The King of Curses

Chapter 307 Hell Chef
After being rejected by Cen Dongsheng, Wan Dugu's expression did not change much.

He nodded slightly, said "I'm sorry", and stood up to leave. The shadows scattered on the seats around him disappeared into the air along with him.

"Mr. Cen, that is..."

During the brief conversation, Chen Yuan felt an indescribable sense of oppression. The cold temperature and the dark world made his already exhausted body transform into armor again as if in response to stress, trying his best to resist the erosion. After the other party left, he fell down with a sense of relief.

"Just like me, you are a contender who has set your sights on the fragments."

Cen Dongsheng pulled Chen Yuan up from the ground.

"He, he is..."

"He is a special-class spell-forbidden master. You understand what this means, right?"

"..."

Chen Yuan tried his best to remain calm, but there was still a look of fear in his pupils.

He was no longer a newcomer who knew nothing about this world. Since he boarded this ship, his horizons had broadened countless times, and he was very clear about the distance between himself and the top masters. The young man swallowed his saliva and said:
"If the fragments..."

"If the fragment falls into his hands, you don't need to fight for it. Our agreement will still stand."

Chen Yuan let out a long sigh.

"I see. I guess there are six fragments in total that need to be collected?"

"It seems you have figured it out. Yes, the six fragments correspond to the six realms of reincarnation in Buddhism."

"The fragment of humanity I just seized, and the fragment of Asura Dao in my body..."

The boy recalled.

"Also, I met Zheng Yongliang at the banquet before. He and I had some resonance. If I'm not mistaken, he is also one of them."

"This person is the holder of the Hungry Ghost Realm Fragment, but was taken away by Meng Huafan."

These are the three whose whereabouts are known. As for the rest...

"If nothing unexpected happens, we will meet soon."

*
Chen Yuan really met the host of the next fragment very quickly.

In the first round of competition, he successfully won the victory and theoretically did not need to participate in the next round; but he was not there for the so-called reward, but to take his sister away from the owner of the ship.

He could not just pin his hopes on Meng Huafan's promise, but had to rely on the power of Mr. Cen, who was capable of fighting him.

In order to fulfill his promise to Cen Dongsheng, he had to collect the fragments. In the process, Chen Yuan could feel more and more clearly...

"It's fate."

He raised his head and looked up at the monster over five meters tall standing in the middle of the hot spring pool, and couldn't help but baring his teeth.

At the boy's feet, a group of challengers were lying in a mess, some with purple faces, some with pale faces, most of them curled up and rolled over, holding their stomachs, and some of the unlucky ones had already died.

Even those challengers who were lucky enough to survive suffered a lot of torture: some grew scales, some grew mushrooms, and some had abnormal limbs...

The reason why they have become like this is closely related to the pots, pans, and utensils scattered all over the floor.

On the table top and beside the table legs, one can see utensils used to hold dishes, with traces of food of various colors remaining inside. Judging from the smell and color, they do not look like something that can be put into a human stomach.

This is a restaurant. The walls are covered with burnt butter stains, forming translucent outlines of human faces. Several large pots are placed in the center of the venue, bubbling with boiling turbid soup, and swollen fingers occasionally emerge from the foam.

The official location of this place is "Floating World Restaurant", and the second competition is a big eater competition. As the name suggests, it compares the amount of food that can be eaten.

But unlike in the human world, the food served in the restaurant is all poisonous.

A curse master who is good at physical skills and reaches Class C may achieve the so-called state of immunity to all poisons in martial arts novels, but the "delicious dishes" served by the chef of the Fu Shi Restaurant contain curse poison.

In short, this competition tests one's "eyesight"; for those players with poor eyesight, the test is "physical fitness".

The former tests one's spiritual perception, while the latter, in the absence of any relevant spells or prohibitions, strong true Qi is the best way to resist the curse poison in the body.

From the perspective of "testing one's ability", the content of the competition can be described as reasonable, interesting, and unique.

Chen Yuan heard these words from the curse masters beside him before the game.

He himself naturally didn't think so. He felt that the most likely possibility was that the big shots simply had a bad taste and liked to watch the curse masters for entertainment just like they were participating in a TV entertainment show.

Chen Yuan originally thought that curse masters and ordinary people were a completely different group, but now it seems that he just didn't see enough. After seeing the real big shots at the top, and the fanaticism of others trying to please the big shots and compete for rewards, he found that the world may have changed, but the world... has not really changed.

His life and that of his family were crushed and shattered by the selfish desires of the big men; he tried to piece the fragments together, but his heart was filled with resentment.

Although Chen Yuan now has to join this crazy and chaotic competition in order to win back his sister, he would rather choose his own way to win.

In addition to picky eating and overeating, there is a third approach, a better way -

Defeat the host of this restaurant.

The host of the flesh-and-blood gambling house was the six-armed dealer. At that time, Chen Yuan had not yet realized the existence of such a practice, and had to engage in a fierce battle with the gamblers who came for him; and this time, he did not intend to let the chef of this "Floating World Restaurant" go again.

“Oh… hehe…”

The chef was the five-meter-tall monster. It waved the hook in its hand. Purple mucus flowed from the cracks in its wrinkled skin, emitting a foul smell. Its open mouth was filled with jagged sharp teeth, and the words it spoke were unclear.

"Boy, you, are you going to die? How dare you attack me, a chef?"

"so what?"

Chen Yuan replied calmly.

The reason why he said "destined" was because he sensed a resonance coming from the other party.

After Mr. Cen’s reminder last time, he is now certain that this phenomenon proves that both of them are hosts of the fragments.

"The competition must be conducted according to the rules. If you don't follow them, I will kick you out!"

"Following your rules, this is what happens."

Chen Yuan kicked an unconscious curse master beside him.

"Lying on the ground, being slaughtered. In an unfair competition, there will be no winner."

"Who, who said that? I saw how much food they ate before they passed out!"

The chef seemed angry at his questioning and roared loudly, with cracks all over his body like wriggling mouths.

Anyone who sees it will think it is a monster from hell, and no one will associate it with the human being it once was...

Chen Yuan sighed inwardly.

The other party wanted to take his sister away at the banquet, which made him so angry that he did not hesitate to use all his strength to stop it.

At this moment, after seeing the other party's tragic end, the anger in his heart was not extinguished, and he was determined to get rid of "it"; but in addition to this, a sense of pity was added to his heart.

That’s right, the chef’s true identity is an acquaintance he had met once before, the host of the Hungry Ghost Realm fragments, and the former top-class curse master Zheng Yongliang.

But now he no longer looks like his original self.

It has an extremely ugly appearance, with jagged bone spurs protruding from its bare back, emitting sulfur smoke, and its entire body is covered with ups and downs like lava mountains.

The five-meter-tall, bloated body wore a bloodstained dark red apron with dozens of screaming hungry ghost heads sewn on it with gut thread. His cheeks were purple, and his fang-filled mouth, which was split to the ears, was humming a tune.

The thick joints twisted in the opposite direction, and the giant hand at the top, immersed in the boiling blood soup, was holding a ladle made of vertebrae - the pale human spine stretched and curled in the boiling liquid, making a "crunching" sound like a living thing, and the other hand held a rusty hook. The ones boiling in the soup were undoubtedly "hungry ghosts", and whenever the swollen human skin floated on the surface of the soup, those heads would scramble to eat their own kind.

While stirring the cauldron, the chef used a hook to pull up the hungry ghosts around him. Their swollen abdomens were pierced by the iron hooks. They screamed, wailed, and struggled, but it was all in vain.

After being thrown casually into the soup pot, the hungry ghosts were crushed into new ingredients by the bone spoon as their blood foamed.

"Hehe... I won't tell you first... This smell, hiss, ah..."

The chef's nose twitched and saliva flowed from the corners of his mouth.

"The cook doesn't steal, and the five grains don't grow... Let me try some first..."

He stopped stirring, picked up the bone spoon, filled a basin with hot soup, and then poured it directly into his mouth. The boiling and hot soup flowed down his bloodstained apron.

"Uh-huh……"

Those hungry ghosts that had not yet been melted and digested were naturally eaten whole by the chef.

A half-struggling ghost hand was stuck in the gap between its fangs. In its pupil-less eye sockets, two clusters of ghostly green fire flickered with the rhythm of the stirring of the hands, reflecting the hungry ghosts floating at the bottom of the pot, filled with greed and madness.

“It tastes… not bad…”

It's a scene that only appears in nightmares.

Chen Yuan was not afraid.

He just felt sad that a once healthy and living person had been transformed into this inhuman appearance.

Only then did he remember that after Meng Huafan subdued him at the banquet, he seemed to have said, "There is one less chef on this ship."

Although this was the end of his enemy, it was not pleasant to witness such a scene with one's own eyes.

"Stop talking nonsense and get started. You just want to cook me and eat me now, right?"

Chen Yuan took a deep breath.

He had no way to retreat, let alone escape.

Whether for the purpose of survival or to regain the fragments, he must decide the outcome with the opponent here.

"Haha... then... you're welcome..."

The chef came out slowly, holding a spoon in one hand and a chain in the other.

The next second, that fat and bloated body rushed towards him at an astonishing speed that was completely inconsistent with its huge physique.

"Boom!"

The ground is shaking.

The chef's sturdy arms swung the chains, making a heavy and terrifying whistling sound, and drew one destructive "circle" after another in the air, like a meat grinder running at full speed.

Chen Yuan did not escape, but also took a step forward and faced the challenge.

*
The pale bone knife stretched and stretched, until it grew beyond its limit, and the sharp edge gleamed faintly under the dim light.

"puff!"

It pierced the bloated body, chopped off the head of the hungry ghost that pounced on it, and pierced the liquid splashing all over the sky.

Amid the chef's unwilling roar, the bone knife chopped off the huge head.

……

“Haa ...

The armor made of bones was retracted under the skin.

The consumption of this battle was extremely severe. Not only the true Qi in the body, but even the vitality was almost drained out.

In order to continue to maintain the fighting posture and to continuously forge "weapons", the power of Asura dragged this body, which had long been overwhelmed, to the end.

All life energy was drained, and the victory was achieved with difficulty, using bones to regenerate armor and weapons and wounds that would lead to death.

Chen Yuan defeated his opponent again, was once again covered in wounds and close to death, and once again fell heavily to the ground, falling into a deep coma. He was only one breath away from losing his life.

However, as long as he can ensure that he does not die, he will definitely survive, and even recover to be full of energy in a short period of time.

The "Power of Asura" took effect again, causing the horrific wounds all over his body to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye, pulling him back from the brink of death.

……

"!"

Chen Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.

He felt severe pain in every corner of his body, but he ignored the injury and focused on feeling a certain corner of his body first.

"I got the fragment of 'Hungry Ghost Realm'."

Chen Yuan let out a long sigh and finally felt like looking around.

...It seems to be the same as before.

There were fallen headless bodies, unconscious guests, and pots and pans scattered on the ground, making the place a complete mess.

He didn't know what time it was, but after the host fell down, the game theoretically could not continue, but there was no one to clean up the scene.

Are there other opponents?

At this time, Chen Yuan heard footsteps.

It was a light voice belonging to a thin girl.

His heart was beating fast and he tried desperately to turn his neck to see, but he only heard the other person speaking softly from above.

"You should leave this place quickly."

A voice that couldn't be more familiar.

My sister said this in an awkward tone.

"Ah...Ajiu..."

He called out his sister's nickname while looking up at the ceiling, with only blurry outlines in his vision.

"You...do you still remember me..."

Why did she suddenly appear? Did she remember something about herself? Or did she never forget it and was just pretending?

He had countless questions to ask, but they were stuck in his chest for a moment.

At this time, another familiar voice sounded——

"Did you interrupt your conversation?"

This time it was Cen Dongsheng's footsteps, but he did not come closer until Chen Jiu said to him:

"Let my brother leave here."

(End of this chapter)