Awakening

It wasn't over yet. Almost the instant Hu Li's words fell, Yu Sheng realized what she meant. From the dense woods came chaotic, overlapping roars, and an eerie, hollow howling of wind suddenly echoed through the valley. The uncanny, sinister presence pervading the foreign domain had not lessened with the demise of the flesh-and-blood beast. Instead, it grew several times more intense. A thick, suffocating wave of malice and scrutiny surged from all directions, as if something had been startled awake—and was falling into a towering rage. "What on earth is that?!" Yu Sheng asked swiftly, glancing at the fox-demon girl, who seemed to know something. "I don't know, but it... it's been here before," Hu Li said, fear and unease etched across her face as she shrank behind Yu Sheng. "When the immortal died, it was like this. Something woke up. The immortal led the rest outside, and... they never came back. Later, only their bodies were found..." The fox-demon girl trembled slightly, keeping her head down. "Mom and Dad... hid me in a cave. They wouldn't let me look outside. I don't know what it was. When I crawled out, everyone was already dead..." Yu Sheng quickly pieced together the situation from Hu Li's scrambled, broken account. The valley's true terror wasn't that flesh beast! Or rather, it wasn't just that beast. Something far more formidable lay dormant in the depths of this darkness, and from the moment he and Irene entered the valley, that entity had likely begun to stir. Yu Sheng gritted his teeth. Weighing his options, he immediately ran over to Irene nearby. "We can't keep fighting," he said briskly. "There's something even more wicked in this valley. Plan B—we retreat. I'll open the door. How are you holding up? Can you move?" Irene planted both hands on the ground, trying to push herself up. But the moment she applied force, a faint crack sounded. Both of her arms snapped at the elbows, the broken pieces falling to the ground and shattering to bits. "No good, and my legs are damaged too. If I force myself up, they'll probably break off as well," the little doll muttered dejectedly, lifting her stumps. "I told you this body you made wasn't sturdy... Did you mix sand into the clay or something...?" To be honest, Yu Sheng had genuinely panicked when Irene's arms snapped. He had never dealt with a living doll before, let alone understood how severe such damage was. But hearing her complain now instantly put his mind at ease. "Can it still be fixed?" Irene nodded. "Yes, but we definitely have to go back." Relieved, Yu Sheng saw that Irene could no longer stand on her own. He unfastened the picture frame strapped to the little doll's back, adjusted the cords, slung it over his own back, and then picked Irene up, seating her on his left forearm. Irene voiced a small protest, seemingly embarrassed by the posture, but an armless doll possessed zero deterrence. In the end, she quieted down and sat obediently on his arm. With his free right hand, Yu Sheng reached into empty air. After a brief moment of focus, a door of shimmering, phantasmal light materialized at his fingertips. He noticed that the three strangers who had appeared out of nowhere—one of whom, the young man, looked oddly familiar for some reason—wore bizarre expressions the moment they saw him conjure the door, all turning their eyes toward him at once. Yu Sheng had no time to ponder it. Once the passage stabilized, he wrenched open the illusory door. On the other side was the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road. "The exit's right here! Everyone, get out!" Yu Sheng urged. "Before that monster can reform!" He looked toward the fox-demon girl, who was hesitating nearby with a nervous look. "Hu Li, you first—don't be afraid. It's safe on the other side." Then he turned to Li Lin's trio. "You three—I don't know who you are, but thanks for the hand just now. Come with me in a moment." Emboldened by Yu Sheng's encouragement, Hu Li finally gathered her courage and stepped forward, heading for the spectral doorway. Yet just as she was about to touch the passage, an eerie whistling shriek suddenly echoed from nearby. An instant later, Yu Sheng felt a fierce blast of wind strike at him from behind! Countless impressions flooded his mind from nowhere: several gazes fixating on the ruined temple, perspectives stretching out from the distant sky and the depths of the valley, chaotic and freezing tactile sensations, and... the ravenous joy of an impending feast. Yu Sheng whipped around. Emerging from the night at the edge of the ruins was another massive flesh beast. Its midsection split open hideously, and an arrow-like tongue shot forth, piercing clean through his chest in the blink of an eye. He had only enough time to shove Irene aside. Unable to dodge, the strike ran straight through his heart. *The monster has already regenerated? That fast? Or is it... another one?* Several questions flashed through Yu Sheng's mind in an instant. As his consciousness rapidly sank into darkness, he heard Hu Li's frightened cries, Irene's shrill shout, and the howling of a wolf pack. The illusory door in midair flickered twice and swiftly dispersed. Yu Sheng's body collapsed backward. Through his tilting, dimming vision, he saw layered shadows stirring along the edge of the ruins. Deep within the shuddering of every shadow, another mound of flesh was slowly forming into a beast. Countless ravenous maws gaped across the valley; distant woods crawled with foraging tentacles; remote peaks bristled with jagged fangs; and the sky... was slowly slitting open from its rim. "Benefactor!!" Hu Li was the first to rush over, throwing herself down beside Yu Sheng. Even though she had seen him come back to life before, her muddled mind couldn't process it in time. Seeing him fall, her immediate reaction was sheer panic. "Y-Y-You... How are you..." "How else would he be? Anyone can see he's dead!" Irene's loud badgering cut the fox-demon girl short. The little doll had tumbled to the ground and was struggling to wiggle herself over. "This isn't your first time seeing it either. Pull yourself together!" Hu Li froze. Her sluggish, bewildered thoughts slowly caught up, and she stared blankly at Yu Sheng's corpse. The fox-demon girl's face scrunched up in a conflicted grimace—as though she wanted to cry, but knew there was no need to, yet felt that not crying at such a dramatic moment would be letting her benefactor down, while actually crying would be even more disrespectful. Li Lin, standing nearby, clearly had no idea what Yu Sheng's deal was. The moment he spotted the flesh beast not far away, he tensed up completely. Wary of the monster's next move, he tried to comfort the fallen doll and the fox-demon beside her. "I'm sorry, but what's done is done. The dead cannot return—our priority right now is to deal with..." Before he could finish, the battered doll chimed in, "Don't worry, he'll be alive again in a bit. But we need to hold out for twenty or thirty minutes until he comes back to open the door. You, fox girl, help pick me up. Don't forget that painting on the ground." Hearing that, Hu Li hurriedly scrambled to yank out the oil painting frame pinned beneath Yu Sheng's body, then scooped the immobilized Irene into her arms. Li Lin and his companions stared at the scene in utter bewilderment. The doll's reaction was entirely beyond comprehension; they even wondered if it was some manifestation of grief-induced delirium. Yet they soon had no spare attention to dwell on it. Chaotic, overlapping roars broke out from the darkness surrounding the ruined temple. Terrifying surges of maddening aura emerged one after another. Even Xu Jiali, seasoned in combat as he was, froze stiff the moment he took in their surroundings. Hideous monsters heaped of blood and flesh were spawning from the dark, one by one. Roars flooded the entire valley. "Holy crap!" Li Lin blurted in shock. "How are there so many?! Didn't the data say only one Entity-Hunger generates at a time?!" Beside him, Xu Jiali slowly lifted his head and swallowed hard before breaking the silence. "What if this valley has already been parasitized by an 'Angel'..." "What do you m—" Li Lin began instinctively, but then his eyes followed the direction of Xu Jiali's gaze. He saw it: the valley was slowly writhing and heaving under the night sky. Sharp, tooth-like structures appeared along the silhouette of the distant mountains. Yet far more terrifying than that was the sky itself—the sky had opened. The foreign domain's sky, perpetually veiled in thick twilight and plunged in chaotic night, was undergoing a transformation. A fissure gradually cracked open along one of its edges before their eyes, a glimmer of faint light bursting through the gap. And then came the truth behind that veil. It was no veil at all, nor was it a canopy of dark clouds. It was an eyelid. A colossal eye had remained shut overhead, blanketing the entire foreign domain and casting it into eternal night. Now, it had opened. The eyeball stared down cold and detached at everything below. Its hollow, sunken pupil swirled with chaotic lines and flickering glimmers, as though scrutinizing the prey trapped in the valley. Those stray glimmers even dispelled some of the perpetual darkness clinging to the foreign domain—"light" had descended, bestowing fathomless terror. The howling, bitter wind jolted Li Lin from his fear. Beside him, he heard a muttered whisper. It was Xu Jiali. With over a decade of service under his belt, the veteran deep diver murmured a name under his breath— "A Murky Angel..."