With the giant's final whimper, the behemoth, comparable to a half-fiend, perished due to the unfavorable terrain.
Fang Ming's tendrils plunged into its body, frantically absorbing the scattered, masterless resentment. A surge of astonishing power fed back into his physique.
Upon seeing the giant's demise, Number One quickly arrived above its head. The sharp blade in its hand pierced the giant's skull, joining the feast.
An ancient saying goes, "When a whale falls, all things come to life." While this giant's death might not reach such a scale, it was undoubtedly a great tonic for Fang Ming and Number One.
The first to change was Number One. The resentment within its body became more refined, its sharp blade growing longer and sharper. Pulsations, like heartbeats, emanated from its core, and a multitude of resentment particles emerged, singing around it.
Half an hour later, Number One retracted its blade. A pair of bloodthirsty eyes flashed in the void, quickly concealed. Unlike its previous inability to leave the invisible state, it could now reveal its eyes.
Of course, this was not a bad thing. The revelation of its eyes signified the acquisition of other abilities, which would need to be clarified in actual combat.
"That outsider hasn't finished yet?" Number One looked in Fang Ming's direction with surprise. There was a limit to the resentment that could be absorbed during evolution and growth. For instance, it itself reached its limit after consuming less than a tenth of the giant's resentment. To continue absorbing, it would need another source of resentment.
The reason for this was that when resentment reached a certain concentration, it could combine with the soul of a deceased being to become a "fiend seed." While the consciousness within a soul could be easily erased, the matter constituting the soul could not be stripped away.
In other words, the giant before them, though appearing dead now, could potentially revive after some time if the soul within its resentment re-developed consciousness. This was one of the reasons why fiend seeds were considered immortal.
If a fiend seed absorbed another fiend seed beyond its limit, it could easily be assimilated by the absorbed entity, losing its self and being unconsciously devoured. For example, if Number One continued to devour the giant without restraint, it would eventually be assimilated by the soul within the giant, becoming a replica of the giant.
"He doesn't know he can't absorb too much resentment, does he?" Number One worried. Although it wasn't very familiar with this outsider, he could be used to help it escape. He couldn't just die here.
With that thought, Number One quickly sliced open the giant's body and burrowed inside, searching for Fang Ming.
Meanwhile, Fang Ming was closing his eyes, sensing the changes in his tendrils, his face beaming with uncontrollable joy.
"Wow? You actually took down a big guy?" Nannan's voice, childish and with a hint of surprise, echoed from within the tendrils. "This arm of yours has also reached the standard for evolution."
"You're awake?" Fang Ming was also happy to hear Nannan's voice. "I can't absorb all of this giant. Do you want to devour the remaining resentment?"
Nannan sensed the amount of resentment within the giant and said in a childlike voice, "The amount of resentment is alright. It's good enough for me as a meal."
"Do your fiends require such a large amount of resentment?" Fang Ming was surprised. At least sixty percent of the giant's resentment remained, yet Nannan considered it merely a meal.
Nannan replied disdainfully, "There's a huge difference between fiends and fiend seeds. You, a seemingly powerful half-fiend, are merely an ant in the eyes of a fiend. A fiend like my mother would require at least a thousand years of resentment to condense. Once unleashed, it could turn an entire city into a dead city instantly!"
Fang Ming was speechless. He had witnessed battles between fiends in Baimu Village a few times, and they didn't seem that formidable. At most, they were like cultivators fighting. Influenced by modern internet culture, he considered anyone who couldn't move mountains and fill seas to be weak.
Only after Nannan's explanation did he realize that even the strongest fiend seeds were only physically powerful. For example, the four-armed monster in Baimu Village and the corrupted Uncle Amber were both half-fiends, but their attacks were still limited to physical strikes.
However, the ancient locust fiend, the old well fiend, and even the Qinghe fiend that was eliminated, their attacks had long transcended mere destruction.
"By the way, Nannan, what's your current strength?" Fang Ming asked curiously, wanting to have a clearer understanding of their capabilities for future encounters with fiends.
Nannan pondered for a long time, appearing conflicted. "I don't know the level of my abilities. My mother said my strength might not even match that of an ordinary half-fiend. However, the resentment within me contains the traits of the Four Yin body. If it's just about fighting fiends, I should be able to remain undefeated."
Fang Ming understood. The "Daughter of Four Yin" had a significant destructive impact on these resentment-condensed fiend seeds and fiends. When he transformed into Zhao Xue, he had even used his blood to sever a tentacle of that foolish creature.
However, Fang Ming was also surprised, "You still retain the traits of the Daughter of Four Yin? Doesn't that conflict with the resentment within you?"
Wouldn't these two things, under normal circumstances, be like fire and ice?
"I'm not sure," Nannan replied, also confused.
"Let's not worry about that for now. Go and devour this giant. I'll study my tendrils." Fang Ming always adhered to the principle of not dwelling on things he couldn't understand, choosing not to rack his brain. He instructed Nannan to devour the giant while he began examining the changes in his own tendrils.
The fiend patterns on his tendrils detached from the skin, transforming into a cute little loli in the blink of an eye. Nannan appeared the same as the first time Fang Ming saw her, but she seemed more sleepy than before.
Nannan flew to the giant's flesh and blood. The long hair behind her danced like poisonous snakes, fiercely piercing into the giant's body. The vast amount of resentment within the giant's corpse disappeared at a speed visible to Fang Ming's senses.
Fang Ming sighed inwardly and closed his eyes, focusing on the changes in his tendrils.
At this moment, Number One finally broke through the giant's body and saw Fang Ming standing within the giant's abdomen. It also saw Nannan, and instantly, a sense of dread swept through its entire being, originating from its soul.
"You... you..." Number One's body stiffened as it looked at Nannan, like a mouse encountering a cat. Its body, due to fear, momentarily lost control.
Nannan also sensed Number One. A strand of hair from behind her flew out and instantly appeared before Number One, entangling it completely and suspending it in mid-air. Even Number One's appearance was revealed in an instant as it was entangled!
"Ah..." Number One struggled painfully, as if the entwining hair were not hair at all, but vine whips filled with bone-dissolving poison, fiercely eroding its body.
Hearing the sound, Fang Ming stopped observing his tendrils and quickly looked up. He saw Number One already trapped by Nannan, struggling laboriously in mid-air. This was also the first time he saw the true form of this mysterious Number One.
Number One's appearance was completely different from what he had always imagined. He had thought Number One would be a chuunibyou youth with a punk hairstyle, but its true form turned out to be a three-armed monster.
Its body was roughly humanoid, but its hands and feet were four soft claws with suction cups, resembling those of a gecko. On its back, there was an exceptionally long human arm, holding a blade about a meter long. "Holding" might not be the right word; it seemed to have grown a blade. The blade was connected to its third hand. Its skin was greenish and covered with fine scales. Its eyes were enormous, its nose flat, and its mouth split open to its ears, filled with sharp teeth.
"Nannan, let him go. He is our ally," Fang Ming said.
Upon hearing Fang Ming's words, Nannan released her hair and continued to focus on devouring the resentment within the giant.
Number One was thrown to the ground and quickly scrambled away into a corner in terror. Its revealed body slowly disappeared from Fang Ming's sight, merging back into the void.
Fang Ming looked at Number One's location with concern, asking, "Are you okay? Sorry, sorry, Nannan thought you were a bad guy, so she acted."
"She... she is... who?" Number One, still shaken, stammered. It had never encountered such a terrifying existence. Even when facing the Professor, its heart only felt reverence, never this primal fear of a natural enemy.
In that instant, it felt an infinite darkness envelop it. Having never contemplated death, it experienced the profound terror of the word for the first time!
"Her?" Fang Ming paused. "She's the daughter of a friend of mine. My friend left her in my care."
There will be another update tonight (if I don't fall asleep... Lately, I've been getting sleepy around eight or nine in the evening and waking up at four or five in the morning. If the second update doesn't come today, it will be tomorrow morning. My apologies, my apologies~)