That enormous demon with twelve symmetrical limbs and a human face finally walked away, her figure gradually twisting and merging into the distant chaos beneath the high, distant starry dome. Where she had once stood, only a field of dissolving, rising black bones and flesh remained, along with dozens of scarred "native creatures" struggling to regain their strength.

Several abyssal hounds struggled to their feet from the bone piles, their bone shards incomplete. Doom birds circled above the remains, searching for useful substances to restore their strength. The enormous, spiked skull slowly landed on the nearby ground, its dark red, empty eye sockets staring at the demons on the plain.

With the departure of the higher demon, a fragile and dangerous balance formed among these remaining abyssal demons, but this fleeting equilibrium would soon be shattered.

When the shared sense of fear faded, the instinct for strife and destruction would regain the upper hand—mutual slaughter and consumption was the eternal logic of the abyssal deep sea, especially in a place teeming with "food" where every demon needed to quickly recover from its injuries.

The abyssal hounds, scavenging for usable bone shards in the bone piles, first issued hostile growls towards the doom birds circling in the sky. Then came the dust jellyfish emerging from the shadows, their crooked and sinister tentacles quietly extending towards the nearby fear demons. The black skull also slowly floated up from the ground, its jaw slowly opening, dangerous energy fluctuating within…

Even after being brutally beaten by a powerful and strange "foreign demon" just moments ago, these abyssal demons could not resist falling back into mutual slaughter.

But just as the melee was about to erupt, an additional voice suddenly came from not far away, instantly interrupting the demons' actions.

The black skull was the first to detect the aura of the outsider. It suddenly rose higher, turning its head to look in the direction of the voice.

A massive shadow was walking unsteadily across the plain. It seemed to "pop" out of the air, the swelling and writhing shadows outlining a constantly changing form.

This scene resembled the "newborn demons" just born from the limbs of the Abyssal Sacred Lord—they often appeared in this chaotic, formless state until, after a period of devouring and fusion, this chaotic, formless "demon substrate" collapsed and coalesced into a specific demon "breed."

However, the uninvited guest on the wasteland was clearly not a "newborn demon"—as a mass of amorphous "demon substrate," it exuded an aura that was far too dangerous… and bizarre.

The sense of crisis caused all the abyssal demons present to instantly abandon their infighting and instinctively focus their vigilance on the swelling and writhing shadow.

A solid body slowly emerged from that shadow, a… abyssal hound constructed from countless floating fragments of bone, almost twice the size of its kin.

A'gou felt like he had a very, very long dream.

He couldn't remember the things in the dream, but he remembered going to a very, very far place. He met some people there, some friends. He lived among a group of weak but orderly creatures and spent a long time learning a set of "rules for survival."

And an equally weak… creature, always stayed by his side.

…Right, where did that weak little creature go?

He slowly raised his head, his muddled vision seeming to be covered by a thick curtain, everything in his sight appearing twisted and layered. This place… looked somewhat familiar, but it seemed like he hadn't been back for a long time.

He felt that he didn't like this place—he preferred to live with that "little creature" in a place where the sun shone.

In the hazy fog and curtain, many shadowy things gathered around him, and distant, blurry roars and murmurs came from all directions, seemingly threats, seemingly malice.

A'gou tried hard to open his eyes to see what those shadows roaring at him looked like, but he couldn't see them clearly—but gradually, he felt something else.

That feeling came from within—hunger.

He was hungry, very, very hungry, as if he hadn't eaten for a century, and then suddenly came to a… place abundant with food.

Also driven by hunger, some impressions related to that long "dream" finally began to be recalled in his muddled mind.

He recalled that weak little creature. He remembered accompanying that little guy through the long winter nights. When it was very cold, they huddled together in the house wrapped in blankets…

They shared the hot soup sent by the kind neighbors—he only ate one bite each time…

They learned together how to survive in that huge city-state, learning to understand the kindness and malice in people's hearts, learning to distinguish useful and dangerous things in the trash cans…

Begging, deception, factories, chimneys, stealing, beatings, soup kitchens, working hard, eating his fill, crying together, laughing together, together…

Living.

In the hazy, layered curtain, the roars full of threat and hostility rose and fell, becoming increasingly impatient. Then, a swift shadow suddenly rushed over from a certain direction, launching a fierce attack on him.

A'gou felt something biting him—it hurt a little.

In the swelling and writhing shadows, A'gou's skeletal head slowly lowered its gaze, and in the depths of its empty eye sockets, faint green lights flickered on and off, watching with some curiosity the… thing biting him.

An abyssal hound—it looked like one of his own kind.

A'gou's body quickly took shape in the shadows and black mist, and strangely shaped bone shards extended from his joints, helping him restore the original appearance of an abyssal hound. He watched the "kin" tearing at his body, and after a few seconds, he opened his mouth somewhat awkwardly: "Have you… seen a human? She… is my friend."

The abyssal hound tearing at A'gou's body suddenly hesitated, but it didn't understand A'gou's question—it didn't have that kind of intelligence yet.

It just sensed the great danger—in the depths of A'gou's eye sockets, which flickered with a ghostly green fire, was hidden a very familiar and terrifying aura.

This abyssal hound finally reacted, but it was too late. It had just managed to open its mouth when, in the next second, A'gou's bones all over his body instantly disintegrated and deformed—countless black bones exploded in all directions, and like a whirlwind, enveloped the attacker's figure, and in the blink of an eye, reorganized into A'gou's appearance outside the latter's body!

Mouth, inefficient eating. Whole devouring, more efficient.

The reckless attacker disappeared, leaving only A'gou's tall figure in place. The black bone shards in his torso were violently contracting and writhing, and a series of creaking, crushing, and grinding sounds came from within, accompanied by the "food's" violent struggles and muffled roars—but after only a few seconds, the struggles and roars gradually ceased, leaving only the noise of the bone shards grinding against each other.

The feeling of hunger was being relieved.

A'gou raised his head, sensing the gradual recovery of his strength.

"Demon… tasty…"

The feast began.

Amidst the roars and murmurs of countless demons, A'gou's figure suddenly turned into countless scattered and broken black bone shards, like a fragmented hurricane, sweeping across the entire wasteland—the bones cut everything within range, whether it was living demons, or the smoke and dust rising from the demons' remains on the ground, the mud flowing on the ground, even the stones on the surface and those fossilized "thorn bushes," all were torn to pieces by this hurricane and turned into "food."

Those abyssal demons who were unwilling to be devoured launched futile counterattacks. Their violent resistance filled A'gou's stomach, while some demons who were better at seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages frantically rushed to the end of the wasteland, avoiding the storm that was eating—after paying some scars, or even the price of some limbs, only a dozen demons escaped to a relatively safe place, covered in wounds.

The hurricane lasted for an unknown period of time before finally gradually dissipating in the wasteland sky, and a huge figure burning with ghostly green flames and rising black smoke condensed from the hurricane.

The feeling of hunger subsided. A'gou raised his head, looking in a certain direction in the depths of the wasteland—he vaguely felt that a familiar aura was in the distance.

It seemed like that "little creature" who had lived with him for a long time.

After a few seconds of sluggish and muddled thought, A'gou slowly turned his gaze and found a relatively large demon corpse on the devastated wasteland—he lowered his head and picked up the corpse, muttering vaguely in his throat:

"Sherry… I found food…"

He strode towards the depths of the wasteland.

In the midst of the wreckage and debris, the surviving demons rose trembling, looking blankly into the distance.

They had survived two feasts—fortunately not becoming food, at least not being eaten clean.

And that touch of ghostly green fire that appeared in the feast was still deeply imprinted in the muddled and confused minds of these demons.

It was fear, a fear that was unconditionally imprinted in the underlying logic of almost all abyssal demons, even capable of overriding their chaotic instincts.

The huge skull demon covered in spikes and completely black floated unsteadily in the air. Its body had been "gnawed" away by a third by the hurricane just now, but it still survived tenaciously—this monster, which seemed a little "smarter" than ordinary demons, shook a few times in the air, let out a garbled murmur, and then slowly flew into the distance.

But it suddenly stopped again.

The skull demon seemed to sense something, and suddenly turned its head to look at the "abyssal dome" covering the stagnant starry sky above.

A ghostly green flame, like a shooting star, was falling from the sky, plummeting straight towards this wasteland!

Perhaps the successive stimuli were too strong. At the moment when that "shooting star" appeared, a hazy and chaotic "thought" emerged in the skull demon's muddled and dull "brain"—

Ah, the third beating is coming…

(End of this chapter)