Perhaps his taunting had been too much, for Abu’s grotesque form abruptly detonated, dissolving into a drifting pall of smoke.

  Glenn’s laughter faltered. “Did it just die of rage? No… it was already dead. That must have been its soul shattering.”

  But he had overestimated the matter, for Abu’s hateful specter re-formed elsewhere, still cursing Glenn with tireless venom.

  These evil spirits are truly peculiar—why do I suddenly feel an urge to study them? Enduring the relentless assault of spiritual currents crashing through his mind, Glenn continued downward without pause.

  At last, he reached a region so polluted that even the malevolent souls dared not approach.

  His feet sank into some unknown, yielding terrain. The darkness here was so absolute that even Glenn’s considerable night vision could not pierce it.

  Perhaps it is some esoteric interference, preventing me from sensing my surroundings at all.

  He could only grope his way forward with his body, searching blindly for another passage leading deeper.

  Strange… why cannot I smell anything? And my mind feels hazy… even the werewolf’s innate ferocity has calmed. Glenn analyzed silently, sweeping ahead of him like a blind man.

  Suddenly, he felt a pair of tiny hands clasp around his index finger, freezing him in place.

  After a moment with no further movement, Glenn cautiously tugged at the little hand.

  With just a light pinch, he understood.

  It was a discarded ragdoll—likely thrown away by some Old Residents of Bayek countless years ago.

  He prepared to fling it aside, but no matter how he tried, the doll refused to release his finger.

  What is this…? He reached with his other hand to pry it off—

  But a wave of crushing grievance spilled into his mind through the contact.

  This thing was alive.

  He lifted the doll to his ear, and to his astonishment, a child’s voice whispered:

  “Please… please… take me away from here…”

  Glenn froze.

  The voice was steeped in utter helplessness, the fragile plea of a toddler abandoned by adults, desperate for salvation.

  In the end, Glenn simply placed the doll at the nape of his neck. If it fell off or was destroyed while he dealt with the “tumor,” that would hardly be his fault.

  He groped around the area a while longer, encountering no more “living” things—only finding his mind growing foggier, as though sleep might claim him at any moment.

  Fortunately, Glenn had extensive experience staying awake through the night; he endured.

  Finally, he discovered a downward passage and slipped inside without hesitation.

  The tunnel widened and constricted irregularly, yet always enough for him to pass.

  From ahead came an odd noise—something squirming in a steady rhythm.

  Glenn was just beginning to speculate when his body suddenly dropped.

  There was nothing to brace against—

  As though he had been hurled into a void.

  Bracing for possible impact, he instead found himself landing atop a massive, pulsating mass of flesh.

  Its surface bulged with tangled vein-like ridges, glowing faintly crimson.

  Looks like I have arrived… Glenn lowered his gaze, feeling the thing beneath his feet—surprisingly firm.

  It was like standing on a living planetoid, the horizon drowned in darkness, only the curving silhouette of the flesh-mass visible.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “All right… the real question—how do I deal with this thing?” he murmured.

  The simplest approach was to destroy it outright, yet he could not be certain that would achieve the intended effect.

  Erring on caution, Glenn chose to explore the full structure first.

  Sliding down along the flesh sphere’s surface, he caught sight of something that made his eyes widen—

  For embedded in the ground beneath the sphere was a pair of shockingly vivid human eyes, staring unblinking at his slow descent.

  The eyes were enormous—the eyeballs nearly as large as the flesh sphere itself.

  Ordinarily, enormous eyes would not faze Glenn, but these were disturbingly normal.

  Long lashes, dark-brown irises, midnight pupils, and sclera laced with bloodshot veins.

  Their uncanny normality provoked a visceral revulsion, as though he were perched upon the face of a colossal human.

  Yet the surrounding terrain was clearly rock and soil—not skin.

  Hooking his claws into the flesh sphere’s surface, Glenn avoided the ground entirely and stared back at the eyes for a long, silent moment.

  Two pairs of eyes—he blinked, then they blinked. Only the squirming of the flesh sphere broke the oppressive quiet.

  Eventually, Glenn lost patience. Since it would not act first, he would.

  He jabbed the staring eye.

  His steel claws plunged downward, driving straight into the enormous eyeball.

  A wet crack—

  Far from resisting, the eye burst beneath the strike, the eyelid pierced along with it as it tried too late to shut.

  The ground trembled violently; from behind him, the flesh sphere let out a wail-like resonance.

  Before Glenn could turn, an overwhelming force blasted him across the cavern.

  His Third-Tier werewolf body exploded into pieces, slamming into a jagged wall.

  Gritting through hellish pain, he immediately marshaled the Wolf Venom, sprouting new limbs from the portion containing his head, shifting into a Fifth-Tier werewolf.

  Blazing Fangs reappeared in his newly formed hands—the weapon always clung to its true master.

  That blast… was that merely the creature’s sound wave? The power is absurd. A prickle of danger crept up his spine.

  This time, he had angered something extraordinary.

  Before him, the flesh sphere’s crimson veins blazed. It rose slowly, pulling free countless threadlike tendrils—each glinting faintly with metallic sheen.

  Glenn peered closer. A shard of metal hung among them, inscribed with writing.

  He looked more closely—

  His eyeballs burst with a sharp pop, agony flooding him as though he had been stabbed in the eyes once more.

  Seriously? Again?! he cursed inwardly, hastening to repair the damage.

  In that fleeting moment, innumerable tendrils lunged, skewering his body. Whatever force they carried began draining his blood.

  Even the Wolf Venom within him lost all vitality, devoured as nourishment for the tendrils’ master.

  This power exceeded his expectations once more.

  Even cutting at them with the blazing claws of his Blazing Fangs failed to sever a single strand.

  Their strength outmatched his.

  Then I will climb higher. Glenn transformed into a Seventh-Tier werewolf.

  Thick, cursed black smoke surged outward. Sensing danger at last, the tendrils recoiled sharply from his flesh.