I'm Trapped in the Block

Chapter 405: Chapter 402: Infinite Slaughter

The savage, giant maw belonged to an octopus coiled around a crystal reef.

Its belly was filled with a jumble of carapaces and flesh, their original owners long since indistinguishable.

However, even though it was stuffed to bursting, its tentacles were still relentlessly searching for food.

Its tentacles flailed wildly, frantically seeking out nearby creatures before snatching them up and stuffing them into its maw.

It devoured everything without prejudice, be it tiny fish, shrimp, or drifting plankton.

It wasn’t a picky eater in the slightest. Once it had scoured one area clean, the octopus would writhe its way to a new spot and continue to sweep up every edible thing in sight.

Even seaweed was snatched up and shoved into its mouth.

When some of its tentacles failed to find food, they actually began reaching for the reef crystals.

The crystals ended up in the octopus’s belly, mixing with the flesh and blood. The indigestible matter caused the octopus to swell larger and larger, until even moving became difficult.

Yet, its tentacles continued to wave about erratically, relentlessly shoving anything and everything into its mouth.

Finally, the octopus’s soft body could take no more. Its skin, stretched paper-thin, burst like a balloon. The contents of its stomach erupted outwards like a firework display.

Its stomach had been blasted to smithereens, but its tentacles continued to snatch at food.

The scattered food attracted other small fish. They swarmed in, frantically fighting over this sudden ”gift” with no regard for their own safety.

Seeing so many small fish suddenly swarming nearby, the tentacles began to twitch violently, snatching them up as well.

Some tentacles even joined the feeding frenzy, attempting to reclaim the very food that had just burst from its own body.

Food was snatched by the tentacles and shoved into the maw, only to spill out again from its ruined abdomen.

This grotesque cycle repeated itself until the dying octopus could no longer move its tentacles.

The swarming fish were either dead or maimed. Some, dragging what was left of their bodies, continued to fight over the scattered food.

The food simply passed through their bisected bodies and spilled back into the sea.

Gradually, all that remained were countless scraps...

In the distance, a large fish swam over and devoured every last scrap, ignoring the fact that its own stomach was already packed to capacity...

Such carnage was a common sight in this transparent world.

Li Luo found that no matter how he tried to look away, scenes like this played out everywhere he turned.

The creatures here seemed completely incapable of satisfaction. They were always searching for food, constantly killing and consuming...

”This place is a little weird...”

”It is weird.”

Li Luo and Fatty had both taken note of the strange creatures.

The teeming life here seemed to be built upon a foundation of endless slaughter.

Fatty’s expression shifted as he watched the ”lively” scene.

”I think we’ve stumbled into a place we shouldn’t be. This is a domain of slaughter.”

”’Slaughter?’ Is that a race?”

”Yes. A terrifying race. Their moral standards are completely different from any normal species...” Fatty said, his expression turning grave.

”They treat death as the highest honor and slaughter as a noble rite. So if you encounter them in the Sea of Creation, they’ll politely try to kill you.”

”They can project an aura of killing intent that affects other creatures—it’s their unique racial ability. These glass-like creatures must have been influenced by it. That’s why they’re acting so abnormally.”

”’Are you sure? Couldn’t it be some other race?’ Li Luo asked skeptically.”

Fatty thought for a moment before replying with conviction, ”It has to be them. While the ’moral standards’ in the Sea of Creation vary wildly, most species are at least understandable. A species this... unique... could only be them.”

”Besides, they’re the only ones who can project killing intent to influence other beings.”

Hearing Fatty’s certainty, Li Luo grew tense.

’Just how terrifying could a race that considers slaughter a form of etiquette be?’

”Let’s be careful. We’ll head forward and take a look.”

The two of them stopped admiring the ”beautiful scenery” of the transparent world and pressed onward.

Rounding a patch of giant seaweed, they came upon a wide, mirror-like expanse.

It was encircled by a ring of massive, transparent reefs, resembling a Beast Fighting Arena. The area was littered with scattered, transparent fragments.

The slaughter around them seemed to intensify, and the struggles between the glass-like creatures grew more ferocious.

They stopped fighting over the scattered fragments and instead began frantically charging at any living creature nearby.

A school of small fish, mustering courage from nowhere, began to swarm a giant jellyfish. Unable to defend itself, the jellyfish was actually devoured down to the last shred by the school.

And yet, after killing the jellyfish, the once-unified school of fish immediately turned on one another, beginning a vicious self-slaughter.

Every creature in this Beast Fighting Arena seemed exceptionally volatile.

”’Do you feel any killing intent welling up inside you?’ Fatty suddenly asked Li Luo.”

”’No.’ Li Luo quieted his mind and focused, feeling for it.”

”’Me neither,’ Fatty said, confused. ’That’s odd. Why aren’t we affected? Is it because we’re detached?’”

He looked up at the Block in the sky. It was just floating there quietly, nothing out of the ordinary.

Mo Ling, however, was not having such an easy time.

’Is someone trying to kill me?’ he thought, his heart pounding as he stared at his surroundings.

Mo Ling had the strange sensation that everything around him bore him a grudge and wanted to attack.

The movements of the glass-like creatures were magnified in his mind; their every action seemed like the prelude to an attack on the Block.

It was a strange sort of persecutory delusion, forcing Mo Ling to be on guard against everything.

However, this feeling only lingered around the exterior of the Block. As soon as Mo Ling retreated inside it, the sensation would vanish.

At that moment, Mo Ling finally understood why the glass-like creatures were constantly attacking everything around them.

’They’re feeling that hostility, too.’

This omnipresent hostility made the glass-like creatures so volatile that they began to attack indiscriminately.

Right now, this hostility was constantly accumulating around the Block.

Because Mo Ling remained unaffected, the hostility gathered more and more densely, to the point where it even ignored the two people below the Block.

If Mo Ling didn’t lash out at other creatures, the hostility would simply continue to build until it was strong enough to affect him.

But affecting Mo Ling wasn’t nearly that simple.

Every time he felt the influence taking hold and was about to give in, Mo Ling would retract his consciousness back into the Block.

Once inside the Block, Mo Ling would be completely free of the hostility’s influence.

And so, a strange cycle began:

’Is someone trying to kill me?’ Mo Ling would hurriedly retreat.

’Oh, it was just a delusion.’

After calming down, Mo Ling would extend his consciousness outside again.

Before long...

’Is someone trying to kill me?’ He’d quickly hide again.

’Oh, it was just a delusion...’

Every time he sensed a threat, Mo Ling’s first instinct was to hide inside the Block—a habit he had developed over a very long time.

This meant the hostility could never truly affect him...

And so, the hostility gathering around the Block grew thicker and more concentrated, until it seemed to distort the very water around it.

The two men below finally sensed that something was amiss.

The atmosphere had grown oppressive.

The creatures that had been slaughtering each other suddenly ceased their battle and fled the ”Reef Beast Fighting Arena” in terror.

Meanwhile, around the Block, a terrifying aura was slowly coalescing...