The winds in the valley began to stir.
Yu Sheng was unsure of what was happening, but he could clearly sense that the "atmosphere" filled within this otherworldly realm was changing.
It was a feeling hard to put into words, but if he had to describe it, he would say...
He felt the entire valley was gradually "coming to life."
The distant woods were awakening, the mountains were stirring, and even the earth was vibrating.
Above him, the sky seemed to watch with cold and hungry eyes that made his skin crawl.
He noticed that the fox spirit beside him was trembling slightly, while the fox girl clutched tightly to her food, her face showing signs of fear.
She looked up at the dark night sky above, constantly muttering something under her breath.
As she drew closer, Yu Sheng finally caught the repeated phrase:
"This is how immortals die... This is how immortals die..."
"What’s going on?" Ailin quickly asked, her little puppet also tensed up, tightly holding onto the kitchen knife in her arms, "Do you know something?"
But Hu Li remained silent, as if trapped in a daze, only able to repeat the same words over and over again.
Soon, however, Ailin and Yu Sheng had no time to concern themselves with Hu Li's strange behavior.
Yu Sheng felt that familiar aura closing in nearby.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow in the ruins of an old temple swiftly taking form.
Layers of grotesque, swollen flesh multiplied, as if various limbs were cut off from different creatures and stacked together.
Dozens of hungry eyes opened on the monster’s surface, while sharp teeth and ripping mouths emerged between the eyes, issuing a muddled, low growl.
Entity - Hunger had finally appeared near its prey.
"Well, damn!" Ailin exclaimed, "This thing is hideous!"
"Be careful of its ambush! Its limbs can morph, and it can suddenly grow tentacles and tails from its body," Yu Sheng quickly warned.
He then turned to Hu Li, "Just protect yourself. You've already been deeply eroded by this creature; you can't fight it."
Hu Li was in a strange state.
After the monster appeared, she continued staring at the sky in fear.
But upon hearing Yu Sheng’s words, she lamely nodded her head, picking up scattered food off the ground and retreating.
Yet, she seemed reluctant to go too far, as if fearing something would happen to Yu Sheng.
"What’s your plan for the fight?" Ailin whispered—close by, the monster was still lingering, seemingly waiting for something, making her increasingly uneasy.
"Don’t tell me you plan to rush in barehanded and wrestle it; you didn’t even bring a weapon, while I at least have this kitchen knife."
Yu Sheng certainly remembered not having a weapon when he arrived.
He had tried before; most of the monster's body was harder than stone.
Even if he could chop off a small piece of its relatively softer flesh with an axe, the effect would be minimal.
Thus, he had never considered bringing a “weapon” to the fight—after all, for an ordinary person who had no combat training, even wielding a kitchen knife could likely lead to injuring themselves first.
He had prepared other "means of attack."
"This is the plan we discussed at home. Just control its movements with your threads," Yu Sheng said quickly.
"I will charge in and 'tear a gap.' You pay attention; if I happen to mess up, just take Hu Li and run. You don't need to worry about me. Hu Li has ways to survive under that monster, and you won’t be chased actively by hunger..."
Ailin was stunned for a moment, "Ah, and then what?"
"We regroup after I come back, and try again. This thing has to die eventually."
"Good grief, so it really is this straightforward plan, huh? Didn’t we agree to avoid using 'resurrection' as a regular tactic?"
"Isn’t this just ‘trying my best’?" Yu Sheng quickly replied, before frowning as he sensed something was off with the monster a short distance away.
"Why isn’t it attacking yet…"
Ailin shared the same concern: "It feels like it’s deliberately stalling, almost as if waiting for something—does it have a concept of 'strategy' now?"
"In that case, we can't let it wait any longer."
Yu Sheng clenched his teeth, "Let’s take the initiative!"
Just as he spoke, he charged straight at the monster.
Almost simultaneously, Ailin leaped down from his shoulder with agility, extending her right hand towards the creature.
The instant her feet touched the ground, the puppet's eyes turned pitch black, and countless thin, dark threads oozed from her hands like a sprawling web, rapidly spreading across the space.
All the "threads" evaded Yu Sheng's path.
Inside this ever-expanding net of silk, he accelerated again, his enhanced body leaving a blur in the air as he lunged towards the monstrous beast!
Finally, the monster moved.
Faced with this proactive attack from its "prey," it seemed taken aback but quickly launched a counterattack.
A vicious claw raised high from the beast’s back, smashing down towards the path Yu Sheng was charging in.
In that instant, Yu Sheng suddenly felt that mysterious... "prediction."
He sensed which part of the monster's muscles was contracting, felt its hunger and the true focus of its gaze.
He could almost see a tentacle extending out from behind the claw, blocking all his possible escape routes in the next moment...
Whether it was an illusion or not, he felt that his "prediction" this time was even more accurate than before.
It almost didn’t seem like his so-called "spiritual intuition."
After experiencing what true intuition was like, he realized that what he "saw" and "felt" while predicting the monster’s actions was entirely different from mere spiritual intuition.
When he sensed the monster’s movements in advance, it was almost like viewing it from a first-person perspective.
All thoughts flashed in an instant, and in the blink of an eye, Yu Sheng closed the final distance.
The blood-and-flesh giant’s claw came crashing down.
Yu Sheng didn’t evade at all.
From the corner of his eye, he could see dark threads creeping in from behind him in mid-air, converging in an instant.
The next moment, countless black lines coiled around the monster's limbs, intertwining like bone-piercing phantoms, penetrating through its claws, tentacles, and massive mouth...
Chilling, numbing, and slowing—thoughts seemed to be momentarily pierced with countless holes, where even the soul felt trapped in layers of a cold web...
A tide of negative sensations surged within him, and in that moment, Yu Sheng seemed to see a vision—he saw himself caught in a spider web, self-woven threads wrapped around him and even penetrating his limbs, while at the edge of the web, a shadow with blood-red eyes lurked in the darkness, crawling toward him with a strange and ferocious posture...
"Yu Sheng! Don’t space out! I can barely hold on!"
The sudden shout snapped Yu Sheng back to reality.
He looked up and saw the blood-and-flesh giant held in a strange posture, suspended in the center of layers of black threads, while the ends of the threads were taut, as if they would snap at any moment.
There wasn’t time to ponder the "vision" he had just experienced; Yu Sheng lunged towards the side of the monster.
In this precious moment Ailin had bought for him, he grabbed one of the midair black threads with one hand, while the other reached into the air, gathering all his concentration, and then slowly pulled—
A door appeared, its surface shimmering with a flowing, phantasmal light.
Opening a door from thin air took more energy and time than opening a physical one.
Yu Sheng had to concentrate in a relatively stable environment to complete this process.
Watching the monster’s limbs tremble and the black threads beginning to tear, even just a few seconds felt like an eternity to him.
—Although recently, his "eternity" hadn’t felt very long at all.
In the next second, accompanied by a sound of creaking, the imagined door finally swung wide open.
It was larger than any door he had opened before, enormous enough to swallow the monster whole.
Fiery light erupted from within, illuminating a large area around the door.
On the other side lay a constantly churning lake of lava.
That was the "surprise" Yu Sheng had discovered in countless experiments of opening doors prior.
He had no idea where this place was; he only knew it was filled with endless molten lava and fierce flames, akin to a scene from hell.
Entity - Hunger was powerful, but its threat mainly stemmed from spiritual pollution and its own nearly rule-like "hunger."
As for its physical "body"—in comparison to those rules, it was actually not very durable.
It could be roasted.
If it couldn’t be roasted, then they would just need stronger firepower.
"Throw it in!" Yu Sheng shouted at Ailin.
"Right away!"
(End of Chapter)