Becoming a God Starts with Acting-Chapter 474: Strange Creature

"Tack!"

The ruler came down sharply, striking Silvanus’s hand and making him instinctively pull back.

A towering figure appeared, so tall it nearly blocked out the light. It was a woman with a long, slender frame; her billowing dress looked strangely heavy against her gaunt body. Her harsh eyes fixed on Silvanus, and her voice was icy. "Fighting is forbidden here. Go to the dark room of your own accord!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the ruler tapped against Silvanus’s back. Silvanus bit his lip. He wanted to explain, but then realized he couldn’t utter a single word. Everything felt profoundly strange.

In the end, he was locked inside directly. It was indeed a pitch-dark room, utterly devoid of light—one couldn’t even see one’s own five fingers in such a space. And darkness always brought with it a suffocating weight of fear.

There seemed to be the sound of rats squeaking in the air. Silvanus frowned and sat down against the wall, not caring whether he might be sitting on a rat’s corpse.

Just now, before the woman had closed the door, he had clearly seen several mutilated rat carcasses scattered across the floor. Now that his sight had been stripped away, the stench in the air immediately grew more overwhelming than ever, to the point that Silvanus could barely breathe.

Within his hazy field of vision, it seemed that indistinct outlines began to form in the air again, emitting strange, unsettling sounds.

Just as Silvanus raised his hand, wanting to touch those boundary lines, a beam of light suddenly shone straight into his eyes, forcing him to shut them. The indistinct outlines vanished at once—just like the moment when the woman had struck his hand.

Silvanus turned his head aside so the light would no longer shine directly into his eyes, then abruptly opened them. He saw that on the door there was a small window, only large enough for a hand to pass through. It had been pushed open, allowing bright moonlight to stream in from outside.

Right after that, a small head suddenly appeared. That messy tuft of hair blocked out the moonlight. Backlit as he was, Silvanus couldn’t make out what the person looked like, only hearing his childish voice: "Hello, I’m Matthew. Are you hungry?"

Silvanus frowned, feeling certain this brat had bad intentions. He let out an irritated snort and said nothing.

"I’ve got food. Really," Matthew added.

Using the light, Silvanus directly picked up a dead rat carcass and hurled it toward the window. It slipped out with precise accuracy, striking the boy squarely on the head.

"Ah!"

A sharp scream rang out, followed by the clatter of something crashing down. Evidently, the short little brat had stacked up a lot of things just to be able to reach that small window.

The commotion immediately drew the attention of the teachers on night duty. A burst of chaos followed, and then the door of the room where Silvanus was locked up was suddenly kicked hard—as if in warning.

But to Silvanus, an even more piercing sound was the rumbling of his own stomach; it felt as though it were twisting painfully from hunger.

He frowned and clutched his stomach tightly. In the end, he simply groped his way forward, relying on memory to search for the lock. Just as he was feeling around it, a distinct click sounded. Someone was opening the door from the outside. Silvanus had no time to dodge; his face turned deathly pale. If it was that woman making her rounds, he would be finished.

But the tall figure that blocked out all the light did not appear. Instead, Silvanus was suddenly pulled into an embrace. It was a child—but half a head taller than him.

"Your heart’s beating so fast. Don’t be scared. No one will catch you," the child called Matthew said again.

Silvanus frowned. He struggled and shoved Matthew away. Just as he was about to say something, he noticed the food in Matthew’s hand. It was a rice cake. Though it looked hard, to Silvanus’s starving stomach, it held irresistible temptation.

He suppressed his temper. Without saying a word, he stared fixedly at the cake in Matthew’s hand, calculating the chances of snatching it. Though this kid looked foolish, it couldn’t be denied that he was much taller and stronger than Silvanus.

As if sensing Silvanus’s gaze, Matthew quickly came back to himself and said, "I’ll protect you. As long as you stay with me, you’ll never go hungry again!"

Silvanus glanced at the cake Matthew held out in front of him, then directly snatched it away. He turned his head aside and quickly opened his mouth to bite into it, looking ready to devour everything in sight.

But...

It was too hard.

It felt as though his teeth had shattered on the spot. Silvanus blinked and stared at the faint smear of saliva he had left on the cake. It was so hard that even with all the strength he could muster, he hadn’t managed to leave the slightest mark.

Hearing Silvanus’s muffled groan, Matthew couldn’t help but step forward anxiously. "What’s wrong? This cake isn’t supposed to be inedible like that—"

Silvanus moved so quickly that Matthew didn’t even have time to stop him.

Silvanus directly hurled the rock-hard cake at Matthew’s face, then brushed past him, heading for the kitchen to see if there were any leftovers. Though that was almost certainly impossible. In a place like this, getting a full meal was already difficult—how could there possibly be such a thing as leftovers...

"Don’t go. It’s dangerous over there. Come with me, Silvanus." Matthew’s voice rang out again. Perhaps it was because of the wind, or perhaps something else, but his tone sounded strangely distant and eerie.

Silvanus didn’t turn around. He only said coldly, "I don’t know you. And why do you know my name?"

There was no reply from Matthew—only the endless sound of wind whistling through, carrying the rustling of disturbed dry leaves.

Silvanus couldn’t help feeling irritated. This brat was really strange. Just now, when he didn’t want to talk, the boy kept pestering him. Now that he had spoken, the boy had gone silent instead.

"Hey..."

Silvanus turned his head—only for the sight before him to freeze him in place.

It was a grotesque form, a creature seemingly molded from darkness and mud. It resembled a human, yet moved on all four limbs. Its limbs were unnaturally long, forming a twisted posture that sent chills down one’s spine.

Its pitch-black eye sockets stared unblinkingly. As if sensing that Silvanus had finally looked at it, the thin flesh at the corners of its mouth split open into a smile—then it lunged at him with its jaws wide open!

Silvanus felt as though his heart had stopped. He fell backward onto the ground, his hand instinctively clutching at the nearest thing he could use as a weapon.

But it was meaningless. He was only a child. Facing such a monster, how could he possibly stand a chance?

At that very moment, those strange, winding lines seemed to appear in his vision again, slicing everything before him into bizarre shapes. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Silvanus instinctively raised his hand. Yet before he could touch those boundary lines, a small figure had already dashed forward. Wherever Matthew stepped, the darkness and mud vanished like smoke.

Before Silvanus could react, his hand was seized tightly and yanked hard.

Matthew moved at astonishing speed. In the end, he simply hoisted Silvanus onto his shoulder and fled into the forest.

Yes—the forest. Silvanus felt that this was nothing more than a faster way for them to be eaten alive. Aside from having a bit more strength, this child truly had no brains at all. Timid yet trying to act strong, he couldn’t hide the nervousness he displayed in front of Silvanus.