Chapter 427: Dream Battle, First Clash with the Wendigo |
“I’m hungry, I’m so hungry!”
“It’s so cold!”
“I want food!”
A thug ran frantically through the snow-covered forest.
His eyes glowed green, his gaze vacant and dazed, acting purely on instinct.
“Food, I want food!”
As his eyes kept scanning the surroundings for anything edible,
a fallen human figure appeared ahead in the snow.
Despite the freezing world around them, the person wore only a short-sleeved T-shirt and lay barely alive.
In his eyes, this was no longer a person, it was food to fill his hunger.
Without a trace of hesitation, the thug lunged at the body, grabbed the arm, and began to bite.
Teeth pierced skin, muscle, and fascia. As he ripped, a chunk of flesh tore away, blood pouring out.
Then came the sound of ravenous chewing.
As the flesh and blood were swallowed, the thug felt an unprecedented sense of satisfaction flood his chest.
That satisfaction made him unable to stop.
The green glow in his eyes flared brighter, and he buried his head in the feeding.
He felt his teeth grow sharper, his bite force increasing; what had required great effort to tear before could now be ripped away with a light pull.
Delicious!
Exhilarating!
Satisfied!
He did not know that as he kept devouring flesh, his body was undergoing a gradual transformation.
The human torso rapidly vanished, replaced by sharp fangs and razor claws.
As the feeding continued,
his cheeks grew gaunt,
his eye sockets hollowed more,
his back hunched further.
Hair thinned, muscle wasted away, and pale skin clung to bone.
“Delicious, delicious!”
After discarding the last bloody rib,
he felt thoroughly comfortable.
“It feels so good to be full!”
But soon, the stomach that had just been stuffed began to gurgle again.
Hunger surged back, fiercer than before.
“No! No! I want food, I want food…”
The thug bolted forward madly to find more to eat.
But after only a few steps, he collapsed halfway, too weak to run from hunger.
Finally, the thug looked down at his own belly.
Slickk…
With the swipe of his clawed fingertip, he gutted his abdomen open, blood gushing out.
But in his eyes there was nothing but the desire to eat; he shoved his now-clawed hand into his belly, grabbed the internal organs, and shoved them into his mouth.
“Mmm~~ tasty, tasty, warm…”
Liver, gallbladder, stomach, pancreas, intestines…
Still unsatisfied, he even snapped his own ribs and aimed for his heart…
Unbeknownst to him, a tall, emaciated silhouette had appeared in the forest shadows behind him.
It watched the thug, who even in the throes of death was gnawing at his own heart.
A faint smile tugged at its lips.
“Eat… eat…”
Not far from the thug, in the forest shadows,
Yu Yuan observed the thug and the Wendigo silently, deep in thought.
“The Wendigo’s ability is truly terrifying! Its mental corruption can work through dreams, and it looks like this thug was already marked by it beforehand.
So that’s how those thugs died so inexplicably—how horrifying.”
Indeed!
They were currently inside the dreamscape of the nearby thug.
After discovering that the Wendigo could pull victims into sleep,
Yu Yuan immediately activated the City Nightmare title effect, slipping into these thugs’ dreams to observe.
He found the Wendigo’s ability far more horrifying than he had imagined.
When he first entered the dream, his presence was almost detected by the Wendigo.
Luckily, City Nightmare itself controls the dreamscape, especially since the thug’s dream setting was within the city.
Yu Yuan leveraged the nightmare ability to hide his trail, then followed the Wendigo from dream to dream, investigating its actions.
Without City Nightmare, the Wendigo’s power alone would have been unsolvable.
“Intelligence is sufficient. Time to test its mettle.”
Danger flashed through Yu Yuan’s eyes.
The Wendigo posed a massive threat to the Ten Thousand Nations Pact Civilization.
He had to eliminate this threat, or if it targeted the Recruit Training Camp, things would become problematic.
“Fine. Dreams are my home turf. Even if it can invade dreams, I don’t believe it can be stronger than me there.”
“I might hold back against it outside, but in the dream it should be the one avoiding my edge.”
“Right here—hammer it to death.”
—Nightmare Projection.
The Ruined City No.15 Steam Kinetic Hammer appeared in Yu Yuan’s hand.
In dreams, any item Yu Yuan possessed could be projected and gain the same effects.
This was the City Nightmare title’s power, and Yu Yuan’s confidence against the Wendigo.
The Skull-Crusher Hammer immediately entered a charged state, and as the thug approached death,
the dream began to lose stability and tremble slightly.
This was the precursor to the dream collapsing as the dreamer died.
The Wendigo was preparing to enter the next thug’s dream to keep harvesting.
But at that moment, from the shadow behind the Wendigo a figure suddenly appeared, and a heavy hammer gleamed with dazzling light, steam howling, smashing down onto its antlered skull.
Shadow Stride + Skull-Crusher Hammer.
Bang—
The heavy hammer struck the Wendigo’s skull with a dull thud.
Moo—
A bellow that sounded like an old ox issued forth.
The Wendigo’s long, ape-like claws swung at Yu Yuan.
Clang~
A talon caught the hammer’s handle, metal ringing.
Yu Yuan felt a tremendous force through his grip; he fought to keep his balance.
His feet skidded across the ground, sliding five or six meters before he finally stopped.
By then, the Wendigo had turned, its pale green eyes fixed on Yu Yuan as it tilted its neck.
Yu Yuan narrowed his eyes.
“Damn, this guy really has a tough skull.”
He had seen clearly: the fully charged Skull-Crusher Hammer had struck the Wendigo’s cranium and only caused a minor crack.
That was absurd.
This was an epic-grade heavy hammer!
All the enemies he’d faced before—whether alloy-modified Mechanical Altereds or the Bronze-tier pinnacle Concealment Rat—could not have so casually endured a fully charged Skull-Crusher Hammer head-on.
“Is this the real strength of a Silver-tier creature? Not simple at all.”
Those thoughts flickered through Yu Yuan’s mind. As his stance stabilized, he activated Shadow Stride again and reappeared behind the Wendigo.
But just as he prepared to swing the Ruined City hammer again, intending to change tactics and first attack the Wendigo’s knee joints for a war of attrition,
a bell-like voice suddenly exploded in his ear.
—“Hunger…”