After that day, their lives became a living hell.
After the half-faced man finished torturing people and eating their internal organs, the four men would come in and dismember the corpses, cutting them up like pork before carrying the pieces outside and throwing them into the large pot.
He had heard the half-faced man and the man in white refer to the four men as A, B, C, and D. They were probably just code names assigned for convenience.
The half-faced man called the man in white Ji Yan, while the man in white called the half-faced man Su Muxu. As for A, B, C, and D, they addressed him as Boss Su.
Every evening, when night fell, A, B, C, and D would distribute steaming, fragrant meat to the people still alive in the cave. Whether they ate it or not depended on how badly they wanted to live.
They were like food being stockpiled, or livestock being raised for slaughter, trapped there with no way out.
It wasn’t that nobody had resisted.
Especially among ability users like them.
Even when restrained, some abilities could still be used. Without exception, however, anyone who attempted to resist or escape would collapse the moment they broke free of their restraints. Their skin would suddenly split open, their blood vessels would burst, and threadlike worms would crawl out of their bodies, spreading all over them.
Of course, he later learned that those things weren’t actually worms. But that didn’t change how terrified he was of them. Even now, those disgusting, horrifying things still lay dormant in his body and blood.
In short, the attempted mass escape was over within minutes. Of the people who had come from Tianze Base together, only the four of them remained.
Then an even more unbelievable sight appeared.
The half-faced man called Su Muxu lamented the waste of his “food” while casually waving his hand. From deeper inside the cave, a line of zombies emerged in formation!
Yes, zombies!
Under Su Muxu’s control, they greedily tore into and devoured the corpses on the ground, leaving nothing but stark white bones. Afterward, they lined up again and disappeared into the depths of the cave, without making a sound.
At that moment, everyone’s psychological defenses completely collapsed.
Even A, B, C, and D, despite smiling, couldn’t stop their legs from trembling.
Under those circumstances, Jia Lunxu crawled forward. He knelt before Su Muxu on the damp floor, kissed the tips of his shoes, and declared his submission.
Jia Lunxu said he was willing to serve Su Muxu just like A, B, C, and D, becoming his loyal slave.
He had thought Jia Lunxu would suffer the same fate as the first victim, having his abdomen slit open. But, in fact, that didn’t happen.
For reasons no one could understand, Su Muxu burst into laughter and actually agreed. He even offered the same opportunity to Jia Lunxu’s three companions.
That was how the four men came to submit to him, leading to the scene in which they fought over meat in the cave.
In fact, the previous night had been the first time they had eaten that meat. They had been hungry for far too long… It had also been the first time Su Muxu had deliberately forced them to eat it.
Chu Tian and the others listened with grim expressions. For a while, they found it difficult to put their feelings into words.
After the water-type ability user finished speaking through his trembling, everyone fell silent for quite some time.
Finally, Chu Tian broke the silence.
“Did they capture another group of people a couple of days ago? Are those people still alive?”
As Chu Tian asked the question, the breathing of the others momentarily stopped. They were afraid of hearing an answer that would fill them with pain and rage.
Unexpectedly, the man replied, “They’re still alive. They were captured right here the day before yesterday.”
He had even helped transport them. He knew they were members of Dawning Base’s security force.
Hearing that they were still alive, all five of them immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
“Are they being kept in the cave, too?” Chu Tian continued.
The man had apparently decided he had nothing left to lose. There wasn’t much desire to survive left in his eyes. Now that he had started talking, he seemed determined to tell them everything in full.
“They’re there, too. I don’t know why, but Boss Su seems to value ability users particularly highly. But it’s not the way humans value ability users. It’s more like…” He seemed unable to find the right words and paused for a long time before continuing. “It’s as if a child collects all the candies he likes, saving them up until one particular day, when he eats every last one of them in one glorious feast…”
He wasn’t sure whether the comparison was accurate, but it was the feeling he had strongly sensed.
“The people they put into the pot are all ordinary people. Unless something unexpected happened, your people should still be alive.”
“Our people? You know who we are?” Chu Tian immediately picked up on the information hidden in those words.
“I know who was captured. They had the insignia of Dawning Base’s security force on them. They were plant-type ability users, and powerful ones at that…” He glanced at Xiao Ziran. “The leader of Dawning Base is a powerful plant-type ability user…”
Xiao Ziran wasn’t the only plant-type ability user in existence, so the man had specifically emphasized the word powerful.
“Where is their lair?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know its exact location. When we were brought out, we regained consciousness somewhere we couldn’t see the cave. On the way back, our minds would go blank as soon as we reached that same place. By the time we came to our senses, we would already be back inside.”
“Take us there,” Chu Tian said. “After that, you’re free to leave.”
The man froze, then looked at the other companions lying on the ground, particularly the three others who had come from Tianze Base with him.
“What about them…?”
Chu Tian shook his head.
The man was sensible enough not to say anything more. He simply nodded.
Pei Qianxing released the restraints around his body. There was no convenient way to take the people lying on the ground with them, and they hadn’t yet decided what to do with them.
So they found a large tree and arranged the unconscious men in a row against its trunk, then used their abilities to make plants grow around them and bind them securely. They would deal with them later, after resolving the other matters.
Chu Tian and the others kept their promise. Once they reached the designated location, they let the man go. Where he went or what he did afterward was no longer their concern.
“Just as I thought.” Chu Tian smiled. “A weak mental field. This area is covered by mental power.”
He could sense the faint fluctuations of the mental barrier. That meant the other person wasn’t stronger than him—or at least wasn’t much stronger. That was good news.
“So we just need to search within the area covered by the mental field to find their lair?” Xiao Ziran asked.
Chu Tian nodded. “Exactly. And he can’t maintain such a wide area of coverage for very long. We should already be close to that cave.”
“Our opponent isn’t weak. Is everyone ready?” Xiao Ziran turned to the group.
“We’re fine. It’s you we should be worried about. Your injury…” Pei Qianxing looked at Xiao Ziran with concern.
“It’s nothing,” Xiao Ziran replied calmly.
Bai Mingxi turned his head away and remained silent.
“Let’s go.” Chu Tian glanced at everyone before leading the way into the area covered by the mental barrier. At the same time, he activated his own mental barrier, shielding the entire group.
Inside the cave.
The book in Su Muxu’s hands had reached its final page, yet the people who had gone down the mountain early that morning to close the net still hadn’t returned.
Su Muxu frowned. He felt distinctly uncomfortable, though no matter how carefully he examined the sensation, he couldn’t pinpoint its source.
Why hadn’t that useless Ji Yan returned yet? Had the hunt gone badly? Unfortunately, his mental power couldn’t reach that far. Otherwise, he could have used it to investigate.
Technically, he could do so if he exerted himself to the fullest. But at present, he had to maintain the mental barrier outside the cave and control the pets he had carefully raised inside. He had no spare energy to waste.
As the discomfort grew more intense, he scanned the area covered by his mental barrier. He found nothing unusual.
He was still a little irritable. What should he do?
Su Muxu’s gaze shifted toward the dark depths of the cave.
At times like this, the only thing that could ease his mood a little was to dig out a brain and swallow it, licking it up like ice cream.
With that thought, he headed deeper into the cave.
Ji Yan was as useless as ever, both before and after the apocalypse.
Still, Ji Yan had always devoted himself to Su Muxu. After the apocalypse, he had protected him all the way until he awakened his intelligence, and he had continued serving him faithfully ever since. That was rare enough.
As he thought about it, Su Muxu casually grabbed someone nearby. His sharp fingernails had already sliced through the person’s skull.
A human scream of agony echoed through the cave.
He loved that feeling. Only this way could he briefly delude himself into believing that he was still alive, just as he had been before.
An ability user’s brain truly was the most nourishing and delicious of all!
Su Muxu licked it greedily. His luck had been exceptionally good lately. Almost everyone he had captured recently was an ability user.
An ordinary person’s brain was not even one ten-thousandth as good as theirs. Just as he had grown tired of the bland taste and was on the verge of losing his appetite altogether, Heaven had delivered a batch of delicacies right to his doorstep.
He looked around at the countless different expressions directed at him by the people inside the cave.
Once he consumed these ability users, he should be able to level up again, shouldn’t he?
After advancing one more level, he would have enough power to leave the mountains and sweep through the outside world. He would no longer need to hide furtively in the forest, afraid of being hunted down by groups of ability users.
Then countless delicacies would be his for the taking, and he would grow even more powerful!
Human beings! Those creatures who arrogantly believed themselves intelligent and superior would all become livestock for him to raise as food!
How pitiful! What a bunch of ignorant fools!
These delicious brains were as addictive as drugs, and his glorious future seemed almost within reach.