The unjust battle had finally come to an end.

The evildoers who toyed with life returned triumphant, while the innocent ones who tried to rewrite it all ended in a devastating defeat.

Nest City is rotten right to the core in this place.

The wicked rarely receive their just deserts, while the virtuous often do not end well.

Jack died in battle, Frost Moon lay motionless on the ground, her heart and brain pierced... and Yun You was barely alive, having lost even the strength to cry.

The little girl's consciousness was gradually slipping into a haze.

The Apprentice Death God would consume the energy accumulated in its body to accelerate the healing of its wounds.

Yet Yun You's internal strength had long been exhausted.

Both her physical strength and the energy obtained through the "Eating Ability" had been completely drained.

Even the symptoms of the "strange disease" began to reappear.

And as for Taibatsu...

Having regained its heart, it quickly repaired its injuries by breaking down excess muscle and body tissue for energy.

Moreover, in the "esophagus" above, fragmented human viscera kept falling, providing it with sustenance and recovery.

Time passed bit by bit.

Soon, Taibatsu regained a tiny fraction of its mobility, enough to crawl by squirming.

"Squelch~ Squelch~"

Slowly, it turned its body, gazing at Yun You.

After all, Taibatsu was not human and lacked the complete logical thinking of humans.

It didn't care that Yang Lie and Xie Kang had used it, or perhaps it wasn't even aware on that level.

In its mind, the two had always been bringing it delicious food, and even though they added some locks to its genes, objectively, it was all for its own good.

And what about Yun You and her group? They attacked it without hesitation and almost ruined its good fortune.

In this comparison, it naturally harbored a deep hatred for Yun You.

And at this moment, Yun You had lost her combat ability, while it stood in the position of the "victor."

So without much hesitation, Taibatsu spent three hours laboriously moving towards Yun You, then opened its massive jaws and swallowed the little girl whole.

As its teeth had long been shattered by the Dragon Gun and hadn't yet recovered, Taibatsu couldn't chew the "food" in its mouth.

However, even if its teeth were intact, its current strength was insufficient to chew up the Apprentice Death God, so it could only swallow the food whole.

But that didn't matter.

Taibatsu believed its gastric acid, which could slowly corrode even steel, would surely take care of everything.

Once the prey in its stomach had turned into a pool of blood, it would ascend to a higher level...

...

Whoosh——!

After a prolonged squeezing, Yun You finally felt as if she had fallen into a pool of sticky "water," splashing droplets around her.

She could barely sense that she had been eaten and fallen into Taibatsu's stomach.

This damned place was utterly nauseating, with thick Flesh Barriers all around, and beneath her, yellow gastric acid that reached above her knees.

In this acidic ocean, she could vaguely see some shattered white bones, floating on the bubbling gastric acid.

Some of the dead had been swallowed by Taibatsu while still alive, just like her... These people had also tried to escape, even carving words into Taibatsu's stomach walls with the bones.

But in the end, none of them had managed to escape.

The strength of the gastric acid was something Yun You recognized from the moment she entered.

She was still wearing that civilian hazmat suit, but it offered no protection at all.

In just a few minutes, the glue on her shoe soles had begun to melt, and the newly embedded steel plates and polymer materials were rapidly corroding.

Her feet could even feel the moisture creeping in.

Not to mention, she still had a sizeable wound on her waist and abdomen.

The air, filled with acidic substances, was constantly searing her skin.

Despite the high physical resilience of the Apprentice Death God, prolonged exposure would ultimately lead to injury.

The little girl used the skeletal remains for support, maintaining a leaning posture against the wall with her last ounce of strength, trying to slow the corrosion as much as possible.

Even so, she could still feel the gnawing, burning pain.

At this moment, Yun You no longer had the energy to concern herself with the pain.

In a daze, she let out a soft sigh.

"In the end... we lost."

Yes, they lost, lost utterly.

Reality isn't a fairy tale; it's not as though fighting to the end guarantees success.

Such a principle doesn't exist in this world.

Yang Lie was simply more calculating and more ruthless in his methods.

That he could win was a matter of course.

As he himself had said... the moment Yun You and her group stepped into this underground passage, the outcome had already been decided.

The girl's adventure seemed thrilling and filled with twists and turns, with every step leading to numerous different outcomes, but in reality, the ending for their illustrious squad was only one: "defeat."

The only difference was where they would lose... whether in Taibatsu's hands or to Yang Lie himself.

This is the truth.

Yun You recalled the nursery rhyme that Aurora had hummed earlier.

[Four little soldiers, set out fishing together. Unaware of the danger, buried in the belly of a big fish.]

[Four, but only three remain]

Thinking back, this song was about them.

Despite being in "danger," they were completely unaware of their situation, ultimately buried in the belly of the big fish, which was Taibatsu.

Four but only three, the one who died must have been Jack.

And the final outcome of this nursery rhyme was that no one survived, indicating that perhaps they all had to die.

From this point of view, Aurora, or the two-headed monster bird residing within Aurora, might have seen through all of their fates from the start.

Then why didn't she tell them earlier?

In a haze, Yun You recalled Aurora's "betrayal."

She understood and comprehended it.

In "Aurora's" view, whether she spoke up or not, the final outcome would be the same.

The disparity in power between the two sides was too great; no matter how she plotted, no matter how Yun You arranged things, they could never surpass Yang Lie.

Even so, she simply kept it a secret, intending to seize the opportunity to offer advice to Yang Lie after Yun You's defeat, thereby switching sides.

She clearly knew she had value, and she was different from Yun You, not doomed to die.

In the end, she also gambled correctly.

With rhetoric and betrayal, she managed to save her own life.

To be honest, Yun You still harbored some resentment towards Aurora.

After all, she had saved Aurora's life, yet Aurora had turned around and sold her out, exchanging Yun You's information for a chance to live.

To say she wasn't angry would be a lie.

But in the end... Yun You understood.

When faced with impending doom, anyone would choose their own survival; it's not something to blame.

But the little girl couldn't reconcile with it.

She refused to believe that fate was as unchangeable as a predetermined fact.

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