Chapter Fourteen: Completing the Game
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The instant Liu Zheng pressed the confirm button, his vision blurred.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing on an endless grassland.
“Huh?”
He had only just managed to voice his confusion when a gigantic shadow engulfed him.
The next moment, Liu Zheng was lifted into the air.
Two enormous fangs pierced through him, injecting venom that rapidly dissolved his body.
His nearly immortal “Flesh Rebirth” failed to take effect. Before long, only half of Liu Zheng’s body remained.
He twisted his head around and saw a pair of vertical pupils as large as searchlights.
“Load save.”
The system notification rang out.
The next second, Liu Zheng was back in the lounge.
“Holy crap, you cleared it?”
Ox-Horse asked in shock.
“No. I just loaded my save.”
He shook his head and looked toward the screen.
The words “Next Level” had already turned black again.
No wonder no one had ever beaten this game. Who could have imagined that the final level involved being transported into the game itself—and becoming the thing that got eaten?
“Oh.”
Ox-Horse gave a brief reply.
“Don’t you want to know what the final level is?”
“No. If I knew, I wouldn’t be able to resist playing it.”
Ox-Horse shook its head.
“That’s actually quite wise.”
Liu Zheng ignored it and began thinking about how to clear the level.
There was no way he could win in a head-on fight. His opponent possessed venom capable of dissolving Flesh Rebirth, and its strength and speed far surpassed his own.
Recalling the experience of being held in its mouth, Liu Zheng came up with an idea.
“Boss, can you tell how much impact this thing would generate if it exploded?”
Liu Zheng took out the Fossil of the Mad Maggot from the Manure Sea.
“I can probably get a rough instinctive sense of it.”
Ox-Horse nodded.
“Then I’d like you to attack me with an equivalent amount of force.”
“Where?”
Ox-Horse raised a hoof.
“Let’s try with the tentacles first.”
Liu Zheng laid his four tentacles on the floor, one atop another.
“Fine.”
Ox-Horse did not hold back in the slightest and stomped down with one hoof.
Bang!
Broken stones flew in every direction, and the concrete floor caved in beneath the impact.
Liu Zheng’s four tentacles were crushed into a mass of bloody pulp.
“Hiss!”
He drew in a sharp breath.
Although his bodily structure had been reconstructed, he could still feel pain—indeed, his heightened senses made it even clearer.
Liu Zheng watched as sprouts of flesh rapidly grew from the torn ends of his tentacles, taking shape as they extended outward.
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A few seconds later, he had grown four new tentacles.
“You really are a monster.”
The corner of Ox-Horse’s mouth twitched.
“It isn’t without a price.”
Liu Zheng shook his head.
His body had visibly grown much thinner.
Clearly, when part of his flesh and body was destroyed, he had to consume flesh from elsewhere to repair it.
“That’s still completely abnormal.”
Ox-Horse grumbled.
Liu Zheng had simply stood there and allowed it to hit him. If he had deliberately tried to wear it down, then even if Ox-Horse eventually managed to kill him, it would have been exhausted first.
And if a delivery order happened to come in, it might not even have had the strength to complete it.
“Do you have anything to eat, Boss?”
Liu Zheng suddenly felt ravenous.
“Don’t call me Boss. You’re the real boss, always buying things on credit.”
Ox-Horse rolled its eyes.
Despite its irritation, it still took out a can and handed it to Liu Zheng.
“Name: Expired Ox-Horse Meat Canned Food”
“Type: Item”
“Quality: Inferior”
“Effect: Restores stamina. Small chance of inflicting the ‘Food Poisoning’ status.”
“Note: A can that should have been eaten long ago, but was preserved to this day because its owner could not bear to part with it.”
Liu Zheng pulled open the lid, and a strong aroma of spices burst forth.
The fat inside had already liquefied, while evenly sized chunks of meat floated on the surface.
Pretending not to notice, he lifted the can and poured its contents straight into his mouth.
Stewed beef that had not been heated was naturally far from delicious. But driven by his body’s craving for nutrients, Liu Zheng still ate with great appetite.
Soon, an entire can of Ox-Horse meat had entered his stomach.
His body visibly filled out once more.
“Again. This time, hit my upper body. Use a little more force.”
Liu Zheng curled himself up, his four tentacles wrapped around his knees.
“Don’t tell me you’re enjoying getting beaten?”
Ox-Horse muttered as it kicked him without the slightest hesitation.
Smack!
Liu Zheng was sent flying and plastered against the wall.
The tremendous impact made the entire lounge rumble, while his thoughts dissolved into chaos.
He felt as though he had been run over by a steamroller. His upper and lower body were both reduced to a mangled mess.
Only his head and heart, protected by layer upon layer of defenses, remained more or less intact.
“You’re still alive after that? Could all those eyeballs alone really have this kind of effect?”
Ox-Horse stared at him in astonishment.
“Perhaps.”
Liu Zheng spoke with difficulty, but a string of notes flashed through his mind.
“Shub-Niggurath!”
He slid down from the wall as “Flesh Rebirth” began to take effect.
Half a minute later, Liu Zheng’s body had fully recovered. He was merely much thinner than before.
“Boss, could I have something else to eat?”
He extended a tentacle only half as thick as it had originally been.
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“You little…”
Ox-Horse glared at him with its enormous bovine eyes.
“You don’t want all the investment we’ve made so far to go to waste, do you?”
“Damn it!”
Ox-Horse frantically scratched its head, then brought out six more cans of expired Ox-Horse meat.
“Could you open them for me?”
Liu Zheng asked weakly.
“If the reward for clearing this level doesn’t satisfy me, I’ll roast you alive.”
Ox-Horse ground its huge teeth together with a harsh grating sound.
Using its horns, it opened all the cans, then poured them one by one into Liu Zheng’s mouth.
After being force-fed like a duck, he returned to his original size—and was even slightly fatter than before.
Clearly, this world did not adhere all that strictly to the laws of physics.
After stretching his limbs, Liu Zheng stared at the phone screen for two seconds and pressed the confirm button.
After the familiar sensation of dizziness, the black shadow once again engulfed him.
Liu Zheng looked up and saw a cavernous bloody maw hanging right before him.
“Your delivery has arrived.”
He struck a diving pose and plunged into the giant serpent’s mouth.
The giant serpent froze for a moment before violently shaking its head, trying to fling him back out.
Liu Zheng wrapped his tentacles around the tips of its fangs, temporarily stabilizing himself.
He glanced around and decided that still was not secure enough.
The giant serpent seemed to realize what he was planning and thrashed even more violently.
“Refusing the delivery?”
He released his tentacles, curled himself into a ball, and leapt deeper into the serpent’s throat.
Then Liu Zheng became stuck.
He could feel his bones being crushed by the muscles of the giant serpent’s esophagus.
Within a few minutes, he would be compressed into a cracker and slide into its stomach.
Such helpless despair was enough to drive anyone to the brink of collapse.
Fortunately, Liu Zheng was not human.
In the darkness, a plump maggot blinked its tiny eyes and released a fart it had been holding in for tens of thousands of years.
A spark ignited immediately afterward, then spread into boundless flames.
Amid the thunderous explosion, he lost consciousness.
“Wake up. Wake up.”
After a prolonged series of calls, Liu Zheng gradually regained consciousness.
He opened his eyes just in time to see Ox-Horse raising a hoof.
……
……
Ox-Horse calmly lowered its hoof.
“Did you clear it this time?”
It asked.
“I think so.”
Liu Zheng opened his phone, only to discover that the game Snake had vanished.
Where had the reward gone?
He searched all over his body and finally found something in his right pocket.