The Fiend Forest bathed in fresh sunlight and rain, its vibrant life flourishing.
As far as the eye could see, the dark green forest stretched like an ocean. Its trees grew crooked and twisted in all manner of bizarre shapes, radiating a shadowy chill. Sunlight filtered through layer upon layer of foliage like fine golden sand, spilling onto the grass, where tens of thousands of soul beasts were running for their lives. The avian soul beasts in the woods flapped their wings in panic, shrieking themselves hoarse with harsh, eerie caws. Their cries mingled with the moaning, icy wind and echoed through the air for a long time, adding to the agitation and terror.
A thousand meters behind this horde of soul beasts, another sight awaited.
A black hole as enormous as a bird's-nest stadium crouched on the earth. Blood-vessel-like tentacles extended from within it, connecting to the surrounding land for a thousand li in every direction. They wove a dense spiderweb, swallowing every forest, patch of earth, and soul beast within their reach. Whenever those vein-like tentacles swelled and contracted, one could almost hear the gulping sound of water being drawn through a straw. After every pulse, a patch of soil vanished into thin air, along with the trees and soul beasts upon it, disappearing without a trace.
But the soul beasts, already all too familiar with the Six Paths Reincarnation World's devouring power, knew exactly what had happened. Everything had fallen into the black hole. Not a single soul beast that entered it had ever come back out!
These soul beasts felt that their lives had never been as miserable and stifling as they had been these past few days!
They had fled all the way from the coast into the Fiend Forest's interior, and now they were