Dahuang lifted its head vigilantly to observe its surroundings; the village had long been deserted.

It had finally found one of its own kind, but it was nothing more than a corpse.

"Who did this?"

This stray dog had died a miserable death, its abdomen hollowed out, looking very much like the handiwork of a monster.

For some reason, seeing the state of the corpse ignited a surge of anger in the usually carefree Dahuang, and the desire it had harbored to make friends instantly vanished.

Its rich combat experience drove it to instinctively lower its body and slow its pace as it snuck into Baihong Village.

By a small path, there was a rice wine shop. Dahuang saw a yellow-and-white mottled dog curled up beside some broken pottery piled at the entrance, its tail tucked between its legs, shivering violently.

There was a shocking wound on its back, so deep that the bone was visible.

The sign on the door frame was overgrown with yellowish, withered grass, and the name on it could no longer be seen.

Before the Otherworld invaded Blue Star, this had been just an ordinary rice wine shop in a village in the Great Xia Dynasty.

"Woof, what happened here?"

"Woof woo! Don't eat me!"

Compared to before it had wandered Blue Star, Dahuang's appearance barely resembled a Chinese Rural Dog anymore. It had a row of black bristles on its back, a bone structure comparable to that of a male lion, and well-tested muscles beneath its dense fur.

When Dahuang approached, wanting to ask something, the mottled dog let out a wail and immediately tucked its tail and fled into the depths of the rice wine shop.

Just then, Dahuang heard the roar of a monster behind it.

"Ga! Roar!"

Dahuang turned around and saw the monster's appearance.

This was a Charred Flesh Demon, a Tier 3 evil monster. Its entire body was charred black as if it had been burned by fire. Its entire body lay on the ground, lacking a lower half, and it crawled using arms that were longer than its upper body.

Its movement speed was extremely fast; relying solely on its hands to crawl, its speed could match that of the fastest cheetah on Blue Star.

The Charred Flesh Demon came from the Otherworld dungeon and was a common type of monster. They usually moved in groups and possessed a Skill that resonated with nearby kin. Adventurers training in the dungeon found them very troublesome, because if one was disturbed, all the nearby Charred Flesh Demons would sense it.

The Charred Flesh Demon's mouth still had residue of flesh; it was greedily chewing on the meat, swallowing it into its stomach.

This flesh had come from the mottled dog. With the Charred Flesh Demon's strength, it could have killed the dog in one blow, but it seemed to be playing a game of chase with the dog that had just fled into the rice wine shop.

Seeing this scene, a very vague memory surfaced in Dahuang's mind, sending waves of sharp pain through its brain.

When the Charred Flesh Demon saw the suddenly appearing Dahuang, it was stunned for a moment, then stared at its sturdy body with bloodshot eyes, its body trembling with joy.

"So much meat! How many days will this last me to eat!"

The stray dogs nearby were all skin and bones, with no flavor at all.

It sneered, slammed its hands against the ground, and lunged toward Dahuang.

Dahuang spat out a Sound Cannon from its mouth. The powerful air current, carrying the aura of a Demon King, instantly pierced the Charred Flesh Demon's chest. The opponent fell to Dahuang's feet, its body wearing a look of shock and terror.

The dying body let out a silent shriek that rippled across the entire deserted village.

Soon, the angry roars of monsters throughout the village rose one after another, merging into a chorus.

"So weak."

Dahuang didn't even feel like it had used much effort. After taking care of the Charred Flesh Demon, it followed the mottled dog's footprints to the back room of the rice wine shop and quickly found the dog huddled in a corner, shivering.

The dog still wanted to run, but with Dahuang blocking the dead end, it couldn't escape even if it wanted to. It wasn't until Dahuang hopped around in front of it to show it had no hostility that its emotions were soothed.

"Woof woof! I'm here to help! I'm a dog, just like you!"

Dahuang said.

"Woof!?"

"You can talk?"

The mottled dog's ears perked up. After its mood calmed down and it took a closer look at Dahuang, it realized that Dahuang should be one of its own kind, just like it.

"What about the monster outside?"

It asked, shrinking its neck, lingering in fear.

The Charred Flesh Demon outside had killed too many of its companions. In the whole village, there were hardly any stray dogs left alive, including itself. They had all scattered and gone into hiding.

Those monsters were too terrifying; a slight acceleration was enough to easily catch up to the fastest big dog among them. Before them, the stray dogs were like ants on the ground.

Dahuang said confidently, "That monster has already been killed by me."

"Killed!?"

The mottled dog cautiously poked its head out and saw the Charred Flesh Demon's corpse outside the door.

A dog actually had the ability to kill such a terrifying monster!

Its eyes gleamed, and it said gratefully, "Big Brother Dog! From now on, you are the big brother of all the dogs in our village!"

"Laipi, and Dabai, we are saved!" It was still thinking of its companions, not paying attention to the terrifying wound on its own back.

Dahuang asked, "So what exactly happened here, woof?"

The mottled dog, as if it had found a savior, told Dahuang everything it knew, one by one.

They were stray dogs abandoned by humans. After the people in the village moved to the city as a whole, they settled down here and had been breeding ever since.

Occasionally, some garbage trucks would take the easy way out and dump city trash here, so they usually survived by scavenging trash.

Recently, because the surroundings had become increasingly dangerous, even the garbage trucks stopped coming here.

Because they couldn't find a stable food source, their numbers dwindled. Many couldn't bear the hunger and either ran to other villages or risked going to the city to find food.

They never returned, and the number of stray dogs in the entire village gradually dropped to just over thirty.

Just a few days ago, two people came here and moved in, and immediately after that, many monsters appeared. These monsters ate everything, and medium-sized dogs like them, which weren't very fast, naturally became their main food source.

Out of more than thirty stray dogs, under the Charred Flesh Demon's dimensionality-reducing strike, only three survived, including itself, in just a few days.

Unfortunately, Dahuang wasn't very smart and didn't realize that these two people were Evil Beings. One of the Evil Beings was the Shadow Assassin who had attacked Wang Zhihui; it had set off from this village and was dispatched to detect the surrounding situation.

Its brain was like a rusted machine; when it suddenly had to make it run, it was inevitable that it would stutter a few times.

After knitting its brows, gritting its teeth, and thinking with extreme difficulty, Dahuang reached a conclusion.

That was to kill all the monsters in the village! Kill, kill, kill!

Since they all knew it was here, it would guard the door. If one came, it would kill one; if two came, it would kill a pair!