Chapter 051

Chapter 51: Awakening

It was not over.

Almost as soon as Foxy spoke, Yu Sheng knew what she meant.

From the Dense Forest came a chorus of jagged roars. A hollow, terrifying wind boomed through the Valley. The eerie, grim mood soaking the entire Otherworld did not fade with the Flesh Behemoth’s fall. It suddenly grew several times stronger. A heavy, almost sticky malice and watching gaze surged in from every side, like something had been startled awake and was falling into fury.

Yu Sheng looked at the Fox Maiden, who seemed to know something, and asked fast: “What is this thing?!”

“I do not know, but it appeared before,” Foxy said as she hid behind Yu Sheng, her face tight with fear: “On the day the immortal died, it was like this. Something woke up. The immortal took the people to the outside, then did not come back. Later, they only found the bodies. Father and mother hid me in a hole, told me not to look out. I do not know what it was. When I crawled out, everyone was already dead.”

From Foxy’s broken, scattered story, Yu Sheng quickly pieced it together.

The real horror in this Valley was not the Flesh Behemoth. Or rather, not only the Flesh Behemoth. Something stronger lay asleep in this deep dark. From the moment he and Irene entered the Valley, that thing had likely begun to wake.

He bit down, weighed fast, then ran to Irene.

“We cannot keep fighting,” Yu Sheng said quickly: “There is something worse in this Valley. Plan B: retreat first. I will do Door Opening. How are you? Can you move?”

Irene tried to push off the ground to stand. The moment she put weight on her arms, he heard a small crack. Both forearms snapped at the elbows. The broken parts hit the ground and shattered.

“No. And my legs are damaged. If I force myself to stand, they will break too,” the Doll said, glum as she lifted a stump: “I told you this body is not sturdy. Did you mix sand into the clay?”

To be honest, Yu Sheng had jumped at the sight of Irene’s arms breaking. He had never worked with a Living Doll before. He did not know how bad this was. But her complaint actually calmed him at once: “So you can be repaired?”

Irene nodded: “Yes, but we have to go back.”

Relieved, Yu Sheng saw she could not stand on her own. He took the picture frame off her back, adjusted the strap, slung it over his shoulder, then picked Irene up and set her on his left arm.

Irene fussed a little, maybe feeling it was embarrassing. But a Doll with broken arms had no menace. In the end she sat still and behaved.

Yu Sheng reached into the air with his free right hand. He focused for a heartbeat, and a Door rippled into being at his fingertips.

He noticed the three strangers who had shown up out of nowhere were watching him. The young man looked oddly familiar. When he saw Yu Sheng open the Door, all three gave him the same strange look.

He had no time to worry about that. Once he felt the path lock on, he pulled the phantom Door open wide.

On the other side was the living room at 66 Wutong Road.

“The safe route is here. Everyone pull back,” Yu Sheng said fast: “Before that thing forms again!”

He looked at the Fox Maiden, who stood nearby, tense and unsure: “Foxy, you first. Do not be afraid. On the other side of The Door it is safe.”

Then he turned to Li Lin and the other two: “You three, I do not know who you are, but thanks for the help just now. Come with me in a moment.”

Pushed by Yu Sheng’s calm tone, Foxy finally gathered herself and stepped toward the phantom Door.

Right as she was about to pass through, a weird rush of wind roared from not far away. At the same time, Yu Sheng felt a sudden gust strike from behind.

A mass of alien signals flashed through his mind. Several gazes fixed on the ruined temple. Viewpoints stretched from the far sky and the deep of the Valley. A cold, mixed touch. And the joy of a meal about to begin.

Yu Sheng spun and saw that, at the edge of the night beyond the ruins, a Flesh Behemoth had already appeared. Its middle split open into a hideous mouth. A long tongue shot out like an arrow and punched through his chest in a blink.

He only had time to shove Irene aside. He could not dodge. The thrust pierced his heart.

[It regenerated already? That fast? Or is this another one?] The questions flashed through his head. As the dark closed in, he heard Foxy’s panicked cry, Irene’s scream, and the Wolf Pack’s howls.

The phantom Door flickered twice and winked out. Yu Sheng fell backward. In his tilting, dimming view he saw layer after layer of shadow swell at the edge of the ruins. Inside every rippling shadow, a heap of flesh was taking shape. Countless greedy mouths opened all across the Valley. The far forest bristled with feeding tentacles. Distant mountains grew rows of sharp teeth. And the sky… the sky was cracking open along its rim.

“Benefactor!” Foxy was the first to dive forward. She skidded to Yu Sheng’s side. She had seen him Resurrection before, but her muddled brain did not catch up. Seeing him fall, her first reaction was fear: “You, you… are you okay…”

“What do you think? He is obviously dead!” Irene cut the Fox Maiden off with a loud snap. The little Doll had fallen to the ground and was dragging herself along: “This is not your first time seeing it. Calm down!”

Foxy froze, then slowly caught up. She stared at Yu Sheng’s body, face twisted up, like she wanted to cry but knew she should not, yet not crying felt wrong to the mood, while crying felt unfair to her Benefactor.

Li Lin, beside them, clearly had no idea about Yu Sheng’s condition. Seeing the new Flesh Behemoth not far away, he went tight as a bowstring. He kept one eye on the monster and tried to comfort the Doll and the Demon Fox: “Sorry, but the dead cannot come back to life. The urgent thing is to deal with…”

He did not finish. The battered Doll answered: “It is fine. He will be back in a bit. But we have to hold for twenty or thirty minutes until he returns to do Door Opening. Fox, help me up, and do not forget the painting on the ground.”

Hearing that, Foxy hurried to tug the oil painting frame out from under Yu Sheng’s body and scooped up the helpless Irene.

Li Lin and his two teammates stared, stunned. The Doll’s reaction made no sense to them. For a second they wondered if this was grief talking.

They soon had no attention to spare for that.

Chaotic roars rose from the dark around the ruined temple. A pounding madness swept in without pause. Even the battle hardened Xu Jiali went stiff when he took in the scene.

Grisly monsters made of raw flesh were forming one after another in the dark.

Howls filled the entire Valley.

“What the heck!” Li Lin cried out: “Why are there so many? The files said a Hunger Entity only makes one at a time!”

Xu Jiali slowly lifted his head. He swallowed hard before he broke the silence: “What if this Valley has been parasitized by an Angel…”

“What do you mea…” Li Lin started to say, then saw where Xu Jiali was looking.

The Valley itself was rippling under the night.

Sharp tooth shapes rose along the outline of the mountains.

Worse was the sky. The sky was opening.

The Otherworld’s sky, always a dim night under a heavy curtain, was changing. On one edge, right before their eyes, a slit unzipped the dark. A thin light flared inside the seam. Then the truth behind the curtain showed.

It was not a curtain. It was not black clouds.

It was an eyelid.

A single eye had lain shut over the whole Otherworld, making its endless night. Now it opened. The cold gaze stared down. The sunken pupil was full of chaotic lines and flickering sparks, as if it were studying the prey in the Valley. The leaking glow even pushed back some of the eternal night. “Light” descended and granted endless terror.

The howling wind snapped Li Lin out of fear. From beside him came a whisper.

It was Xu Jiali, a veteran Deep Diver with over ten years of service, murmuring a name: “Dark Angels…”