Chapter 52

Chapter 52: Connection

The moment Li Lin heard those words, his blood went cold.

A minute ago, he’d still been regretting the teammate who’d died to a sneak attack. Now it felt like he might not live much longer than Yu Sheng had.

“How could… the files never mentioned a dark angels parasite here…” Li Lin muttered. Under the eye’s cold gaze, a noisy static rose in his mind. “How could…”

“Sleeping state. Every dark angels is different…” Xu Jiali cursed under his breath, face tight. “This is worse than trading gunfire with angel cultists on the wasteland!”

He couldn’t make sense of how a routine return trip—easy work in the borderland—had turned into a nightmare so fast.

Everything was out of control: falling into the otherworld without warning; stumbling into that “Door Opening Eccentric” he’d once seen on the wasteland planet; meeting a half-meter-tall doll and a demon fox who looked like she’d been exiled for a century; no time for introductions before the Door Opening Eccentric died right in front of him; the doll’s reaction being beyond outrageous; more hunger entities—then the eye in the sky.

His imagination couldn’t even simulate today’s chain of events.

Uneasy growls rumbled around them. Wolves made of shadowspawn prowled in a wide, protective circle. Under the cold stare of the eye, even these strange creatures felt pressure like a mountain.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned from atop her wolf. “…Strange. Why aren’t those monsters coming over?”

Irene, still in Foxy’s arms, stilled at the question. She noticed it too.

The flesh behemoths gathering around the ruined temple prowled and howled, but time passed and not one of them took a single step forward. None attacked. The cold One-Eye floating in the sky simply watched in silence, as if it had no intention of acting.

“I think we should run while we can,” Li Lin said, voice tight. “Let’s not waste time wondering why they’re standing there like idiots.”

Little Red Riding Hood cut him off, calm and flat. “Run where?”

The One-Eye watched every inch of the valley. The entire otherworld was changing as if it had come alive. Under that gaze, the idea of running collapsed into despair. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

Then Irene lifted her head in Foxy’s arms, expression sharpening. “You said something like this happened before? The day the immortal died—and your parents hid you in a cave?”

Foxy blinked, then nodded fast.

“Where is that cave?”

Foxy finally snapped into motion. Hugging Irene tighter, she started running. “I remember! It’s near the back mountain. I’ll take you!”

She stopped after two steps, hesitating as her eyes flicked to Yu Sheng’s body on the ground.

His eyes still weren’t closed. He looked like he’d died fighting it.

“Benefactor…” Foxy whispered. “What do we do about Benefactor?”

She knew Yu Sheng could die and come back, but she didn’t understand how. Their time together had been too short, and he hadn’t explained.

“Leave him here. Don’t worry about it,” Irene said immediately. She’d spent more time with Yu Sheng than Foxy had. “In a little while he won’t be here anymore. He has a way to find me.”

Foxy went still, then nodded blankly.

Then Irene remembered something and rattled off orders, one after another. “Oh, and my cleaver—it’s over there. Pick it up for me. Hang the painting on me first. I can’t be separated from this painting… The knife isn’t broken, right? As long as it isn’t broken, we’re fine. If I lose it, he’ll lecture me later. The body is useless. Don’t take it…”

Foxy carried them out clumsily. Li Lin’s group watched, their expressions twisting with disbelief. The fox demon carefully picked up a cheap supermarket cleaver, then ignored their fallen teammate completely.

Little Red Riding Hood finally couldn’t stand it. “You’re just leaving him here?!”

Irene leaned out of Foxy’s arms. “Hard to run while carrying him!”

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth to argue, but a thunderous roar from deep within the valley cut her off.

The distant mountains split apart. Huge black boulders rolled down the slopes. In the widening cracks, flesh grew from stone. Teeth ground against rock with a rumble that shook the air.

The forest trembled. Trees toppled, and where they fell, toothed tentacles erupted—as if the woods were shedding a disguise.

The behemoths prowling around the ruined temple, sluggish and eerie, shuddered into agitation.

“Oh god!” Irene yelped. With her broken arm stumps, she smacked Foxy’s shoulder. “We can’t stay! Move! Those three can follow or not!”

Foxy didn’t need to be told twice. She sprinted behind the ruined temple, Irene clutched tight against her, racing toward a gap at the bottom of the valley.

Li Lin and the other two traded a look. Questions crowded their throats, but they only had one real choice.

They ran after the fox.

Little Red Riding Hood glanced back one last time at where Yu Sheng had fallen. She bit her lip. One wolf from the pack broke away and dashed toward Yu Sheng’s remains.

After only a few steps, the wolf stopped, as if it had forgotten why it was running. It wandered in place for two seconds, then turned and padded back to the pack at Little Red Riding Hood’s side.

She didn’t look back again. She drove the pack into a full sprint, guarding the others as they chased the silver-haired fox demon deeper into the valley.

Behind them, around the ruined temple, the restless flesh behemoths gradually went quiet again.

These entities born of hunger seemed to fall into confusion. They stood among broken walls, deformed eyes scanning, grotesque limbs waving without purpose. Mouth after mouth opened, packed with fangs, making muffled mutters like sleep-talk.

Then, from those mutters, a clear word emerged.

“So fragrant.”

A will was speaking through their mouths.

So fragrant.

Should eat.

The behemoths swayed. The eyes that had been scanning blindly slowed, then stopped. One by one, their gazes landed on each other.

Eat—not because of hunger.

That which devoured everything, above everything… eating. Yes. At this moment, they should eat.

And after that would come cold peace and merciful eternity—because it devoured everything, the most absolute fairness and the final road.

The first flesh behemoth lurched toward another entity. It didn’t strike with claws or teeth in some clever pattern. It simply opened the largest mouth on its body and bit down, ravenous.

The one being bitten didn’t dodge. It didn’t even scream.

As if it didn’t understand it was being eaten by its own kind, it staggered forward with a chunk of “kin” hanging off its flesh, then wandered toward the next closest entity.

Not a single hunger entity chased the prey that had fled. It was as if their nature had changed in an instant. Drawing strength from hunger no longer mattered.

Sacred eating was their only mission.

In the center of the ruined temple, the last traces of blood Yu Sheng had left behind seeped into the soil. Where the blood spread, the earth’s color began to change—slowly at first, then faster, unstoppable.

Yet the cold giant eye in the sky seemed to care about none of it. It hovered high above, indifferent. In that enormous eyeball was no emotion or thought a human could understand. It simply watched the valley, so vast that from the ground no one could even tell where its focus truly was.

If a gaze beyond mortals even had a focus at all.

Yu Sheng felt it anyway, because it was on him.

After drifting in darkness for a time, an indescribable sense of connection jolted him awake. For an instant he thought he’d resurrected, but he realized he was still dead—only this death felt different from before.

In the dark, he had gained an extra viewpoint.

At first, the strange angle and layered information made his thoughts tangle into knots. But gradually he understood.

He was answering the gaze from the sky with the eyes of the otherworld itself.

He had formed a connection with this valley.