226 The Secret Of The Fourth Stomach

"I HATE THIS!"

At my side, a blood-covered Hope was throwing a tantrum. She suddenly coughed and spat something red on the floor.

"I still have it in my throat!!"

After we were sucked by the vortex, the ball collapsed before because of the holes and tears, it was quickly filled with blood, and it kept hitting the walls around as we moved at high speed. At some point, I had to use Zak's spearhead to tear it and leave it with hope.

I didn't have a high need for air, but Hope was different because I had a hard time holding onto her it took me a while to get her a mask and air tank for her to breath and she almost drowned.

At the end of the ride, the path split in two one part was covered with some kind of net that prevented us from going into that path, and actually, only blood would go into that road. We tripped and slid across a tunnel, the trail split numerous times again until we arrive at an acid lake that was dissolving most of the remains of the corpses. We managed to move to the border before falling there.

Once we were out of danger Hope fell on her knees coughing. She threw up all the blood that she had on her stomach and lungs. Hope looked at me with some tears and seemed beaten and scared, but beside the nightmares that she is going to suffer in the future, if we manage to leave this place, she should be fine… I will need to talk with Dante to help her with that.

As I surveyed our surroundings, I saw a second acid lake not too far away from where Hope was throwing up. Multiple holes on the walls that seem to be a cave system and most likely one of the will guide us to the exit. Since we had no clue about where to go from here, we ended picking a random one, and we obviously, got lost.

After walking for hours, we ended in this situation.

"Water"

I lost the count of times that Hope washed her mouth.

"I still can taste it…"

"See the bright side… we are still alive."

She glared at me with her eyes, and I preferred to shut my mouth. She sighed and washed her mouth again…

"Can you buy a toothbrush and toothpaste?"

I checked at the system and bought a tiny travel kit which had both.

She brushed her teeth. To be honest, I felt pity for her, so I kinda was just spoiling her a little for now. While she was busy, I looked to the tunnel as I just heard something. We have been here for hours already, and it feels like it will never end…

What currently was bothering me the most was that in the surface the dimension was collapsing, and I don't know how much time left do we have.

*Thump*

I focused my senses forwards as this time the sound was clear. I got ready and hold the Spearhead on my hand as I threw the lantern to Hope.

"Hey what ar…"

"Shht something is coming…"

She stopped her banter and took out a feather that I recognized as one of the ones that constantly attacked me a while ago, it surprised me that she had it since it meant that she defeated that annoying duck.

The feather began to rotate around her. If it wasn't for the toothbrush hanging from her mouth, she might have been a little intimidating, but I'm not gonna tell her that… for now at least.

In front of us, a bull with big ears and whiskers was looking at us.

I used Slow on it to reduce its speed and moved forward, the space in the cave wasn't enough for both of us in a fight if we wanted to dodge.

As in slow motion, the bull tried to hit me with a headbutt, but with a turn from my body, I moved to the side. Using a backhand stab, I pushed the spearhead into the neck and hold to it getting on top of it.

The bull went berserk trying to throw me out, I had to leave his back as it jumped and collided with the ceiling. Rubble started to fall after the impact blocking a part of the way. Luckily the cave didn't collapse entirely.

Of course, the bull didn't die there either. A red aura surrounded it and charged at us. This time the speed was higher than before. Hope and I got out of the way at the last moment.

*Tremble…*

The bull crashed against the wall making a giant hole on it… but what surprised me was that the wall wasn't empty…

This didn't happen when the bull hit the ceiling… but at least this wall was special.

Blood started to flow from the inside. Together with the blood, a damaged human body fell to the ground … well at least at the beginning I thought it was just a human, but I noticed that on top of his head two tiny goat horns were growing slowly.

I wasn't sure what to make out of this, the blood had its own aura and interfered with what my eyes could see. Also, the guy was dead, so he didn't have an aura anyway.

The bull got up once again this time I wanted to get the upper hand, so I charged before he could. He was ready to charge back at me, but I sent a battle cry to disrupt him.

"AAAAHHHHH"

Of course, it wasn't a normal cry since it was filled with fear inducement and that was what made the bull doubt. It was enough for me to use Accelerate, Adrenaline Burst plus Great Impact and get a free strike on his eye.

*MOOOOOOOOOOO*

The bull writhed in pain as I took out the improvised dagger out of it. Without giving it time to recover I stabbed the neck again.

At the same time, Hope managed to throw the feather, hurting the same eye even more.

The bull charged at her in response, but she jumped to the side easily avoiding it. After getting back on her feet, I saw her moving her arms.

*MOOOOOO~~*

The bull collided against another wall, this one didn't bleed after the hit, but the bull clearly was going through desperate times as it runs away from us.

It couldn't go too far before it fell to the side.

I had a sudden thought and run to it to steal the kill from Hope. A notification about me killing an E-Rank beast rang in my head and joined the other notifications.

That was close…

I looked at the eye of the bull and found that Hope's feather was barely visible. She probably created an EMF to pull it while she was behind the bull, making the feather get further inside the bull's head.

I took it out from inside the bull and gave it back to my sister while laughing in my mind at her disgusted face when she saw the feather covered by slimy stuff.

I was curious about the human that fell from the wall and went to him. I wanted to know what was going on and how it ended there.

My head hurt as I was feed with information by Psychometry… I saw his life partially but what I cared the most about was the last time.

This was a normal human that used to live in the east of the city, not far from where the battle took place.

After the meteor shower, he didn't join any group and instead tried to leave the city. The short version is that he was caught and killed by a goat, the corpse was offered as a tribute to the Alpha.

It fell into the first stomach, and from an alternative path, he ended in the Hematrees forest.

Not sure if it was lucky or not but after he went into the vortex and fell in the area to one of the acid lakes he went through another tunnel. And ended in that wall. The corpse was bathed in the blood and slowly started to change… the blood nourished the corpse and provoked the first change… the goat horns. I'm not sure if the process was over because the bull came crashing in and interrupted the process.

Looking at the whiskers of the bull I thought that it must have gone through something similar.

This place was recycling humans and beasts.