Su Li swam toward another room ahead. The wall behind him was shaking as one of the Nightmare Beast’s front claws tore a massive hole through it, its other claw reaching out to rip the entire wall apart. Suddenly, the tendrils on its body flared open as if startled by something, and it jerked back violently. The water outside churned with intense vibrations, as if some monster was thrashing in a desperate struggle.
Seeing this, Su Li’s heart jolted. He quickly swam closer, peering through the hole the Nightmare Beast had made in the wall. Outside, the beast was writhing frantically, its tendrils flailing wildly as if in madness. In its unprotected belly, several translucent, fleshy tendrils had pierced deep inside. The Nightmare Beast wrapped its own tendrils around them, trying to pull them out.
“It’s finally here,” Su Li thought silently. He was both shocked and not entirely surprised by the scene before him.
He saw corpses floating in the water outside, each with a translucent, fleshy tendril embedded in it. Now, these tendrils were pulling free from the bodies, converging on the Nightmare Beast and coiling around it. Countless tendrils intertwined, forming a massive net that slowly contracted from all directions toward the center, with the Nightmare Beast as its target.
The Nightmare Beast, immensely powerful, fought back fiercely. Its tendrils and front claws lashed out, occasionally snapping the translucent tendrils, but more and more appeared from every side. Several times, it tried to tear through the growing net to break free, but failed.
The battle between the Nightmare Beast and this unknown entity raged on, but it was clearly at a disadvantage. Of course, if two minutes passed and its ultrasonic attack recharged, the outcome could still swing either way.
Su Li took only a glance, confirmed his assessment, and quickly swam in the opposite direction, slipping out through a window of another building. His mind raced, two thoughts clashing: one was to immediately escape to shore, the other was to dive deeper.
The appearance of this unknown entity, even its entanglement with the Nightmare Beast, didn’t surprise Su Li much. In fact, he had half-expected it. From the moment he lured the Nightmare Beast to the rooftop, he had been calculating based on the massive pile of corpses up there.
According to the pattern Ding Longyun had deduced from his research, the more corpses thrown into the water, the more and stronger monsters would be attracted. After last night’s experiment, Su Li had confirmed the feasibility of this rule. So, luring the Nightmare Beast to the rooftop served two purposes: first, to give Ding Longyun and the others a chance to escape ahead and then come back for him; second, to throw those rooftop corpses into the water. Would a large number of corpses truly summon some powerful creature?
From his earlier observations, he knew these monsters didn’t target only humans. There was competition among them, and the flesh of higher-level or rarer monsters was even more enticing than humans. When they had thrown the corpse of the two-headed leader frog, the Second-Level leader monster, into the water, it had attracted so many corpse beasts and sea spiders. Their first priority was the frog’s corpse; only those that couldn’t get to it settled for attacking them.
If a Second-Level leader’s flesh was so tempting, what about the Nightmare Beast? It was a leader-level monster whose rank Su Li couldn’t even fathom. Its flesh would be far more alluring than the frog’s or that of low-level spirit source users like them.
So, if the mass of corpses he threw down could indeed lure some powerful creature, that creature would naturally find the Nightmare Beast far more attractive than him. Similarly, to the Nightmare Beast, that creature’s flesh might be more tempting than his own.
Earlier, Xu Xuehui had mentioned corpses, flowers, and treasures beneath the water. Su Li had dived to check and found a vast number of corpses floating in the depths, each with a translucent, fleshy tendril. These tendrils hung down into the abyss. Overcome by fear, they hadn’t dared to dive deeper to investigate and had left instead. At the time, Su Li had vaguely guessed that some terrifying, bizarre monster lurked in those depths. Perhaps it ignored them because they were too low-level, or it was asleep and didn’t notice them, allowing them to escape safely.
By throwing the rooftop corpses into the water, Su Li aimed to rouse this unknown monster in the depths. He wanted to pit it against the Nightmare Beast—one an enigmatic entity, the other a fearsome predator. If they clashed, he could play the fisherman, reaping the spoils of their conflict.
Of course, this plan was perilous, fraught with deadly risk. He had no idea how likely it was to succeed. But with the Nightmare Beast on their trail, the four of them couldn’t escape together. The end result would be all of them killed, or worse, captured—a fate a thousand times more horrifying than death. Since death seemed inevitable, it was worth the gamble for a sliver of hope.
With that in mind, Su Li had chosen to let the others flee downward while he went to the rooftop alone to draw the Nightmare Beast away. Now, watching the countless translucent tendrils emerge and weave into a net, the deep-water creature was fully awakened. As Su Li had guessed, it ignored him, the insignificant one, and focused on capturing the Nightmare Beast.
The Nightmare Beast, formidable and fierce, fought back with all its might. Though tendrils pierced its belly, it snapped many in return. The battle was intense and far from over; capturing the beast wouldn’t be easy for the mysterious monster.
Seizing the opportunity, Su Li shot out of the building’s window on the other side, swimming rapidly upward. He broke the surface, exhaled deeply, took a gulp of air, and submerged again. In that moment, he made his decision: instead of fleeing immediately, he dove full speed toward the depths.
Observing the clash between the unknown monster and the Nightmare Beast, he saw it was a stalemate for now, with neither able to spare attention for him. With a little time to spare, Su Li decided to take a risk and see what Xu Xuehui had meant by “treasures.”