Chapter 728: Devouring
Eat! Eat them!
Less than two hours after the two left, Dun Que's consciousness was once again dominated by hunger.
This time, he simultaneously attacked three camps, sweeping away every edible thing within. His bestial nature had completely overwhelmed his humanity.
After breaking through his own limits again and again, he gradually began to accept the reality of transforming into such a tentacled, man-eating monster. What intoxicated him even more was the sensation of rapidly growing stronger.
As a Reincarnator who had constantly walked the line between life and death, Dun Que's pursuit of power was intense. Within the Main God Temple, he had seen too many friends, enemies, and strangers abandon their humanity for power. One more like him truly made no difference.
Hunger!
Eat!
......
"What is it, and what are you?" Standing on an empty wasteland, Lun Qin demanded of Bai Mo, who was behind her.
However, the spirit's form in the present world remained a patch of pitch-black shadow.
A coffin that once sealed a certain entity had merged into this shadow.
Lun Qin had a strong premonition: the demon within her, which had always sought to seize her body, was also this very shadow!
"It’s twelve o’clock." But the black shadow didn’t answer her question, merely stating the time silently.
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
The next moment, several screams tore through the sky like shooting stars.
Lun Qin felt as if someone had violently crammed an entire sun into the deepest depths of her body.
Muscles dissolved, blood boiled, every nerve was seared by raging fire, and power as vast as an abyss and as deep as the sea brutally reorganized her entire being.
......
The world was incredibly fragile; the very ground was like a brittle biscuit. Every step upon it had to be taken with utmost care, for even a slight pressure would turn it into crumbs.
The air was no longer viscous, for a thin vacuum had formed around her. Even the air, unconsciously, fled from her presence.
The clothes that had clung to her body were now gone, not even rags remaining. Only the distortion of light around her body created a literal "Emperor’s New Clothes."
Outwardly, she still appeared as a frail young girl. Yet beneath that layer of human skin lay physical power that would make even a Tyrannosaurus blush with shame.
After this transformation, a bizarre, continuously decreasing number appeared in her pupils—801201.
"Today, only eight hundred thousand people remain." Lun Qin instinctively understood what this meant.
A planet with eight billion people had been massacred down to eight hundred thousand in just a few months, and that number was still dropping every few seconds.
"I must put an end to this apocalypse, which is being manipulated and directed by others!"
She silently made up her mind.
"At the very least, I must protect him."
As for the conclusion of this apocalyptic drama, Lun Qin already had a faint inkling. The monsters she encountered were growing stronger and stronger, yet her only way to become powerful was through the ceaseless deaths of others.
When all were dead, she would be invincible.
But no matter what, she would never allow that agonizing future to come to pass.
If everyone were dead, then who would the power she gained be used to protect?
......
Eat.
Proliferate.
Eat again.
Proliferate again.
Dun Que felt as if he had completely devolved into a beast, subservient to his physical instincts.
Endless hunger drove him to hunt down survivor camps again and again.
Those lucky ones who had managed to outrun their companions and escape the clutches of the Reapers before, this time mostly failed to flee the grasp of the Hell of Flesh and Blood.
In less than a week, he estimated he had devoured at least seven hundred thousand people, along with tens of times that number in other living creatures.
Whether it was chickens, cattle, sheep, or pigs raised by survivors, or tigers and lions from mountains, forests, and zoos, they all met only one fate before him: becoming new nutrients.
"Everything is just bread."
Completely numb, Dun Que chose to anesthetize himself.
"I’m just eating bread."
......
Lun Qin could see piles of digested remnants from the Hell of Flesh and Blood almost every few hundred kilometers she traveled, along with stretches of tentacles hidden beneath camouflage.
Though she could now crush swaths of them with a single stomp, the sheer overwhelming number of these disgusting things was too much to bear; they were multiplying like a virus.
What was even more infuriating was that this monstrosity never revealed its true form to engage her in a decisive battle. No matter where, it always presented itself as if inviting slaughter, as if saying, "Kill as you please, you can't grow faster than me."
"You two, stick close to me, or one day you’ll become fodder for this monster," she said with a hint of impatience to her younger brother and the sole remaining follower behind her.
Originally, she had wanted to leave the two behind and single-handedly exterminate all the monsters on Water Blue Star. But now, seeing things as they were, if she didn't constantly look after them, there was no telling when they might be devoured by the Hell of Flesh and Blood.
However, having to accommodate their speed inevitably made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
After all, making a normal person speak at the rate of one word every ten seconds was no ordinary torment.
......
"Eat..."
"Eat..."
"Eat..."
As his body structure proliferated at an alarming rate, Dun Que's human consciousness grew increasingly blurred.
Initially, he could remain lucid for almost two hours after a single devouring spree. Now, he might only have ten to twenty minutes a day to control his instincts.
Of course, this cancerous growth yielded immense results. In less than ten days, his "roots" had spread across more than half of Water Blue Star, allowing him to hunt globally.
Even more terrifyingly, he discovered he had evolved a special, brain-like organ. Through this organ, he could issue commands to the invading monsters that were still alive.
At this point, how could he not understand? He had been tricked by this so-called Great Chaos Will, turned into Its vessel, a mere tool for Its descent into this world.
He had indeed escaped the Main God Temple, but no sooner had he left the wolf's den than he was tricked into leaping into a tiger's pit.
He longed to issue a command for those monsters to commit mass suicide, to sicken his opponent before dying, and see if Their expression would be worth watching.
Alas, this core Dun Que only had the right to observe; he had no control whatsoever.
......
The sky began to grow somber, with occasional flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder.
"Is a big rain coming?" Lun Heping asked, gazing at the boundless dark clouds.
In these past few days, the three of them had witnessed far too much death. Now, this boundless, somber sky felt somewhat akin to their own emotions.
"He’s coming."
A wisp of smoke emerged from behind Lun Qin, transforming into the shape of a living human.
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