Chapter 54: Yu Sheng's Return

The sound of chewing that filled the entire valley rose and fell like crashing waves, transforming the entire alien land into a grand feast. Soon, everyone hiding in the caves realized what this noise signified.

Li Lin, gathering his courage, approached the cave entrance and nervously glanced outside.

Within the mountains, razor-sharp teeth clashed fiercely, trenches resembling giant mouths collapsed inward, splitting into more fissures that devoured and dissolved each other. Tentacle-like appendages scattered across the ground had begun digesting themselves, while colossal flesh-and-blood beasts continuously sprouted from certain shadows, only to be swallowed in an instant by an unseen force.

Amidst this terrifying spectacle, he caught sight of a figure—Yu Sheng, standing quietly in the clearing just outside the cave, staring blankly at the scene of mutual devouring in the valley.

For a moment, Li Lin was dazed, but he quickly dismissed the slight unease—he had already forgotten the circumstances of Yu Sheng’s death, simply thinking the man had fallen behind the group.

Hu Li and Ailin, who were guarding the cave entrance, also immediately noticed Yu Sheng's presence.

“Benefactor! You really aren’t gone!” Hu Li called out first, but then grew anxious. “Come in quickly! It’s dangerous outside!”

Only then did Yu Sheng turn around and quicken his steps into the cave, muttering as he walked, “I feel like that thing in the sky is a bit sinister, but it doesn’t seem to have any real intent to attack…”

Ailin paid no mind to his muttering, instead scrutinizing him anxiously from head to toe. “Are you really okay? Is your mental state normal?”

“Can’t you ever hope for something good?” Yu Sheng shot a glare at the doll. “Do you think it’s easy for me to come back here?”

As he spoke, he glanced again toward the cave entrance. “The ‘Hunger’ should be ending soon, but that big eyeball in the sky — I don’t know what it is. It’s not the same entity as the ‘Hunger’ and doesn’t even seem native to this valley.”

Ailin had been ready with some idle chatter to ease the tension, but she froze upon hearing this. “Huh? It’s not from this valley?”

“No,” Yu Sheng shook his head. Even now, he maintained a subtle connection with this alien land, allowing him to clearly distinguish that gaze descending from the sky and to perceive the boundary between that eye and the valley. “All the Hunger entities are under my awareness. I can clearly feel that eye is an outsider — but it has been ‘perched’ above this alien land for many years, replacing the original sky.”

Ailin’s mouth opened in shock, seemingly stupefied. At that moment, a deep voice echoed from deep within the cave, breaking the silence.

“That is the ‘Angel.’”

Yu Sheng looked up in surprise to see a towering man nearly two meters tall approaching from the cave’s depths. Pale blue foxfire cast sharp shadows across the man’s cheeks.

The giant man sized Yu Sheng up with a peculiar seriousness and caution. “Did you fall behind the group earlier?”

Yu Sheng felt a strange wariness in the man’s gaze—not exactly hostility, but neither was it the familiar concern or confusion one might expect when seeing a lost companion return.

Yet Yu Sheng did not press the matter. Instead, he focused on the strange name the man had just mentioned.

“I did fall behind for a bit. Don’t worry, nothing serious,” Yu Sheng waved off. “What do you mean by ‘Angel’?”

“More accurately, it’s called the ‘Dark Angel’—a dangerous, mysterious entity, sometimes also referring to special phenomena caused by these dangerous beings,” the man said carefully. “Each Dark Angel differs greatly—in form, ability, and how it appears. The one dominating the sky now must have parasitized this alien land many years ago. Because of its influence, the local entities mutated.”

Yu Sheng listened in astonishment, quickly realizing the giant knew far more about this “Dark Angel” than he had revealed. There had to be richer, more detailed information. Yet the man withheld it, perhaps due to confidentiality or caution.

Such reserve was normal; none of them really knew each other. Though they had fought side by side, no introductions had been exchanged yet. Sharing information so readily was already a sign of goodwill.

“I’m Yu Sheng,” he extended his hand. “These two are Hu Li and Ailin—my friends.”

The two-meter giant hesitated, then shook Yu Sheng’s hand. “Hello, I’m Xu Jiali.”

Yu Sheng froze for a moment.

After a pause, he asked, “Wait, what did you say your name was?”

“She said she’s Xu Jiali—like the beautiful girl named Jiali,” said a red-clad girl sitting on a stone bench, breaking the silence as she looked up at Yu Sheng. “You can just call me Little Red Riding Hood.”

Yu Sheng blinked, suddenly understanding. “Oh, I get it. You all must be in that line of work, using code names when you’re out, huh?”

The two-meter giant grumbled, “That’s her code name. Mine’s real.”

Yu Sheng was speechless.

What else could he say? He could only awkwardly admit the name sounded nice, cultured even, then his gaze shifted to the last young man who hadn’t spoken yet.

That face seemed familiar—he felt like he’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t place it.

Li Lin, catching the gaze, walked over confidently. “I’m Li Lin.”

Before Yu Sheng could respond, Ailin suddenly shouted, “Hey! That’s a normal name!”

Li Lin was left speechless. Looking at Yu Sheng’s group—a fox demon with multiple tails, a doll barely over half a meter tall, and a trio that barely made a whole human—yet they had the nerve to comment on the normalcy of his name…

Still, his attention quickly returned to the outside world.

The chewing sounds from beyond the cave were gradually dying down, and the vibrations shaking the alien land were swiftly weakening.

Xu Jiali hurried to the cave entrance and peered out, witnessing the valley utterly transformed.

It looked as if a layer had been forcibly gnawed off from the distant mountains to the nearby valley. Jagged, grotesque stones and bare soil layers covered the slopes; the distant forests had vanished, and the earth beneath the hills was riddled with deep ravines.

Suddenly, she turned toward Yu Sheng, standing beside Hu Li.

“Did you… do this?”

Her hesitation was clear—she knew it sounded absurd. No matter how one looked at the terrifying scene in the valley, it didn’t seem like something a human could accomplish. Yet intuition told her it was connected to Yu Sheng’s brief “straying” moments ago.

“You could say that,” Yu Sheng answered cheerfully. His mood was excellent, filled with satisfaction from finally being satiated. He nodded with a smile. “Though it took quite some effort.”

Li Lin had also seen the scene and looked back at Yu Sheng, utterly stunned. “...How is this possible...?”

Yu Sheng pondered, realizing it would be difficult to explain what had truly happened—he had been consumed by the “Hunger,” yet his appetite surpassed it; a human had mentally corrupted an entity, making the “Hunger” that ate something impure become ravenous enough to devour itself.

It wasn’t just hard to explain; after explaining, no one could tell who the villain really was.

Besides, he didn’t want these unfamiliar people to know too much about him.

“Just lucky, I found the entity’s weakness,” Yu Sheng said casually. “I don’t know the specifics, but it seems to have triggered a chain reaction of self-devouring among the valley’s entities…”

His words clearly felt like a deliberate dodge. Li Lin immediately understood some things were secrets.

Suddenly, Ailin’s chatter broke through their doubts. “Hey! Isn’t that thing in the sky slowly floating upwards?”

Yu Sheng hurried over, craning his neck to look at the sky above the valley.

He saw the enormous eye covering the entire valley slowly rising, silent like a projection shrinking in the sky. Within mere seconds, it shrank to a third of its original size.

It was rapidly moving away.

Brighter, more natural light spread from distant mountain ranges as the disturbed clouds reformed. The eye quickly became a palm-sized disk floating at the sky’s center, then vanished completely from their sight after a few breaths.

“Did it… run away?” Ailin stared up in disbelief, momentarily at a loss, then turned to the two-meter giant nearby. “The ‘Angel’ you mentioned—it ran off! What do we do now?”

Xu Jiali exhaled softly and forced a smile at the doll’s words.

“What else can we do? Celebrate. After the celebration, I’ll go back and write the report.”