Killing the Two-Headed Monster

"Of course not, I was just saying that. Eat, eat, hurry up and eat—it won't taste good once it gets cold." Tu Ran distracted it with food.

Sure enough, it worked every time.

Sigh, taking in this underling really felt like raising a child.

Fatty, adhering to the principle of never wasting any food, devoured every last bit of the roasted fish.

After cleaning up the food scraps, Tu Ran led Fatty away from the place. They had been lingering on this mountain for the past two days; it was time to speed up.

Now that the wristband issue was resolved, Tu Ran felt much lighter and was no longer so anxious about finding alien creatures.

She held onto the belief that everything was destined and followed Fatty across mountains and ridges.

Whenever she encountered an alien creature she could handle, she would directly take it on, honing her combat skills, reaction speed, and ability to flexibly use her powers.

When she came across something that looked unbeatable—like an alien tens or even hundreds of times larger than herself—she would grab Fatty and flee for her life.

Most of the time, those massive creatures, whose sizes could rival a mountain, paid little attention to the two of them, as if they weren't even worth a bite to fill their teeth.

Even if they noticed, they would simply choose to ignore them.

Of course, if she encountered an alien creature that seemed too tough to beat but had an inner core, Tu Ran couldn't help but feel tempted.

Like the horse-bodied, human-faced two-headed monster in front of her.

It was exactly the same as the one she had seen on the morning of her second day in the Threshold.

Their upper bodies were no different from humans, and their facial features were highly distinguishable—one melancholic, the other irritable.

Without a doubt, it was the same one she had encountered before.

It was just that back then, she didn't have the "Ability Recognition" superpower and hadn't known they also possessed inner cores.

[Tremendous Strength]

Literal meaning.

Note: Requires energy consumption. Hope you're prepared to use it.

Ability Level: Intermediate.

Those four words—"literal meaning"—were exactly what the light screen had displayed verbatim.

The light screen couldn't be bothered to elaborate, since the four big characters "tremendous strength" were already clear enough about what this superpower did.

At that moment, the two-headed beast was roaming about a few dozen meters away from them.

The irritable one was in control, striding ahead proudly and aggressively.

The melancholic one, on the other hand, hung its head low, wearing a look of grievance as if wondering why the universe hadn't been destroyed yet and why it had to share a body with the irritable one.

Perhaps unable to figure it out no matter how hard it tried, its mood grew even worse. It suddenly stopped dead in its tracks and refused to move.

The irritable one sharing the body was immediately yanked to a halt, unable to move forward. Its fury visibly skyrocketed as it spun its head around to glare at the melancholic one and started cursing.

The last time she'd seen them, Tu Ran hadn't yet had the "Language Talent" ability and couldn't understand what they were saying, but she could tell from their tone that they were arguing.

Now, listening to their exchange, she couldn't help but mentally applaud her own cleverness back then.

These two weren't just bickering—they were cursing each other out in quite graphic terms.

"You @!#%, why are you %^&* stopping again! I've been putting up with you, you piece of @#! You're always ^^&* moaning about something. I'm ^^&* done with you!"

The irritable one yelled a stream of abuse, and the melancholic one shot back just as much.

Tu Ran hadn't expected the melancholic one, who looked so refined, to be no slouch at cursing either.

After trading insults for two or three rounds, the irritable one finally snapped.

It exploded, but since it couldn't hit the melancholic one, the trees ended up suffering.

A punch carrying the fury of thunder slammed straight into a tree trunk, snapping a tree as thick as seven or eight Fatttys in half.

The tree crashed to the ground with a thunderous boom, and the earth itself trembled three times.

The irritable one wasn't satisfied yet. It threw another punch at a different tree, which predictably couldn't withstand it and toppled heavily to the ground.

Tu Ran and Fatty were hiding behind a giant fir some distance away.

Fatty quickly briefed her: "They're called Kangzhu. Their whole species grows this big—they're one of the biggest creatures Fatty's ever seen. Even a newborn Kangzhu is bigger than a grown Danghu."

"They've got two heads, so they've got two opinions, and most of the time, those two heads can't agree on anything. That's why they end up arguing over all kinds of trivial things. Fatty's seen the Kangzhu species seventy or eighty times since birth, and just about every time, they're fighting."

Fatty paused, glanced at Tu Ran, then looked back at the giant Kangzhu, and suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "Boss, I just noticed their upper bodies look just like you two-legged folks!"

"Congratulations, took you long enough to notice." Tu Ran kept her eyes fixed on the Kangzhu's movements, not sparing Fatty a glance.

Fatty: "..."

"What else do you know about them? Tell me everything." Tu Ran said.

She needed to understand them better in order to make the right decisions.

"Uh..." Fatty tilted its head in thought. "Their personalities are pretty fixed—most of the time, one's irritable and the other's melancholic."

"The irritable one finds everything annoying. When it gets angry, it takes its anger out on the surrounding trees, and it always has to smash about twenty or so before it calms down. The melancholic one is displeased with everything, complains about heaven and earth and the air itself, and when it gets in a bad mood, it just refuses to move."

"If it won't move, the irritable one can't go anywhere either, so it starts yelling, which makes the irritable one even more irritable and the melancholic one even more melancholic."

After saying this, Fatty let out a sigh and unexpectedly turned philosophical: "They were born enemies, yet trapped in the same body."

Tu Ran glanced at it in surprise. In that instant, Fatty's image in her mind grew taller.

Fatty felt shy under her gaze and lowered its head awkwardly.

Tu Ran smiled and turned her attention back to the battlefield. At that moment, a large tree was toppling straight toward them, the spot right where they were, and it was close.

Tu Ran's heart clenched.

"Run!"

She grabbed Fatty's wing—still lowered in embarrassment—and activated "Instant Shift" to escape the spot.

The very next second, a huge tree crashed down exactly where they had been.

If they had been even a step slower, they would have been flattened into pancakes.

Fatty still hadn't processed what had happened; its little head was buzzing.

Tu Ran didn't let it stay there any longer, since there was no telling when another tree would come crashing down.

She dragged Fatty along at top speed, settling it far away from the area before she turned and headed back.

The Kangzhu was still arguing.

The irritable one kept punching trees down every now and then.

Thick, sturdy trees might as well have been thin twigs in its hands, snapped with ease.

To avoid getting caught in the crossfire, Tu Ran didn't get too close.

"Tremendous Strength" was an intermediate combat-type ability, and her primary support-type "Illusion Realm" wouldn't be of any use here, so she had to find another way.

Of the abilities she had right now, "Landslide" was a solid choice.

But the catch was, she'd need to get close enough to touch them.