Chapter 51 – Awakening

It wasn’t over yet.

Almost the instant Hu Li finished speaking, Yu Sheng understood exactly what she meant by “it wasn’t over yet.”

He heard a cacophony of frenzied roars rising and falling throughout the dense forest, heard a terrifying and hollow wind suddenly echo through the valley. The eerie, sinister aura permeating the entire Otherworld had not diminished with the destruction of the Amalgamated Beast — on the contrary, it had abruptly intensified severalfold. A heavy, near-stagnant malice and a sense of being watched came surging in from all directions in a frenzy, as though something had been startled awake and was now sinking into a rage.

“What the hell is this?!” Yu Sheng looked toward the Foxgirl, who seemed to know something, and asked rapidly.

“Don’t know, but it… has appeared before,” Hu Li said with a look of frightened unease, ducking behind Yu Sheng as she spoke, “the day the immortal died, it was like this — something woke up, the immortal led the remaining people to go… outside, and never came back. Only their bodies were found later…”

The Foxgirl’s body trembled slightly, her head bowed low. “My father and mother… hid me in a cave and wouldn’t let me look outside. I don’t know what that thing was. By the time I crawled out, everyone was already dead…”

Yu Sheng quickly pieced together the situation from Hu Li’s disjointed and incomplete account.

The truly terrifying thing in this valley was not the Amalgamated Beast!

Or rather, it wasn’t only the Amalgamated Beast — something far more powerful lay sleeping in the depths of this darkness, and from the moment he and Eileen had entered the valley, that thing had likely been gradually waking.

Yu Sheng gritted his teeth and, after a swift assessment, immediately ran toward Eileen, who was not far away.

“We can’t keep fighting,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “There’s something even more sinister in this valley — Plan B: retreat first. I’ll open the door. How are you doing? Can you still move?”

Eileen tried to prop herself up with both hands and stand, but the moment she exerted any force, there came a faint cracking sound. Her arms snapped off at the elbows, the severed portions falling to the ground and shattering.

“No good, and my legs are damaged too — if I force myself to stand, they’ll probably break as well,” the little doll said dejectedly, lifting her stumps. “I told you the thing you made wasn’t sturdy enough… you mixed sand into the clay, didn’t you…”

To be honest, the instant Yu Sheng saw Eileen’s arms snap off, he was genuinely startled — he had never dealt with a living doll before and had no idea how serious such a situation might be. But hearing Eileen’s complaint now, he felt his worry instantly ease: “You can be repaired, right?”

Eileen nodded. “Yes, but we definitely need to go back first.”

Yu Sheng let out a breath of relief. Seeing that Eileen could no longer stand on her own, he removed the painting frame strapped to her back, adjusted the rope fastening, and slung it behind himself. Then he reached out and picked Eileen up, letting her sit on his left arm.

Eileen protested slightly, seeming to find the arrangement a little humiliating, but an armless doll had no intimidating power whatsoever, and she ultimately settled down obediently, sitting quietly on Yu Sheng’s arm.

Yu Sheng then reached his free right hand into the air, and after a brief moment of focused concentration, a door shimmering with phantom light appeared at the end of his arm.

He noticed that the three strangers who had appeared out of nowhere not far away — among them a young man who, for some reason, looked vaguely familiar — had a peculiar look in their eyes the instant they saw him open the door, all of them turning to stare.

But he had no time to dwell on it. Once he confirmed the passage was established, he pulled open that phantom door.

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

“The escape route is here — everyone retreat quickly,” Yu Sheng said rapidly. “Before that monster regenerates again!”

He looked toward the Foxgirl standing not far away, who appeared tense and hesitant: “Hu Li, you go first — don’t be afraid. The other side of the door is somewhere safe.”

Then he turned to look at Li Lin’s group of three: “You three — I don’t know who you are, but thank you for your help just now. Come through with me in a moment.”

Encouraged by Yu Sheng, Hu Li finally steeled herself and walked over, stepping toward that phantom door.

But just as she was about to reach the passage, a strange howling sound suddenly came from nearby, and immediately after, Yu Sheng felt a violent gust of wind strike him from behind!

In an instant, countless pieces of information flooded into his mind from an unknown source — several gazes converging on the ruins of the broken temple, perspectives extending from the distant sky and the depths of the valley, a cold and chaotic sense of touch, and… the joy of imminent feeding.

Yu Sheng spun around sharply and saw that a new Amalgamated Beast had appeared at some point in the darkness at the edge of the ruins. The beast’s midsection split open grotesquely, and a long tongue like a sharp arrow shot out from within, piercing through his chest in the blink of an eye.

He only had time to push Eileen in his arms to the side — there was no chance to dodge — and the strike pierced straight through his heart.

Had that monster already regenerated? So fast? Or was this… a different one?

Several questions flashed through Yu Sheng’s mind in an instant, and as his consciousness rapidly sank into darkness, he heard Hu Li’s terrified cries nearby, Eileen’s scream, and the howling of wolves.

The Phantom Door flickering in midair flashed twice and quickly dissipated. Yu Sheng’s body toppled backward, and in his tilting, dimming field of vision, he saw layer upon layer of shadows rising at the edge of the ruins. Within the trembling depths of each shadow, a monster of piled flesh and blood was slowly taking shape. Countless gaping maws of greed spread open across the valley; the forest in the distance was full of probing tentacles; the distant mountain peaks had grown sharp fangs and jagged teeth — and the sky… was gradually splitting open a crack from its edges.

“Benefactor!!” Hu Li was the first to throw herself forward, dropping down beside Yu Sheng. Though she had witnessed Yu Sheng die and return to life before, her long-muddled mind clearly hadn’t managed to process it in that moment. Seeing Yu Sheng fall, her first instinct was panic. “You… you… how are you…”

“What do you mean ‘how are you’ — it’s obvious he’s dead!” Eileen’s loud voice rapidly cut off the Foxgirl’s cries. The little doll had tumbled to the ground and was laboriously dragging herself along. “You’ve seen it happen before, haven’t you? Calm down!”

Only then did Hu Li freeze, her sluggish and muddled mind slowly catching up, and she stared blankly at Yu Sheng’s body.

The Foxgirl’s face crumpled into a conflicted expression — one that seemed to want to cry, yet also knew there was no need to cry, but felt that not crying given the atmosphere was somehow letting her benefactor down, while crying would be even more of a disservice.

Li Lin, standing nearby, clearly had no idea what Yu Sheng’s situation was. The moment he saw the Amalgamated Beast not far away, his whole body went taut. He kept watch on the monster’s next move while trying to comfort the doll lying on the ground and the fox-spirit beside her: “I’m sorry, but the dead cannot be brought back to life — what matters most right now is dealing with…”

But before he finished speaking, he heard the miserable little doll reply: “It’s fine, he’ll be alive again in a bit — but we’ll need to hold on for twenty or 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, Hu Li hurriedly scrambled to pull the painting frame out from under Yu Sheng’s body, then gathered the immobilised Eileen into her arms.

The three members of Li Lin’s group watched this scene with expressions of astonishment, finding the doll’s reaction utterly incomprehensible — some even wondered if it was some form of extreme grief.

But they soon had no spare attention to focus on any of that.

A chorus of chaotic roars erupted from the darkness surrounding the ruins of the broken temple, wave after wave of maddening energy appearing without pause. Even Xu Jiali, a seasoned diver with years of combat experience, went rigid the moment she saw the state of their surroundings.

Grotesque monsters built from piled flesh and blood were appearing one after another in the darkness.

Roars filled the entire valley.

“What the hell!” Li Lin cried out involuntarily. “How can there be so many?! The records said the Hunger entity only generates one at a time!”

Beside him, Xu Jiali slowly raised her head. After swallowing hard, she broke the silence: “What if this valley has already been… parasitised by an ‘Angel’?”

“What do you mean…” Li Lin said instinctively — and then immediately noticed the direction Xu Jiali was looking.

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

Sharp, tooth-like structures had appeared along the distant silhouette of the mountain range.

But more terrifying than that was the sky — the sky had opened.

The sky of the Otherworld, perpetually shrouded in chaotic night as though draped under a thick curtain, was changing. One edge of it, visible to all who watched, was gradually splitting open a crack. A faint glimmer appeared in the gap, and then — the truth behind the curtain was revealed.

It was not a curtain at all. Nor was it dark, heavy storm clouds.

It was an eyelid.

It was an eye that had been closed all along, spread across the entire sky of the Otherworld, and it was this eye that had caused the eternal night here.

Now it had opened. The eyeball gazed coldly and indifferently at everything below. Its hollow, sunken pupil was filled with chaotic lines and flickering glimmers, as though it were carefully observing the prey in the valley. The light that escaped from it even dispelled, to some extent, the permanent darkness of this Otherworld — “light” had descended, bringing with it boundless terror.

A howling, frigid wind jolted Li Lin out of his fear. He heard a murmur from beside him.

It was Xu Jiali. This veteran diver, with over a decade of service, was quietly uttering a single name —

“Twilight Angel…”

(End of Chapter)