After Wei Lai finished speaking, Chen Bugu already understood the general situation.
The flesh-eating degenerates had also appeared in the previous life.
Although killing people could not plunder energy, eating human flesh could.
However, eating human flesh also had side effects; degenerates would intermittently experience symptoms such as mental confusion, irritability, and bloodlust.
Moreover, as the Black-robed man said, eating human flesh was not easy to start, and it was equally difficult to stop.
Once they had eaten the flesh and blood of an Awakened, even if they had no worries about food and drink later, the degenerates would become addicted to human flesh and then try every means to obtain it, even if it came from other degenerates.
Therefore, degenerates would be wanted and hunted by major towns in later generations.
Their red eye whites, foolish expressions, and constantly uncontrolled drooling made it almost impossible for them to hide their identities among people.
As for the black viscous food that Wei Lai mentioned as helpful for energy growth, Chen Bugu's first thought was Nightmare Feed.
This kind of thing could indeed be eaten and also helped with strength growth.
However, its main purpose was to feed domesticated beast offspring.
Because Nightmare Feed promoted strength growth at the cost of lifespan, it was far inferior to yun ling fruit.
Only some top forces would use this kind of thing to feed demonic beasts and cultivate beast soldiers in batches.
The consumption of lifespan was also confirmed in those demonic beasts; basically, demonic beasts fed with Nightmare Feed would not live beyond three years.
That kind of thing also had no nutritional value; no matter how much was eaten, it could not supplement the various substances the human body needed, which was why Wei Lai and the others looked malnourished.
Chen Bugu thought for a moment and finally decided not to tell Wei Lai about the Nightmare Feed; after all, it had already happened, and at this time, ignorance might not be a bad thing.
"Mr. Wei, what is your current strength?" Chen Bugu asked.
"Han Fuyu is a Five-Star, and I am a Four-Star."
"You haven't eaten human flesh, have you?"
"No, I would rather die than eat that stuff."
"What about them?"
When asking the last sentence, Chen Bugu controlled his volume and pointed at the few people in front of him.
He originally thought this group of people were Wei Lai's new teammates, but after understanding the situation, he realized that this team was only temporarily formed.
"Them... I don't know either."
In fact, Wei Lai knew that cannibalism had also occurred in other cells.
When they escaped the dungeon, the smell of blood and meat from every cell was equally pungent, a smell he would never forget in his life.
Although the few people in front of him had not yet shown any characteristics of degenerates, Chen Bugu knew that once they touched human flesh, they probably wouldn't be able to stop.
In any case, he had to be extra careful.
The group ran intermittently for a morning before deciding to stop in an open space to rest.
Chen Bugu took out some food and water from his storage ring and handed them to Wei Lai and Han Fuyu.
This action immediately attracted everyone's attention; they stared wide-eyed as Chen Bugu took out the food.
Seeing this, Chen Bugu didn't want to ruin his mood for eating, so he casually took out some more bread and dried meat and had Wei Lai hand them out.
Anyway, Dongcheng Xiuwu's ring contained a large amount of food and water, and he was not lacking in these things now.
Only then did everyone realize that the acquaintance Wei Lai picked up on the road seemed to be different from them.
However, no one cared about this; they were already starving and ravenously chewed the food in their hands.
An Aunt sitting to Han Fuyu's right finished the food in her hand and then leaned towards Chen Bugu, asking cautiously.
"Young man, do you have any more food? Can you give me some more? I've been hungry for three days."
Chen Bugu looked up and examined the Aunt in front of him.
Although her complexion was also poor, it was already considered good among this group of people; she should have been a newcomer recently captured and thrown into the dungeon.
"Sorry, Aunt, I really don't have any more food."
Chen Bugu refused decisively; how could he not know the principle of "a little kindness is appreciated, too much causes resentment"?
The Aunt could only walk back dejectedly.
After she left, another gloomy-eyed middle-aged man walked towards Chen Bugu.
"Kid, you still have food in your ring, hand over the food, or you'll leave your life here."
Chen Bugu frowned and looked up at the man who was walking towards him from not far away.
The man held a dagger, and flames ignited on the dagger, constantly gesturing towards Chen Bugu.
This person had made a move when killing the Goblin Berserker before and possessed Black Iron Five-Star strength.
Chen Bugu silently got up, Jade Ripple appeared in his hand, and as his fingers moved, water arrows shot out one after another.
Five seconds later, there was another corpse on the ground.
Chen Bugu put away his weapon, sat down again, picked up the unfinished food, and continued to bite into it.
Everyone present looked at the corpse on the ground and fell silent; they were already accustomed to life and death and had little emotional fluctuation at this moment.
Chen Bugu, however, felt the weakening effect of the Burning Body Pill on himself, and even the power of the elemental arrows had decreased; otherwise, it wouldn't have taken him five seconds to kill a weakened Five-Star Awakened.
Fortunately, after tonight, he would recover his state.
At that time, he would also leave this team and hunt high-level demonic beasts alone.
Since it had been confirmed that it was not demonic beasts chasing Wei Lai and the others, Chen Bugu's initial plan had fallen through, and there was no point in staying.
He also couldn't escort Wei Lai and Han Fuyu to the Soaring Sky Tree; following them until his strength recovered was already benevolent and righteous enough.
As for those mysterious Black-robed men, Chen Bugu wasn't interested in what they wanted to do, and he didn't want to provoke them for now.
Whatever their purpose, as long as it didn't involve him, it was fine.
After resting, the group set off again.
Chen Bugu had already reminded Wei Lai that the exit from the forest was at the bottom of the Soaring Sky Tree, and their current direction was a detour.
Wei Lai's intention was to get as far away as possible from where they escaped before making further plans.
Chen Bugu could see that Wei Lai seemed very afraid of the Black-robed men, so he didn't say anything; anyway, his goal was just to hunt demonic beasts.
Unfortunately, throughout the entire day, Chen Bugu didn't see any demonic beasts higher than Black Iron Five-Star appear.
At night, they sat by the bonfire, and except for Han Fuyu and Wei Lai, everyone else could only stare longingly as Chen Bugu took out food from his ring.
But after the incident at noon, everyone else was now very sensible and did not step forward again.
Perhaps because they had traveled for a day and were now far from their initial location, their state gradually relaxed.
After dark, they decided not to risk traveling further but left three people to guard the first night shift, while everyone else seized the opportunity to lie down and recover their strength.
Chen Bugu also lay down, but he wasn't asleep.
He was waiting for those three people to make a move.
The three who volunteered to guard the first night shift were all Black Iron Five-Star Awakeneds.
Since Chen Bugu's move at noon, their eyes had been constantly glancing at him.
At first, Chen Bugu wasn't sure, but under Bullet Time, even the slightest movement would be magnified.
After much thought, there were only two possibilities.
One was coveting the food in his ring, and the other was coveting his own flesh.
Chen Bugu lay on the ground, his back to the three, and when he heard footsteps, his eyes were already open.
Although his strength had not yet recovered, if the other party had ill intentions, he wouldn't mind adding three more corpses to this place.
The footsteps were light but getting closer and closer.
Chen Bugu sighed, just about to get up, when he suddenly heard a hoarse voice from above.
"A bunch of rats, running quite fast."