The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1111: Spicy

Meanwhile, Mischievous Monkey, Dead Pig, and Adept Horse were facing the death monster Gluttony—Liu Tao. The moment Mischievous Monkey saw his twin brother, recognition struck like a physical blow. In the end, Brother didn't get to meet a good end.

Perhaps it had all been wishful thinking. His brother might have spent his final human days struggling against illness, waiting for his monsterhood to awaken. Had he looked back on his life without regret, accepting a peaceful death? Or when his monsterhood finally stirred, had he spat at his false life, grateful to escape such a mundane end?

Mischievous Monkey would never know. He could only hold onto his belief: his brother was gone. The enemy he was facing now was Gluttony, a death monster.

“Little Stone.” Liu Tao called out his brother’s nickname. In his time, parents gave their children belittling names so that their children wouldn’t attract the interest of evils and thus stood a better chance of surviving.

“Little Grain,” Mischievous Monkey used his brother’s nickname as well.

That was how the twin siblings had been addressing each other.

“Didn’t expect you to be an awakener,” Liu Tao said with some regret.

“And I didn’t expect you to be a death monster,” Mischievous Monkey said with mourning eyes.

Liu Tao chuckled. “Such is fate.”

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“Yes, such is fate. A man and a monster being twin brothers.” Mischievous Monkey looked up at the sky. “God is a cruel prankster.”

“Why don’t I make the last banquet for you, Little Stone?” Liu Tao offered.

Mischievous Monkey waved away the suggestion. “This isn’t a holiday. Let’s just have malatang.”

“Malatang.” Liu Tao narrowed his eyes in reminiscence. “That works. My malatang is known for its spiciness. Once you taste it, you can’t forget it.”

“True.” Mischievous Monkey missed the taste.

Liu Tao's smile vanished, though his wrinkles remained etched deep. “Do you know, Little Stone? Spiciness isn’t a taste, but pain.”

Mischievous Monkey fell silent.

Liu Tao stepped forward, raising one hand toward the three awakeners, fingers splayed wide. “The greatest pain can be enjoyed when you’re killed.”

Rows of thin black teeth erupted from his fingers' inner edges, forming malformed mouths. From Liu Tao's perspective, these twisted maws seemed to devour the three men in the distance.

At the same time, two rows of insidious black teeth suddenly emerged above and below the three awakeners. Clack! They snapped together with murderous intent.

Adept Horse had anticipated the attack. He snatched Mischievous Monkey away with Jump, while Dead Pig vanished, replaced by a basketball—his level 7 Displacement allowing him to swap not just with living things, but with objects he had marked within the last twenty minutes.

Once the large black maw slammed shut, viscous inky energy writhed in place like a clot of blood. It was as if a part of space had been torn.

Adept Horse landed thirty meters away, lowering Mischievous Monkey to the ground. Then he jumped onto the rooftop of the library, putting some distance between him and his teammates.

Hands balled up, he extended his index fingers and middle fingers, pressing them together to form finger guns, aimed at Liu Tao.

Adept Horse had opted for precision shooting with his light elements over large-scale attacks to avoid friendly fire. His role was to provide cover fire so that Dead Pig and Mischievous Monkey could better launch their offense.

In the blink of an eye, a blinding light orb appeared at his fingertips, launching toward Liu Tao's temple like a golden laser. It struck true—yet instead of bursting through the other side, it simply... vanished. No blood, no wound. Liu Tao's body had devoured the light whole.

Liu Tao slowly turned and looked up at Adept Horse, smiling.

The space around Adept Horse grew cold all of a sudden.

Again!

Two rows of ink-black teeth materialized, snapping at him from above and below. He leaped away just in time, firing three more golden lasers. They struck Liu Tao's chest—and disappeared just like the first.

Is Liu Tao's body an illusion? Adept Horse wondered as he landed. No, the lasers would have left traces if they'd passed through. There's only one possibility: his body is like a subspace, swallowing everything that touches it.

While pondering, Adept Horse had jumped onto another building. The black teeth pursued relentlessly, chasing him and forcing him to jump nonstop. The bites left a trail of black blood clots suspended in the air like scars torn into the night itself.

“Earth thorns!”

Mischievous Monkey seized his chance. Dozens of earth thorns erupted around Liu Tao, stabbing toward him from all angles. Yet Liu Tao made no attempt to dodge.

The thorns struck, turning him into a human pincushion—but something was wrong. No blood flowed. No damage showed. The thorns hadn't penetrated flesh at all, but the black blood clots surrounding him.

Mischievous Monkey's face darkened as understanding began to dawn.

Dead Pig growled, transforming into a massive wild boar and lunging at Liu Tao from above. His arms, already thick as telephone poles, swelled further into battering rams—his fourth Talent, Arm Strength, manifesting in full force.

Bam! His clenched hands slammed down at Liu Tao, who had been pinned in place by the earth thorns. It looked like a metal hammer knocking a thin frail needle into the ground.

The sheer force of it broke the land and sent soil flying. However, Dead Pig’s expression was one of confusion rather than triumph; it didn’t feel like he had hammered anything. It didn’t feel like he had made contact at all.

He retracted his fists and backed away.

Indeed, Liu Tao was no longer in the crater, but a wobbly, viscous black clot. It spread suddenly to fill the crater and continued to overflow.

What is this? The death monster’s true form?

Dead Pig might look slow, but that was far from the truth. He had an inkling of what was happening.

“Run! Away from it!”

Adept Horse’s cry came from a distance. He was farthest from Liu Tao and had the broadest perspective, thus realizing the truth the earliest.

He reached Mischievous Monkey with Jump, whisking him to safety. He couldn't save Dead Pig too—he'd have to trust his teammate's ability to survive.

Dead Pig felt it then: thick, chilling energy swarming up around him like a whale's maw closing around a hapless shrimp accidentally trespassing inside.

From Adept Horse’s point of view, what was happening was clear.

The black teeth that had been chasing him and Mischievous Monkey—the black blood clots biting into space—looked like giant teeth. The ones in the sky were the upper teeth, and the ones on the ground were the lower teeth. The thirty-two teeth in total formed a mouth.

The black clot Liu Tao had transformed into spread quickly across the ground. It resembled a black tongue from afar.

The three of them were already inside Liu Tao’s mouth. That was the death monster’s true form.

The black teeth crashed together, tearing into the flesh of heaven and earth. The resulting void spread like ink across the running track, swallowing everything whole.