Chapter 34: Heart Eater

Even Xiao Yu’s heart was slightly throbbing at this point, but he showed no signs of abnormality on his face.
After all, he wasn’t an average man; he knew how to control his emotions and suppress his urges.

In this world, there were only two types of strong warriors.
One is a person who is bound by their convictions and may offer everything, even their life, for the people or things they value.
They believe in miracles, and those miracles have the power to make them stronger and, therefore, unstoppable.
The second kind is a person who lacks empathy and worries, as well as emotional and spiritual sustenance.
To him, a true warrior does not require emotions but weapons, as weapons were their most unshakable beliefs, and triumph was their ultimate conviction.
This kind of person can really put everything down in a fight, will go forward indomitably, just to win, and they were often unbeatable.

In his past life, Xiao Yu was fully the latter type and was likewise leaning towards the latter currently.
In truth, there were only four people on the team who could be considered his buddies, and their strength was far from enough.

“Xiao Yu, we… How long are we going to stay like this?”

Jiang Xiaowen’s heart was beating fast, and she was embarrassed by the situation, so she broke the quiet first to distract her focus.

The shrill eagle shrieking persisted incessantly, causing their eardrums to throb.
They could hear the howling gale every ten seconds, accompanied by the sound of crushed branches and foliage.
Even after everyone hid, the monsters did not give up on attacking them.

Xiao Yu turned his head and looked out; then he saw a giant eagle landing not far away and above their heads.
He shrank his neck back and said: “Those giant eagles will attack everyone to protect their baby birds; all we have to do is wait quietly until they become sidetracked.
That’s when we get out.”

Jiang Xiaowen nodded her head slightly and uttered a single “okay” She seemed to grow used to his touch, and she was no longer as tense as before, as her rigid body relaxed gradually; she also closed her eyes gently.
However, the rosy glow on her cheeks never faded.

The outside movement progressively ceased during the previous twenty minutes or so, and after another ten minutes had passed, there was finally complete stillness outside their hiding spot.
Jiang Xiaowen was relaxed, and she laid her body on Xiao Yu’s.
Her breathing was even, and she made no sound as if she was asleep.

Xiao Yu patted Jiang Xiaowen on the back and said, “let’s go out; it should be safe for now.”

Jiang Xiaowen suddenly opened her eyelids with some difficulty and said with a hint of regret in her tone: “Ah, so fast?… Oh, okay.” She struggled to get her hand out, clung to a tough tree root, and slowly scuttled outdoors.

’

Xiao Yu climbed out immediately after her.
The outside forest felt unusually quiet, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of dead leaves and sticks.
Looking up, they saw a bloody corpse hanging on the branch of a big tree not far away.
It was one of the two people taken away by the giant eagle’s first attack.
The corpse’s body had a hole in its chest as it was launched from a great height and landed on a large tree, dangling between a big bough.
The majority of its skin had been peeled off, and it was largely covered in blood, making it entirely unrecognizable.
The other corpse, though, was missing, and no one knew where the giant eagle threw it.

“Miss Han, Fatty, Stone…”

Xiao Yu cried out in a low voice, but the others nearby heard him, and the people who had been hiding came, one by one, out of their cover. 

“Is everyone all right?”

“All of our group is here.” Han Kexin counted all the students of Fine Arts school, then turned her gaze to Huang Jianmin and asked in a low voice, “what about the people from your side?”

Huang Jianmin checked his people over and over again with a strange expression on his face.

“Is there a problem?”

Huang Jianmin replied solemnly: “in addition to those killed by the eagle, two other individuals are missing…”

Han Kexin: “how’d that happen? Could they have suffered a mishap?”

Everyone decided to wait and search for the two…and in less than two minutes, a person pointed to a certain tree hole; his expression changed drastically: “Ah, I found one here!”

’

Everyone walked over and saw that hiding inside the tree hole was a young woman, just under 30 years of age, average in appearance, but was unfortunately dead.
Her skull had been punctured by someone or something, and the clothing on her chest had been ripped open, displaying one full breast on the right and a bleeding hole on the left side of her chest, where her heart had been removed.

“Wang Yunfei!” Everyone thought of that name at the same time.

Another man’s body was discovered in less than five minutes.
His manner of death was very similar to the woman’s, as he also had his heart gouged.
Now they were certain that the one who murdered him in secret was the resurrected Wang Yunfei.
The terrible deaths of numerous individuals darkened the mood, and everyone now believed that a creature who rips people’s hearts was secretly lurking around them, and the idea sent chills down their spines.

Huang Jianmin said with a gloomy expression: “Unexpectedly, this beast is still hunting us!”

Han Kexin spoke up: “If it follows us back to the underground cave, there will definitely be more casualties in the future.
We must eliminate it as quickly as possible.”

Jiang Xiaowen also looked worried, “But he’s so good at sneaking around that we can’t even detect him.”

“Doesn’t he like to engage in sneak attacks?” Han Kexin said, “We can definitely lure him out.
What do you think, Xiao Yu?”

“if he still maintains some intelligence, it’ll be problematic, but let’s give it a try.” Xiao Yu agreed with her thoughts, nodded his head, and continued, “I’ll act as the bait.”

After everyone left that dangerous location, Han Kexin and the others took the lead and walked forward, leaving Xiao Yu 500 meters behind them.
He appeared to be alone and looked defenseless without any weapons in his hands.

Then after walking like this for about half an hour, Xiao Yu keenly noticed a black shadow flashing past in the surrounding woods… Sure enough, it couldn’t hold back anymore and was about to make a move.
This also fully shows that although this Wang Yunfei was vigilant, it had no previous memories whatsoever; otherwise, it was impossible for the real ‘it’ not to know how powerful Xiao Yu is.
Wang Yunfei was still lurking and did not launch an attack yet.
Perhaps it was instinctively aware that this prey posed great danger, so it did not act for a long time.

The beast appeared to be still lingering as each minute and second passed while it still had no intention of making a move.

’

Xiao Yu scowled before he purposefully tripped over a tree root, losing his balance and falling to the ground, intentionally exposing a mistake.
Wang Yunfei was startled and eventually stopped watching as it saw him about to fall to the ground, and as though an arrow on a readied crossbow was unleashed, it rushed out, heading like a flash toward his direction.
Xiao Yun, who was about to tumble down, instantly slapped his left hand on the ground, causing his body to spring back up.
His eyes turned red as he pulled the bone blade from the space ring with his right hand, then he quickly flipped over and slashed across with his weapon.

Dang!

A dull noise resounded throughout the woods as a sharp blood-red blade collided with the withered bone blade, and a huge force surged around, blowing a lot of dead leaves away from them.
The two sides were evenly matched.
However, in truth, Xiao Yu was passive in this exchange and did not rely on his speed at all.
Therefore, he believed himself to be slightly stronger than his opponent.

The person who appeared was indeed Wang Yunfei, but his body was utterly deformed, with his left hand being twisted into a red curved sickle-like blade, and his right hand much thicker and blood-red in color, while the surface area of his arms got covered with numerous raised blue veins, five of which were half a foot long.
Most of his skin appeared like it melted, turning bright red and looking hideous and terrifying.
In spite of everything, His new form really made it easier to dig out people’s hearts.

Xiao Yu narrowed his eyes slightly and said, “It turns out that he was infested by a Heart Eater; no wonder he came back from the dead!”

Wang Yunfei died a long time ago, and what was in front of him was a monster that was in the process of transforming into a heart eater.
Heart eaters were not genuine demons.
Nonetheless, they had a hint of demon blood, at least.
They weren’t weak and were very cruel and cunning by nature, and their favorite type of food was creatures’ raw hearts.
Fortunately for him, this heart eater has not yet matured; otherwise, Xiao Yu would definitely not be its opponent with his current strength.

“Roar!”

The Heart Eater roared, and the five sharp claws on its right hand flashed like lightning toward Xiao Yu’s chest.
The claws left a few scratches on the black scales of his armor but couldn’t penetrate through.
When the beast failed its first attack, it hurriedly turned around and fled with a deep snarl, as it didn’t want to keep fighting.
But how could Xiao Yu let it go so easily? He instantly gave chase, but the Heart Eater’s speed was equivalent to his, making it quite difficult to catch up.

Xiao Yu put the bone blade back into the ring, took out the stabilizing wind bead, and summoned a Spear of Sand before he launched it at the escaping back of the Heart Eater.
The beast’s senses were sharp as it immediately dodged away, but then a sharp cyan wind blade immediately landed on its left arm, severing it off completely.
The Heart Eater let out a heart-piercing scream, its speed suddenly increased by a notch, and it disappeared from his sight in an instant.

Han Kexin and others had already heard the sound of fighting and finally caught up, “He really showed up?”

Xiao Yu put the wind bead back into the space ring, and with a serious expression on his face, he said: “Yes, and I fought against it; what happened is that a heart eater parasite infested Wang Yunfei’s corpse.
It is weaker than me in terms of strength, but its speed is almost the same as mine, which means I can’t stop it if it wants to escape.
But this time, it was severely injured, and it will never recover without a long time of rest, so it will not be following us.
But you still have to be careful in the future; now, it is just a new parasitic heart eater, so its power is still very weak.
However, this kind of monster grows very fast, and it won’t take long before it possesses the strength of a first-order monster.”

’

…………

There were already many dangerous existences near the cave’s vicinity to begin with, such as the goblin leader in the ruins of the school, the poisonous zombie in the depths of the abandoned coal mine, and the unnerving forest ogre whose exact location was still a mystery.
Now another trouble was added to their never-ending list of troubles, yet now in the form of a parasitic heart eater.
Everyone’s situation could be described as precarious.

The following trip did not involve any accidents.
They explored the woods for five to six hours straight before finally discovering the mark left behind when they started this venture.
Following the mark, everyone returned to that familiar forest and found the short mountain leading to the underground cave.

Unexpectedly, while heading there, they actually bumped into a group of people who went out to collect wild fruits and plants.

Almost all of these people were women.
It was normal, though, since there were very few males in the underground cave, they were forced to arrange for females to collect food in this perilous environment, and the males actually became even fewer after some of them were taken away by Xiao Yu.
So whether they liked it or not, girls must also start participating in food gathering and even hunting.

“Teacher Han, Xiaowen, it really is you! You are finally back!” A girl in charge of leading the team said happily: “Senior Du Tao will be very happy to hear this news.”

Han Kexin inquired “did anything happen while we were away?”

“Everything’s normal; it’s just that when all of you didn’t come back, everyone became worried.” She glanced at Huang Jianmin and others, “These people are…”

“We met them on the way, and they’ve joined our group now.” Han Kexin paused for a moment, “let’s go back first.”

The girls immediately ceased harvesting fruits and brought everyone back to the underground cave.
There have been a few tweaks here and there during their absence.
For instance, the entrance to the underground cave was sealed with a mossy stone, and wooden spikes were placed around it to keep some creatures out. 

Despite Xiao Yu’s departure, Du Tao really maintained order in the underground cave and did not disappoint him.