Devouring the Realm

"Hey..." The voice was hoarse, like gravel rubbing against a rusty piece of iron, as he struggled to rise from a pool of blood. Ling Jun's broken body was lying on the cold ground, half of it was stained with dark red, and the other half... Had already been annihilated in human form. Countless smooth dark red tentacles covered with strange suckers replaced the arms and ribs, pulsing and extending silently under the broken clothes, like a living shadow from the abyss, greedily absorbing the dust of the ruins and his own warmth. "... Do you think... This squirming... Can still be considered a 'person'?" Not far away, another figure crouched in the shadow of the broken wall, his breath drifting like a candle in the wind. A low laugh, broken and hollow, seemed to come from the netherworld: "Is it...? Or not...? Ha... Who... Cares..." The words were intermittent, with the exhaustion of dying and the emptiness of seeing through, "... In your heart... At least... There is still the shadow of... Home... And I... Am... The... Traveler who... Even forgot the way back..." Above the ruins, deathly silence spread. Only the terrifying tentacles twisted slowly and silently beside Ling Jun, indicating an inhuman existence. The stars flickered a thousand degrees above the broken sky, witnessing his long journey from the dust of other worlds to here. The chaos and changes in this place are not the end, but the turning point where his fate is overturned once again after walking in this boundless and cruel world for thousands of years...