Interlude: Resurrection (I)

Chapter 689: Interlude: Resurrection (I)

Night had already fallen, yet the sky still glittered with starlight—blue-white, wreathed in dazzling halos. Anyone foolish enough to look upon it with the naked eye would suffer the agony of burning.

Experienced elders often treated such injuries among the tribes for young people who refused to heed warnings, all while continuing to admonish them—do not raise your head at night; you cannot bear the price.

You cannot bear such a grave calamity, they said earnestly.

They said it again and again, endlessly, without ever stopping. Ten million mouths became one, forever hovering on the boundary between stupidity and folk custom, until they were steeped in the wisdom of the human world and became one deep line among the countless wrinkles on an old man's face.

Bjorn raised his head and looked at the sky.

Most Fenrisians never left this frozen, mournful land from birth until death. Likewise, they knew nothing of other worlds. The elders' warnings lingered in their minds, deeply rooted, forming a blood-soaked line of bones.

Countless dead lay beyond that scarlet line, their mouths open and filled with dust, their gums shriveled, their lips dry and drawn tight, as though they were smiling.

They smiled, then said: Do not look up.

Bjorn stared at the starlight in the night sky, his expression gradually tightening.

His right hand clenched a spear tightly. A primitive weapon, it had accompanied humanity's naturally violent race ever since men first held torches and fought in the darkness, never truly leaving them.

But this spear was different. It could no longer bear the duty of being a weapon. Its dim, lifeless cracks silently revealed its final fate to all who saw it, like a physician's numb face or a loved one's sorrowful eyes.

Bjorn finally lowered his