The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 27

“It’s him! He killed Little Sprout and the others! He must pay with his life!”

“What savior from another world? He’s clearly in league with the Evil God! He hypocritically said it was for our good, but actually, it was all to lower our guard and wipe us out in one fell swoop!”

“Exactly! Tonight, we must eliminate this heretic!”

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

Dozens of corpses were lined up on the ground, all of them children and pregnant women at least twenty lives lost.

Qi Xun looked at the tragic state of the bodies and clenched his fists. He had just escorted Fubai to the White Tower and was heading home when he heard the shouting; following it, he discovered that Linlin had already been eliminated by Shan and the group of hunters. The hunters claimed the feather-raiment Lin Yang gave them had brought this disaster, and Shan had witnessed it all.

Qi Xun did not believe Shan. He also hated the Evil God, but Shan’s hatred had reached a point of extreme prejudice. Facing the enraged Silver Jiao and humans, Qi Xun stood up, his mouth bleeding from a bitten lip as he spoke with restraint. “If you say the Evil God did this, I can believe you, but it is absolutely impossible for Lin Yang to have done it. Fubai and Zhuo are still in the White Tower offering sacrifices for the dead; they will come out tomorrow. Let this matter be decided when they emerge.”

“What’s this, Captain Qi Xun? Have you forgotten who the first person to say Lin Yang was a heretic was?” Shan’s face was full of contempt, its voice elegant. “Or is it that after mingling with the heretic for so long, you’ve been bewitched by him?”

“You!” Qi Xun’s face turned pale.

Shan tilted its chin up. “The Captain has lost his mind due to the heretic’s bewitchment. Take him down and put him under guard!”

“Yes!”

The Silver Jiao in human form moved to suppress Qi Xun. Even though his strength was among the greatest for a human, he was still no match for ordinary Silver Jiao. His clumsy fish tail left a drag mark in the silt as he was taken away with an anxious gaze.

“Alright, now that the nuisance is gone, Master Lin Yang,” Shan’s face pulled into a hypocritical smile, “do you have anything else to say in your defense?”

Lin Yang could no longer see or hear. Before his eyes were vast, stagnant pools of blood, and he was surrounded by fresh corpses. There were former companions who had fought beside him, seniors who had taught him, and Little Sprout. They approached Lin Yang with hollow, bleeding eyes and tongueless mouths open.

Lin Yang, I’m in so much pain. Lin Yang, I’m in so much pain. Lin Yang, I’m in so much pain. … Lin Yang, it hurts so much, can’t you see?! Why are you still alive?! Why are you the only one who survived again?! Why haven’t you died yet?! No, Lin Yang, you can’t die yet; you aren’t worthy of death yet. Avenge me, kill them for me. I want them to die! I want them all to die!  Lin Yang, after you’ve taken revenge, use your blood as a sacrifice for us. It’s so cold in the ground; it’s really too cold.  Brother Lin Yang, it hurts, Little Sprout is in pain.

When Shan’s gaze moved toward Lin Yang’s face, Lin immediately blocked Lin Yang. Shan timely withdrew its gaze and closed its eyes, stepping back several paces to stand at the very back. It said in a low voice, “Go. Resolve the Evil God’s clone first, then deal with Lin Yang.”

A crowd swarmed forward humans and Silver Jiao alike. They were people with bone-deep hatred for the Evil God who participated in the nightly hunts; the number of Evil God clones that had died at their hands was at least a hundred. They rushed forward fiercely with sharp harpoons and blades.

Lin was accustomed to such scenes; a thousand ants could devour a fierce beast, and this body had no ability to respawn. Exhausting itself against them would only lead to death. Lin didn’t care about the clone’s survival, but as for Lin Yang—Lin protected Lin Yang while parrying the attacks. Since just now, Lin Yang had been like a puppet without a soul, standing frozen in place. Black blood was seeping from his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.

Lin sensed an intense aura of death emanating from Lin Yang. “Lin Yang!” Lin called his name, but Lin Yang gave no response. A harpoon pierced Lin’s back, and fresh red blood flowed out. Lin extended its claws and shredded the harpoon, its silver eyes glaring angrily at the attackers. “You all of you, go and die!”

Any living being that saw the Evil God’s eyes immediately collapsed, rolling on the ground in agony, yet even more ants charged forward. Their gaze toward Lin was full of terror, but also solitary courage. Hatred burned their hearts and lungs, making death insignificant.

Ah, someone is still standing. Lin stood before Lin Yang, its face indifferent. It remembered now; its true body was in the temple, so the power of the curse could not take effect. It looked up at the suspended prison tower, endless malice nearly bursting through its flesh. The living things on the ground were such filthy and base existences, yet this was what Lin Yang wanted to protect.

Lin said softly, “Do you know how much Lin Yang has sacrificed for you?” It murmured to itself, “I shouldn’t have been soft-hearted toward him, letting him fall to this state because of a pack of ants like you.”

“Lin Yang, it must be painful to lose what you treasure, isn’t it?” Lin’s gaze turned ferocious. “Come on then, all of you! If you can’t kill me completely, I will surely demand your lives sooner or later!”

Shan hid behind the crowd. “Don’t let it scare you! It’s at the end of its rope. Go, kill it!”

How to slay a monster? The monsters on the ground were like humans—bleeding and heartache would lead to death. In this slaughter to purge the monster, the humans and Silver Jiao achieved a total victory. The monster they loathed died at the feet of the heretic; both pairs of eyes—one white, one black—were covered in blood-water. The light went out, becoming murky and foul.

Immediately following, the Evil God’s clone was hoisted onto a cross. Shan walked up to Lin Yang and slapped his face. “Hey, don’t play dead.”

Lin Yang gave no reaction. Shan kicked Lin Yang in the stomach, and he fell over. He seemed to have truly lost all perception of external stimuli, becoming a hollow shell. Shan kicked him a few more times and, finding it uninteresting, said, “Tie up our Master Lin Yang as well.”

Lin Yang was hoisted onto the central cross. His eyes were constantly streaming blood. The malice in Shan’s heart expanded; it took a knife and gouged out Lin Yang’s pupils. Bizarrely, Lin Yang’s eyes grew back in the next moment, soaked in blood-water, pitch-black and reflecting no shadow.

Shan snorted. “This Lin Yang really is a monster in human skin.” Its eyes turned. “Everyone, is your food at home running low? Do you want to eat meat? We’ll strip the meat from Lin Yang; since he’ll regrow it anyway, we can strip it a dozen times, and you won’t have to worry about next month’s food.”

“That isn’t right,” said a human man. He looked fierce, and the harpoon he held was still stained with the Evil God’s blood. “No matter what, Lin Yang hasn’t harmed us and has helped us a lot. Those feather-garments hurt people, but they also protected us. Without Lin Yang, we’d all be dead by now.”

Some among the hunters looked hesitant. They had heard Shan say the feather-garments had suddenly brought disaster and hurt people, so they had rushed over; the victims were covered in feathered arrows, so it surely had to do with the Evil God and Lin Yang. But their main object of hatred was still the Evil God; after all, they had truly been protected by the garments, otherwise they wouldn’t have agreed to let the Giant Stone Monsters wear them in the first place.

“Master Shan, when it happened, you were on the scene. Do you know specifically what happened?”

Shan’s expression flickered unnaturally for a moment. “What else could it be? The garments suddenly hurt people! You say they protect? The next one to die tragically because of the garments will be you! Quickly, bring the knives to strip the meat!”

The fierce-looking man threw down his harpoon. “I can’t do such an ungrateful thing. If you want to do it, do it yourselves!” He strode away from the bloody ground.

Shan let out a low roar. “Ignore that coward; we will carve the meat.”

As the tip of the knife pierced Lin Yang’s flesh, the irritability Shan had felt during this period vanished. So what if he had Fubai’s favor? Tonight, he is still at my mercy.

The silver eyes of the suspended prison tower snapped open and happened to see this scene; the pupils shuddered violently. A scarlet rain of blood descended onto the ground in an instant, pointedly avoiding the spot where Lin Yang was. Shan dodged in time and held up Lin Yang as a shield; the blood-water corroded him.

That single eye instantly turned blood-red, and the blood-water stopped. Shan looked up at the tower. “Evil God, have you fallen in love with a lowly human? Then, will it be more painful for you if I hurt him?” It smiled as it reached into Lin Yang’s chest and tore through his heart. A black hole was exposed in Lin Yang’s chest.

In the temple, Lin was beside itself with rage. Under the suppression of the array, the number of clones it could create daily was limited; those clones couldn’t help Lin Yang and would only end up being killed by the hunters. Only if it left the temple.

It had to leave the temple. Lin stepped out of the altar, its blood-red eyes staring at the temple gates as it moved toward them step by step. “Let me out! LET ME OUT!” Blood gathered at its feet, and chains pierced bone and flesh, dragging Lin back with a death-grip. It shredded the floor with its fingers. “Fubai, let me out! I am willing to give up all my hatred and malice! I promise never to harm the living on the ground again! I am willing to trade my life to bring them back! I BEG YOU!”

In the blood-churning temple, no one answered the Evil God’s plea, and… no one heard it.

The blood-red eye at the bottom of the floating tower wept blood, which dripped down but had no corrosive power.

Shan had never felt so exhilarated. It grabbed Lin Yang’s hair, turning his face toward that massive eye. “Evil God, you say Lin Yang’s self-healing ability is so powerful—if I dismember him, can he still be pieced back together? Ha, let’s start by cutting off his head.”

As Shan swung the knife, a slender hand caught the blade and crushed it raw. Lin Yang kicked Shan back, a fire-burning blade pressed against Shan’s neck. His black eyes were wrapped in a thousand years of ice. “You said… what performance was next?”

The fire scorched Shan’s neck. It felt a horrific pressure a feeling it hadn’t even experienced facing Lin. Something about Lin Yang had changed. It trembled. “You… you… you were playing dead just now?”

Lin Yang’s entire face was covered in blood. “Sorry, I accidentally ‘died’ for a bit, giving a piece of trash like you time to do evil.”

Nightmare overlapped with nightmare, and Lin Yang’s spirit had taken a severe hit; in the terms of a normal human body, he had gone into shock. A drop of fresh red blood-tear fell onto Lin Yang’s face, mixing with the blood on his cheek. Lin Yang raised his heavily dizzy head and looked into that massive silver-white eye now swallowed by fresh blood.

“Lin, do not weep for me.”

“I am back.”