"Ah!"
At the startled cry, everyone stopped.
The young man in a short white shirt stared at the woods, still shaken. He felt increasingly dazed and unmoored as he walked. Though his body moved forward, it was as if his soul were drifting off to the side.
As he kept walking,
he glanced back and actually saw his own body still standing motionless where he had been.
He was frightened at once.
He couldn't help crying out.
"What happened?" the burly man asked irritably.
"I... I think I just... lost my soul..." Sweat covered the young man's head as he frantically told the burly man what had happened.
"Oh."
"You mean that."
"That's normal."
The burly man spoke dismissively.
"Didn't I tell you? When you get near the Mountain God Temple, your mind gets disturbed, and you hallucinate."
"Just watch yourself."
"Nothing's going to happen."
He then told his other three companions:
"Don't fucking zone out."
"Concentrate and watch where you're going. The Mountain God Temple's right ahead. What the hell's the point of backing out now?"
After a few sharp reprimands,
they fell silent and continued forward.
But they had only taken a few steps
when they heard a hissing sound from the treetops, like a snake flicking its tongue. Listening more closely, though, it sounded like someone repeatedly sucking in breaths of pain.
The woods were silent.
That made the sound around them exceptionally clear.
The burly man said nothing.
The others could only pretend nothing was happening. With their heads down, they didn't dare look up as they followed one another toward the Divine Temple.
But they walked and walked, and walked and walked.
They walked for quite some time.
Yet they still hadn't reached the Divine Temple, which seemed only a little over a hundred meters