Nausea...

It was as if her body was no longer her own, every cell seemed to be in chaos, needing to be forced together and moved desperately to where it was supposed to be.

The sensation of internal confusion was making Shirley so uncomfortable that it almost made her vomit, however, it was just an illusion created by the mind.

Maintaining the ability to think was already a great achievement, let alone performing the complex action of vomiting.

Dazed, she vaguely felt her body moving slowly and heard some kind of breathing sound.

Is this how it feels to be resurrected after death?

Shirley couldn’t help but have these questions in her mind.

In this world, resurrection of the dead is not very difficult, at least not for aliens like them with high status.

I wonder how Karina is...

After such a high fall, she’s probably in the rebirth phase just like me...

I heard that dying and being resurrected turns people into something like the undead.

Can we still taste food?

By the way, vampires should also be classified as undead, or are vampires really some kind of different creature?

With these confusing thoughts in her mind, Shirley felt her body starting to recover a bit.

Although she couldn’t move or do anything, she could already open her eyes.

What she saw was only darkness and the figure of Karina.

At that moment, she was lying on Karina’s back.

Karina’s upper body was bare, and they both seemed to be tied with the fabric of their clothes.

Sweat was dripping down her face, and her still very young face was already filled with determination.

She clawed at the rocky wall with her sharp nails and used that to climb continuously, with strength and determination.

"Mm..."

Shirley forced a low sound from her throat so Karina would know she was awake.

Hearing the sound, Karina paused in her movements but continued climbing.

"You’re awake? I thought that after falling from such a great height, we’d definitely be dead!"

As she climbed, Karina spoke.

We really survived, how did we do that?

Shirley wondered in her mind.

"When we fell, we hit a soft creature, it felt like cotton. Huff..." Karina took a deep breath and continued, "But its body shattered, and, I don’t know why, it started to recover slowly..."

As if she knew the questions in Shirley’s mind, Karina explained what happened after she lost consciousness.

"If we survived, when we get back, we could ask a bard to sing us a song..."

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"Although I’ve never seen a bard before!"

Karina murmured as she continued climbing, her hands and feet were bloodied and her nails were almost scraped off from the friction with the rocky wall, revealing the white bones underneath.

But she seemed to feel no pain, climbing mechanically.

"Let... me... go..."

Shirley, with tears of pain in her eyes, spoke with a trembling and blurry voice.

"Haha..." Karina laughed dryly, her voice becoming hoarse, "Wait a little longer, and you won’t say that..."

Wait a little longer?

Shirley was confused, but the words she had just spoken had consumed all her energy, and now she couldn’t even utter another word.

However, Shirley soon understood why Karina said that.

The sound of something moving rapidly beneath their feet made Shirley’s scalp tingle, as if hundreds of tiny insects were crawling over her, bringing a terrible feeling.

Shirley looked down with an extremely bad premonition.

As both were creatures of the night, even in such a dark environment, they still had good vision.

Below them, a black wave was approaching rapidly.

They were all black, but they were obviously different from the surrounding darkness.

This was a deeper and more deadly darkness.

Shirley could clearly see what made up this black wave.

They were countless black insects the size of a palm with twisted shapes.

They had tentacles writhing frenetically underneath and small mouths with sharp teeth, producing a squeaking sound that chilled the blood.

The wave of black insects was climbing rapidly up the vertical wall and getting closer to them.

Shirley’s eyes widened suddenly.

Not to mention her own revulsion and fear of insects, just imagining the scene of her body being devoured by these insects made it hard for her to breathe.

It felt like a cold current was running through her body, and all the nerves were crazily stimulated.

"Run! They’re catching up with us!!!"

Shirley screamed, hitting Karina’s shoulders as if all her strength had suddenly returned.

Taking a deep breath and making a sound similar to inflation, Karina’s movements suddenly accelerated, and just as the swarm of insects was about to touch the soles of their feet, they moved away.

"Ugh... Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah..."

Karina, breathing heavily, suddenly increased her speed, creating distance just as the insects were about to touch her feet.

With this speed, Karina climbed dozens of steps before coming to a slow stop.

That is, she no longer had the strength to maintain this speed.

The previous climb had already exhausted her, and she faced the crisis more than once when she was almost surprised by a swarm of insects.

Fortunately, these insects did not maintain a constantly high speed.

Just like Karina, they also took collective pauses at some point, drastically reducing their speed.

That’s how Karina managed to get there.

"I can’t... climb anymore..."

Karina reluctantly climbed three more steps before stopping, leaning against the rocky wall.

"Why did I have to wake up?" Shirley said with some desperation, "Come to think of it, maybe it would have been better to die. Why wake up and be devoured by insects?"

"Now there’s only one solution..."

"What solution? Speak quickly!"

Karina looked into Shirley’s eyes with a solemn expression and said softly, "At this moment, the only solution is like you said before, to leave you to the insects while I climb alone..."

Before she could finish speaking, Shirley pulled her cheek and said angrily, "I told you not to think about it! Either we both get devoured by insects or you keep climbing now... ah!!!"

An insect had already crawled up Shirley’s ankle; the cold and sticky touch made her start screaming.

"It’s over, it’s over, we’re really going to be devoured. A Shirley-flavored meal will make life easier for these insects."

"And me? And my flavor?"

"Shut up!"

...

Even when death was imminent, the two argued desperately as always.

"What does a Shirley-flavored meal taste like? I want to try it too..." A familiar savior’s voice sounded in their ears.

"Stop causing trouble! Your daughter is really going to be eaten. Kill these insects quickly!"

Three "ahs" in a row perfectly expressed Shirley’s mood at that moment.

"Sure..."

As her tone became more serious, Shirley’s mother’s eyes widened slightly.

The dazzling scarlet light instantly illuminated the dark world around them, and the black insects seemed to rot instantly, dissipating into ashes.

"I’ll see if you dare to come to such a dangerous place next time!"

With a threatening smile, Shirley’s mother approached her and pressed her head with her hands.

"It was an accident, just an accident..." Shirley tried to defend herself.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, Shirley’s mother stopped and, with a casual tone, said, "I’ll take you back now and then teach you a lesson."

As she spoke, the red magic circle passed over Shirley and Karina’s bodies from top to bottom, and their figures disappeared.

After sending them away, Shirley’s mother did not leave but descended to the bottom of the Valley of Despair, seemingly waiting for something.

And the other side did not make her wait long...