Chapter 129: Swallowing the City

The thunderous advance of the Mother of Corpses disrupted the restless thoughts of Li Kangshan. When he finally came to his senses, he realized the entire city had fallen into complete silence.

Those who originally had no leisure to roam the streets were nowhere to be found.

Everything in the real world remained intact—no mountain-like explosions, no collapsing stones from the sky—but sometimes, calmness is more terrifying than chaos.

Li Kangshan felt increasingly uneasy but dared not stop to investigate.

Returning to the city walls, Li Kangshan gazed upon the crowd, frozen like clay sculptures. The ominous feeling in his heart became reality, and he exclaimed in shock, "What happened?"

At that moment, a faint sound came from nearby. Li Kangshan tightened his grip on his blade and stepped back two paces.

From the motionless crowd, a burly man rose—Xu Xiaoke, who had returned early and was clearly investigating something here.

With a stern expression, Xu Xiaoke looked at Li Kangshan and said, “Their vital signs are all normal; they’re just all asleep. The only ability I can think of that causes this is the Zerg's psychic paralysis.”

Li Kangshan was startled again, “The Zerg? We've encountered the Zerg?”

Xu Xiaoke frowned, “Don’t ask me—I don’t know either. The Zerg’s psychic paralysis can almost instantly kill all low-level troops, but to cover an entire city like this... Without external devices, you’d need at least a level-six brain bug to have this kind of power. But if a brain bug had truly arrived on this planet, it would have already begun building its embryonic structures and spawning troops. Then all living creatures here would either be fertilizer or specimens.”

Li Kangshan pondered, “Then it shouldn’t be the Zerg... but still...”

He felt a bit frantic.

He was just an ordinary man, raised under the glow of materialism. Apart from watching some entertainment programs, he never associated himself with gods, demons, or the Zerg. It was like asking a medical student to study advanced mathematics—not only confusing but not even knowing if “1” truly represents “1.”

In such a situation, how was he any different from a fool?

Perhaps a fool could still break the deadlock with instinct.

Although Xu Xiaoke was experienced, he was just a soldier on a vast battlefield—strong in combat, but probably not well-versed in academics, something he himself wouldn’t believe. So they couldn’t count on him for much help in understanding the situation.

But soon, they would never have to ponder these troublesome questions again.

Because not far away, the full form of the Mother of Corpses had clearly appeared before everyone. Unfortunately, the only true witnesses were probably just Li Kangshan and Xu Xiaoke.

This enormous flesh mountain's surface writhed with various severed limbs, displaying a cruel yet grandiose bloody aesthetic.

Li Kangshan clenched his teeth, thinking of Xiluoya, who had never returned.

Xu Xiaoke stepped onto the battlements, sticking his head out and staring fixedly at the Mother of Corpses, as if trying to memorize this monster returned from hell.

Acting purely on instinct, the Mother of Corpses paid no heed to the anomaly ahead. When still about a hundred meters from the city wall, it suddenly whipped out thick tendrils of flesh and blood, driving them hard into the wall, penetrating several meters deep.

The entire wall trembled. Li Kangshan inhaled sharply. The sheer force of a single tendril could shake such a massive wall—he couldn’t even imagine what would happen once the creature fully approached.

One tendril was followed by two, three, four, five, six... dozens of tendrils embedded fiercely in the wall, pulling it to emit ominous creaks continuously.

Using the leverage of these pulls, the Mother of Corpses seemed to gain two extra points of speed.

Li Kangshan looked down from above; the limbs on the tendrils wriggled as they extended outward, seemingly trying to escape or perhaps seeking a scapegoat to drag inside.

However, the situation took another strange turn.

From behind the mountain-like Mother of Corpses, a vast gray-red shadow suddenly rose, engulfing the creature entirely.

The shadow poured down like a waterfall, completely covering the Mother of Corpses in flowing gray-red substance, slowly melting it.

Li Kangshan’s eyes widened in disbelief.

The once arrogant mountain of flesh and blood was devoured like a shrimp by an even larger, more terrifying monster before his eyes.

This new creature was less a monster and more a writhing pool of gray-red mercury, shimmering with metallic luster.

After swallowing the Mother of Corpses, it surged forward with momentum, washing against the base of the city wall. It barely stirred up a splash before effortlessly corroding a large section of the wall’s thickest, most solid foundation, leaving behind a sponge-like hollow at the edge with white stone powder occasionally falling.

Clearly, this monster was Adongsa.

Xu Xiaoke straightened up. This creature’s strength far exceeded that of the Mother of Corpses, but because it was so enormous and terrifying, it oddly lacked the sense of oppression.

Like how ants fear humans but rarely fear the sun.

But that didn’t mean ants couldn’t distinguish weight or importance. Ants don’t fear the sun, but neither do they perish from sunlight.

Xu Xiaoke used his log-thick arms to hoist Li Kangshan, swiftly descending the escape ladder. His elephantine legs landed steadily on a nearby building, jumping farther away.

Adongsa paid no attention to these two insignificant ants; it simply pressed its jelly-like body against the city wall.

Almost without a sound, the towering wall vanished into the writhing flood of gray-red.

The cellular tissue on the wall’s surface transformed into tiny digging machines, each fitted with diamond-hard drill bits at the front. Nano-bionic filaments combined with various mimic lever and gear-shaped proteins formed an unprecedented miniature, highly efficient transmission device. The drills spun like real mechanical bits, effortlessly boring through the wall.

Though the stone wall appeared smooth and solid, magnified at the cellular level, it revealed countless pits and valleys. Applying force along these grooves easily destroyed the stone.

What seemed like a mere tidal wave striking a cliff was actually billions upon billions of tiny drills gnawing at the pockmarked stone.

Adongsa shredded and consumed all matter it touched with its cellular tissue, devouring everything completely.

Semi-permanent solidification magic was powerless against such crude destruction, dissolving into scattered fluctuations and vanishing.

Yet the people and dragons standing on the wall remained perfectly preserved, wrapped deep within Adongsa’s gray-red core.

In its plan, these things still had great use.

The entire city disappeared beneath Adongsa’s flowing body, replaced by the eerie gray-red flesh, upon which strange organ-like structures grew.

Blood vessels of varying thickness crisscrossed the surface—not chaotic but resembling a rusted factory that had come to life, perfectly merging biological and mechanical styles. It was cold and decadent yet pulsing with an intense, eerie vitality, mysterious and imbued with an indescribable sexual undertone.

The flesh tubes pulsed slightly, while the organs emitted chilling steam and mucus. Any segment alone made for a horrifying sight.

The entire battlefield looked as if one city was greedily devouring another.

This was a biological marvel perfectly fusing organic and inorganic matter. Even the true Zerg could not so effortlessly transform and consume.

As long as the rules of this conventional universe held, no creature could so wantonly alter its life form or push chemical reaction rates to such dizzying extremes.

Adongsa’s rampant actions soon drew the attention of the city’s true master.