"I'm back!"
He crossed the river and set foot on solid ground.
Standing on the Stone Slab Road, strewn with instruments of torture and blood and stretching off to who knew where, Jiang Qiao felt no fear. Instead, he sighed in relief. The murderous atmosphere all around felt incredibly familiar.
Even the thick, multicolored ink churning on either side seemed more pleasing to the eye.
This was the road he had taken on his way in.
He had set out from Yang City and entered the fringes of the Historical Tributary, passing through the Scarecrow Forest, the towering Ancient City made of fireflies, and the enormous Grave Mound in turn before reaching this Stone Slab Road.
There was no mistake.
This was it!
"That wasn't easy."
"Something almost went wrong at the very end."
Jiang Qiao felt a surge of emotion.
Only now did he dare recall the enormous Black Mountain Range he had seen while looking out from the muddy dirt road.
Before this—
while he was still on his journey—he had not even dared think about it.
The reason was simple.
That aura had filled him with dread, and even from afar, the terrifying deathly stillness had felt profoundly oppressive.
And...
the thing behind the enormous black mountain, shaped like a gigantic mass of flesh...
had made him understand all too clearly.
He knew exactly what it was.
It was that Wriggling Meat Mass. Just one distant glance had sent the entire muddy path into turmoil, as though it might shatter at any moment.
Now that he had left that stretch of space-time,
and returned to the boundary of Yang City's River of History,
his recollection of the mass of flesh was strangely hazy. He could barely picture its appearance in his mind.
All of this pointed to