The sound of chewing echoing throughout the valley grew louder, resembling crashing waves.
This foreign land had transformed into a grand feast, and soon, everyone hiding in the cave became aware of what this sound signified.
Li Lin mustered his courage and approached the cave entrance, nerves prickling as he peered outside.
In the mountains, sharp teeth were clashing against each other, forming gaping trenches that collapsed inward, continuously splitting into more fissures, devouring and dissolving one another.
The greedy tendrils that had spread across the ground were beginning to consume themselves, while monstrous beasts of flesh were sprouting from the shadows, only to be swallowed by an unseen power in the blink of an eye.
Amidst this terrifying spectacle, he spotted a figure standing in the clearing outside the cave—Yu Sheng was gazing thoughtfully at the scene of overlapping devouring in the valley.
Li Lin felt slightly dazed for a moment but quickly pushed the dissonance aside—he had forgotten the circumstances of Yu Sheng’s departure and only felt that the person before him had simply taken a brief detour from their group.
Huli and Ailin, who were guarding the cave's entrance, immediately noticed Yu Sheng’s figure.
“Benefactor! You’re really not dead!” Huli exclaimed at once but quickly turned anxious. “Benefactor, hurry inside! It’s dangerous outside!”
Yu Sheng then turned around, walking hurriedly back into the cave, muttering as he walked, “That thing in the sky seems a bit sinister, but it doesn’t seem to have any desire to attack…”
Ailin paid little mind to Yu Sheng’s mumbling, her worry apparent as she scanned him from head to toe. “Are you really okay? Is your mental state normal?”
“Can’t you hope for something nice for me?!” Yu Sheng shot an irritated glance at the doll. “Is it that easy for me to come back?”
While speaking, he lifted his gaze again to look outside the cave. “The 'Hunger' should be ending soon, but that large eye in the sky, I don’t know its origin. It’s not part of the 'Entity-Hunger' and doesn't even seem like something that belongs to this valley.”
Ailin had prepared a plethora of sarcastic remarks to ease the atmosphere, but was caught off guard. “Huh? It’s not from this valley?”
“No,” Yu Sheng shook his head.
Up to this moment, he still retained a subtle connection to this foreign realm, allowing him to discern the gaze that fell from the sky, recognizing the boundary between that eye and the valley. “Now, all the entities of Hunger are under my perception. I can feel clearly that eye is something foreign—it’s just been 'lurking' above this place for many years, replacing the original sky.”
Ailin’s mouth hung open in surprise, momentarily lost for words, when a deep voice suddenly broke the silence from the depths of the cave.
“That’s an ‘Angel.’”
Yu Sheng looked up in astonishment to see a muscular man nearly two meters tall walking toward him from deeper within the cave.
Eerie blue foxfire danced in sharp shadows on the man’s face.
The muscular man scrutinized Yu Sheng with a mix of unusual seriousness and caution. “Did you fall behind before?”
Yu Sheng had an odd feeling as he met the man’s gaze—it seemed to hold great vigilance and wariness.
It wasn't hostility, but neither did it carry the warmth or concern expected of a temporary companion returning from being lost.
However, Yu Sheng didn’t dwell on it too long; he was more preoccupied with the strange name the muscular man had just mentioned.
“I fell behind a bit, but don’t worry, it’s no big deal,” Yu Sheng waved dismissively and then asked, “What do you mean by ‘Angel’?”
“A more accurate title would be ‘Obscure Angel,’ a type of… unknown dangerous thing. Sometimes it also refers to special phenomena caused by these dangerous entities,” the muscular man took his time to explain. “Each Obscure Angel is different; they vary greatly in shape, ability, and the manner in which they appear. The one occupying the sky now should have parasitized this foreign realm many years ago—its influence has caused the entities here to undergo mutations.”
Yu Sheng listened in awe as he absorbed the man's words, quickly sensing that he had more information about this so-called ‘Obscure Angel,’ and likely more detailed insights to share.
Yet, the muscular man did not reveal everything and seemed either bound by secrecy or cautious about saying too much.
This was understandable; they were still strangers to one another.
Even though they had fought alongside each other, introductions had not yet been made, so any willingness to share information was already a gesture of good faith.
“I’m Yu Sheng,” he stretched out his hand toward the muscular man. “These two are Huli and Ailin—my friends.”
The two-meter-tall man hesitated for a moment but still shook Yu Sheng’s hand. “Hello, I’m Xu Jiali.”
Yu Sheng was taken aback.
A moment later, he opened his mouth. “Wait, I didn’t catch that. Did you say…?”
“His name is Xu Jiali, like the pretty girl’s ‘Jiali,’” interrupted the red-clad girl sitting on a stone bench.
She glanced at Yu Sheng. “You can call me Little Red Riding Hood.”
Yu Sheng blinked in realization. “Oh, I get it. You guys are obviously in this line of work and use codenames when you’re out, right?”
The muscular man mumbled gruffly, “Hers is a codename; mine is my real name.”
Yu Sheng could only sigh awkwardly, thinking that Xu Jiali was actually a nice name, exuding cultural charm.
His gaze then shifted to the last young man, who had been silent until now.
He felt a sense of familiarity from the young man's face, as if he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Li Lin, meanwhile, didn’t hesitate; he stepped forward when he noticed Yu Sheng’s gaze was on him. “I’m Li Lin.”
Before Yu Sheng could speak, Ailin suddenly chimed in, “Hey! That name sounds normal!”
Li Lin was momentarily speechless as he glanced around at their group—one fox demon with numerous tails, a doll over half a meter tall, and the three of them combined could barely constitute a human.
It was ironic to hear comments about someone else’s name seeming normal.
However, his attention quickly shifted elsewhere.
The chewing sounds from outside the cave were gradually fading away, and the tremors that had filled the foreign realm were also weakening rapidly.
Xu Jiali rushed toward the cave entrance, peeking his head outside to see that the entire valley had drastically changed.
It looked as though the mountains in the distance and the valley closer to them had been forcefully chewed down a layer, leaving the mountains filled with jagged rocks and bare soil, while the distant woods had vanished, and the earth was crisscrossed with trenches below.
He abruptly turned back to Yu Sheng, who stood next to Huli.
“Did you do this?”
Xu Jiali questioned, a hint of hesitation in his voice.
He knew this sounded somewhat absurd; the strange horror before them didn’t appear to be something a “person” could accomplish.
Yet, his instincts hinted that all of this must be connected to Yu Sheng’s brief absence.
“Sort of,” Yu Sheng replied readily.
Feeling quite pleased, as if he had finally satisfied a deep hunger, he nodded with a cheerful expression. “Though it took quite some effort.”
Li Lin also saw the scene in the valley and turned back to stare at Yu Sheng in astonishment. “... How is this possible...?”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, realizing it would be difficult to explain what had unfolded—he was eaten by ‘Hunger,’ yet his appetite exceeded that of ‘Hunger’? A human had mentally polluted a physical entity, and thus the ‘Hunger entity’ that had eaten the corrupt thing found itself on the appetite-fueled brink of hunger?
This wasn’t just challenging to explain; it would leave everyone lost about who was truly the villain.
Moreover, he didn’t want these still unfamiliar individuals to learn too many details about him.
“Luck was on my side; I found out the entity's weakness,” Yu Sheng casually remarked. “I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but it seems like it triggered a chain reaction of self-devouring within the entities of this valley…”
His response sounded dismissive, clearly trying not to delve too deeply, which Li Lin immediately picked up on—some things were simply someone else’s secret.
Just then, Ailin’s loud voice disrupted Li Lin and Xu Jiali’s thoughts. “Hey! Is that thing in the sky slowly floating upward?”
Yu Sheng perked up at her words, quickly leaning forward to look up at the sky above the valley.
He saw that the enormous eye covering the entire valley was slowly rising, not making a sound.
It was like a projection slowly shrinking in the sky; within just a few seconds, the giant eye had already shrunk to only a third of its original size.
It was rapidly moving away from the area.
A brighter, more normal sunlight spread from the distant mountains, the disturbed clouds reappearing in the sky.
The eye quickly transformed into a small disk floating at the center of the sky, and after a few more breaths, the disk completely vanished from everyone’s sight.
“It… ran away?” Ailin stared up at the sky, seemingly at a loss for words.
She then turned to face the two-meter tall man nearby. “What happens now that your ‘Angel’ has fled?”
Xu Jiali simply let out a soft sigh, a smile emerging on his face as he responded to the doll’s inquiry.
“What else can we do? Celebrate—the report I need to write can wait.”
(End of Chapter)