Wu Xiaode looked ahead.
Cold sweat streamed down his neck to his back, erupting into waves of bone-chilling coldness, yet he was oblivious to it.
——Sitting atop a pile of bones, hundreds of meters in front of him, was a monster.
It was a One-eyed Giant.
Its figure was immensely huge; even when sitting atop a hill-like pile of skeletons, it was as tall as a three-story building.
"Ptui, the flesh of you humans tastes terrible,"
the giant griped, grabbing a skeleton and chewing on it as it complained.
Its gaze was filled with viciousness and cruelty, blood spattered from its mouth, and its skin, coated with a layer of dark gray, looked like hard rock.
When had Wu Xiaode ever seen such a hellish view?
Was this a dream?
He stretched out his trembling hand and fiercely pinched the flesh on his waist.
——It was not a dream.
Why was he in such a terrifying place?
A voice suddenly came from behind:
"You three are the last batch to enter here,"
Wu Xiaode spun around to look.
He saw a little girl, covered in wounds and leaning against a corner of the wall, her face smeared with blood, seemingly not long for this world.
She said—
Three people?
Wu Xiaode followed her gaze and looked beside him.
When, he did not know, but two other people had indeed appeared beside him.
One was a man wearing a conical hat, dressed in a full set of night clothes, tightly holding a long sword that emitted a bone-chilling coldness, looking around cautiously.
The other was an old man, leaning on a deep black scepter, intermittently releasing bursts of heart-palpitating aura.
A masked nightwalker, an old man, himself.
That made exactly three people.
"May I ask, why have I appeared here?" the masked man asked warily.
The little girl was about to answer but suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood and couldn't speak.
Seeing this, the old man turned his head to look at the Corpse Mountain and the One-eyed Giant hundreds of meters away and frowned, saying, "The One-eyed Giant is a monster from mythical legends... So this is the place."
Upon hearing this, both Wu Xiaode and the masked man involuntarily turned to him.
"Sir, do you know where this is?"
the masked man asked cautiously.
The old man nodded, saying, "I know a legend about 'Death Demon Cave'—"
"When a living being falls into an inescapable fate of death, there is a certain chance they will enter here—The One-eyed Giant is in this demon cave; its strength is incredibly frightening, and once anyone enters here, they can never leave but will only be eaten by the One-eyed Giant."
The old man finished speaking, his face turning pale.
The masked man also shivered, whispering, "Are you saying that we are actually already dead?"
"Even if we aren't dead yet, we will be soon—death is the fate that relentlessly pursues us; that's why we've appeared here," the old man said softly.
The masked man looked down at the sword in his hands, lost in thought, saying, "I was exploring a secret ancient ruin; from the deepest part's numerous traps, I took away this treasured sword, and then the whole ruin began to collapse."
The old man turned his head to Wu Xiaode and asked, "Young man, what were you doing before you were transported here?"
"I was fighting with someone," Wu Xiaode said.
"Fighting?" the masked man followed up.
"It's strange… It was just an ordinary brawl, but someone hid in the shadows and stabbed me in the back," Wu Xiaode replied truthfully.
"Then that's right," the old man glanced at the masked man, and then at Wu Xiaode, "one of you would have been killed by the ruin's traps, and one stabbed to death in an ambush, and today, I was dueling with an enemy."
The three fell into silence.
Death—
So they had already fallen into an inescapable situation, and that's why they were brought to this Death Demon Cave?
It sounded so absurd.
The masked man still couldn't believe it and turned to the little girl, asking, "Young lady, what is your situation?"
The little girl could now speak, and she said, "I encountered an assassination in the wild."
Wu Xiaode's heart slowly sank as he looked around.
The ground was strewn with people in uniform Battle Armor, all killed, their bodies torn apart and lying in pools of blood.
These people seemed to be the little girl's escorts.
Among them were a few valiant fighters wielding weapons, and some were maids—
There was even one with a full set of barbecue equipment, a chef.
Even a chef...
It seemed that these people were not prepared to fight the giant; rather, like himself, they had accidentally entered this place.
It added up again.
One person being in danger and ending up here could still be called a coincidence.
Now everyone found themselves in different perilous situations and then showed up here.
That proved the old man's words.
"Yes, this is the legendary Death Demon Cave; it seems we are the ones chosen by fate, all destined to die here," the old man sighed.
The masked man trembled, clutched the sword to his chest, took a step back, and exclaimed, "No... it shouldn't be like this, I finally got this sword after so much difficulty."
No one responded to him.
Wu Xiaode also clenched his teeth—
Chosen by fate?
To die here?
I'm just an ordinary person, why should this befall me!
"No, that's not right," Wu Xiaode suddenly spoke up.
Everyone looked at him.
"Everyone around you is dead, yet you're still alive; why has this giant spared you?" he asked the little girl.
The little girl managed a bitter smile and said, "The reason I'm not dead yet is that the giant wanted to leave something fresh, to eat later."