Chapter 70: “The Snake Crowded in the Sheep’s Belly, Swallowing Its Organs.” 【Partial Forum】

Chapter 70: "The Snake Coiled in the Sheep's Belly, Devouring Its Entrails." [Partial Forum Excerpt]

"Snakes are common predators in the wild. Have you ever watched snakes hunt?"

"As is well known, snakes do not tear their prey apart like big cats such as tigers or leopards, nor do they make a bloody mess while ripping open prey—they prefer methods such as constriction, swallowing prey whole, and ambush tactics. Deadly yet elegant, these techniques seem to embody their unique hunting philosophy."

"Today, I wish to share a traveler's tale that also involves snakes."

"While passing through the famous Frostbloom Plains of the Second Dimension, I unexpectedly came across an antelope that had fallen from a cliff, with its neck broken in death."

"On impulse, I decided to observe the daily life of wild animals and lingered near the carcass. Soon, the fresh corpse emitted a rich scent of fresh blood and meat, attracting hungry vultures that pecked out its eyes and tore open its belly, enjoying their gruesome feast."

"After the vultures left, I thought the feast had ended... until I noticed something wriggling beneath the blood-soaked fur of the antelope."

"Driven by curiosity, I pried open the antelope’s abdomen and saw the creature nestled inside—a snake."

"The snake was coiled within the belly of the antelope, many times its own size, its jaws unhinged as it swallowed the organs one by one—first the lungs, then the liver, followed by the heart..."

"No wonder many religious texts use the snake as a symbol of cunning and intelligence. One must admit, they may be born as the most deceitful and ruthless hunters."

—Excerpt from *Feodora Farr’s Travel Notes*

...

Yi Fengchu raised his head, carefully observing his surroundings.

The fleshy walls curved gently, forming an arched structure above him—Yi Fengchu deduced that he was currently inside a long passageway.

Just this section alone, whether it was a digestive tract or some other organ, measured over ten meters in diameter, as spacious as a mountain tunnel. It was hard to imagine how enormous the complete form of this entity must be.

Not far away, the sound of dripping fluid echoed intermittently through the silent passageway, like the metronome's steady beat.

There was almost no light here, but Yi Fengchu did not rely on sight to see. His sharp eyes caught sight of crudely scratched tally marks into a section of the fleshy wall, as if someone had once recorded the passing days here.

Yi Fengchu stepped closer to examine them. Looking upward, he saw the marks clustered densely from bottom to top, stretching all the way to the ceiling of the passageway. The handwriting, initially neat and orderly, gradually became increasingly frantic and uneven...

The dense strokes seemed to weave a tight-knit web, threatening to envelop him entirely.

After a moment of silent contemplation, Yi Fengchu suddenly spoke, "I don’t like this place."

This passageway evoked a sense of déjà vu while also dragging overwhelming loneliness, like a surging tide.

He thought that perhaps, long ago, he had waited here for an eternity—long enough to cover the walls with tally marks.

This environment was like an invisible filleting knife, peeling away skin, slicing flesh, severing tendons, and draining blood, until even the bones were ground to dust. Then, from the wreckage of suffering, it would mold a new, unfamiliar, feral version of himself.

Given enough time, even human thoughts and feelings would likely fade away entirely.

Yi Fengchu heard his phone let out what sounded like a sigh before it asked, "What do you plan to do now?"

His expression cooled, becoming as impassive as an emotionless statue.

"Of course, I’ll eliminate the source of my displeasure," he replied.

No sooner had he spoken than countless snakes surged forth from the silvery radiance around him, taking shape.

The once vaguely human silhouette twisted into a grotesque, nightmarish nest of serpents—the thinnest among them as thick as a bowl, the largest far beyond human imagination.

They hissed in what seemed like fury, a prelude to attack, before slithering and climbing along the fleshy walls of the passageway, their gaping jaws tearing into the flesh around them.

Breaking from their usual feeding patterns, the snakes began devouring the Old God’s organs, flesh, and sinews from the inside out...

This was a slow, methodical consumption from within, like filling the ocean with sand—an irreversible process.

With so many snakes, gaping wounds soon riddled every visible surface. The serpents forced their way through the wounds, their pristine white scales now stained with a golden-red fluid resembling blood.

Some of the more agile snakes burrowed quickly, their tails vanishing into the holes as they pushed outward, outward, outward...

Biting, tearing, and burrowing without end.

The owner of this organic passageway seemed to feel the relentless, excruciating pain as well.

The fleshy walls trembled violently, spasming as the entire space convulsed, as though the entity was writhing in agony, perhaps even slamming its body against the ground in a futile attempt to dull the torment.

A seismic upheaval rocked the space like a violent earthquake.

Yet the silver figure, supported by countless serpentine bodies, remained suspended midair, utterly motionless. No matter how the Old God thrashed, Yi Fengchu’s form stayed fixed in place, like an unshakable silver moon that would never fall.

The snakes were his eyes, his limbs, his most reliable weapons.

Gradually, the Old God’s struggles weakened.

The tremors subsided, leaving only the faint pulsing of the fleshy walls and veins as proof that life still lingered.

—But not for long.

Because Yi Fengchu sensed that one of the snakes had reached the Old God’s inky-black heart, its golden eyes fixed unblinkingly on the rhythm of its beats.

Then, the serpent’s body swelled to several times its size, its fangs dripping with blood as it opened its maw and swallowed the heart whole.

Scorching golden-red blood rained down like a storm.

The droplets brushed past Yi Fengchu’s silver-tinged figure but failed to stain him crimson.

Under the relentless assault, the thick fleshy walls grew thinner and thinner, eventually becoming translucent enough to reveal faint light from beyond.

Sensing the moment had come, Yi Fengchu gripped his long-handled black umbrella and approached a particularly gruesome wound. Raising the umbrella high, he—

With a sickening *squelch*, he mercilessly tore the wound wider, the cold, hard tip of the umbrella piercing through flesh to create a hole where light seeped in.

"That should be enough..."

Yi Fengchu murmured softly after a brief inspection. Then, he drove the umbrella’s tip back into the hole and, with a forceful pull, sliced downward.

A muffled, shrill scream seemed to echo as the flesh split open before him, forming a gaping "door" large enough for a person to pass through.

More golden-red blood poured down. Yi Fengchu wrinkled his nose in distaste, opening the umbrella to shield himself as he stepped through the gruesome portal he had carved.

The moment he crossed the threshold, Yi Fengchu almost turned back, curious to see the Old God that had once made him willingly isolate himself for so long—to witness the colossal form it took.

But the manifested scene was fragile, collapsing into nothingness in an instant.

All Yi Fengchu glimpsed was a shadowy mass stretching like mountain ranges, with what appeared to be two spiraling horns on its forehead, reminiscent of a demon from myth.

"...A goat?"

The guess had barely left his lips when he returned to the original scene from Luo Shengle’s memories.

The quiet residential building reappeared before him, the cool night breeze gently brushing away the lingering scent of blood clinging to him.

With a sigh, Yi Fengchu made his way "home" under the umbrella, gilt-red blood still oozing from its edges, tracing his passage.

……

Unusually, there was no "mother" standing nose-to-nose with her by the bedside in the dead of night, nor a "little sister" persistently scratching the bedboard from beneath. Xiao Luo, enjoying an undisturbed sleep, actually felt strangely unsettled by it.

Could such a safe and tranquil sleeping environment truly be hers to have in this dungeon run?

Perhaps out of habit for restless nights, Xiao Luo still woke up unexpectedly once during the deep night.

Groggily propping herself up, she instinctively murmured a heartfelt thought: "All praise to Fate..." Then, feeling her way along the wall, she climbed down from the bed, intending to pour herself some water from the living room.

As she passed through the empty living room, Xiao Luo suddenly snapped to attention, a question slipping into her mind:

Where had Mr. Narrator's divine incarnation gone?

Had he gone out?

Truly befitting a divine incarnation, to walk so calmly and composedly into the night—the most dangerous time in the instance.

In all her days here, she had never dared to glance outside at night, under the relentless gaze of "mother" and other monsters...

While marveling, Xiao Luo couldn't quite suppress her curiosity. She leaned her arms on the windowsill and squinted downward.

At that moment, clouds outside happened to obscure the moonlight, leaving the starless, moonless night like a still black pond, enveloping everything in an eerie chill.

Utter stillness reigned. No lights shone below the building, save for a silvery outline resembling a young man, emitting a soft glow like a sharp, cold blade splitting open the boundless chaos of the night.

Xiao Luo went rigid.

She had only looked casually, never imagining to coincidentally actually spot the incarnation's return.

But... was he holding an umbrella?

It wasn't raining outside, was it?

Sleep fog dulled Xiao Luo's usual quick thinking. Driven by raw curiosity, she didn't avert her gaze immediately but instead stared more intently.

From a distance, she just barely discerned that the divine incarnation held what appeared to be a large, long-handled umbrella. Its deep black surface nearly blended into the night, save for something resembling flickering red flames oozing down the fabric and dripping onto the ground.

After staring for a few seconds, Xiao Luo suddenly held her breath.

That red substance seemed to be some kind of liquid.

So, what liquid could be nearly red?

—Blood.

Xiao Luo could only think of blood. And considering the liquid's unusual hue, pulsing faintly with a golden tinge amidst the red...

She concluded it was most likely the blood of something non-human.

Though it wasn't raining tonight, the divine incarnation walked under an umbrella, outside of which fell a blood-rain of slaughter, plinking wetly onto the ground.

Just as Xiao Luo rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes in shock, the white figure below seemed to keenly sense the gaze from above. The umbrella tilted slightly upward as he shot a glance toward the window.

Though the incarnation's face was featureless—only a halo of light resembling the moon's reflection on water—Xiao Luo inexplicably felt that his gaze was deathly cold and severe, utterly unlike his usual gentleness.

Xiao Luo immediately averted her eyes and retreated indoors, slapping her own cheek: "I must still be half-asleep—how could I spy on the incarnation like that!"

If she had to imagine eyes for him, she could only picture Classmate Yi's bottomless dark eyes—mysterious, profound, and intensely distant.

Hold on—

The mental haze in her mind grew thinner. Fragments of Luo Shengle's memories began to surface, bursting forth in disjointed flashes. Xiao Luo stood rooted, mind reeling.

Classmate Yi... Classmate E... What a coincidence, their names are homophones...

No, could this really just be a coincidence?

In a trance, Xiao Luo finished her water and shuffled back to her bedroom like a ghost, faceplanting into the mattress.

She tried to shake off the crazy idea—how could her neighbor, some underclassman, possibly be a demigod of the True God? It must just be a freak coincidence in names...

Yet moments later, still unable to sleep, she bolted upright in astonishment and opened the forum.

No. 796 (OP):

Good evening, everyone. Can't sleep for shit...

No. 797:

Oh? You're up late, OP. What happened?

No. 798 (OP):

Well... two things.

First, when I got up at night, I happened to see the incarnation returning from outside, seemingly having just killed something—he was dripping with blood.

No. 799:

Hmm, kinda hardcore, but not too shocking?

At least he didn’t kill you. If he’s feeling murdery for fun, that’s not too strange.

No. 800:

I’m guessing the second thing is what's eating at you (laughs).

No. 81:

Do tell!

No. 802 (OP):

Just now, it dawned on me—the Divine Son "Classmate E" mentioned in that other thread has the same exact name as my neighbor across the hall.

It might just be a placeholder name the other OP used, but it’s such a coincidence that I can't shake the feeling... I might actually know that Divine Son.

No. 803:

The hell?

No. 804:

???

OP, how do y'all keep bumping into big shots like this?

№805:

On the bright side, perhaps your guess is wrong, and it's just a coincidence? Maybe you're just overthinking things for now.

№806 (OP):

I hope I'm just overthinking this at midnight (sigh)

№807 (OP):

Let's not talk about it for now. I'll go check out the neighboring thread in detail and come back later.

№808:

I hereby appoint the OP as the Chief Detective and War Correspondent of the Chat Zone! Charge ahead!

№809:

OP, keep up the good work on solving the mystery; we're all waiting for your updates (spectating)

№810:

This story just gets more intriguing, who would have thought it might turn out to be a series...