Basking the Bones

Wu Hen stood rooted to the spot.

The heat from the nearby campfire made his arm feel a little scorched, yet the rest of his body was ice-cold!!

This girl was also a monster!!

And she was symbiotic with the Head-Severing Demon!!

The lingering shock of having just escaped death surged back into his mind, and his heart hammered uncontrollably!

This was truly absurd!!

What kind of world was this, anyway??

If he hadn't actually known sign language, would this symbiotic monster have let him off??

Cold sweat soaked his entire body!!

Was he doomed? Because this girl could see him and knew he was a living human; she could simply order the Head-Severing Demon to take his head!!

If that happened, no matter how much he struggled, it would be futile!

Was it a dead end after all??

Wu Hen stood there, waiting for the final execution...

But something bizarre happened.

With the roots growing out of the demon's back, the girl "rode" upon the demon, yet she merely glanced at Wu Hen with boredom. With a hint of disdain, she patted the Head-Severing Demon, signaling it to leave.

The Head-Severing Demon didn't even look back, like a father at dusk, carrying his daughter on his back as he walked toward home.

This time, the girl and the demon did not turn invisible; they walked completely into the depths of the small town...

Even though he had witnessed with his own eyes that they had truly left, Wu Hen remained in place, terrified for a long time.

The lingering fear felt like he had swallowed the eggs of a venomous snake; he didn't know when they would hatch and burrow into his internal organs.

It was almost impossible to fully calm down!

After resting for a long, long time, Wu Hen knew that staying put was meaningless.

He knew clearly what his purpose was for coming here.

He had to keep moving forward!

He looked around once more.

Behind him and to his left and right was a massive rainforest. A single glance was enough to tell that it was extremely primitive and undoubtedly fraught with danger.

Ahead lay the town that stretched toward the cliffs of the rainforest. Looking along the road in front of him, he could see some people wandering about, appearing like a group of homeless refugees.

Beside the inn at the entrance of the town was a stable.

Inside the stable stood a horse. Its eyes were blood-red and bulging, as if it could see something terrifying approaching, and it appeared extremely restless.

It kept twisting its neck, its four hooves trampling the muddy ground in a panic.

"Snap!"

The reins were snapped by the horse. After breaking free, the Red Date Horse bolted toward the outskirts of the town in terror!

It galloped all the way, fleeing in the direction of the rainforest.

But the moment its figure disappeared into the rainforest, the Red Date Horse let out a miserable, piercing shriek!!

Wu Hen stared in the direction of the Red Date Horse. In the blink of an eye, he saw the horse turn into a skeleton!!

One second the Red Date Horse was galloping across the grass, and the next, it was as if it had plunged into a machine capable of stripping skin and scraping bone; it was carved down to nothing but bones in an instant.

What was most hair-raising was that the horse's skeleton continued to maintain its running motion, darting deeper into the rainforest until it crashed into a large tree and completely fell apart!

Everything happened so abruptly and so quickly that it seemed the horse hadn't even realized its flesh and skin had been separated from it!

The bones, clean and without a single drop of blood, scattered across the grass, causing Wu Hen's legs to go weak!

Just a moment ago, he had intended to walk into the rainforest!

It turned out that the Symbiotic Ghost was not the only source of great terror here.

What was absurd was that he hadn't even seen what it was that had stripped the skin off the Red Date Horse!

It was too terrifying!

Compared to the unknown and brutality within the rainforest, Wu Hen felt that the evil woman with roots for a lower body looked almost pleasant by comparison.

Adjusting his mindset, Wu Hen continued toward Jue Town.

The town had only one main street forming a cross, with all other paths being small alleys.

Except for the shops on the Main Street, which looked relatively new, the buildings in other areas were mostly dilapidated.

Lichens and vines were visible everywhere, growing wildly; some houses had even merged with the vegetation.

However, no matter how dilapidated and chaotic this small town was, there was one thing that was exceptionally uniform: the silence!

This silence was unusual. There were no chirping insects or singing birds. Even though people walked back and forth in the town, they all moved on tiptoe, terrified of stepping on a piece of broken glass or knocking over a swaying sign...

There were quite a few wanderers in the town, but because they couldn't make any noise, everyone basically communicated through eye contact.

Wu Hen could not tell whether they were people who had entered this virtual world like him, or if they were natives of this virtual world.

The town was not large; it didn't take long to walk around it.

"Cling-clang~~~~~"

Suddenly, the sound of a bell rang out from an alleyway.

This sound should have been the most ordinary thing in the world—just a wind chime hanging in front of someone's house ringing—but in this town, it was absolutely enough to send one's adrenaline skyrocketing!

Wu Hen happened to be right outside the alley.

He heard it with extreme clarity!

Naturally, he had not caused this sound.

Driven by an inexplicable impulse, Wu Hen poked his head out and took a look into that alley!

With this look, Wu Hen saw the silhouette of a Symbiotic Ghost slowly emerging from the background of the wall...

It didn't look like it had blinked here from somewhere else; it looked more like it had been hiding under the wall all along, coldly waiting for prey to take the bait!

At the very end of the alley, a young man in a leather jacket stood with his back against the wall.

He was holding a fragment that looked like diamond material, his eyes staring in extreme terror at a very, very thin thread. The other end of this thread was tied to a bell!

Wu Hen didn't know what that diamond-like fragment was, but he knew someone had stepped into a trap!!

It was a trap set by the Symbiotic Ghost!!

It was like a mousetrap; in the eyes of the Symbiotic Ghost, this young man in the leather jacket was no different from a mouse with its head caught in a clamp!

"Heh heh, you did a pretty good job pretending to be a Lost One, staying in my territory for a whole month..." the Symbiotic Banshee said with a laugh.

The young man in the leather jacket didn't dare to speak, but the desire to survive could still be seen in his eyes.

"It's a pity, though. In the end, you couldn't resist the temptation of this little Crystal Fragment. You didn't dare to steal the Yuan You in the middle of the square, so you set your sights on the fragments instead..." the Symbiotic Banshee continued.

"Don't... don't kill me!! I'll do whatever you want!!!" Suddenly, the young man in the leather jacket spoke. His humble and panicked appearance didn't look like a "player" at all.

"Oh my, you spoke. That's wonderful!!" The Symbiotic Banshee suddenly became excited.

Upon hearing this, the young man in the leather jacket suddenly realized something, and his entire body couldn't stop trembling!

At this moment, his eyes were no longer filled with the desire to survive, but rather the terror of a nightmare that had only just begun.

"He is mine," the Symbiotic Banshee said.

The Head-Severing Demon retracted its claws, but the Symbiotic Banshee suddenly extended the roots from beneath her skirt. These roots violently pierced into the body of the youth in the leather jacket!

They did not fully penetrate him; instead, they acted more like thick straws, and one could clearly see the roots wriggling rapidly!

They were draining his blood and bone marrow!!

Wu Hen stood at the entrance of the alley, watching as the youth in the leather jacket withered at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Throughout the process of shriveling up, the youth remained fully conscious. The agony and struggle on his face were unlike anything Wu Hen had ever seen in his life...

For a moment, a chill ran down Wu Hen's spine. He could imagine that if he had spoken to the girl a short while ago, the torture of being drained alive would have been inflicted upon him instead!

This scene was truly terrifying.

Worried that his heart rate would spike again, Wu Hen hurriedly left the scene of the blood-letting.

"Rumble~~~~~~~~~~"

A muffled roll of thunder echoed in the sky, adding a sense of oppression and gloom to the already murky air.

Wu Hen needed a moment to compose himself.

He even felt a sense of confusion and doubt.

That youth should have been like him—someone who had entered the virtual world to prospect for gold and search for Yuan You.

He should have known that all of this was virtual, so why did he show no signs of that realization before he died?

Even though people in reality can have mental breakdowns when entering a haunted house, he could have just shouted, "I'm not playing anymore! I'm not playing anymore!"

But this youth in the leather jacket hadn't...

"Boom rumble~~~~~~~~~"

Another bolt of lightning struck, sharp and pale, illuminating the small town and making it look even more sinister.

Without realizing it, Wu Hen had walked to the edge of the cliff in Jue Town. The area extending toward the massive fault line had been turned into the town's plaza, which was previously used for gatherings and markets.

Now, this Cliff Plaza was completely empty. There were no stalls, no decorations, only grain spread all over the ground!

It was strange, though—why would someone be drying grain in the Jue Town plaza?

"Boom!!"

Another flash of lightning tore through the clouds above the cliff. By the light of the thunder, Wu Hen finally saw clearly what the grain covering the entire plaza actually was!

It was bones!

Human bones paved across the entire Cliff Plaza!!

They had been ground into bone grains, much like millet!!!

Back when I lived in the countryside, I would often see the uncles drying millet on a large threshing floor. That expanse of golden color was quite aesthetic and fulfilling...

But when the millet turned into bones, the sheer horror of it shot straight to the crown of my head!

Good god, just how many people had that Symbiotic Ghost slaughtered? The bone fragments were enough to cover an entire plaza!

And just how twisted was that wicked woman? Why would she dump everyone she killed into the plaza? Could it be that she derived the same sense of satisfaction from it as those farmers drying their grain??

Amidst his shock, Wu Hen found his gaze inevitably drawn to something on the other side of the plaza.

Near the edge of the cliff stood an Altar, and hovering above it was a glimmer of—You Ying!

This You Ying resembled a special kind of ember, yet also like a deep-sea pearl, making it impossible to tell whether it was gaseous, liquid, or solid.

The luster it emitted was like that of agate or jade, incredibly alluring!