38: Raising pigs? The captain's heart is utterly filthy!

As they entered the Flesh Casino area, the ground became increasingly soft.

A squelching sound emanated from their soles.

Tang Ran looked displeased.

The hot-tempered Sports Committee Member hadn't been able to finish her fight just now, and she was bursting with pent-up frustration.

"Captain, I don't understand!"

"Why did you let that little Japanese devil run away just now? That Tanaka Koji looked like the type to stab people in the back; were you saving him to wrap dumplings for the New Year?"

"That's right..."

An Nuonuo tugged at Chen Du's sleeve, carefully hopping over a puddle of liquid on the ground, and chimed in: "The way that Tanaka looked at people was so disgusting, like he wanted to eat them."

Chen Du stopped and lit a cigarette.

"Killing is simple; it's just a wave of the hand."

"But in this Crimson Port, where the rules are entirely unknown, human lives are not just consumables—they are pathfinders."

He looked at the group of still-naive girls behind him, deciding to give them a lesson in apocalypse survival.

"Do you think this godforsaken place is safe?"

Chen Du pointed to the greedy, eerie gazes lurking in the shadows all around them.

The girls shook their heads in unison.

Are you kidding? This place was practically hell; how could there be any safety here?

"Exactly."

"Since it's not safe, someone has to be the one to step on the landmines, right?"

"If I killed them all, what would I gain?"

"But if I let them go..."

Chen Du spread his hands, smiling with an air of harmless innocence, "This is called 'pig farming,' understand?"

The group began to grasp his meaning.

A cold wind blew, and the girls shivered in unison.

"Hiss—"

Lin Keke gasped, crossing her arms over her chest with a look of shock: "Captain, your heart... if you cut it open, it'd definitely be black, right?"

"First, let the opposing team farm the monsters, and once they've maxed out, you wipe them out in a team fight to steal their gear..."

"This tactic is so dirty! But I love it! Is this what it feels like to be carried by a max-level boss? I love it, I love it!"

Tang Ran stared blankly for a long time, then gave a thumbs up: "It really has to be you! That's so damn sinister... oh wait, I mean, brilliant!"

As they spoke, a magnificent dark red building appeared before them.

The Flesh Casino.

If the outside was a makeshift slum, this was the ultimate art of bio-punk.

The gate wasn't a door.

It was a massive, gaping skull over ten meters wide!

Two rows of stark white fangs were interlaced to serve as door pillars;

The carpet was actually a tongue that extended deep into the dark, profound throat within.

"Welcome... Gurgle..."

Greeting them at the entrance were two half-man, half-toad monsters.

They wore tuxedos, their cheeks puffing in and out, and as they saw the beautiful women, long strands of drool hung from their mouths.

"This is the casino?"

Ye Qiu frowned, pulling a mask from her bag to wear, "It smells like formalin—rancid and greasy."

"Bear with it, I should be able to find the information I need here."

Chen Du took the lead, stepping onto the soft tongue and walking inside.

As soon as they entered, a wave of noise rushed toward them.

The dome was woven from countless pulsing blood vessels, emitting a dim, ambiguous red light.

There were no slot machines, no playing cards.

The gaming tables here were massive bone plates.

The dealers were all deformities.

Some had seven or eight arms, some had heads that were giant eyeballs, and others were simply masses of rotting flesh.

Moving through the hall to serve were the bunny-girl puppets they had seen outside.

They were expressionless, mechanically carrying trays.

On the trays were freshly severed fingers or bottles containing life essence.

"Holy crap... this aesthetic is way too sanity-draining, right?" Lin Keke grabbed Xia Xin's arm, "The designer of this place definitely has mental issues!"

When Chen Du's group of over twenty people walked into the hall.

The casino experienced a brief moment of vacuum.

In this place filled with deformed, rotting, and mutated creatures.

Suddenly, a group of fair-skinned, hot-bodied beauties appeared.

This visual impact was like throwing a diamond into a sewer!

The cold, dominant aura of The three Xia sisters, the soft and cute Lolita style of An Nuonuo, the intellectual and ascetic vibe of Ye Qiu...

Every single one of them was the kind of top-tier sacrifice these monsters wouldn't even dare to dream of!

Gulp, gulp...

The sound of swallowing saliva echoed continuously.

A Goblin gambler wearing a floral shirt and covered in green fur stared with wide eyes.

He clutched a handful of eyeball chips and edged closer.

His eyes were fixed on Ye Qiu's calves, and the front of Lin Keke's maid outfit that rose and fell with her breathing.

"Hehe... fragrant... such a fragrant scent of human flesh..."

The Goblin reached out a claw, foolishly trying to pull at Lin Keke's lace skirt.

"Ah! Don't touch me! You pervert!" Lin Keke shrieked, instinctively dodging backward.

Clang—!!

A cold flash swept through the air like lightning!

No one had even seen it clearly!

The Goblin's hand fell directly to the ground!

Filthy blood sprayed out!

"Aaaaaah—!!"

The Goblin hugged his severed hand and screamed, rolling on the ground in agony.

Xia Mo flicked the blood off her katana with an expressionless face, her eyes icy cold.

"If you don't want this hand, I can help you 'fix' it."

The restless gazes around them instantly retracted by more than half.

These beauties... had thorns!

At this moment, two three-meter-tall Stitched Monster security guards walked over.

Each took a leg and dragged the screaming Goblin away like a dead dog.

They threw it into a meat grinder in the corner.

Crunch, crunch...

The screaming stopped abruptly.

A stream of bright red liquid flowed from beneath the meat grinder, merging into the casino floor.

"They know the rules."

Chen Du nodded with satisfaction.

"How can you harass customers in a public place!"

They arrived at a gambling table in the center of the hall.

The one in charge of this table was a tentacle monster with a huge head and no body.

"We want to play a round." Chen Du pulled out a bone chair and sat down, crossing his legs.

The beauty legion behind him lined up, radiating an overwhelming aura.

The tentacle monster's pupils rotated, and its voice was grating: "New faces? We require life essence, or... parts from your bodies."

"What do you want to bet?"

Chen Du looked at the tentacle monster, the notebook in his mind trembling slightly.

A line of bloody text appeared: [Target: Tentacle Dealer]

[Weakness: Cowardly, fears the aura of high-status entities.]

[Note: Its third tentacle has an implanted sensory bone fragment and is currently swapping out the points.]

[Evaluation: A clumsy trick!]

Chen Du smiled, leaning forward slightly.

Deep within his pupils, a dark golden wheel of light began to rotate slowly.

To onlookers, he was just smiling.

But in the tentacle monster's vision, the human before it had vanished.

He had become a boundless abyss surging with despair!

"I bet..."

"I bet that there is a dead man's bone hidden in your third tentacle."

Before he had even finished speaking, Tyrants Gaze was fully activated!

The pressure of a superior entity from the soul level made all its cartilage go soft.

What was even worse—it had been caught cheating red-handed!

In the Flesh Casino, there was only one fate for a cheating dealer: being thrown into the meat grinder to be made into meatballs!

"Hiss—!!"

The tentacle monster was so terrified that it convulsed, its tentacles tying themselves into knots.

"What? Trying to welch on the bet?"

Beside him, Tang Ran sneered, stepping forward as her shadow engulfed the gambling table.

"The Captain is asking you a question! If you don't speak up, I'll chop you up and make takoyaki!"

Clang!

Xia Mo didn't waste words.

Her katana left its sheath by half an inch!

The cold blade aura locked directly onto the tentacle monster's large head.

With just one look from Chen Du, she could slice that head into sashimi.

This whole group... they were all living Yama Kings!

The tentacle monster completely broke down.

It slumped onto its chair with a thud, its tentacles flailing in desperate supplication.

"M-master, spare me! Don't... don't tell! Please don't let the boss know!"

The tentacle monster cried and pleaded: "I concede! The chips are all yours! Please have mercy!"

"How fun! It can even beg for mercy! I have no interest in takoyaki!"

Chen Du retracted the golden light from his eyes, his fingers tapping lightly on the table.

"What I want is information. Tell me, what is the energy source of this port? How does it operate?"

"I'll tell! I'll tell everything!" To save its own life, the tentacle monster spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube.

"Th-this place is the back of a juvenile Leviathan! The port's power furnace... burns the grease secreted by the Divine Beast! In return, we help it clean off parasites; it's a symbiotic relationship... we rely on this to survive!"

[Congratulations No. 0819, mission complete!]

[Identified Crimson Port's energy supply mechanism: Symbiotic relationship with a Leviathan.]

Hearing the notification sound in his mind, Chen Du smiled with satisfaction.

He patted the slimy, large head.

"Very good, that's more like it."

"Honesty is a virtue. Remember to hide it better next time; you gave yourself away."

With that, he led the group of beauties away in a grand procession.

"Let's go, ladies."

With that wave of intimidation, he had also incidentally won a pile of life essence and several pieces of rare metal from the table.