He struggled desperately to keep himself from making a sound and to stop the acidic contents of his stomach from surging up.
But the increasingly rich aroma of meat was more like a deadly poison to him. His endurance had already reached its limit.
The person beside him anxiously tugged at him. Dry, cracked lips parted to whisper in a low voice, “Hold it in.”
Unfortunately, as soon as the words left his mouth, the acidic contents of the other man’s stomach could no longer be contained and surged out. Then came the sound of uncontrollable retching.
The several men gathered around the pot immediately walked over when they heard the noise. The irritable man had a face full of disdain and anger, while the other three wore wicked, malicious grins.
The irritable man approached and kicked the vomiting young man. The kick sent him sliding two meters away. The several people huddled in the shadows shrank back even further, not daring to make the slightest sound.
“Hey, kid, what are you throwing up for?”
The man who had grabbed the meat earlier walked over, seized the young man’s hair, then reached out and touched his neck before shouting, “Snap!”
The young man whose hair was being held trembled violently. A moment later, his lower body grew warm, and his pants were instantly soaked.
The men burst into laughter.
At that moment, a strange, lazy voice abruptly rang out.
“Don’t bully our new companions. Let our new companions eat today’s meat dish first. All right, let’s start with you.”
The voice was soft, but it sounded as though a piece of wire were caught in the speaker’s throat, adding a metallic vibration to every word.
Yet the several men, whether they had been acting brutally or laughing and joking just moments earlier, immediately fell silent. They then shifted slightly to the side, making room so that the source of the voice could be seen.
The beaten young man had not even had time to breathe a sigh of relief before realizing that the word you in that voice probably referred to him. He was so frightened that he hurriedly shook his head and kept repeating, “I’m not hungry… I’m not hungry…”
The four men who looked like thugs immediately darkened in expression. Although they revealed ferocious looks, deep fear lurked in their eyes.
Unexpectedly, among the people who had originally been huddled in the darkness, one person suddenly darted out. He dropped to his knees and crawled forward, speaking ingratiatingly toward the source of the voice.
“Leader, I’m hungry. How about letting me eat first?”
At the same time, the man used his only remaining arm to discreetly hold down the panicked young man beside him.
It was a warning—a well-intentioned warning. He was warning the young man that if he refused to obey, he would soon become the meat in the pot as well.
The four thugs were also startled by this man’s boldness. They immediately held their breath and watched the source of the voice closely, waiting to see how he would react.
There was no expected outburst of anger. Instead, the owner of the voice began to laugh.
“Hehehehe…”
The laughter sounded like a sharp weapon scraping against metal, making their scalps tingle with horror.
“Good. You go first. Come on, newcomers. Begin enjoying your wonderful dinner.”
As the voice fell, the several people in the corner, including the young man, were driven toward the large pot.
The one-armed man steeled himself and gritted his teeth. He picked up the ladle beside the pot, quickly scooped out a piece of meat, then shoved it into his mouth and swallowed it at lightning speed.
The several people beside him instinctively clutched their stomachs at the same time.
“Hahahahahahaha…”
The eerie laughter and the four thugs’ fawning laughter immediately echoed throughout the cave.
Chu Tian and the others had been traveling through the mountain forest for an hour.
At first, there had been plenty of traces along the way that they could investigate, such as the marks left behind by Zuo Li and his group as they moved forward.
However, the deeper they went, the fewer signs of human activity they found. By now, all the traces they could have followed had completely disappeared.
Chu Tian’s brows knitted tightly together.
They had set out late that day, and by now, darkness had completely fallen. Yet the mountain forest was utterly silent. There were no wild animals and no insect calls.
“Should we keep searching or wait until daybreak?” Xiao Ziran asked Chu Tian, his brows furrowed as well.
He had a persistent feeling that something was wrong here, yet he could not put his finger on what it was.
He had little experience surviving in the mountains and forests, so ever since they had entered the mountains, he had been relying primarily on Chu Tian’s judgment.
Unexpectedly, Chu Tian remained silent for quite some time. Instead, Quan Xiaoyu pressed a hand against his chest and said, “I don’t feel very comfortable.”
His words about not feeling comfortable did not refer to his physical condition, but rather to a feeling deep inside.
Chu Tian nodded.
“I have a sense of danger too. Let’s find a more open area and stop for a while. I’ll investigate.”
Everyone nodded and continued forward for a little longer until they found a relatively flat patch of ground.
By this point, even Xie Mingxuan was becoming restless. He could not express himself in words and could only grab Quan Xiaoyu while crying out anxiously, “Awooo! Awooo! Awooo!”
Quan Xiaoyu had no choice but to keep soothing him.
Everyone’s vigilance reached its peak at this moment. Chu Tian also unleashed his full mental power, and his brainwaves instantly spread across the entire mountain.
“I haven’t sensed anything unusual. But that’s precisely the strangest thing: I can’t sense the presence of any animals.” Chu Tian spoke in a low voice. “With vegetation this dense, it’s impossible for there to be no other living creatures. We… need to be careful.”
The others nodded.
In fact, ever since the traces left by Zuo Li and his group had disappeared, everyone had been on edge. After all, the place where their trail vanished was very likely where something had happened to them.
“What about now? Should we keep going or wait?” Xiao Ziran asked again.
“Let’s go. Given the current situation, it’s all the same wherever we stop,” Chu Tian replied.
While they were talking, a wave of tiny vines, each as thin as a strand of hair, took advantage of the cover of darkness to creep silently toward them. As they advanced, they also brought along a thin layer of black mist.
Yet neither Chu Tian nor Xiao Ziran and Pei Qianxing, the two plant-type ability users, noticed anything unusual…
Xie Mingxuan grew even more restless, and Quan Xiaoyu was nearly unable to keep him under control.
Inside the cave.
The people gathered around the pot eating meat had entered a state of unrestrained indulgence.
At first, they had struggled to overcome their psychological revulsion and had vomited. But their physical hunger soon overcame their mental resistance.
After two days and two nights of starvation, their stomachs finally surrendered before the steaming pot of fragrant meat. They no longer churned with acid. They no longer roiled in protest. Before long, they had accepted the fresh, savory food, and their brains began urging them to accept it as well.
As it turned out, once they set certain things aside, the meat in the pot was not so difficult to accept after all!
Even if the meat being cooked there belonged to their own kind!
How long had it been since they had eaten such hot, delicious food after the apocalypse?
It was so fragrant that they felt as though they could swallow their own tongues!
Everyone eating the meat could not help thinking this.
At that moment, they had completely abandoned the last shred of their humanity.
The four thugs soon succumbed to the temptation as well and joined the feast.
Chewing, gnawing, swallowing!
A white figure silently slipped into the cave. He cast a disgusted glance at the people who had made a complete mess while eating, then walked straight toward the depths of the cave.
Farther inside, the cave was still brightly lit. There was a flat, comfortable bed made of earth, apparently the work of an earth-type ability user.
A person was leaning crookedly against the bed. Beside his head sat a large plate containing thinly and neatly sliced pieces of meat. The slices were still bloody and looked extremely fresh.
The person reclining on the bed held a book in one hand and lowered his head to read. With the other hand, he used a fork to pick up the slices of meat one by one and put them into his mouth.
The light illuminated his face.
The left side was extraordinarily handsome, while the right side was an indistinct mess. His right eye was gone, and bulging veins crisscrossed that side of his face. A few faint bite marks could still be made out.
“You’re back?”
The person on the bed did not even raise the eyelid of his one remaining eye. His voice, which sounded like metal being cut, rang softly through the cave.
The white-clad figure who had returned from outside quickly sat down beside the bed. His pristine white casual clothes stood out particularly against the firelight.
The man was ordinary-looking, but from head to toe, he displayed an almost neurotic degree of neatness and order.
“Mm.”
The man in white gave a soft, gentle hum. However, when he looked at the group of people gathered around the pot, his eyes were filled with mockery and disdain.
“Human nature is always so easy to destroy.”
That emotion lasted only for an instant. The moment he turned his face toward the person reclining on the bed, his expression became exceptionally gentle.
“Another batch of prey has fallen into the net.”
Only then did the man reclining on the bed raise his eyes to look at the man in white. His expression was somewhat languid.
“Let’s collect the net tomorrow. There has been plenty of prey lately. There’s no need to rush.”
“That’s right! If things keep going like this, you’ll soon be able to recover your original appearance. Before long, we’ll be able to return to a human town, and you won’t have to suffer by living in such a lousy place anymore.”
The man in white stared intently at the person on the bed, his eyes overflowing with tenderness.
“Mm. Soon.”
Upon hearing this, the man on the bed actually smiled. His face, where handsome features and horrifying disfigurement stood in stark contrast, revealed a peculiar kind of beauty beneath that smile.
For an instant, the man in white was practically mesmerized.
He suddenly felt that every sacrifice and every effort had been worthwhile, all for the sake of that single smile the other man had given him!
How many years had he waited? How many years had he begged? What kind of price had he paid to achieve the result he had today?
It was worth it. Every bit of it was worth it.
He was more grateful for the apocalypse than anyone else. He was more relieved than anyone else that order had collapsed. He was more grateful than anyone else for the destruction of human nature.
Only because of all this had he finally obtained him!