Chapter 1297: A Cannibal World
When the Black Sheep dragged his exhausted body to the spot the Ground Monkey had designated, he stopped dead outside the door.
The room was too quiet.
As long as Money-Losing Tiger was awake… the room he was in could never be this quiet.
His expression dark, the Black Sheep lowered his head and saw blood seeping through the crack under the door, spreading out across the corridor.
Several "Ants" were pacing outside the door, their feet treading through the sticky blood as they stared back and forth at the silent door, seemingly confused as well.
There were faint sounds coming from inside, but clearly not the noise of a fight.
The Black Sheep reached out several times to push the door open, but he lacked the courage.
What would he see once he opened it?
Money-Losing Tiger's mangled corpse?
If even the slightest sound of battle had come from the room, he would have thrown the door open without hesitation and fought Sky Tiger to the death right then and there.
But now, just as he had thought… the room was far too quiet. That silence made the Black Sheep's hair stand on end.
The Black Sheep felt he had never been such a coward. He didn't even have the nerve to open the door and take a look; his whole body trembled uncontrollably.
But maybe Money-Losing Tiger had won… maybe he was badly injured and waiting inside for rescue… after all, the "Ants" hadn't stormed in directly…
The Black Sheep hesitated for a long time, going through countless mental struggles, before finally reaching out and pushing the door open. The door panel scraped across the sticky blood, drawing a fan-shaped smear on the floor.
The suffocating scene inside now met the Black Sheep's eyes.
Money-Losing Tiger's fur was completely stained with blood. He lay on the floor, his condition unknown—alive or dead—his right arm completely gone, a torrent of blood gushing from his body, nearly covering the entire room.
A child who looked only a few years old was sitting with his back to the doorway, holding a thick arm in his hands and gnawing on it with crunching sounds.
What broke the heart was that this child appeared completely unharmed.
The door swung open, and the many "Ants" outside seemed to sense something all at once, turning their gazes toward the room.
But before the "Ants" could swarm in, the Black Sheep's figure shot forward like a bolt of lightning. He charged in like a madman, knocking over furniture along the way.
Sky Tiger turned around in bewilderment, only to have his throat seized in an instant and be slammed to the ground. The arm in his hand rolled away with a clatter.
The Black Sheep's eyes were bloodshot. The excruciating pain throughout his body seemed to be suppressed by a surge of extreme rage. Before Sky Tiger could even process what was happening, a devastatingly heavy punch landed on his face, knocking out several teeth instantly.
"You freak...!" The Black Sheep pursed his lips, grabbed the baby teeth that had fallen to the floor, and stuffed them all back into Sky Tiger's mouth. "Not everyone in this world is going to indulge you..."
In a panic, Sky Tiger bit down hard, severing a few of the Black Sheep's fingers in his mouth. But the Black Sheep had no intention of letting go. He gripped Sky Tiger's throat tightly and shoved the baby teeth along with his own broken fingers down Sky Tiger's throat.
"If you want to eat, go ahead and eat your fill... I'll give you all my bones..." The Black Sheep said in despair, shoving his entire palm into Sky Tiger's mouth. "You seventy-something-year-old freak... do you think you can just eat my family whenever you want?"
Sky Tiger gagged and spat out the contents of his mouth with a clatter, then squeezed out a strange grin: "Hehe... eat you... the weak are meant to be eaten..."
"Weak..." The Black Sheep squeezed Sky Tiger's neck tightly. "If we're both 'brute force'... how could Money-Losing Tiger be weaker than you? You mistake other people's kindness for weakness, and their restraints for incompetence..."
"A weak heart is also weakness..." Sky Tiger was on the verge of suffocation. He began using his childish fingers to pry open the Black Sheep's grip. "You people with weak hearts... if I don't eat you, the world will... it's all the same..."
The Black Sheep's strength was sustained entirely by anger. As the stalemate dragged on, his power gradually waned.
"Just let yourself be eaten..." Sky Tiger pried the Black Sheep's hands apart and chuckled dryly. "Your family's meat tastes really good... I wonder how you'll taste...?"
"We won't be eaten," the Black Sheep said coldly. "This world can't devour us... and neither can you. The one who should be eaten by this world is you."
With the very last of his strength, he pressed down hard on Sky Tiger's small body, then used his broken-fingered hand to pull a dagger from behind him and thrust it into Sky Tiger's belly.
But his strength had already faded completely. The blade only carved a deep gash a few centimeters long across Sky Tiger's reinforced body.
"Haha!" Sky Tiger lay on the ground, flailing his arms and legs in glee. "The food has no strength! No strength left!"
The Black Sheep let out a cold laugh, tossed the dagger aside, and pulled a "Dao" from his pocket, saying in a hoarse voice:
"All the 'Dao' I owe Money-Losing Tiger... this one pays them off in full..."
As soon as he finished speaking, he placed the "Dao" on Sky Tiger's belly, pressing it deep into the wound. Before Sky Tiger could understand what this meant, the Black Sheep let go and collapsed weakly to the side.
Then a horde of pale figures surged forward. They were incredibly strong, each one seeming to have the physique of the "Earth Realm."
Startled, Sky Tiger scrambled to his feet and tried to run, but an "Ant" immediately grabbed his ankle.
They slammed Sky Tiger hard onto the floor and began groping around his back.
"Ah! What the hell is this! Grandma Ma! Grandma Ma!"
Before his cries for help could travel far, he felt a sharp pain in his back. One of the eyeballs there seemed to have been plucked out alive.
Then a second, then a third.
"Ahhh! Ahhh!"
The stabbing pain made Sky Tiger's head spin, but he quickly calmed down… because he realized that these things seemed to only be targeting the eyes on his back.
If that was the case…
Before Sky Tiger could sigh in relief, the "Ants" sensed something unusual… there was one more eyeball in the room, hidden deep inside.
An "Ant" grabbed Sky Tiger's ankle and flipped him over, exposing his abdomen.
"No… you can't do this…" Sky Tiger froze, but the next second his hands and feet were all pinned down. "Grandma Ma! Grandma Ma, save me!"
But the "Ants" couldn't hear Sky Tiger's voice at all. They just thrust their withered, icy fingers into the wound on his abdomen and slowly tore it open.
Countless hands reached in, groping inside Sky Tiger's body for the wandering "Dao."
The more people there were, the harder the Dao became to find.
The Dao slipped through everyone's fingertips, drifting off in an instant to an even harder-to-reach spot.
Perhaps the guilty can never attain the Dao.
But at this moment, every single "Ant" at the very bottom wanted to touch that elusive hope.