Chapter 51: Awakening

It is not over yet.

Almost at the exact moment Huli’s voice fell, Yu Sheng realized what she meant by "it is not over yet."

He heard chaotic roars echoing one after another from the dense forest, and terrifying, hollow wind suddenly howling across the valley. The bizarre and gloomy atmosphere permeating the entire alien realm did not diminish with the demise of the flesh-and-blood giant beast just now; instead, it suddenly intensified several times over. A heavy, nearly stagnant malice and sense of being watched surged madly from all directions, as if something had been jolted awake and was sinking into a frenzy.

"What on earth is this?!" Yu Sheng asked quickly, looking at the fox-spirit girl who seemed to know something.

"I don't know, but it... it appeared before," Huli said, her face a mask of terror and unease as she hid behind Yu Sheng. "The day the Immortal died, it was just like this. Something woke up, the Immortal took the rest of them, and outside... they never came back. Later, only their bodies were found..."

The fox-spirit girl trembled slightly, lowering her head. "Mom and Dad... hid me in a cave, not letting me look outside. I didn't know what it was. When I crawled out, everyone was already dead..."

From Huli's disjointed and fragmented account, Yu Sheng quickly grasped the situation.

The truly terrifying thing in this valley was not that flesh-and-blood giant beast!

Or rather, it was not the only thing—something far more powerful was slumbering deep within this darkness, and ever since he and Irene had entered the valley, that entity had likely been slowly waking up.

Yu Sheng gritted his teeth, quickly weighed his options, and ran straight toward Irene not far away.

"We can't keep fighting," Yu Sheng said rapidly. "There's something far more bizarre in this valley—Plan B, fall back, I'll open the door. How are you? Can you still move?"

Irene tried to prop herself up on the ground with both hands, attempting to stand, but the moment she exerted force, a faint cracking sound echoed. Her arms snapped off at the elbows, the severed parts hitting the ground and shattering into pieces.

"No good, and my legs are damaged too; trying to stand by force will probably snap them as well," the little puppet raised her arms in frustration. "I told you the stuff you used to build me isn't sturdy... Did you mix sand into your clay..."

To be honest, Yu Sheng was genuinely startled when he saw Irene's arms break. After all, he had never dealt with a living puppet before, nor did he know how severe this situation was, but hearing Irene's complaint instantly set his mind at ease. "You can be repaired, right?"

Irene nodded. "Yes, but we definitely have to go back."

Yu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that Irene could no longer stand on her own, he unstrapped the picture frame from the little puppet's back, adjusted the strap buckle, and hoisted it onto his back. He then reached down and picked Irene up, letting her sit on his left arm.

Irene offered a slight protest, seeming to feel a bit humiliated, but a puppet with broken arms possessed zero intimidation, so she finally had to resign herself to it, sitting obediently on Yu Sheng's arm.

Yu Sheng reached his free hand out into the air, and after a brief moment of intense concentration, a door shimmering with illusory light appeared at the end of his arm.

He noticed that the three strangers who had appeared out of nowhere not far away (the young man looking inexplicably somewhat familiar) cast strange glances and stared all at once the moment he opened the door.

Yet he had no time to dwell on it. Confirming that the passage was established, he pulled that illusory door wide open.

***

The other side of the door was the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road.

"The safe passage is right here, everyone fall back quickly," Yu Sheng said swiftly. "Before that monster respawns!"

He looked at the fox-spirit girl standing not far away, who looked nervous and hesitant. "Huli, you go first—don't be afraid, the other side of the door is safe."

Then he turned his head to look at the three-person group of Li Lin. "You three, though I don't know who you are, thanks for the help just now—come with me in a moment."

Encouraged by Yu Sheng, Huli finally summoned her courage and stepped forward, walking toward that illusory doorway.

However, the exact moment she was about to touch the passage, a strange whistling sound suddenly came from close by. Immediately afterward, Yu Sheng felt a fierce gale ambush him from behind!

Innumerable pieces of information from unknown sources flooded his mind in an instant—several gazes focusing upon the ruins of the dilapidated temple, perspectives stretching from the distant sky and the depths of the valley, a chaotic and cold tactile sensation, and... the joy of an impending meal.

Yu Sheng whipped around, only to see that a flesh-and-blood giant beast had somehow appeared in the darkness at the edge of the ruins. The middle of the beast split open hideously, and a tongue like a sharp arrow shot out from it, piercing through his chest in the blink of an eye.

He only had time to shove the Irene in his arms to the side; utterly unable to dodge, his heart was pierced through by the strike.

Had that monster regenerated already? So fast? Or could it be... another one?

Several questions flashed through Yu Sheng's mind in an instant. As his consciousness rapidly sank into darkness, he heard Huli's terrified cries, Irene's screams, and the howling of wolves ringing in his ears.

The illusory door in midair flickered twice and swiftly dissipated. Yu Sheng's body fell backward, and within his tilting, darkening field of vision, he saw layers upon layers of shadows rising at the edge of the ruins. Deep within the trembling of every shadow, a flesh-and-blood piled-up monster was slowly taking shape. Countless greedy maws opened across this valley, the distant woods were teeming with foraging tentacles, the mountains in the distance sprouted sharp fangs and teeth, and the sky... was gradually tearing open a narrow slit along its edge.

"Benefactor!!" Huli was the first to lurch forward, throwing herself down beside Yu Sheng. Although she had witnessed Yu Sheng die and come back to life before, her already chaotic and befuddled mind clearly failed to process it this time. Seeing Yu Sheng fall, her primary reaction remained one of panic. "You, you, you... how are you..."

"How else could he be, this clearly means he's dead!" Irene's loud braying swiftly interrupted the fox-spirit girl's cries. The little puppet tumbled onto the ground, laboring to wriggle her body over. "This probably isn't the first time you've seen it, pull yourself together!"

Huli blinked in a daze, her sluggish and chaotic mind finally processing it slightly before she stared blankly at Yu Sheng's corpse.

The fox-spirit girl scrunched up her face, wearing a conflicted expression: she looked as though she wanted to cry, yet knew crying was unnecessary, but the atmosphere had reached this point and crying felt unfair to the benefactor—though crying would be even more unfair to the situation.

Nearby, Li Lin clearly had no idea what was going on with Yu Sheng. The moment he caught sight of the flesh-and-blood giant beast not far away, his entire body instantly tensed up. While remaining vigilant against the monster's next move, he tried to comfort the puppet collapsed on the ground and the fox-spirit beside her. "I'm sorry, but the dead cannot come back to life—our top priority right now is to deal with..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard that wretched-looking puppet retort, "Relax, he'll come back to life in a bit—but we need to hold out for twenty to thirty minutes until he comes back to open the door. Fox over there, help me up, and don't forget that painting on the ground."

Hearing this, Huli frantically scrambled to pull the oil painting frame out from beneath Yu Sheng's body and scooped the immobile Irene into her arms.

Li Lin and his two companions, however, stared at this scene with astounded expressions, finding the puppet's reaction entirely incomprehensible, even suspecting it might be some manifestation of extreme grief.

***

Yet they quickly lacked the luxury of time to focus on these matters.

Confused roars echoed continuously from the darkness near the ruins of the dilapidated temple, and a heart-pounding aura of madness arose wave after wave. Even Xu Jiali, a battle-hardened veteran, turned rigid upon seeing the surrounding situation clearly.

Hideous monsters piled high from flesh and blood were forming one after another in the darkness.

Roars filled the entire valley.

"What the hell!" Li Lin cried out involuntarily. "How did so many pop out?! Doesn't the data say that hunger entities only generate one at a time?!"

Xu Jiali slowly raised her head nearby, swallowed hard to steady herself, and broke the silence. "What if this valley has already been parasitized by an 'Angel'..."

"What do you me—" Li Lin uttered instinctively, and the very next instant, he noticed the direction Xu Jiali was gazing toward.

He saw it. The valley was slowly writhing and undulating in the night.

Sharp, tooth-like structures were appearing along the contours of the distant mountain range.

Yet more terrifying than that was the sky—the sky was opening up.

The alien realm's sky, which had perpetually remained in a state of chaotic night shrouded as if by a thick veil, was undergoing a change. One of its edges was gradually splitting open right before their eyes, faint light suddenly bursting through the fissure, followed by the truth hidden beneath that veil.

That was no veil at all, nor was it pitch-black storm clouds.

It was an eyelid.

A perpetually closed eye that had been blanketing the entire upper expanse of this alien realm, creating its eternal night.

Now it had opened, its pupil staring coldly at everything below. The hollow, sunken iris was filled with chaotic lines and flickering micro-light, as if carefully examining the prey within the valley. The stray glimmers of light even partially dispelled the everlasting night of this alien realm—"light" had descended, bestowing infinite terror.

The howling freezing wind snapped Li Lin out of his terror, and he heard a murmur beside him.

It was Xu Jiali. This veteran deep-sea diver with over a dozen years of service softly muttered a single term—

"The Gloom Angel..."