Familiar

Ye Chuan leaped into the bottomless pit.

A sense of weightlessness instantly enveloped his entire body. The whistling of the wind and the buzzing of spewing black matter filled his ears as he plummeted rapidly like a kite with a broken string.

However, he didn't feel the slightest bit of fear. After all, with his stats, he wouldn't be hurt even if he fell onto the floor from an altitude of ten thousand meters.

He originally thought he would hit the ground in a few dozen seconds, but one second, ten seconds, a minute passed... Time ticked by, yet his downward momentum didn't decrease at all. The surroundings remained an impenetrable, bone-chilling darkness.

"It's actually this deep?" Ten minutes later, genuine surprise finally appeared in Ye Chuan's eyes.

Just as Ye Chuan was pondering, a faint sensation finally came from beneath his feet. He adjusted his posture and landed steadily. The moment his soles touched the ground, he felt a sticky, squishy softness.

Ye Chuan turned on his flashlight. As the strong beam swept across, the sight before him made him pause slightly—this was actually a world covered in purplish-black tissue.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of writhing flesh, with livid veins crawling across the texture. It looked like the turned-out innards of a giant, and every pulsation was accompanied by a dull thumping sound.

This was similar to the world of flesh and blood Ye Chuan had seen before, but it appeared even more bizarre and disgusting.

The air was thick with a choking stench of blood and putrid slime, mixed with a nauseatingly sweet metallic scent. It was much stronger than the smell of the black rain on the surface.

Wherever the flashlight's beam swept, the tissue writhed even more violently, as if disturbed. Countless tiny bubbles emerged from beneath the fleshy membrane, popping and crackling.

"Woo-hoo..."

"Woo..."

Just then, the sound of a woman crying drifted into his ears, causing Ye Chuan to halt his movements.

"Hmm?"

The crying was faint and desperate, filled with heart-wrenching pain. It sounded both like a whisper right in his ear and a wail coming from far away; he couldn't distinguish the direction at all.

It was as if the entire fleshy space was weeping.

The voice was sometimes shrill and sometimes choking with sobs. Strangely, Ye Chuan found it vaguely familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before, but that feeling was quickly overshadowed by the overwhelming sense of eeriness.

"Who is crying?" Ye Chuan scanned his surroundings.

But the crying only grew clearer and more tragic, as if someone was going to crawl out from the flesh in the next second.

Suddenly, the slime on the ground churned violently, and countless purplish-black figures emerged from beneath it.

They were Slime Monsters!

They covered the ground densely, stretching as far as the eye could see. Some had just emerged and were still forming their shapes, while others were already lunging at Ye Chuan with loud roars.

"There are actually so many here. Man, this is triggering my trypophobia." Ye Chuan didn't panic in the slightest. The next moment, wielding dual swords, he charged right in.

He raised his greatsword and swung it. The sharp blade swept out like a tornado, instantly cleaving dozens of Slime Monsters in the front row in half.

Purplish-black slime splattered onto the fleshy walls, sizzling and corroding as it emitted white smoke.

The Slime Monsters were like paper before him, falling in droves. Some were directly sliced in half by the sword, while others were stomped into black water, melting back into the slime on the ground.

There was no messy, prolonged combat; it was purely a one-sided slaughter. In this space of flesh and blood, the roars, the splattering of slime, and the sound of the greatsword piercing the air mixed with the woman's eerie crying, composing a bizarre symphony.

Ye Chuan pushed forward in the direction of the crying, not knowing how long he had been killing.

The Slime Monsters around him grew fewer, and the woman's crying became clearer.

Finally, after cleaving through the last group of Slime Monsters blocking his path, the view ahead suddenly opened up—

Ahead was a much more spacious area. Right in the center stood a giant monster.

The monster was a thousand meters tall, shaped like a woman, but its entire body was wrapped in purple fleshy tissue, blending in with the surrounding space.

Its limbs were absurdly thick. When its feet stomped on the ground, the entire fleshy space trembled. Livid veins wrapped tightly around its body like hideous chains.

Its hair was a tangled mess of bandages and purplish-black mud, covering most of its face. It only revealed a pair of bloodshot eyes that constantly dripped purplish-black slime.

It was crying.

It hunched over slightly, covering its face with its hands, letting out mournful cries.

With every cry, the entire fleshy space resonated. The blood membranes on the walls throbbed madly, and the blood flow in the veins doubled in speed, seemingly trembling along with it.

The crying was coming straight from its mouth. The more Ye Chuan listened, the more he felt something was wrong—

This...

Could it be...

He could clearly sense that the monster before him was the source of all the filth in this entire instance!

Despair, pain, resentment, anger... Countless negative emotional pollutions radiated from the monster like physical substances, enveloping the entire space and trying to drill into his brain, only to be blocked by the chaos.

These emotions were terrifyingly thick, suffocatingly oppressive.

Let alone touching it, an ordinary person would fall into madness and suffer a mental breakdown just by looking at it.

While Ye Chuan was observing, the monster's crying suddenly stopped. The hands covering its face trembled slightly, as if it had sensed his presence.

It slowly lowered its hands, its bloodshot eyes looking down until its gaze landed on Ye Chuan.

There was no anger or killing intent in those eyes, only endless emptiness and sorrow, as well as a trace of... astonishment, which Ye Chuan couldn't understand.

But soon, its eyes were completely taken over by a purple hue.

"Roar!!!"

A moment later, the monster suddenly let out a deafening shriek. The sound was wrapped in extreme pain and fury, piercing through the entire fleshy space. Ye Chuan's eardrums nearly burst.

It abruptly raised its massive arm and smashed it down fiercely toward Ye Chuan. The swinging arm brought with it a gale and a choking aura of filth.

"Hmph." Ye Chuan exerted force in his legs and instantly leaped up, dodging the strike.

With a loud Boom, the monster's palm slammed heavily onto the ground. The entire fleshy space shook violently, and a huge crater was smashed into the floor. Several Slime Monsters that couldn't dodge in time were instantly flattened into mush.

Ye Chuan flipped in mid-air, gripping his greatsword tightly with both hands!

Mountain Shattering Strike!

He viciously slashed down at the monster's arm, cutting straight into its body. Livid veins instantly snapped, and dark red blood gushed out like a waterfall.

The monster let out a painful roar and violently swung its other arm at Ye Chuan. At the same time, the fleshy tissue on its body began to writhe madly. Countless tiny tentacles and purplish-black mud burrowed out from its body, reaching out to entangle him.

Even though he couldn't channel the spiritual energy within his body, Ye Chuan summoned his flying hoverboard in mid-air. He dodged nimbly, his greatsword swinging non-stop, severing the incoming tentacles and Slime Monsters one by one!

But right at this moment, the monster's movements came to a halt. It covered its face as tears of blood flowed down.

"..."

"B-Boss..."

That single sentence made Ye Chuan freeze in his tracks.