Chapter 12: There Are People in This Place?!

Chapter 12: There Are People in This Place?!

Yu Sheng gave Irene a quick sign-off, but this time he didn’t disconnect immediately after speaking.

It wasn’t because the thing on the other side had suddenly turned vegetarian. Rather, for some reason, this terrifying giant beast seemed to have fallen into a state of confusion.

It stood in the night wind, dozens of chaotic eyes layered across its mass of flesh staring fixedly at the prey before it with a strange sort of “gaze.” Odd as it sounded, Yu Sheng genuinely felt he could see confusion in those eyes, the kind of confusion you’d have after spending half an hour trying to reconcile accounts between your mouth and your stomach and still failing.

Irene was still calling out anxiously in his mind, but all of Yu Sheng’s attention was focused on the horrifying monster before him. Irene’s voice felt distant, as though muffled behind a thick curtain. He tensed every muscle in his body. His heart pounded wildly, thump thump, and every twitch of muscle and pulse of blood vessel on the monster’s body was reflected clearly in his eyes.

Although he had mentally prepared himself when he resurrected in the ruined temple earlier, now that he was once again facing the crushing weight of death, Yu Sheng still felt immense tension.

The only difference from last time was that the fear mixed into that tension had greatly diminished.

In its place was something even he found unfamiliar.

Excitement.

Then he suddenly sensed something.

Muscles contracting. Thick, filthy blood gathering. Hunger surging from deep within. A command to feed emerging from a muddled consciousness.

In that fleeting instant, alarm bells exploded in his mind, and he accurately perceived the shape of the danger.

The monster was about to attack.

From the left.

But it was only a feint.

The real killing blow would be a snake tail lined with barbs and blades whipping in from behind.

The monster lunged.

A huge bloody maw suddenly split open from the end of one of its limbs and bit toward Yu Sheng’s left side.

But before it even left the ground, Yu Sheng had already reacted.

There was almost no conscious thought involved. He simply twisted his body sharply according to the warning in his mind, then immediately threw himself forward. The speed was so great that even he couldn’t believe it.

He noticed that the strain in his lower back from earlier had somehow completely healed. Ever since resurrecting, his body had remained in an unbelievably good condition.

The giant beast missed.

The snake tail striking from its treacherous angle barely brushed past the prey’s back.

Yu Sheng felt the pressure of wind behind him. The sensation of skimming past death made every hair on his body stand on end.

But more than terror, he felt disbelief.

He actually dodged it?!

What exactly had just happened?

He had no time to think.

Another sense of danger struck from behind.

This time there wasn’t enough time to evade. He could only scramble to his feet after landing, just in time to see a giant claw crashing down toward him.

In desperation, he instinctively raised his arms.

Using a weak human arm to block a claw descending like a meteor.

Boom!

The air exploded outward, scattering grass and dust several metres in every direction.

Agonizing pain surged through his entire body.

Yu Sheng felt as though more than a dozen bones had shattered simultaneously. He let out a muffled grunt and staggered backward two steps, unable to catch his breath.

But he had blocked it.

He had genuinely blocked that strike.

Stunned, Yu Sheng stared at his hands.

His left hand bent at an unnatural angle. The bone was clearly broken.

Yet the pain was fading at astonishing speed.

The twisted bone also seemed to be slowly restoring itself.

He still vividly remembered the monster’s first attack.

He remembered its true strength.

Every inch of muscle on that thing could effortlessly crush a human body.

And Yu Sheng was absolutely certain that if the monster had attacked with its full force, there was no way he could have blocked it.

No number of broken bones would have made it possible.

But the monster had no intention of giving him time to think.

After landing, it spent only a second or two regaining its footing before releasing a chaotic, furious roar and pouncing once more at the irritating prey before it.

A bone-piercing gale swept toward him.

The airborne monster was like a small mountain descending from the sky.

Yu Sheng reacted in advance again.

Without a shred of dignity, he rolled to the side, sprang back to his feet, and dodged a tail strike capable of splitting mountains and shattering stone.

Yet in the very next second, before he had fully regained his footing, the retracting tail swept him off his feet.

Then the giant beast suddenly split open along the middle of its body.

A disgusting, writhing “long tongue,” like a gigantic tentacle, shot through the darkness and wrapped tightly around him, dragging him back with tremendous force.

Yu Sheng braced himself with both arms, trying to keep the thing from snapping him in half at the waist.

At least not that quickly.

He watched helplessly as he was dragged before the monster.

A massive hole had opened in the middle of its body.

Countless fangs rose and ground against one another inside it, like the mouth of something starving beyond reason.

Just before being dragged into that mouth, Yu Sheng suddenly kicked off with both feet.

Crack!

The rock beneath him shattered.

The tremendous recoil even caused the monster to stumble.

Yu Sheng had no time to wonder why he possessed such strength.

Seizing that brief moment of respite, he exerted every ounce of power in his body and roared as he tore apart the long tongue binding him.

Then he snatched up a sharp stone fragment from the ground and lunged toward a filthy eyeball trembling violently along the monster’s side.

The tongue snapped.

The monster released a blood-curdling roar.

Blood sprayed from the middle of its body.

Staggering, it struggled to regain its balance.

Dozens of eyes stared at the prey before it with madness and hunger.

So fragrant.

So fragrant...

The scent of blood entered its nostrils.

Stimulated the hunger.

Awakened an instinct that had slumbered for a very long time.

It was truly fragrant.

Yu Sheng felt his heart pounding wildly.

Something scorching, almost boiling, surged through his blood.

A growing ecstasy welled up from within him.

He tried to identify its source.

At last, he understood.

It was the joy of an imminent meal.

The reward for hunger about to be satisfied.

That giant beast.

That heap of flesh.

That chaotic, fallen spirit.

That...

Prime meat.

The sharp stone fragment gradually crumbled into powder in his hand.

Breathing heavily, he felt everything around him slow down.

He lunged at the monster.

The monster lunged at him.

Food embraced food.

In a daze, he felt as though he had never eaten during the past twenty-plus years of his life.

Or at least, he had never eaten real food.

He embraced one of the monster’s hideous limbs.

The monster embraced him with even greater force.

Until one bone after another broke throughout his body.

Yet Yu Sheng seemed unable to feel it.

He had already sunk his teeth into the monster’s flesh.

Unlike last time, when it had been a final desperate counterattack before death, he now possessed an entirely different mindset.

He would not die.

He would come back.

This monster could kill him once.

Twice.

Or countless times.

But he would always return.

And each time, he would understand a little better how to deal with it.

Perhaps it would take a very long time.

But he would enjoy this fine piece of meat bit by bit.

More than a dozen eyes along the monster’s side trembled frantically.

Several of them seemed to sense something.

Slowly, they focused on Yu Sheng.

A giant mouth filled with sharp teeth had already bitten into his body from the side.

Yet a layer of fear seemed to be gradually appearing in those eyes.

Yu Sheng felt the monster slowly tearing his body apart.

He knew that this time he had still lost.

Naturally.

He was going to die.

He was going to be eaten by the monster.

At least this time, he still couldn’t win.

No matter what, he had lasted far longer than expected.

Originally, he had assumed he would die the instant they met.

Instead, he had actually traded blows with the monster.

“Irene...”

Before his consciousness sank into darkness, Yu Sheng tried calling out to her in his mind.

Irene’s voice sounded almost immediately.

“Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng! Are you okay?! I’ve been calling you this whole time and you wouldn’t answer...”

“I’m fine. I just said goodbye too early. Now I’m really disconnecting...”

Then he ignored Irene’s frantic shouting and quietly awaited death’s arrival.

Yet just before the heavy darkness descended, he suddenly heard a voice nearby.

A clear voice.

A voice that genuinely existed within this Valley.

“Don’t be afraid! I’m coming to save you!”

Yu Sheng’s consciousness was already extremely muddled.

Yet at that moment he suddenly became briefly lucid.

A thunderous shock exploded in his mind.

Someone?!

There are people in this place?!

He struggled to open his eyes and look toward the source of the voice.

He saw a figure charging toward him from afar.

Vaguely, he could make out what seemed to be a girl in ragged clothing.

But in the next second, he noticed other shapes flying behind her in the darkness.

What were those?

Tails?

A fox?

A human?

No.

A subsonic headbutt.

In despair, Yu Sheng watched the figure shouting that she was coming to save him accelerate a second time in midair like an artillery shell with extended range.

Head lowered, she charged straight ahead.

The monster chewing on him happened to shift its body slightly to the side, quite possibly on purpose.

As a result, Yu Sheng became the target she was charging directly toward.

“Holy fu...”

He only managed to squeeze out two syllables through clenched teeth.

The charging girl hadn’t even seen what was in front of her.

The subsonic headbutt struck Yu Sheng squarely in the chest.

Then he no longer had a chest.

Everything below his neck disappeared.

As if it had evaporated.

“Miss, you damn... missed your target...”

And then...

Yu Sheng was rescued to death.