Final Ending

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I'm going to die, I'm going to die!

Lu Yuanming knew this all too well—if his broken leg couldn't retract and curl up inside the hollow, the monsters would drag him out and, as a matter of course, tear him to shreds and devour him completely.

At the same time, Lu Yuanming could also hear the noises outside; the monsters had come down from the rooftop. He had absolutely no way to hide, his only option was to fend for his life in this hollow, truly cornered with no way out, hoping only that the weight and thickness of these broken walls could fend off the monsters.

And that was only if the monsters didn't possess some sort of supernatural power.

As the sound of the monsters crawling grew increasingly closer, Lu Yuanming's whole body involuntarily began to shiver. He looked at his broken left leg, his hands unconsciously tearing and groping around, when suddenly, he felt a piece of broken stone—it was part of the collapsed wall that had fallen off. A thought surged into Lu Yuanming's mind, and in this life-or-death moment, he mustered the last of his courage, picking up the stone and starting to smash it against his twisted left leg.

With a snap, Lu Yuanming let out a muffled groan. The excruciating pain sent him into indescribable tremors, but whether it was because he had already died once, or perhaps he was now some kind of soul, he did not lose consciousness. Instead, he fully tasted this ultimate agony. Meanwhile, the crawling and the chaotic noises outside grew louder and more urgent. Clenching his teeth, Lu Yuanming began to frantically pound his left leg with the chunk of stone in his hand.

His entire left leg was smashed until it was bloody and dripping. Previously, when the black vagrant had hit him on the knee, his leg had bent backward from the knee. Now, as Lu Yuanming fought for his life, pounding fiercely, the bones at the knee joint of his entire left leg were exposed, almost smashed apart.

Just then, several dark shadows hurled themselves at him from the room's main door, crowding and attacking each other, all desperate to pounce toward the hollow where Lu Yuanming was. Amidst the chaos resembling a swirling storm of sand and stones, Lu Yuanming's fear had peaked, his hands pounding his left leg with all the strength he had.

Suddenly, a tremendous pulling force came from his left leg, nearly pulling him out of the hollow. Thankfully, some rebar had jutted out within the hollow, trapping one of his arms and keeping him from being pulled out.

Outside the hollow, a monster had already reached the entrance, using its... well, it had a humanoid upper body, so it was using its hands to grab Lu Yuanming's broken leg, trying to pull with force to drag it out. But at the same time, two more monsters pounced forward, interrupting the pulling. So, Lu Yuanming was not yet torn from the hollow.

This was the last second of a life-and-death moment. Lu Yuanming, frantic, found his mind a complete blank, his hands pounding his left leg with the stone in a frenzy. Then, suddenly, the monster outside yanked his left leg outward with force, and amidst a ripping sound, his mostly smashed leg, barely hanging on by some skin and flesh, was torn off from the knee. Overwhelmed by tremendous pain, Lu Yuanming could no longer bear it and let out a dreadful scream.

But this did not affect the three monsters outside the hollow at all; they began to fight over Lu Yuanming's torn off lower leg. As soon as a monster grabbed the leg, its human face would start gnawing on it—though human, its expression was as ghastly as that of evil spirits.

There were more than a dozen monsters in total. While these three fought over the lower leg, other monsters, drawn by the scent of blood in the room, did not press in due to the small space and the relatively faint smell of blood. As the three monsters struck and bit in frenzy, the others continued to chase down the stairwell.

By this point, Lu Yuanming was in so much pain that his consciousness became blurred, yet he could not pass out. In a moment teetering between life and death, he dared not faint. After smashing his lower leg, he immediately coiled the remaining part of his thigh upward. This only intensified the pain, causing blood to spurt wildly. Bone and flesh scraped against the protruding rebar, making Lu Yuanming scream even louder.

In just two to three seconds, Lu Yuanming's lower leg had been torn to shreds by the three monsters. Then one of the monsters stretched its hand toward the hollow, its clawed fingers reaching for Lu Yuanming's coiled legs.

The claws were withered and pitch-black, but about one and a half times larger than an average human hand, with long, black nails. As it clawed aimlessly, sparks flew off the rebar under its nails, and with the monster's arm being longer than usual, about eighty centimeters or so, it managed to graze Lu Yuanming's curled-up legs.

While it couldn't pull Lu Yuanming out of the hollow, the claws tore away quite a bit of flesh from his coiled thighs.

This made Lu Yuanming's screams relentless, and the scent of blood and meat made the three monsters outside the hollow even more frenzied and agitated. They roared and bit at each other, tumbling around in an attempt to seize the entrance to the hollow. All three monsters wanted to tear Lu Yuanming apart and devour his flesh alone.

Now, Lu Yuanming had reached the point of no return, with no ideas left to try, only able to squeeze deeper into the hollow as much as possible, coiling his legs with all his strength, pain be damned. At this moment, he was purely fighting for his life, one might even say gambling with it, betting that he could survive long enough in the hollow to pass through to the other side again.

Gradually, the three monsters kept fighting fiercely, with some attempting to lift the barrier, but this barrier was a pit formed by the collapse of a load-bearing wall and pillar of the building. The weight was so great that even the monsters couldn't easily move it. Therefore, they still fought around the hole, with one occasionally reaching in to claw and tear indiscriminately. Although they couldn't manage to drag Lu Yuanming out completely, they did claw his legs until they were a blurred mess of blood and flesh.

Perhaps it was because he had lost a lot of blood... Heaven knows why the soul of someone who had died could still bleed. In any case, Lu Yuanming's consciousness began to blur, although his mind was highly focused. He felt something like a fragmented vagueness, which filled him with both shock and horror. He could only stare fixedly at the hole's entrance, watching as the monsters reached their claws inside from time to time.

Gradually, simply reaching in was no longer satisfying for the monsters, which became increasingly violent and actually began to truly harm one another. Using their claws and teeth, the three monsters truly engaged in a vicious battle, which gave Lu Yuanming a moment of relief. However, this relief didn't last long, as the monsters seemed to have their own set of rules for coexistence. After a brief bout of fighting, two of them retreated and left the room.

The one that stayed behind was undoubtedly the strongest of the three.

Lu Yuanming thought to himself, and then he saw the monster stretch its face to the entrance of the pit. In his disbelieving gaze, the monster's head extended into the hole like a snake. The human face had twisted and deformed beyond recognition, the mouth opening wider and wider, truly becoming like that of a snake with a human face.

Lu Yuanming pressed back with all his might, but he had already reached the limit of how far he could go. The monster's head extended at least eighty centimeters, coming within less than ten centimeters of his coiled legs. Unable to contain himself any longer, Lu Yuanming screamed out loud, but the monster ignored him, simply opening its mouth wide before biting down on his severed thigh.

The mouth, with its human face, was filled with sharp canine teeth. With one bite, it tore off a large chunk of flesh. The monster swallowed the flesh raw and then continued tearing at Lu Yuanming's leg.

Lu Yuanming could only let himself be torn apart like a lamb awaiting slaughter. Each bite made his screams all the more harrowing, but his cries were meaningless against the monster. In just a few bites, the flesh on Lu Yuanming's thigh had almost been completely stripped away, while the monster made hissing sounds and bit down on his thighbone, continuing to tear at it, even attempting to drag Lu Yuanming out of the pit.

"Die, die, die, die..."

Lu Yuanming suddenly bellowed furiously, his terror reaching an extreme and suddenly giving way to unreasoning rage.

He gave up curling up and instead hurled the sharp stones in his hand at the monster's head. Whether by sheer luck or not, the sharp edge of the stone struck the monster's eyeball. The first sensation he felt was as if he had hit something rubbery, but the monster's eyeball was certainly not made of rubber; the stone actually pierced through it.

The monster attempted to retreat, but for some reason, it clung stubbornly to Lu Yuanming's thighbone. Lu Yuanming's arm was stuck on a piece of rebar. Although the monster was much stronger than Lu Yuanming, its posture, attempting to withdraw its head, didn't allow it to use its full strength. As a result, it couldn't retract its head fully, and Lu Yuanming, with one hand clutching the rebar and the other wielding the stone, furiously bashed at the monster's forehead and eyeball.

One, two, ten, a hundred times...

Lu Yuanming himself didn't know how many times he had struck, his lower body having completely lost sensation, while the arm he used to hit the monster's head felt dislocated, his fingers swollen like small radishes. Yet, he did not cease, crazed as he pummeled the monster's head. After what felt like an eternity, the monster released its bite and tried to retreat, while making continuous noises from its mouth.

In that moment, whether out of mental breakdown or something else, Lu Yuanming reached out and plunged his fingers into the monster's ruptured eyeball, digging and tearing with all his might. Simultaneously, with complete disregard for his own life, he propped up his upper body and bit into the monster's other eye.

The monster's screams intensified, but its speed in withdrawing its head slowed. Gradually, it ceased moving, trapped at the entrance of the pit, while Lu Yuanming, animalistic in his frenzy, roared and tore at the monster's head and savagely jabbed into its eyeball...

During this violent struggle, Lu Yuanming glimpsed white specks of light emerging from the monster's body. Most of the light particles dissipated in the air, with a few landing on Lu Yuanming's skin and into his mouth.

After some unknown time, Lu Yuanming's voice was utterly hoarse, and his movements grew weak and stiff. At that moment, he once again sensed an opportunity to cross over, an indescribable sensation, but he knew he could travel once more. Without a second thought, he initiated the transition.

The very next second, Lu Yuanming found himself back in a vegetative state, unable to feel his body, unable to move or express, enveloped by darkness and faint surrounding sounds, while the intense pain of his torn body turned into an immense feeling of fatigue and weakness.

Almost instantly, Lu Yuanming finally succumbed to a blissful unconsciousness.