Caw~
Caw~
A crow perched on a dead tree, lowering its head to preen its feathers and crying out from time to time.
Its call was low and hoarse.
Black thunderclouds hung at the edge of the sky. Serpentine bolts of lightning, like growing thorns, pierced through layer upon layer of the heavens.
Rumble!
Rumble!
The thunder rolled, sometimes near, sometimes far.
Strangely, there was no wind.
Not even the faintest breeze.
Everything seemed submerged in a thick liquid, heavy and oppressive enough to suffocate.
This place was called Black Crow Forest. Its soil was red, so vivid it looked ready to seep blood. The leaves on its trees were such a deep green that they looked black. Coupled with the hoarse cries of crows ringing in one's ears, it sent chills down one's spine.
Legend had it that Black Crow Forest was a battlefield where gods and demons had fought a million years ago.
In Zhang Fengming's eyes, it was nothing but a rumor grown more absurd with every retelling.
He had lived in Black Crow Forest for a full ten years.
He had found no trace whatsoever of gods or demons, but he had discovered a hidden lightning vein.
The bizarre and ever-changing weather here was most likely related to it.
At this moment.
Zhang Fengming looked utterly miserable—his hair was disheveled, his body covered in blood, and a wound ran diagonally from his left shoulder to his right ribs.
Had it been any deeper, his guts would have spilled out.
Worse still, his left arm had been snapped clean in two. Pale bone pierced through flesh and hung exposed in the air.
Today, he would undoubtedly die.
Yet on the eve of death, he neither reminisced about the warmth his sect had once given him nor recalled