The tentacles wrapped around Li Tianming automatically loosened.
Li Tianming immediately jumped out, desperately spitting out the mucus in his mouth, unable to say a single word.
Qin Siyang pulled out the God-Hunting Dagger and walked up to the massive blue heart, as large as a room.
The heart weakly pulsated, as if it had realized its impending fate.
He raised his hand and lightly slashed the heart.
The heart immediately twitched as if electrocuted, shaking twice. Its once vibrant and translucent muscle instantly dulled, and the mucus covering it quickly dried up.
In less than ten seconds, the heart lost all signs of life. Its surface cracked apart inch by inch like weathered wall paint, slowly collapsing into a pile of withered, rotten flesh.
Meanwhile, the Doom Fate Octopus's eyeballs gradually turned into a cloudy gray mass, merging with its aged and shriveled body, making it impossible to distinguish their location anymore.
BOOM—
The massive body of the Doom Fate Octopus toppled to the side, as if a small building had been knocked down.
Seeing its pitiful death, Qin Siyang clicked his tongue.
'What a miserable way to go.'
Li Tianming was right. Once someone wins the death gamble, the Doom Fate Octopus becomes cursed, allowing others to kill it without resistance.
Even though it clearly wasn't willing to accept this fate, it still couldn't escape destiny's arrangement.
Qin Siyang finally relaxed completely, his tense nerves easing.
He glanced at the Doom Fate Octopus's corpse with disdain, the corners of his mouth lifting, "What level are you even at? Trying to play tricks on me? Do you really think you can outplay me?"
Just like the Doom Fate Octopus, Qin Siyang had also cheated in the gamble.
The difference was that his cheating went unnoticed, leading him to victory.
There were two spherical objects on the tentacles—one contained nothing, while the other hid the heart.
From the outside, they looked identical. That meant the one with nothing inside must be hollow.
And if it was hollow, it had to be at least as big as the heart, essentially the size of a room.
It could easily fit Qin Siyang inside.
So, Qin Siyang immediately thought of a way to cheat.
He had just awakened a new skill upon advancing in his sequence—[Banquet Domain].
[Banquet Domain] allowed him to teleport to an open space within a 30-meter radius. If he could teleport inside the sphere, then it was empty. Or rather, even if the heart was inside, he would be able to see it.
If the teleport failed, it meant the sphere wasn't empty, indicating that the heart was inside.
In short, regardless of the outcome, he would be able to determine which sphere contained the heart.
But there was a problem.
He had to activate Banquet Domain without letting the Doom Fate Octopus see.
Otherwise, he might provoke the monster and get slapped to death by a tentacle.
At a critical moment, inspiration struck, and he requested to inspect the Doom Fate Octopus's body again.
The Doom Fate Octopus agreed.
When he stood on the ground in front of its head, he found an angle where the Doom Fate Octopus couldn't see him and activated Banquet Domain toward the center of one of the tentacle spheres.
The skill failed, going into cooldown.
The space inside wasn't open.
Thus, he successfully pinpointed which tentacle sphere contained the heart.
And with that, the Doom Fate Octopus's twisted, gamble-filled trickery came to an end.
As for cheating to win, Qin Siyang felt no shame whatsoever.
On the contrary, he was quite pleased with himself.
After all, the Doom Fate Octopus was the one who broke the rules first.
Talking about a fair gamble and then trying to cheat? How disgusting.
If he weren't so weak compared to the Doom Fate Octopus, he would've turned it into minced meat on the spot.
But in the end, he won.
Beating the Doom Fate Octopus at its own game.
Perfect.
In fact, he thought that if he had won without cheating, it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying.
Right now, every fiber of his being screamed one word—Satisfying!
But Li Tianming was clearly in bad shape.
Having his mouth sealed by the Doom Fate Octopus's mucus-covered tentacle suckers must have been an awful experience.
He had been kneeling on the ground, vomiting for ages.
The slimy strands coming out of his mouth. Who knew if they were the Doom Fate Octopus's mucus or his own stomach acid and bile?
Qin Siyang considered patting his back for comfort.
But after noticing the mucus all over Li Tianming's back, he quickly changed his mind.
Instead, he opted for verbal encouragement.
"Old Li, you're amazing! You actually noticed that the Doom Fate Octopus was cheatin."
"Uuurrgh—"
"I knew you wouldn't let me down. Going out with you was so worth it."
"Uuurrgh—"
"If it weren't for you, I'd be dead by now. Old Li, you're my savior. Of course, I saved you too, so we're life-saving brothers now."
Li Tianming shot him a glance, his face already turning pale from disgust.
"Cut... the... shell disc... Let's go back... uuurgh—"
"Got it!"
Qin Siyang rushed to the Doom Fate Octopus's corpse and carefully searched for its shell disc.
But after circling around its massive head twice, he still couldn't find it.
Scratching his head, he muttered, "Weird. Last time, the Ghost Faced Heron's shell disc was the size of a bowl. This Doom Fate Octopus is way bigger, so its shell disc should be at least as big as a plate, right? Why can't I find it anywhere?"
Li Tianming weakly said, "Heart... uuurgh—"
"You mean the shell disc is on the heart?"
Qin Siyang picked up a chunk of heart flesh and searched through it.
"Found it!"
Sure enough, embedded in the heart's outer wall was a shell disc about the size of two palms, slightly larger than the Ghost Faced Heron's.
He took a closer look and his jaw dropped.
"Holy crap, how many triangles is this? I'm rich, I'm rich!"
Without counting, he swiftly cut off the shell disc.
And while Li Tianming was still busy vomiting, he sneakily took two bites of the heart's flesh.
'Ptooey, ptooey! Not only does it taste bad, but I don't feel any improvement. The texture and effects are worse than the Ghost Faced Heron's.'
Since the Doom Fate Octopus wasn't beneficial for his growth, Qin Siyang had no reason to stay any longer.
He forcefully dragged Li Tianming up, leaving the cave together.
Li Tianming staggered like a drunk fat man, his face drained of energy.
The two had to climb out of the cave by hand.
Because of Li Tianming's poor condition, they had to move slowly—climbing for a bit, then resting.
But Li Tianming wasn't an ordinary person. His high sequence level gave him a strong physique, and after exiting the cave, his condition gradually recovered.
Only the unbearable stench of corpses still clung to them.
It took nearly two hours for Qin Siyang and Li Tianming to crawl out of the pit.
The moment they looked up at the starry sky through the cave entrance, they were so overwhelmed that they almost hugged each other and cried.
Back on the surface, Qin Siyang took a deep breath.
For the first time, he realized just how fresh and sweet the air outside the safe zone was.
Gazing at the stars and the drifting divine beings, he couldn't help but chuckle.
"Heh, being alive is great."
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