As soon as Li Lin heard those four words, he felt a chill running through his veins.
Just a moment before, he had been lamenting the tragic death of Yu Sheng, who had fallen victim to a sudden monster attack, but now he realized that he might not survive much longer than that.
"How could this be... The reports never mentioned a Dark Angel lurking in this place..."
Li Lin murmured to himself.
Under the cold and indifferent gaze from the sky, he felt a cacophony of noise rising in his mind.
"How could this be..."
"In a state of slumber, each Dark Angel possesses different traits... This is worse than fighting those angel cultists in the wasteland!" Xu Jiali couldn't help but curse.
He couldn't understand how his routine return, tasked with a simple observation mission on the border, had spiraled into such chaos.
Everything was so far from what he expected—being thrown into an exotic realm, encountering the mysterious "Door Monster" he had previously seen on the wasteland planet, and finding this strange puppet and a fox demon that seemed to have been exiled for a century by its side.
Before they could even exchange a few words, the "Door Monster" had abruptly collapsed in front of him, and the puppet’s reaction was just as absurd.
Then there were more hunger-driven entities, and now a Dark Angel looming in the sky...
He couldn’t have imagined such a bizarre series of events even if he tried his whole life!
Around them, the howls of a restless wolf pack echoed, the shadowy wolves circled, their presence filled with anxiety and fear ignited by the indifferent gaze from above.
Yet, Little Red Riding Hood, perched upon one of the wolves, furrowed her brows.
"Strange, why aren’t those monsters coming over?"
In Hu Li's arms, Erin paused, noticing the unusual situation herself.
The massive flesh beasts congregating near the ruins of the crumbled temple continued to bellow in confusion, yet oddly, not a single monster had taken a step forward to attack them since the chaos began.
The cold one-eyed gaze that floated in the sky remained passive, seemingly observing without intent to act.
"I think we should make a run for it while we can," Li Lin broke the silence.
"Let’s not ponder why these monsters are frozen in place."
Little Red Riding Hood interrupted, her voice calm.
"Where do we run to?"
The singular, indifferent eye in the sky scrutinized every inch of the valley.
This whole exotic land felt like it was awakening, and under its watchful gaze, any thought of escape was quickly crushed by an overwhelming sense of despair that offered no place to flee or hide.
But just then, Erin seemed to remember something, her expression shifting as she looked up from Hu Li's embrace.
"Did you just say something similar happened before? The day that immortal died, your parents hid you in a cave?"
Hu Li froze for a moment, then hurriedly nodded.
"Where is that cave?!"
Finally realizing, Hu Li turned around while cradling Erin.
"I remember! It’s near the back hill, I’ll take you there!"
However, she paused as hesitation crept into her gaze, looking down at Yu Sheng's lifeless body.
"Hero… what should we do?" the fox girl asked, her unease evident.
Despite knowing about Yu Sheng’s "death and resurrection," she was still in the dark about many details, as there had been little time in their previous interactions for him to explain everything to her.
"Just leave him here, it’s fine," Erin immediately replied, sounding far more knowledgeable as she had communicated with Yu Sheng quite a bit.
"He’ll be gone soon, he knows how to find me."
Hu Li blinked, nodding slowly in understanding.
Then Erin suddenly remembered something else and added quickly, "By the way, where's that kitchen knife I was using? Oh, over there on the ground, please pick it up for me. Hey, tie this oil painting to me; I can't be separated from it… Is the knife alright? As long as it isn’t broken, that’s fine; if I lose it, he’ll definitely scold me—who needs the body, it’s useless..."
The little puppet began to instruct hurriedly, while the fox girl executed her commands in a daze.
Meanwhile, Li Lin and the others found the scene uncanny, watching Hu Li carefully pick up a basic kitchen knife that wouldn’t cost more than a hundred bucks in a supermarket, completely disregarding their fallen companion’s remains.
After holding back for a long moment, Little Red Riding Hood finally couldn’t take it anymore.
"You’re just going to leave him here?!"
Erin leaned out from Hu Li’s embrace.
"It’ll be harder to run with him!"
Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth as if wanting to say more but was abruptly interrupted by a rumble coming from deep within the valley.
In the distance, the mountains cracked open, and countless dark stones tumbled down from the peaks.
As the fissures widened, flesh and blood began to sprout from within, teeth grinding against stone, creating chilling roars.
The trees began to sway, giant trunks toppled as if shedding their disguises, and numerous limb-like appendages sprouted from where the trees had fallen, all voicing a deafening roar.
The giant beasts that had previously been lingering around the temple ruins, caught in a strange stasis, also began to stir uneasily.
Seeing this, Erin yelped, urgently patting Hu Li’s shoulder with her remaining arm.
"This isn't the time to linger! We need to get out of here. You three can come if you want!"
As soon as Erin finished speaking, Hu Li was already clutching Erin again, spinning around to dash toward the back of the temple ruins, racing to the valley’s lower edge.
Li Lin and his group exchanged glances, filled with questions, but the choice was clear.
They quickly followed the already-distant fox and surged toward some “shelter.”
Little Red Riding Hood took one last look back at Yu Sheng’s fallen form.
She gritted her teeth; one of the wolves broke from the pack and sprinted toward Yu Sheng's remains.
However, just a few steps away, the wolf seemed to forget its purpose, stopping to mindlessly wander in place for two seconds before turning back to rejoin the pack beside Little Red Riding Hood.
She didn’t look back; instead, she urged the wolf pack to run, protecting the others and keeping pace with the silver-haired fox demon up ahead.
She had completely forgotten the pool of blood left behind.
Meanwhile, the restless flesh beasts around the ruins of the temple gradually fell silent.
These entities, born of "hunger," seemed to fall into confusion.
They stood among the broken walls, their grotesquely mutated eyes sweeping around aimlessly, their hideous limbs flailing in the air, their gigantic mouths opening wide, producing mumblings like a dream.
Suddenly, among the mumblings, a clear word emerged—
"So fragrant."
A voice resonated through them.
So fragrant.
It is time to eat.
The giants shook as the originally scanning eyes began to focus, stabilizing as they fell upon each other.
To eat, but not out of hunger.
That which devours all, that which transcends everything... yes, it is time to feast now.
Then came the cold serenity and the mercy of eternity—because it ultimately devours all, the epitome of fairness and the end.
The first flesh beast moved.
It staggered toward another entity beside it.
There were no flashy attack moves; it merely opened its mouth wide and bit down greedily.
The one being bitten didn’t evade nor cry out.
As if oblivious to its fate of being consumed by its "kind," it merely swayed and walked, its body burdened by a fellow beast gnawing at it, advancing toward another entity closest to it.
Not a single “Entity-Hunger” pursued the prey that had escaped, as if in a single moment, their nature had shifted—they no longer sought the power of hunger; the exalted act of feasting had become their sole purpose.
In the center of the crumbled temple ruins, the last traces of blood left behind by Yu Sheng were gradually seeping into the earth.
Where the blood spread, the soil's color began to change, slowly at first but steadily quickening, unstoppable.
Yet the indifferent giant eye floating in the sky paid no heed to the changes on the ground—it hung high above, its vast gaze devoid of any emotion or thought understandable by humankind, continuously observing the valley.
Its scale was so immense that one could not ascertain its "focus" from the ground.
If that transcendental gaze indeed had a "focus," Yu Sheng felt it now—this focus was aimed directly at him.
After drifting in the dark for a while, some indescribable feeling of "connection" jolted him awake.
At first, he thought he had come back to life, but quickly realized he remained in a state of "death," albeit one that felt different from before.
He found he had gained another “perspective” in the darkness.
At first, this new angle confused him, as the odd points of view and overlapping information tangled his thoughts.
But gradually, he came to understand one thing.
He was responding to the gaze from the sky with the perspective of this "exotic realm."
He had established a connection with this valley.
(End of Chapter)