All the black spider silks snapped taut simultaneously in an instant. The massive flesh-and-blood beast unleashed a barrage of garbled, ear-splitting roars. Irene poured every ounce of her strength into controlling the inky threads, constantly shifting their weave in midair to braid them into hauling cables, dragging the monster toward the doorway inch by inch.
Yu Sheng strained desperately to brace the doorway, wider now than ever before, trying his hardest to make it a bit broader and a bit steadier.
A "door" possessed the property of isolating the environments on either side. Merely opening one would not directly "unleash" the harsh conditions of the other side over here. To incinerate the monster, they had to throw it entirely inside.
Under normal circumstances, such an isolating property was naturally a boon. It prevented catastrophic accidents whenever Yu Sheng inadvertently opened a passageway into a perilous region. At this very moment, however, Yu Sheng truly wished the door could fuse the two environments without any safety measures at all.
That way, he could have simply opened the door directly inside the magma lake, and the torrent of lava spewing from the portal would have roasted the monster on the spot, sparing them all this hassle.
Yet he could only indulge in wishful thinking. As far as the power of the "door" went, he had only just scratched the surface. Merely ensuring that he opened it in the right place was already quite an achievement; he could hardly expect to wield it as a versatile, offensive weapon.
Amid his racing thoughts, the monster was dragged right before the portal. Some of its limb tips were even shoved and jammed through the threshold. Through the doorway, Yu Sheng watched the parts crossing the frame rapidly lose all moisture before being swiftly ignited and carbonized in the purgatorial heat...
In a daze, he almost felt as if his own limbs were burning.
The giant beast's struggles turned almost frantic in an instant. Even Entity-Hunger, which moved entirely on instinct, sensed immense peril and terror at this moment. Every one of its limbs shuddered violently within the web, and countless gashes split across its bulk. Eyes of all sizes, mouths, sharp fangs, tentacles, and even mimic structures resembling human features and limbs burst out all at once!
Piercing shrieks echoed from its twisted, grotesque maws. The deafening howls right next to him set Yu Sheng's ears ringing and stirred a tempestuous roar in his very mind. Dizziness washed over him, but he still gripped the illusory doorknob with white knuckles, watching the behemoth get shoved bit by bit into the channel to purgatory.
Yet right at that moment, he caught a succession of unsettling, cracking sounds.
Yu Sheng snapped his head up, looking toward the source of the noise.
It was not Irene's threads that were snapping—the little doll had staked everything on this effort and hadn't slacked for a single instant.
What was tearing apart was the flesh and twisted limbs on the monster's own surface.
It was slowly tearing free of the web suspended in midair, ripping its own body to pieces in a bloody, mangled mess. It seemed utterly devoid of pain. Limbs that were severely entangled were directly torn clean off its torso, only for new limbs to sprout from the raw meat, latching onto nearby boulders to accelerate its escape.
It had almost reduced itself to an amorphous, flowing mass of flesh, contorting rapidly and "leaking" out through the gaps between the spider silks.
It was adapting to Irene's web; it was learning a new physiological structure.
"I can't hold it!" Irene's scream drifted from nearby. "My body can't take it either! Think of something, Yu Sheng!"
Yu Sheng glanced back, only to see dense networks of fine cracks spreading rapidly across Irene's arms and cheeks. The doll's body was on the verge of fracturing.
"Fuck!"
Unable to hold back a curse, he kept one hand bracing the doorway while reaching out with the other, trying to grab the monster that was about to break free.
Yet in the very next second, a gust of howling wind whipped past his ears, accompanied by... the howl of a wolf.
A wolf howl?
Yu Sheng looked up in bewilderment, catching sight of shadowy streaks abruptly sweeping across the night sky. Wolf-like silhouettes took shape from the darkness, a wolf pack howling and bounding through the air before colliding one after another with the monster, either tearing at its flesh or slowing down its writhing metamorphosis.
Immediately after, a resounding roar boomed from behind him, deep and forceful: "I'm here to help!"
In the next instant, he saw a hulking figure nearly two meters tall charge out from behind like a gale. Leaping through midair, the man delivered a flying dropkick, slamming into the monster like a boulder with a dull thud.
The flesh-and-blood behemoth plummeted uncontrollably toward the doorway. Its frenzied writhing, mutating, and screeching could no longer stall the momentum.
The burly man who had delivered the kick flipped midair, turned, and made a dashing landing. Looking back toward Yu Sheng, he called out, "Good thing I made it in—"
His gaze fell on Yu Sheng's face.
The expression on the burly man's face froze in instant astonishment. Shock flooded his eyes, and he stood rooted to the spot as though struck by lightning.
His whole demeanor radiated the sheer misery of someone screwed over by a moronic boss and reassigned from one front line straight to another under the guise of time off.
Yu Sheng had no idea why the giant of a man would show such a rich display of emotions the moment he set eyes on him, nor did he have the leeway to dwell on it. To his dismay, the flesh-and-blood beast began struggling once more. Even though half its body had already been shoved through the door and charred to cinders, the remaining half clung stubbornly to the threshold, regenerating at an astonishing speed.
Through some inexplicable connection, Yu Sheng sensed... fury, and hatred.
Within those shuddering eyes, primitive "emotions" and the faint glimmer of thought were beginning to surface.
Sensing the commotion beside him, the nameless burly man hastily looked up, crying out in alarm, "Shit! This thing can still fight back!"
Right on its heels came Irene's shrill cry: "It's snapping!"
The doll's arms were covered in fractures. In the blink of an eye, the inky threads snapped inch by inch. The web let out a series of sharp, bursting pops before instantly shattering and vanishing into thin air.
The behemoth had broken free.
Yet just as Yu Sheng felt that all was lost and prepared to tell everyone to run, a dazzling flare of blue light suddenly erupted in the corner of his eye.
Hu Li, who had been hiding behind a nearby parapet, had somehow mustered the courage to dash out. Glaring viciously at the monster struggling before the portal, she pressed herself flat against the ground like a wild beast. Her silvery-white fox tails flared out against the night sky, broad sheets of blue spirit fire blazing furiously at the tip of every tail.
A low growl rumbled in the fox-demon girl's throat.
Almost at the same time, inky spikes and skeletal fragments erupted from her limbs and frame, pinning her firmly to the ground.
Seeing this, Yu Sheng shouted in panic, "Don't worry about—"
Before he could finish, he saw Hu Li, crouched on all fours, take a forceful step forward. She tore right through the spike-like restraints, then snapped into a new stance—
Foxfire detonated. A brilliant flash abruptly tore through the dark, and a silvery-white cone surged like a rocket toward the flesh-and-blood beast struggling to pull away from the doorway, spewing eerie blue flames from its rear.
Before Yu Sheng could even make out what the thing was, a violent flash erupted across the monster's back. Even though Hu Li had deliberately contained the radius of the ensuing blast, even from just steps away, Yu Sheng felt the sound of the blast nearly shatter his bones. As for the monster struck dead-on by the silvery-white cone, it instantly lost its balance. Staggering twice, the already overtaxed beast finally tumbled completely through the portal.
Amid its rapidly fading screeches, Yu Sheng abruptly released his hold on the door.
The illusory portal dissolved into thin air in the blink of an eye.
Silence fell over the ruined temple, an abrupt stillness that felt almost surreal.
Irene collapsed directly onto the ground, unable to lift her cracked arms in the slightest.
A young girl in red, riding astride a phantom wolf, walked over from beyond the ruins with a stunned look on her face. Beside her walked an ordinary-looking young man with black hair.
Spotting Yu Sheng from a distance, the young man froze slightly. Seeming to recall something, he slowly furrowed his brows.
The burly man nearly two meters tall merely stared wide-eyed in the direction where the door had vanished, seemingly lost in shock and contemplation.
Yu Sheng, however, had no time to greet these "temporary allies" who had appeared out of nowhere. Instead, he immediately turned to look toward Hu Li.
The fox-demon girl was struggling to clamber up from the ground. The foxfire behind her had visibly dimmed, but she was still there in one piece.
Yu Sheng blinked. What on earth had just flown across? Wasn't that a headbutt?
Then he noticed that she seemed to be missing a tail.
Yu Sheng: "..."
So what the hell had that girl just fired off?!
You could actually use it like that?!
Yu Sheng's astonishment defied words. Realizing that the silvery-white cone rocketing off with blue flames had actually been Hu Li's tail left him completely bewildered—so much so that the shock temporarily eclipsed the thrill of overcoming a formidable foe.
He knew nothing of immortal arts or demonic sorcery, but instinct told him that no magic or sorcery anywhere in the world included a rule stating: "A nine-tailed fox can launch her own tails like missiles."
Hu Li had no idea what to make of the kaleidoscopic expressions flitting across her benefactor's face. Struggling to her feet, she found that the wounds where the black bone spikes had pierced her body had vanished without a trace. She stumbled toward Yu Sheng, her face full of urgency: "Benefactor..."
Yu Sheng quickly reached out to support the unsteady fox-demon girl. "Catch your breath first—"
Hu Li cut him off in desperation. "We can't rest, Benefactor! It's not over yet!"
Yu Sheng froze.
Chapter 50