Wandering (1)

This was a fiery red star realm.

The entire world resembled a hell of flames.

No one could survive in such a star realm, but for certain special and powerful beings, it was clearly different.

At the heart of the star realm, a Saint lay silently dormant. Other than faint breaths, there was almost no movement from him at all. Yet whenever he inhaled, the flames throughout the star realm would die away and curl inward; whenever he exhaled, the flames would surge and roil.

One breath in and one breath out constituted a day. Within that day, the flames swelled and contracted, like night and day.

Though there were no humans in the star realm, there were living creatures.

A horned mane beast was climbing over a bare rock. It traveled along the cracks in the stone until it encountered several black crystals, then stretched out its long tongue and rolled the crystals into its belly.

Because blazing flames regularly swept through this place, hardly a blade of grass could grow. These black crystals were the mane beasts' food. In a sense, they could be considered silicon-based lifeforms.

Suddenly, this mane beast noticed something and bolted outward.

But it was still too late.

A black shadow swept down from the vast sky and landed beside the mane beast.

Pfft!

Sharp scaled claws hooked into the mane beast's body, ripping open its belly before tearing it in half. The mane beast had no vocal organs; it did not even let out a scream before a massive black-scaled beast killed it.

Then, this enormous creature, three times the mane beast's size, tore off the mane beast's head and casually flung it aside—the mane beast's head contained too many impurities and did not taste good.

It then grabbed the mane beast's corpse,