain and drove it away. Calling out, the mother bird took her chicks away, leaving even the nest behind.

The merfolk's tail was bloody and raw, as though it had been skinned. He put Meng down, lay on his stomach, and looked back at his tail. His tail fin trembled, exposing stark white bone.

He sat up, touched Feng Rumeng's face, and pulled off her clothes. Then he licked every bleeding wound with his tongue.

After tending to all the wounds, the merfolk looked at the rib protruding from Feng Rumeng's back and pressed on it with his hand. He put his ear to her chest and listened for a while. Once he was sure her internal organs hadn't been injured, he set the rib back in place with trembling hands.

The unconscious Feng Rumeng frowned in pain, her muscles twitching as she let out a pained moan.

The merfolk tore Feng Rumeng's clothes into strips and crossed them over her chest to hold her rib cage in place. By the time he finished, night had fallen. He lay on his back beside her and fell asleep.

When the first beast's roar sounded in the forest that night, the merfolk opened his eyes and rose to stand guard at the entrance. In the latter half of the night, a python reached down from above. The merfolk extended his sharp claws and bared his teeth, and the python turned and fled.

Feng Rumeng remained unconscious for three days before waking. As her eyes focused, she saw the merfolk curled up beside her, breathing rapidly, his pupils unfocused. The skin and flesh on his tail were all shriveled.

"What's wrong? Do you need water?" Feng Rumeng sat up too suddenly and pulled at her ribs. She doubled over in pain and stayed that way for quite a while.

She took a bottle of water from her space, opened it, and gave it to the merfolk. He drank a few mouthfuls, snatched the bottle from her hand, and poured the rest over his tail.

Feng Rumeng noticed that the scales were no longer raised where the water had touched them. She hurriedly rummaged through her space and found the folding bathtub she hadn't used in a long time. She unfolded it and transferred the water from the leaf bucket in her space directly into the tub.

Hearing the water, the merfolk crawled over with difficulty and flipped himself into the tub. It was quite a while before his breathing grew steadier.

Seeing that she was doing better, Feng Rumeng sat down against the wall of the hollow and glanced down. Aside from the pain in her ribs and the back of her head, all her other wounds had vanished without leaving a scar. She had only one more piece of cloth on her than when she was born.

She glanced at the merfolk in the tub, took some clothes from her space, and laboriously pulled them on. Although merfolk made no distinction between men and women, she still felt a little awkward having been stripped so bare.

She took out two orange crystals and ate them. After a while, the pain eased somewhat. She looked at the merfolk. He was even thinner than she was, every rib standing out. How had he brought her here?

She took out some food and held a sausage out to him. The merfolk not only refused to take it but shrank back into the tub.

Feng Rumeng leaned over the rim of the tub. "What's wrong, little merfolk? Big sister is giving you something to eat."

Oh, I forgot. Feng Rumeng sliced open the wrapper with a stone knife, peeled it off the sausage, and offered it to the merfolk. He curled up even tighter.

Feng Rumeng frowned. "What's wrong? Aren't you hungry? Or do you, you sea beastmen only eat things from the sea?"

The merfolk's body trembled slightly as he looked at Feng Rumeng with fearful eyes. She must be planning to torment him, using food to trick him into losing his virginity. Land-dwelling females were all the same.

Seeing that she said nothing, Feng Rumeng asked again, "Little merfolk, are you sure you won't try it?"

The merfolk gritted his teeth. He had known this female wouldn't be kind enough to save him. His body was already ruined like this, yet she really still wanted to...

He would rather die today than let her have her way.

Feng Rumeng thought she couldn't understand what she was saying. She broke off one end, put it in her mouth, and chewed, then stuffed the rest into the merfolk's hand.

"Go on, eat. We've been through this much together; would I really poison you? Besides, big sister's skin is black, but her heart is still red. Eat it up. Big sister has more."

The merfolk threw down the sausage and sprang to his feet, his back rigid. His blue eyes were filled with dark malice, enough to send a chill through anyone's body.