CHAPTER 37: CHAPTER 37: BREAKING THROUGH THE EARTH

Sun Hang exerted force with both arms, pulling the shovel out of the soil.

This time, the blood-like liquid no longer seeped slowly; it sprayed from the ground like a fountain.

The two women screamed again.

"That’s a lot of blood loss?" Sun Hang didn’t hesitate much, plunging the shovel into the soil again, using his thigh as a lever to lift the top layer of earth.

A swollen, white mass of rotting flesh appeared in front of Sun Hang.

Its surface bore a cut that matched the shape of the shovel, and on the interior, there was a viscous, thread-like substance akin to serum, with small beads of blood seeping continuously from the severed tissue. Fine fungal threads emerged from the depths of the tissue, stitching the sliced parts together like threading a needle... Within five or six seconds, the cut had healed, leaving only a slightly raised scar on the surface of the rotten flesh.

However, what surprised Sun Hang was that even though this "Tai Sui" was fully exposed to the air, just a few dozen centimeters away from him, he still didn’t sense any "aroma" indicative of "food."

In his subconscious cognition, this swollen white mass of rotten flesh had been labeled "inedible."

"How could this be... all those ’Tai Sui’ parasitic in human bodies are edible?" Sun Hang was filled with confusion.

A little further away, the two men and two women had already knelt on the ground, bowing repeatedly to the rotting flesh in the dirt: "Lord Tai Sui, please forgive! Lord Tai Sui, spare us! Lord Tai Sui..."

"What are you afraid of? It’s just a lump of dead meat that can’t move..."

Before Sun Hang finished his sentence, the four of them began to convulse simultaneously, rolling on the ground with their mouths wide open, yet unable to make a sound, their eyeballs bulging as if about to pop out... That kind of agony couldn’t possibly be feigned.

Sun Hang immediately rushed toward the nearest male follower, but before he could get close, a bloody, indistinct thing suddenly burst out of the man’s chest with a "snap," dropping to the ground and then quickly burrowed into the soil.

The man, whose chest had been blown open, shakily rose from the ground, stumbled toward Sun Hang, taking two steps. Just as he lifted a hand in front of him, he fell face-first to the ground.

The other three were the same—after that mass left their bodies, their life force was drained within seconds, turning them into corpses.

This scene involuntarily reminded Sun Hang of the scene of the alien hatchling bursting out of its host in the classic horror film, "Alien"...

"Hmm... Strange, when did I watch that film?" Sun Hang was momentarily stunned, but then a flood of memories that didn’t belong to him surged forth. He quickly halted the recollection, focusing all his attention on the matters at hand.

The exposed rotten flesh showed no obvious movement, but after a dozen seconds, accompanied by a chilling sound, hundreds of irregular lumps of meat appeared at the edges of the residential building windows. These lumps were squirming, crawling, and then, like lemmings reaching the end of their life journey, they jumped from windows dozens of meters high.

Once they hit the ground, these lumps splattered into a mushy mess... yet, even so, they continued writhing...

"It seems like there are no survivors in the entire Cult Organization." Sun Hang sighed softly. This was their destined fate, and his arrival had simply brought this day forward by many days.

The splattered mush was absorbed into the soil as well. Sun Hang slowly retreated to a spot laid with paving stones—he vaguely sensed that the "Tai Sui" had retrieved all seeds parasitizing within human bodies, likely preparing for a "final battle" with him.

"Let me see... how strong can this enigmatic creature, dormant for seven years and having devoured countless lives and flesh and blood, become?" Sun Hang took a deep breath, whispering softly.

Hopefully, it can be a grand feast.

The ground started to tremble, and the moss-covered soil cracked open as a massive pallid limb burst forth—this was a human arm enlarged hundreds of times, or more accurately—a massive, malformed humanoid arm.

This gigantic arm unhesitatingly swept toward Sun Hang, but he had already backed out of the arm’s reach several seconds early. The arm swiped the air, and its hand, larger than a door, slammed into the side of the residential building with a thunderous sound.

The already unstable building’s façade instantly developed ominous cracks, and after a brief "delay," the corner of the building suddenly collapsed... A few seconds later, the entire structure turned into rubble, burying the giant arm beneath the debris.

Sun Hang covered his mouth and nose, the dust hanging in the air obscuring the surroundings, but a strong sense of impending danger compelled him to drop to the ground—just as he completed this action, a powerful airflow swept right over his head!

The gust tore through the obscuring dust, and only then did Sun Hang see clearly that the arm emerging from the earth had turned into three, and in addition, a massive head nearly ten meters tall.

Although, Sun Hang wasn’t confident if this oval-shaped thing could be considered a "head."

Its surface was devoid of any hair, as smooth as a giant creature’s egg, and on its front were the only "facial features"—a nearly circular, irregular oral cavity, filled with rows and rows of teeth inside.

Even Sun Hang felt his scalp tingle just looking at it. For anyone with trypophobia standing here, they might have fainted on the spot.

Two completely different voices emerged in Sun Hang’s head at that moment. One cowardly voice repeatedly urged him, "Run, run, run, I definitely can’t beat this thing, I’ll die, I’ll die, I’ll die..."

While the other voice was filled with disdain, "No matter how large, it’s still just a low-level creature... Don’t forget, it is merely prey... and I am the Hunter."

But as Sun Hang’s breathing gradually steadied, the second voice grew louder, gradually overpowering the first one...

It is prey, I am the Hunter.

It is prey, I am the Hunter.

...

No, that’s not right.

It is food... and I am the predator.

"A food of such massive size... needs a big enough utensil... to handle it." Sun Hang muttered to himself, shifting his gaze, surveying the surroundings.

A moment later, he raised his right arm, his fingers clenched into a fist.

The debris from the collapsed building began to shift, and then countless fractured, deformed steel rods emerged from the rubble, intertwining and compressing like living worms... By the time these rods reached Sun Hang’s hands, they had already transformed into a fifteen-meter-long aberrant sword.

The steel rods that "forged" this aberrant sword weighed several tons, yet Sun Hang couldn’t feel any weight at all in his hands... It felt as if the weapon was merely an extension of his arm. With a light swing, he carved a cut "deep to the bone" on one of the "Tai Sui’s" giant arms.

In that instant, Sun Hang caught the "aroma" unique to "food."

He understood why he hadn’t smelled it earlier—Tai Sui had cloaked its true body in a layer of "decaying flesh" as protection. This layer resembled the outermost epidermis of human skin, "dead," and only by cutting through this skin composed of dead cells could one touch the true body of the Tai Sui.