Essence Devouring Art

"You’re quite pleased with yourself?"

In the darkness, Wu Dao slowly raised his head.

Half of his face had been torn off by the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui, leaving only the bone. Combined with his twisted, half-smile and a mouth full of triangular shark-like teeth, he was truly no different from one of the Hellish Evil Ghosts.

He was on his last legs.

The Energy from the Bat King’s flesh and blood within him was depleted. If he kept fighting, he would start burning his own Life Force, draining himself into a dried-up corpse!

But!

He wasn’t entirely without a chance!!

If he could just restore his peak state for a short time.

Even if it was for less than a minute!

He could tear this bastard who had dared to touch his flesh apart with his bare hands!

This one minute.

How could he get it?

It was simple...

And so, what happened next was an utterly terrifying scene that unfolded before the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui’s eyes.

It sent a chill through its entire body.

It made its very soul tremble.

It even shocked its intelligence to a level momentarily equal to a normal person’s, allowing it to choke out four words in a quavering tone:

"You are not human!!"

Why had it lost its composure so completely?

It was because...

Under the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui’s terrified gaze,

Wu Dao stretched his mouth into a wide grin, revealing two rows of sharp, triangular, shark-like teeth.

Then,

his iron claws tore at the muscles on his chest...

And then!

He raised his right arm...

RRRIP!

He tore and stripped off every single piece of muscle from his right arm...

After the right arm came the left.

As the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui stared in a stupor,

Wu Dao’s arms were soon nothing but jade-like skeletons, ghastly white and horrifying to behold!

And as for the flesh...

He stuffed it into his mouth, devouring it as a Great Medicine.

The new "firewood" ignited, and a vigorous, immense Life Force surged from him.

However, this time, Wu Dao locked down the Healing Fluid.

It was not used to restore his damaged body tissues.

Instead, it was supplied only to the parts that were still intact and usable.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP—

With a sufficient supply of Healing Fluid,

his heart, which had been on the verge of stopping, once again began to pound like a war drum. The volcano was fully charged. A tsunami-like wave of scorching, tyrannical aura pressed down on the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui, suffocating it.

"Hiss... That’s the stuff!!"

Wu Dao let his skeletal hands hang limply. Feeling no pain, his face was a mask of crazed enjoyment. Beneath the massive frame of his ribcage, his blazing red heart was clearly visible, pounding away.

Then,

he stretched his savage maw into a grin. His blood-red eyes stared at the distant Flesh and Blood Tai Sui as he uttered a single, emotionless sentence:

"Round two!"

BOOM!!

The ground collapsed, sending earth and rock flying!

Again, in the blink of an eye!

Wu Dao’s ruined body broke the sound barrier. The turbulent air surged behind him, and he appeared before the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui like a terrifying, blood-colored demon.

In that dazed instant,

the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui felt as if it had returned to the beginning of the fight.

The same twisted smile!

The same violent, murderous aura!

The same explosive Power, built up like a Barbaric Whale crashing into an island!

What was different,

was that this time, he used his knee!

This time...

It couldn’t dodge, and it couldn’t defend...

BOOM!!

The knee strike was like a dragon raising its head!

A tsunami of destructive force poured into it, as if tons of high explosives had detonated inside its body!

CRACK~

An almost inaudible shattering sound was heard.

Endless darkness washed over it.

In a daze, the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui seemed to see a mountain forest from several hundred years ago, bathed in harsh sunlight and dappled with the shadows of trees.

In its primal, unenlightened state, it lay quietly beneath the fertile soil, instinctively absorbing the gifts of heaven and earth.

Until...

it saw a large, striped tiger leap down from the mountain peak. Twitching its nose, the tiger approached it, one step at a time.

As it drew closer,

it suddenly realized.

Why did that tiger have a human face, twisted like that of an Evil Ghost?

It looked so familiar...

BANG!!

SPLAT!

A huge shower of red liquid sprayed through the air.

The Flesh and Blood Tai Sui’s entire upper body was kicked into thousands of pieces of muck, exploding into clouds of blood mist in mid-air.

At its original spot,

only the stump of its lower half was left. It was sent flying, then tumbled to the ground.

THUD!

Another heavy thud.

Wu Dao’s ruined body collapsed like a felled mountain.

That last strike,

had burned through all the "firewood" he had consumed. Now, it began to burn his own flesh, and his body visibly shriveled.

He could no longer maintain the Divine Ghost Heaven State.

The moment he exited it,

his mind’s defenses came crashing down.

An overwhelming agony, as if he’d been thrown onto a mountain of knives and into a sea of fire, washed over him, tearing at his soul and his flesh. He felt as if he was about to explode!

His consciousness was dragged away by darkness, bit by bit, as if he would fall into an eternal sleep at any moment.

’Can’t sleep!’

’I can’t sleep!’

’You’re the winner! You haven’t even enjoyed your prize yet, so what’s this about sleeping?!’

’That’s right!’

’I won!!’

’I won again!!’

’I’ve once again emerged victorious from the cruel competition of natural selection!’

’This isn’t my end!’

’Eat the prey!’

’Keep going!!’

"Ha... HAHAHAHA..."

It was a cathartic release.

His wild, demonic laughter echoed across the wilderness.

Wu Dao viciously bit off half his tongue, using pain to overcome pain, forcing himself to stay conscious.

’Can’t move my body?’

’Am I completely spent, at the end of my rope?’

’But it doesn’t matter!’

Drawn by a fatally alluring fragrance,

Wu Dao used the only muscles he could still move—his jaw. Aided by a warm current spreading from his stomach, he repeatedly opened and closed his mouth, gnawing on the ground, dragging his body like a maggot toward the location of the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui’s Demon Pill.

’I’m coming!’

’I’m coming to eat you!!’

Wu Dao roared in his mind, squirming forward by gnawing on the ground, leaving a thick, bloody trail behind him as he crawled on.

His mind drifted in and out of consciousness.

Sometimes clear, sometimes in Chaos.

A jumble of random thoughts surfaced:

’Tastes like chicken?’

’Beef?’

’Or maybe passion fruit??’

’Pan-fry, stir-fry, steam, or deep-fry?’

’More chili peppers?’

...

Ten meters...

Five meters...

One meter...

Finally.

A soccer-ball-sized, translucent lump of flesh, like a piece of red agate, came into view, emitting a soul-refreshing fragrance.

And at its center,

was an egg-sized Demon Pill that glowed with a faint, gem-like light. Its fragrance was almost intoxicating.

CRUNCH!

He bit down on the lump of flesh!!

His mouth filled with fragrance.

Unexpectedly,

this Tai Sui flesh...

tasted like sweet potato, with the texture of jelly.

The towering Canyun Mountain.

A vast, boundless sea of forest.

As the jade rabbit—the moon—began its descent in the west, yin fell and yang rose.

WHOOSH~

A warm breeze from the east stirred the leaves into green waves, blowing away the strange, eerie mist on the mountainside.

The wind climbed the mountain and passed through the forest.

It swirled and whimpered through a patch of dark, primordial woods.

Eventually,

the breeze washed away the thick, lingering stench of blood from the air.

As for the layer of bloody mire on the ground, like something out of a slaughterhouse, it would have to wait for the mountain’s "residents" to clean up themselves.

...

「In the hinterlands of Canyun Mountain.」

Deep within a natural cave.

"CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP..."

In the darkness,

a bat flapped its wings, seeming to have found prey, and impatiently drew near.

SPLAT!

Suddenly, an iron-like hand shot up in the darkness, smashing the bat into a pulp.

SWISH!

Wu Dao’s eyes snapped open. In the darkness, a faint spark of electricity crackled within them, radiating an inviolable might. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

WHOOSH...

He exhaled a long, heavy breath of foul air.

Wu Dao sat up straight and examined his body. His eyes shone brightly, like two small lanterns, and the darkness did nothing to hinder his vision.

After a night of recovery,

his ravaged body, which had been on the brink of collapse, had finally returned to its peak state.

After the brutal battle last night,

his mind and body had both been on the verge of death.

But with inhuman willpower, he had forced himself to move to where the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui’s Demon Pill lay.

After eating the fragrant flesh that enveloped the Demon Pill, he had barely regained his ability to move.

To prevent any opportunists from appearing,

he had fled with the Demon Pill, finally hiding in this primitive cave.