The instant Lin Qin stepped into the Chaotic Stone Forest, he sensed that something was wrong.
A faint smell of blood hung in the air, mixed with the scent of sulfur. If not for his keen senses, he would never have noticed it. He stopped, closed his eyes, and spread out his divine sense.
His divine sense spread outward, but the enormous boulders severely obstructed it. The boulders in the Chaotic Stone Forest contained some special mineral that interfered with divine-sense detection. He could only probe roughly ten miles; anything farther away became indistinct.
There were no living creatures within that ten-mile radius.
But the smell of blood could not have appeared out of nowhere.
Lin Qin opened his eyes, gripped the hilt of his blade, and walked forward.
Narrow gaps lay between the giant boulders. In wider places, two or three people could walk side by side, while in narrow ones, one could only squeeze through sideways. The ground was uneven, covered everywhere in gravel and cracks. One careless step could twist an ankle. Overhead loomed dark cliff walls that blocked out the sky, with only sparse glowing moss on the rock faces providing faint light.
Lin Qin did not walk quickly, but every step he took was steady.
After walking three miles, the smell of blood grew stronger.
He rounded a boulder and found a corpse before him.
It was a middle-aged man who had died horribly.
Lin Qin crouched down to inspect him. The edges of the wound were clean—it had been a fatal blow. Either the attacker had been far stronger than him, or it had been an ambush. Judging from the posture in which the corpse had fallen, it was more likely the latter. He had been turning to flee before his death, with his