In the North District, inside an alley, an Awakened One was swallowed whole by a mass of black liquid.
After devouring the Awakened One, the black liquid slithered to a shadow and slowly sank into it.
Several kilometers away, in an unmonitored, secluded alley shadow, the black liquid surfaced and morphed into Liu Zhiyuan.
'Looks like they've noticed, but this power is already much stronger than before—it's time to go back and enforce justice.' Liu Zhiyuan felt the formidable strength within him, his eyes growing resolute.
After devouring one evil Level Five and nearly a hundred evil small-fry, all Awakened Ones below Level Five pulled back to Command Post, leaving only a few stealth-capable scouts outside.
Liu Zhiyuan strode openly onto the street; not even a ghost was in sight.
He had taken only two steps when a peculiar sensation struck him.
Liu Zhiyuan jerked his head skyward—ten thousand meters up, a cloud cluster dozens of meters wide was drifting toward him.
Upon it he sensed the aura of Flesh-and-Blood Beings—two lumps of it.
'Coming for me?' Liu Zhiyuan stood motionless, curious to see what trick they would pull.
He also wanted to devour them to grow stronger.
'Hm?' Under his gaze, a blood-red figure suddenly dropped from the cloud.
The blood-man plummeted at terrifying speed toward Liu Zhiyuan's block.
'A Flesh-and-Blood Being—crippled. What's going on?' When the blood-man fell to a kilometer above, Liu Zhiyuan could clearly see the injuries covering its body and the pulsing lump of flesh strapped to it.
'Whatever—free food is free food!' black liquid burst from Liu Zhiyuan's legs, rocketing him toward the falling blood-man.
Three hundred meters in the air, the blood-man dropped right above him.
His left arm liquefied, wrapped around the blood-man, and absorbed it into his body.
Whoosh! After absorbing the blood-man, Liu Zhiyuan cut the jets and let himself free-fall.
Bang! Moments later he smashed into a street; the ground exploded, concrete chunks flying everywhere, but Liu Zhiyuan paid no heed.
An immense power surged inside him, accompanied by searing pain—under six lumps of flesh his body felt as if tearing apart and re-knitting itself.
Argh!!! The agony made Liu Zhiyuan roar; blood vessels webbed his eyes and his frame began to swell.
A unique ripple emanated, jamming all nearby electronics.
In the cloud above, Wei Gaocheng watched Liu Zhiyuan devour Motley and power up, envious: 'Fed on a silver platter—wish I got that treatment.'
At his feet lay the hollowed-out corpse of a middle-aged man—the original Flesh-and-Blood Being who had been in Nanwu Country.
After gaining power he had refused to 'merge with humans' and hidden away; even when the Monster Association summoned him to HQ City he ignored them. In the end he was captured, his flesh ripped out, and tossed to Liu Zhiyuan along with Motley.
Han Qi, who had just dropped the body, rolled his eyes: 'He's just a pawn. If you're so eager, next project I can recommend you.'
'I can recommend you too.' Li Yong, standing behind them, spoke up suddenly.
'Damn, are we even brothers?' The fates of those pawns made Wei Gaocheng shudder; he cursed at them—BOOM! A thick bluish-white lightning bolt struck the fifty-meter giant. Yu Shuanghua could hold out no longer.
Crash! Lightning accumulated inside him; his body spasmed and he toppled toward the ruined building beside him.
Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh!
Seizing the moment, Jiang Ao waved a hand; four ten-meter wind-blades shot toward the fallen giant.
Thud! Thud!
The blades slashed the giant's neck in succession, carving through flesh until they shattered against the spine and dissipated.
Splash! Blood gushed from the neck, flooding the ground around them to a depth of over ten centimeters.
'Finally down—this thing's hide is way too thick.' Li Junya wiped sweat from her forehead.
Her poison gas couldn't penetrate the giant; it only massaged the skin.
Deng Mengcheng stood at a distance, eyes gleaming: 'This beats Fang Wenyu's side in merit—we actually bagged one.'
Jiang Ao landed beside him, lips curving: 'Not dead yet—let's finish it.'
With that he raised a hand and released more wind-blades to carve the giant's body.
Far away, Qin Musheng, drenched in sweat, sat on a flat slab amid the rubble to catch his breath: 'Huff… damn beast—if you three hadn't shown up in time, my debut would've been a disgrace.'
Yu Shuanghua's endurance had surpassed all expectation; no amount of lightning could stop him. The brief stuns had nearly drained Qin Musheng dry.
If Jiang Ao's trio hadn't arrived mid-fight he might have had to flee.
'I won't accept this!' The fallen Yu Shuanghua roared inwardly; one-on-one he feared no one, yet they had ganged up on him.
He also resented his fellow Flesh-and-Blood Beings—if those wastes hadn't been crushed so quickly, he wouldn't have been surrounded.
'Against an enemy of humanity, lending a hand is only right.' Jiang Ao cared nothing for the giant's thoughts; he raised a hand and launched another colossal wind-blade.
Crack! This time the blade cleanly severed the giant's head.
Buzz! With Yu Shuanghua's death, the vast flesh composing his body began to shrink.
Under everyone's gaze the fifty-meter corpse rapidly reduced to a two-meter headless body.
Seeing this, Jiang Ao and the others relaxed slightly.
Yet they didn't know that beneath the ground a special entity was racing toward the corpse.
Twenty meters below, inside a sewer pipe, Bach crawled on all fours at top speed.
He remained expressionless despite the nauseating stench; when rubble from the battle blocked the pipe ahead,
Bach simply willed a wisp of black flame into being—his ability fused noiselessly with the fire.
The eerily cold black fire effortlessly melted the obstructing rubble and metal, the liquefied residue also turning black.
After crawling a bit farther he stopped and looked up: 'Right here. Once I devour him, with five lumps of flesh I can at least escape even if I can't beat an Xuanjian Division group leader.'
He raised a hand toward the ceiling; black flame blossomed.
Above ground, after finishing Yu Shuanghua the group waited for clean-up Awakened Ones to collect the body.
At that moment Deng Mengcheng, standing farthest away, sensed something and spun toward the corpse, shouting, 'Someone's trying to snatch the body!'
BOOM!!!
The next instant a pillar of black flame erupted beneath the corpse, dropping the surrounding temperature several degrees.
Yu Shuanghua's body melted instantly into black liquid that flowed down into the pit the black fire had burned.