Her Tentacles 46

Chapter 46: The Abyss

【Monarch Slayer】.

Lin Ran hadn’t heard this name in a long time.

This was the word that had been most deeply imprinted in her mind since she was born, but she didn’t know what it meant, because in that endless, boundless darkness, she only had one feeling:

So hungry.

【So hungry, so hungry, so hungry…】

【Hungry!】

At the same time, several childish voices sounded in her mind, making her even more aware that her burning stomach was now empty and in urgent need of something to fill it—

The flow of water brushing against her body suddenly changed its rhythm.

She was dazed and hadn’t reacted yet when her hungry body automatically opened up and shot over. And the voices that had been so noisy just now all quieted down, leaving only the crunching sound of chewing prey and breaking hard shells.

But after this brief satisfaction, she was once again dominated by hunger.

For a long time, her world consisted of only three things: being hungry, eating, and listening to her tentacles chattering. Until one day, she caught a…

Talking jellyfish?

【Huh?】

The toxin released from the other’s stinging tentacles made her movements slow. And after escaping, that jellyfish slowly floated nearby, sizing her up: 【You don’t seem to be an ordinary octopus.】

She stopped on the sandy ground, her curled tentacles protecting her as she sent a tentacle she had just torn off into her mouth to chew, chew, chew.

The next second, her round eyes lit up:

Delicious!

This thing that was talking to her was so delicious!

…

The little octopus had a new world opened up to her by the delicious taste.

She no longer looked down on the shellfish, fish, and shrimp that swam in this darkness, or other things that were more casually grown and whose names she didn’t really care about. In short, as long as she saw it, even if it was just swimming a kilometer away, she would have chased after it and taken a bite before.

But now, she had made a major change to her diet. From today on, she was going to catch those talking jellyfish!

But after that day, she never found another one of such deliciousness.

The little octopus floated with the sea waves, wandering in this boundless darkness. Until who knows how long later, she vaguely saw a very faint bright spot in the distance.

The moment that light entered her eyes, another word appeared in her mind:

—【Lighthouse】

As if awakened by the inheritance engraved in her blood, she chased after the place where the light was. It was unknown how long or how far she swam, but the light did not become brighter. However, other voices had already entered her mind.

【Another one, a little thing from the outer lands.】

【The little thing is quite cute… a pity, we hate octopuses the most.】

Two deep blue, glowing jellyfish surrounded her.

She was dazed and didn’t know what they were going to do, but that didn’t stop her from taking the initiative to wrap her tentacles around their beautiful and pretty stinging tentacles, in that ribbon-like, poisonous blue…

Entwine, twist off, and send into her mouth.

As expected, it was still so delicious!

The toxin that had slowed her down before was now ineffective against her. And although the poisonous stinging tentacles were a little prickly to eat, they really had a special flavor.

Addictive! Delicious!

And so, a terrifying legend soon spread along the outer edge of the Eternity, which was illuminated by the [Lighthouse]: the [Monarch Slayer] has appeared! A new [Monarch Slayer] has been born!

And just as she was getting tired of eating almost all the jellyfish species along the outer edge of the Eternity, she dazedly encountered this group of more powerful opponents with different abilities.

They called themselves the [Martyrs].

The little octopus, who was experiencing being ganged up on for the first time in her life, couldn’t even eat on the battlefield. Looking at the clusters of long stinging tentacles of various shapes from the high-level jellyfish falling down, tears flowed from the corners of her mouth as she was beaten.

She grabbed a tentacle here, and pulled another there—

Even when she finally realized that what she had randomly rolled up was her own tentacle, which had just been broken off by those jellyfish, she didn’t hesitate to send it into her mouth amidst the whimpering sounds of her tentacles.

After all, fighting consumed a lot of energy.

Mmm…

Come to think of it, her own tentacles tasted pretty good too.

Before all her tentacles were broken off, she let out a burp, and fought and retreated, deciding to come back next time she was hungry.

But that time, her battle results were too tragic. The little octopus fled all the way from the outer edge of the Eternity back to the boundless darkness. In the end, she had to rely on accidentally falling into a crack, falling into a bottle inside, and then conveniently plugging the bottle to play dead, to successfully hide her scent.

After that, in order to eat delicious food, she went through a period of gluttony, eating anything and everything, trying to make her body grow and become bigger, so that she could go back and beat up that group of delicious food!

And it was the second time she went back to seek revenge and order food with great momentum that the little octopus, while fighting, listened to this group of talkative [Martyrs] scolding her, and finally understood many things.

…

It turned out that an octopus like her, who was born with great fighting talent and was always easily dominated by hunger, and could eat and digest anything, was originally like this group of jellyfish, living under this bright Eternity.

They were given memories and wisdom by the [Lighthouse], had different racial talents, and the closer they were to the [Lighthouse], the closer they were to eternal life.

And the original form of the [Monarch Slayer] was just the [Glutton].

Until who knows how long ago, one of her ancestors suddenly had a crazy idea, trying to swallow the only light in this abyss, the [Lighthouse], into its belly.

That incident was the biggest turmoil since the birth of the unchanging Eternity.

The same race, infinitely close to the [Lighthouse], joined forces to suppress that [Glutton], and sacrificed two-thirds of the creatures in the entire abyss to barely kill it.

From then on, the [Glutton] became a heretic of the abyss.

The [Lighthouse] tried to take back its gift to the [Glutton], and drove all the octopuses out of the Eternity. From then on, every octopus born in the abyss no longer had inherited memories, and even as soon as they mated and produced the next generation, they would soon die.

And the group of the same race who had fought to the death for the [Lighthouse] had since become its defenders, and also the martyrs who were willing to die for its every will.

In order to forever kill the traitor that threatened the existence of the [Lighthouse], this [Glutton] that had almost succeeded in slaying the monarch, every once in a while, the Eternity would send a group of jellyfish to the outer dark lands that were not blessed by the light to find a heretic who might have the same talent.

And then, kill it in advance.

And because of this.

For hundreds of years in the abyss, there had not been a single [Monarch Slayer] who could reach the Eternity. Even if they succeeded in reaching it, these [Martyrs] would kill it again.

The [Monarch Slayer] cannot be allowed to live.

It must be killed before it reaches adulthood. This was the consensus of the [Martyrs].

In that battle of revenge, the little octopus slowly grew tired of this endless jellyfish buffet. Her body had grown to an extremely terrifying extent, but she was still unable to eliminate all the enemies in front of her.

They were like an endless army.

And she was finally a little full.

The hunger that had dominated her disappeared, and in its place was a hard-to-describe other desire.

Noticing that her movements had slowed down, the surrounding jellyfish laughed mockingly:

【It’s starting.】

【It’s the curse bestowed by the ‘Lighthouse.’ Even if you’re not an adult yet, as long as this hunger disappears, you will have the urge to mate. And once you mate and give birth to offspring, you will die like those ordinary octopuses.】

【Goodbye, underage ‘Monarch Slayer.’】

The little octopus listened to them say this, looking at her with extremely malicious eyes. Even the killing formation they had gathered had dispersed. They took the initiative to leave her a path to escape, and even followed her after she left, wanting to witness her ugly death.

She did not do as they wished.

Because she was completely tired of these jellyfish, she retreated back to the boundless darkness where she was born. After enduring that wave of reproductive urge, her body returned to that familiar hunger.

Thinking of the mocking eyes and words of that group of jellyfish, she no longer wanted to experience the feeling of being full before she reached adulthood. And so, the [Glutton] began to get used to that hunger.

She once again drifted with the seawater in the abyss, like a duckweed resting in the water, staying wherever she drifted. When she was so hungry she couldn’t stand it, she would just grab something she had never seen before and chew on it.

Just as she once thought that she, the most pathetic [Monarch Slayer] in history, was about to starve to death, one day, the water pressure of the seawater surrounding her became much lighter, and she was unknowingly pushed into a dark crack.

When she woke up again, she was washed ashore by the waves and saw this world.

…

Those past scenes rolled through Lin Ran’s mind, but in reality, it didn’t even take a second.

Before the black gauze of the Styx jellyfish could drift into the room and fill every gap, the black and red tentacles had already broken through this blockade—

Bang!

The cruise ship, like a steel giant, was torn apart from one of the VIP floors, like a thin piece of paper, easily deformed by the fighting between the two abyss giants. At the same time, a series of explosions came from the deck outside.

Shu Yao, who was still sitting on the sofa, was so scared by the thunderous noise that she cried out.

This made Lin Ran’s movements pause slightly. Although she didn’t turn her head, a thick, ferocious tentacle suddenly fell from mid-air, like a tiger that had been killing in the mountains and now had a cub for the first time. It carefully curled its tail, a limb strong enough to snap giant trees, and gently, almost hesitantly, wrapped it around Shu Yao.

Shu Yao covered her ears, and when she opened her eyes, she saw this terrifyingly colored tentacle.

And the sharp, crisscrossing fangs protruding from its countless suckers.

Although it was so dangerous, the images she could remember were, besides the time when she had been rolled up by such a tentacle in the industrial park, the rebar and cement of the building, and just now…

The way it had brushed against her skin and entered her body.

So ugly and terrifying, yet just like now, it was afraid of hurting her. Those fangs were well-retracted, and not once had they scratched her.

It hadn’t even made her feel a bit of pain.

Realizing what she was thinking, Shu Yao’s expression was dazed for half a second. She quickly came back to her senses, her gaze darting left and right, trying not to be affected by the divine battle between these two monsters.

But the Styx jellyfish was not willing to let her have her way. Noticing that she had not yet given up on this current lover, she thought for a moment and suddenly called her.

“Yaoyao.”

“Are you sure you want to stand on her side?”

“There’s something you might not know yet. The reason this world has become such an apocalypse, that your original life has been changed, that you encountered a pervert like Wu Li who was possessed, that you were entangled by a terrifying slime monster like Chu Wan, causing your friend to encounter a life-and-death crisis, and then being repeatedly entangled by Lin Jingshu and me—”

“Everything, everything, is because of the person next to you.”

The face of Lin Jingshu, who had perfectly merged with the monster, showed a smile. She walked toward Shu Yao step by step, and even the clothes on her body were transformed into pure black by her ability. The light gauze crisscrossed to pave the way for her.

“If it weren’t for her coming to this world, letting the [Lighthouse] perceive the existence of such a beautiful world, none of these things would have happened.”

“The one who broke your peaceful life, who made you encounter danger again and again, who made you encounter these terrifying monsters, is your monster girlfriend, Lin Ran.”

“She is the first anchor that the [Lighthouse] has dropped on this world, the source of misfortune for everyone.”

“Even so, as a human, do you still want to stay by her side?”