At the bottom of the River of Forgetfulness.
Humanoid black shadows with snake tails piled atop one another, drifting along with the current in a vast, boundless tide.
One of the shadows suddenly jolted awake as though startled from a nightmare. Its entire body shuddered, and as its limbs twitched, it abruptly shot upward.
Chen Mu felt as though his mind had turned to mush, his thoughts seemingly beyond his control.
He instinctively tried to shake his head to clear his mind, only to find it futile. His head would not budge at all.
As he hazily noticed the endless flood of black shadows, Chen Mu was filled with dread.
He tried hard to move his arms and body, but found that the connection between his body and mind came and went.
After more than ten attempts to raise an arm, he managed only once to make his smoke-like black hand shift slightly.
His consciousness was frantic, but it was useless. After trying for a long while, he had no choice but to calm himself and keep trying.
And so, his arms and legs would move once, then stop for ages, move again, then stop again—like a machine low on power, starting up and shutting down intermittently. His body likewise rose and fell along the riverbed.
In the silent riverbed, Chen Mu could not sense the passage of time.
He did not know how long it had been before his limbs began moving a little more smoothly, and his body finally started to float upward slowly.
Splash!
At some point, Chen Mu's face broke the surface.
As if he had suddenly awakened from a nightmare, his sluggish, muddled thoughts instantly cleared.
His body, entirely formed from black smoke, contracted and condensed. The outlines of his facial features emerged and quickly