Deathly aura hung gray and murky.
The last yellow leaf fell from the dead branch, landing amid decay.
Deprived of sunlight and rain, all life upon the earth had withered. Like the oppressive silence beneath a thick shroud of fog, everything was rotting—corpses, white bones, people, beasts, and birds alike; none could escape death.
Not far from the Withered Tree lay an earthen mound. In truth, it was a dead giant bear.
The bear was enormous, sprawled upon the ground like a hill.
It had not been dead long. Its blood had darkened, nearly congealing. One side of its long snout had been viciously torn apart, the gash stretching all the way to its eye socket. The layers of the wound stood starkly distinct: black fur, blackish-red flesh, a deathly pale upper jawbone, with dark blood still seeping from the nasal holes in the bone.
The giant bear, as large as a house, suddenly twitched...
After shuddering several times, it abruptly rolled over, revealing more than twenty pale-faced young and middle-aged men on the other side.
The men were smeared with foul-smelling mud, with coarse cloth covering their mouths and noses.
Using ropes and hooked poles, they strained to drag the carcass. Its limbs were stiff, but its hide was thick and its flesh somewhat soft and slack. They hauled the bear corpse onto a crude bamboo-pole sled.
The leading man anxiously scanned the surroundings. Seeing it loaded onto the sled, he hurriedly waved his hand.
"Keep it down... Hurry! Drag the meat back to the Great Temple..."
These men were all martial arts experts; there were even Qi Refining Stage cultivators among them. Yet at this moment, they were like rats stealing grain, desperately hauling the sled.
The sled slid over the dead grass, leaving deep tracks behind it.