All the sounds were mixed together, chaotic thoughts clashing and tearing with the fox demon's last shred of sanity. Yu Sheng heard Hu Li's painful whimpers beside him, but his mind was roaring with even more frantic and chaotic sounds—the fox demon's appetite on the verge of losing control, the bone-chilling hunger, the temptation of the chaotic darkness, and… the shouts urging him to escape.
Yu Sheng took a sharp breath, lowered his body, and rushed towards a gap between the fox demon and the monster. But he didn't run away as Hu Li had urged. Instead, he grabbed a broken bluestone slab from the ground, held it, and rushed towards the side of the monster.
Of course, he knew that he probably couldn't defeat this monster, but he also knew that it was impossible to run out of here on human legs alone. In addition, the place was full of obstructing ruins, and the only open exit to the outside of the temple was completely blocked by the monster's huge body. In this situation, rushing to escape would probably only lead to a faster death.
It would be better to brace himself and charge. He couldn't win the fight, but since he wasn't afraid of death, he had a chance to exchange his life for some battle results—and if he was lucky enough to distract the monster, perhaps he could give Hu Li a chance to escape from that terrible restraint. She was still struggling to maintain her sanity. If there was a real chance to free her, maybe there was a chance to fight back…
All these thoughts flashed by in an instant. Yu Sheng knew that his thinking was not very thorough, but he couldn't care less. With no other choice, he could only be ruthless. This body once again erupted with a huge force that confused even himself, smashing the heavy bluestone slab like a cannonball at the flesh-and-blood giant beast.
The next second, he had no time to confirm the "battle results" of his attack. A huge warning sign surged from the bottom of his heart. Yu Sheng "saw" the monster's counterattack a second in advance, and his body jumped sharply to the side.
A steel whip-like black shadow struck hard at the spot where he had been standing. It was a snake tail that had suddenly split from the monster's body. In an instant, earth and stones flew, and the solid bluestone and broken bricks and tiles were all turned into dust. Yu Sheng felt a strong impact in the air. The gravel hit him like bullets, even making a sound like metal clashing.
But Yu Sheng couldn't care about the pain on his body. After landing, he quickly rolled over, dodging the pursuit of the snake tail, while the corner of his eye swept over Hu Li's direction.
The silver-white fox demon struggled violently between countless black spikes and bone fragments. The faint blue spiritual fire burning near the fox tail flickered violently, as if it would lose control and explode in the next second.
But she was still firmly trapped—the things that bound her seemed to be specially customized for her. Yu Sheng's interference from the side had no effect at all.
In fact, Yu Sheng could tell at a glance that this fox girl was countless times stronger than him, but she was completely powerless in front of that monster. Between the monster and her, there was obviously a very obvious… "restraint."
But at the very beginning, in the open space outside the ruined temple, she had still rushed over without hesitation to "save" him—although she had failed to save him in the end, she really wanted to help at that time.
The memory flashed by. Yu Sheng gritted his teeth hard, wanting to rush up again, to see if he could use the old method of exchanging his life to gnaw off some more parts from the monster.
He didn't know where the extra strength and recovery ability of his body came from, but he remembered that before these changes first appeared, he had bitten off a piece of flesh from the monster.
He wasn't sure if there was any connection between these two things, but there was no other way now. He wasn't afraid of death, so he could try all the bold guesses in his mind.
"Don't, worry about me!" Just then, Hu Li's voice came again. "It can't kill… me, you, run!"
"It's fine, it can't kill me either," Yu Sheng spat out a mouthful of bloody foam. It was a wound he had received on his chin when he was hit by the gravel in the air. He turned his head to look at the silver-white fox demon, a cheerful smile on his face. "In a moment, I might die, but don't worry, I'll come back for you."
Hu Li's struggling movements paused for a moment, seemingly falling into confusion for a while.
But Yu Sheng didn't explain anything. He just walked towards the monster, his steps light, and the smile on his face becoming more and more obvious.
That smile carried a joy as if he were attending a banquet.
"Don't you like to persuade people to eat?" He looked at the flesh-and-blood giant beast in front of him and muttered to himself. "Alright, I'm here to eat!"
He leaped into the air, pouncing on the banquet table like a hungry wolf.
The dozens of eyes all over the flesh-and-blood monster trembled violently. For the first time, a trace of hesitation and… timidity seemed to appear in those chaotic and frantic eyes.
A muffled roar came from its giant mouths, and then several tentacle-like "snake tails" with black scales split from the flesh-and-blood body and stabbed at Yu Sheng in the air.
Yu Sheng felt his body being pierced. A fatal wound, he didn't know how many exactly. He felt his life begin to drain away, the warm blood taking away the vitality in his body.
But that indescribable… "appetite" had already surged from the bottom of his heart. He ignored the pain on his body, ignored all the resistance and uneasiness about death. He hugged a snake tail that had pierced his abdomen, his mouth grinning, and bit down—
The monster let out a strange and sharp howl, suddenly甩动那根蛇尾, as if trying to shake off a fatal venomous insect that was clinging to it.
However, Yu Sheng held on to that tail tightly, not letting go no matter how hard the other party shook. He was smashed to the ground by the snake tail, and then smashed into a broken wall next to him. His tough body was not injured in this fatal impact, but instead, it made him more awake in the pain.
And just then, the snake tail was raised high again, swinging towards a dilapidated large hole in the wall of the ruined temple.
A strange golden light suddenly flashed past the edge of his vision.
Yu Sheng struggled to look up in the howling wind beside his ears. He saw that the golden light was rapidly approaching him. Before he could carefully distinguish what it was, he subconsciously raised his hand to block it.
His hand grabbed something—it was a handle.
Yu Sheng: "…?"
A faint creaking sound mixed with the howling wind. A picture of a door suddenly appeared in Yu Sheng's mind—an unremarkable large door, leading to a certain place, leading to…
As soon as a place he subconsciously thought of appeared in his mind, he pulled the door open.
The next second, Yu Sheng and the black-scaled snake tail instantly fell into the door, and then with a piercing creak, the door slammed shut.
The flesh-and-blood monster's snake tail was directly cut off by the door that suddenly appeared and disappeared. A chaotic howl that could drive the listener mad echoed in the valley. This wound seemed to have driven it mad. It roared in the ruins of the ruined temple, rampaging, and madly biting everything within its sight, including its own body. Then, after an unknown amount of time, it slowly calmed down, its body once again turning into a dark and nihilistic shadow, slowly melting into the night.
The black spikes and bone fragments disappeared silently. The wounded silver-white fox demon fell to the ground, motionless, as if dead.
After a few minutes, Hu Li finally slowly opened her eyes. She looked around in a daze, her golden-red pupils seeming to have completely lost the "human" spirituality.
After a long while, her gaze finally focused on a certain place in the ruins.
It was the step where she and the "benefactor" had sat together before.
She dragged her huge fox demon body and slowly moved over. She saw the plastic bags and leftover rotten vegetables scattered under the steps. She lowered her head, and while making whimpering sounds, she swallowed all those things into her stomach.
But she was still very hungry.
That tempting voice, like a lingering demon, persuaded her from the deepest part of her hunger—
"Eat, you know where there is still food to fill your stomach…
"You buried them in the forest…
"Bones, meat, and blood…
"Go, eat, you won't be hungry after you eat…"
The fox demon lowered her head, whimpering as if she were crying. Then she curled up under the steps, slowly stretched out her neck, and gnawed on the broken bricks and tiles next to her. She dug up the soil and rotten wood under the ruins, slowly stuffed them into her mouth, and chewed on them again and again.
"I'm not hungry… I'm not hungry… someone gave me food… he'll be back with more food for me soon… I'm not hungry…"
She just gnawed on them like this, until, as she had for many years in the past, she gradually fainted.
The feeling of constantly falling woke Yu Sheng from his daze. The "feeling" of holding the doorknob still remained in his hand, but in the next second, he realized that he had already crossed a certain boundary.
He opened his eyes in astonishment and saw that he was lying on the side of the road. In his sight were the familiar streetlights, telephone poles, and the low and old houses on Wutong Road.
The old outer wall and the main door of 66 Wutong Road were not far ahead, standing in the faint morning light.
He struggled to turn his head again and saw a phantom of a large door gradually dissipating. In the depths of the phantom, he could vaguely see the valley shrouded in night, the ruins of the ruined temple, and…
The white fox struggling to move in the ruins.
Yu Sheng tried to reach out to the white fox.
But the last remaining shadow dissipated before his fingertips could touch it.