Chapter 5 – Madness and Entry

Volume 1: Apocalypse Beginning

The One-Eye before him was slowly losing patience. Perhaps it was hunger, or perhaps its brutal nature made it want to carve a few wounds into its prey first.

One-Eye decided not to wait any longer.

With a low growl at his old neighbor, One-Eye opened its huge mouth and lunged forward, biting viciously.

Staring at the gaping maw filled with shredded flesh, blood, and viruses, Wen Yu squeezed out every ounce of strength in his body. His eyes flashed with a terrifying ferocity as he thrust his right hand directly into One-Eye's mouth, grabbing its tongue and yanking hard.

One-Eye seemed not to have expected that this human, at such a disadvantage, would dare to fight back. It paused for a moment.

Given the difference in strength, One-Eye completely ignored the pain in its mouth and pounced fiercely onto Wen Yu.

The immense force left Wen Yu no room to resist. He fell together with One-Eye, and its jaws snapped shut with force.

"Crack!"

It sounded like a stick breaking. Wen Yu felt a surge of agony, then lost all sensation in his right hand. He knew his right hand was gone.

"Aaaahhh…"

The overwhelming pain instead fueled Wen Yu's ruthlessness and intense will to survive.

With his remaining left hand, he grabbed hold of One-Eye, who was right in front of him, and with all his strength, he shoved One-Eye aside. Then, he frantically lunged toward the swirling vortex ahead.

One-Eye, who had been thrown off, was startled-perhaps it hadn't expected its prey, already at its mouth, to struggle so fiercely. Then, One-Eye saw Wen Yu's target-the constantly spinning vortex.

Its sole remaining eye showed a flicker of human-like confusion, but that quickly faded, replaced once again by brutality and bloodlust.

In the end, a Beast is still a Beast. No matter how advanced its evolution, instinct will always be the primary driver of its actions.

It spat out Wen Yu's mangled right hand and leapt, biting into Wen Yu's calf.

The intense pain made Wen Yu roar madly. Seeing One-Eye clamped onto his calf, Wen Yu abandoned all hope for luck; the ruthlessness in his heart was fully unleashed.

He had already lost his spear while fleeing. With his only left hand, he grabbed the large cleaver strapped to his back and hacked fiercely at One-Eye's head.

The cleaver came down swiftly, but Wen Yu's hoped-for killing blow didn't happen. First, his dominant right hand was gone, and his left hand was weak. Second, after several battles, the cleaver was no longer as sharp as it had been.

Most importantly, as a Level 1 Mutant Beast, One-Eye's skin and bones were far tougher than those of Zombies corroded by Demon Qi.

The cleaver struck One-Eye's dog head, leaving a wound that was neither deep nor shallow. But One-Eye was unfazed; its eye began to glow eerily red, and its sharp claws kept raking Wen Yu's lower body, its knife-like nails carving bloody gashes into his flesh.

"Die, just die!"

Wen Yu was completely consumed by madness. At this moment, all he could do was swing the cleaver desperately, hacking again and again.

One-Eye, too, was in a frenzy. The red light in its remaining eye grew ever brighter. No matter how many blows landed on its head, it only bit more viciously into Wen Yu's leg.

At one point, Wen Yu's cleaver struck One-Eye's nose, slicing a huge gash into its soft snout, but One-Eye remained unmoved-its eye only glowed brighter red.

Wen Yu knew that if this went on, he would only end up being brutally killed by One-Eye. With ruthless determination, he raised the kitchen knife high in his left hand and brought it down hard.

Wen Yu slashed madly, each strike landing on the leg One-Eye had bitten.

The intense pain kept assaulting Wen Yu's nerves, and the increasingly blunt blade only made his agony worse.

Gritting his teeth, Wen Yu forced himself to keep hacking through the pain.

A crisp crack rang out.

Suddenly, Wen Yu felt the force holding him from below vanish.

There was no time to mourn his severed leg. Summoning the last of his strength, he swung the kitchen knife at One-Eye's nose, then, using his remaining limbs, scrambled quickly toward the Silver Vortex.

One-Eye was startled by Wen Yu's sudden outburst, as if unable to believe this human could act so decisively. It hesitated for a brief moment.

The large wound on its nose made One-Eye uncomfortable, but with its evolved abilities, the injury only made it wilder and more ferocious. Viciously chewing the severed leg in its mouth, it lunged at Wen Yu again.

This time, One-Eye had no intention of toying with its prey. This human had brought it pain.

So this time, One-Eye's fangs aimed straight for Wen Yu's throat.

Hearing the rush of wind and the scent of blood behind him, Wen Yu understood-this time, there was truly almost no time left. Maybe a second. Maybe not even that.

With all his might, Wen Yu kicked off with his only remaining leg and flung himself forward.

…

One-Eye fixed its gaze on the fist-sized Silver Vortex before it. Its evolved intelligence told it that its prey had disappeared into that very vortex.

Just moments earlier, both Wen Yu and One-Eye had leapt. In the end, when One-Eye's fangs were just a few centimeters from Wen Yu, Wen Yu managed to touch the Silver Vortex first.

A tremendous force surged through him, a suction that started at his hand and swept across his entire body. Then his body spun as if being spun in a washing machine, and in a flash, he vanished into the Silver Vortex.

Wen Yu had certainly heard of Treasure Land before, but he had never set foot in it.

After all, leaving aside whether he could ever obtain the right to enter Treasure Land, even if he did get in, as cannon fodder he'd be unlikely to find anything good-he'd probably just lose his life in the trials or at the hands of other humans.

Wen Yu carefully surveyed his surroundings. This Treasure Land was clearly small-an empty space, with only a Golden Treasure Chest placed in the center, unlocked.

Other than that, there was nothing. There were no Guardian Beasts or bizarre trials like he'd heard about in his previous life.

But the size of a Treasure Land determines the number of treasures it contains.

This one was only about as large as his original Rental Room. Treasure Land of this level would naturally have few treasures, and the fewer the treasures, the slimmer Wen Yu's chances of survival.

The massive blood loss had numbed him to the pain. Wen Yu quickly tended to his wound, stopped thinking about his increasingly desperate situation, and, using the last of his strength, crawled to the Golden Treasure Chest and opened the only chest in the entire Treasure Land.

A flash of light appeared and then immediately faded.

Wen Yu squinted, steadied his despairing emotions as the light disappeared, and looked into the chest.