Chapter 321: Chapter 321 The Fool’s Cage (15)_1
As the saying goes, seek benevolence and receive it.
After seeing the creature crawling on the ground, Fu Qian and Hani looked at Bella in unison.
Regrettably, the rebellious girl, who had been indolent and world-weary just a moment ago, now seemed a bit stiff in her posture.
Everyone loves the idea of a dragon until one actually shows up!
Fu Qian sighed without paying attention to her reaction and bent down to observe the creature on the ground.
This source of danger, according to Hani, wasn’t very large; with its tail, it was just over half a meter long, and if not for the typical crocodile-like snout, it would almost be a large lizard.
...
At the moment, its uneven skin exuded an indescribable shade of black, as if it couldn’t reflect any light.
Its eight legs were inconsistent in length and thickness, some even slick and skinless, making it look very awkward.
If this thing had come from afar, it would surely have been noticed; unfortunately, it seemed to have come around from the blind spot behind the boulder.
“Bella, let’s get out of here, and don’t even think about going any closer!”
On this side, Hani’s breathing grew thinner, and she instinctively took two steps back, almost shouting in a hushed voice.
However, her reminder was the last thing Bella needed. Startled by Hani’s shout, Bella snapped back to reality.
Turning to glance at Hani, Bella bit her lip and, far from retreating, she even took a step forward.
This inexplicable competitive spirit!
Fu Qian rubbed his face, unsurprised by this turn of events.
Bella was originally the closest to the crocodile; now that she had stepped forward, she was nearly face to face with it.
And it seemed that this odd crocodile could not speak; faced with Bella’s approach, it just rotated its asymmetrical eyes, silently staring at her.
The moment their eyes met, Bella’s body jerked, and her expression visibly became confused.
Ah!
A few seconds later, having witnessed the scene, Hani screamed and grabbed Fu Qian.
“Go, go, go!”
“We’re just leaving her?”
Fu Qian pointed at Bella, who was standing still over there.
“She can’t hear us now, and if we get close, we’ll end up like her.”
Hani shook her head while biting her lip.
“What will happen to Bella if we leave?”
“She has already entered the fairy tale; we must wait for her to find the way out before she can wake up.”
“We need to hurry and find Souffle and tell her about this.”
“What if we can’t find her?”
“How could we not… Bella is very strong.”
In response to Fu Qian’s skepticism, Hani sounded not very confident.
“I mean, what if, and you saw it too, Bella approached that thing voluntarily; maybe she doesn’t want to come out! What will happen if she never does?”
“If she doesn’t find the way out… the longer it takes, the more her memories will blur; she will forget many things, and it will become harder to leave. Getting lost in there…”
Towards the end, Hani’s voice faded away.
“Sounds dangerous.”
Fu Qian looked at Bella, who had stopped responding, and the crocodile beside her.
“If we kill this thing, would she be able to wake up?”
“To kill… I’ve never tried; I don’t know.”
Hani was evidently taken aback by Fu Qian’s idea; as slow as she was, she finally realized something was off with today’s Violetta.
“Then let’s give it a go—hey!”
Without giving Hani a chance to argue, Fu Qian greeted the crocodile with a call.
On one hand, he wanted to save this rebellious girl; on the other, he was genuinely interested in the object.
Despite Hani’s description of it as the source of corruption, it exactly represented an existence capable of traversing dimensions.
His mission was to escape from this place; how could he miss such a research subject?
The crocodile did not pretend to be wood, and at a call, its head quickly swung in their direction.
Fu Qian took the brunt of it, and even though he was standing at a safe distance, he felt a heaviness in his head when the crocodile’s amber eyes glanced at him.
The feeling of his consciousness falling into chaos, which he had experienced earlier, returned, and he could even sense Violetta’s consciousness becoming unstable.
Pretty impressive!
As someone with rich experience in losing sanity, Fu Qian immediately took a couple of steps back and picked up half a piece of cake from the rock.
Under Hani’s distressed gaze, Fu Qian pinched off a piece and threw it over.
Smack!
The next moment, the cake hit the crocodile’s eye precisely, splattering into a mess.
Caught off guard by this sweet bombardment, the creature paused briefly before it lowered its head and, seemingly on instinct, licked the cake crumbs off the ground.
Good, it eats!
Fu Qian was very pleased with its reaction and, without hesitation, continued to throw the remaining cake at it in quick succession.
The crocodile seemed to have no intention to dodge and even opened its mouth to catch them.
Very nice, an unfussy eater is the mark of a good child.
As he kept tossing the cake, he made his way forward without a sound, until he was nearly parallel with Bella. Fu Qian, with a smile, pulled out the green apple.
With only the last piece of cake left in hand, Fu Qian aimed and threw it together with the apple.
The crocodile was accustomed to catching it and caught it straight away.
Unfortunately, to make it more deceptive, Fu Qian had thrown the apple leisurely, and as it went into its mouth, it did not explode as expected.
Yet, the crocodile was not foolish; it sensed something was off the moment the apple entered its mouth and tried to spit it out, rather than bite down.
However, Fu Qian did not give it the chance, as he immediately pounced forward.
Violetta’s body weighed no more than fifty pounds, so her strength could not be very great.
Luckily, the crocodile itself was also quite small, and in the moment that Fu Qian pounced, he did his utmost to hold its mouth shut.
Boom!
A muffled boom resounded as the apple finally exploded inside the crocodile’s mouth.
The crocodile’s body writhed violently, but it did not let out any screams, and there was no blood.
At the same time, the heaviness in Fu Qian’s mind began to dissipate.
Looking down, a web of cracks appeared on the crocodile’s body, resembling shattered clay.
However, the creature had not yet died completely; in the next moment, its body elongated and split along the cracks into several pieces.
Every part, including its tail and especially its eight legs, shot off in different directions simultaneously.
“Be careful!”
Fu Qian got up from the ground and shouted at Hani.
One of the legs that had scurried off was headed straight for her.
Unfortunately, she had been stunned by his heroic performance and was still dazed. His shout only confounded her further.
The next moment, that leg had already coiled around her own.
Ah—
It was then that Hani reacted, letting out a blood-curdling scream and desperately trying to shake the leg off.
However, the severed leg, surprisingly powerful, seemed to tighten even more with each shake.
Fu Qian was about to step forward to help when a strange growl came through.
When he looked again, he saw Hani’s body bend like a shrimp, and a mouthful of sharp teeth bit into the severed leg as she opened her mouth wide.