*THUD!*
A loud, muffled sound of flesh crashing against the earth echoed as Damien fell on his back, creating small cracks on the earth under him.
"Unghh…what the hell…" Damien grimaced in pain as he felt as if there were mini spikes piercing every inch of his body.
Still, he quickly turned his head around to see who did this to him, only to have his eyes widen upon seeing a two and a half meters tall beast slowly walking towards him while the mad people that had been attacking him this entire time paved a path for him as if paving a path for a king.
The beast wasn't as big as the Abominable Fiend, yet it looked equally menacing as it, especially due to its wide mouth filled with dozens of small sharp teeth.
Its appearance was similar to a giant black lizard, though it was walking on its feet just like a human and had a short yet thick tail. Its eyes were glowing dark blue with no sign of pupils or anything, while even its teeth had a certain dark blue glow to them while saliva dripped down its jaw.
Damien had never seen such an ethereal…no, nethereal beast in his life, and based on the timid body language of the people, it seems as if they feared this beast right down to their bones.
And what was even more surprising was that this beast managed to make all these people his slaves. He couldn't understand how something as unintelligent as a beast could…, or maybe this beast may not be as dumb as it looks.
He even saw two other people with chains strapped to restraints around their necks, following this monstrous lizard from behind. Were they something like pets to this beast or what?
"It is at the second level of the Noble Nethereal Realm. Just play along," Luna warned with a serious look.
"Play along? Great advice," Damien wryly chuckled as he saw the beast come up to him and look at him as if it was sizing him up before knocking him out.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})Damien groggily opened his eyes as he finally regained consciousness, only to find himself being stuck inside a small, crude steel cage.
But what he saw shocked him more than his present situation.
He saw he was in a long valley between two tall, dark mountains. The skies were still dark and cloudy, making the entire place seem even more gloomy and ominous.
However, the sight of dozens of pale gray-skinned people having a steel collar around their necks extended to a chain and seemed to be working on building weapons, buildings, and so on.
And what was even more surprising was that he saw relatively well-clothed men wearing full-sleeved clothes made out of apparently, human skin. These men had whips in their hands and were going around lashing the gray-skinned people who seemed to get tired.
Their faces weren't covered with masks, unlike the others, while their facial expressions seemed savage as they whipped their slaves.
He guessed that these well-clothed men must be masters of these people they had enslaved, just like the nethereal beast he had seen before. Thinking about it, he wondered where the nethereal beast who captured him went.
"Those men with the whips are not humans if you are thinking so," Luna said while looking at the scene outside with narrowed eyes.
Damien was baffled as he asked, "What do you mean? I mean, they have a weird skin color and eyes just like the ones who tried to stab me to death, but what is the difference between them and these guys with whips? They all look the same to me," Damien said when suddenly something dawned in his mind as he mumbled, "Wait…you don't say…"
"They are nethereal beasts in human form or something like that. They are highly intelligent, more than you think. Don't you remember when I told you that beasts at the Noble Realm would be able to take human forms just like your Valentina. And it seems these beasts are in control of these cannibals…but it doesn't seem that surprising."
"Huh…" Unlike Luna, Damien still found this all strange since he never expected mindless beasts to grow a mind of their own and then enslave those supposed to be more intelligent than them.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})But he knew that intelligence can only overpower strength to a certain limit.
What kind of events happened in this world to create a reality like this?
"Urahh! HUTO! HUTO!"
One of them suddenly collapsed from the lashing, making the man holding the whip kick his stomach in anger, forcing out painful groans and cries from him.
But he stopped kicking the next second and shouted out something to another slave dozens of meters ahead of him.
Damien turned his head towards the side and had his eyebrows raise when he saw one of the slaves dragging a seemingly unconscious human man through the mud.
"A human?" Damien didn't know if he should feel surprised or not to finally see a human just like him.
But it didn't seem like he would get a chance to converse with a fellow man of the same race since his situation was getting worse by the second. It also seemed as if he was slowly regaining consciousness.
With a fixed gaze, Damien saw the slave dragging this man by his leg and then putting him down near his master and also the slave who had collapsed from exhaustion.
However, what happened next made Damien's jaw slack. Just like how a shark gets wide awake upon just the smell of blood, the slave who had collapsed suddenly lunged towards the human man and bit down on his flesh before using his teeth to tear it off and started eating it!
"AAARGH!!!"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})"Ugh!" Damien winced in disgust as he covered his mouth, not expecting that slave to eat a man just like that and that too while that man was still alive. His wails of horrifying pain echoed throughout the valley.
"What kind of fucked up world is this…" Damien mumbled as he became even more worried about his wives, who must be somewhere in this brutal world.
