Gods and Devils Forge a Ship? Strange Object "Crimson Scale" (Please Follow)

The icy current continuously lashed at his skin, sending a chill through his entire body.

At a glance, this suddenly appeared expanse of water seemed boundless.

Gu Qingfeng even had the illusion that he had not been caught in a flood at all, but had always been in a deep, shadowy sea.

What made his body cold was the water. What chilled him to the bone were the "people" within it.

In the depths of the water were strange figures with extraordinarily long necks.

It was as though someone's neck had been forcibly stretched more than tenfold, while a red fleshy crest grew from their heads. They looked like rooster-crested snakes transformed into humans, wickedness seeping from every inch of them.

Things that looked human yet were not human were the most terrifying of all.

Metal rings encircled their bizarrely long necks, and chains hung from those rings, connecting them to the colossal thing behind them.

At first sight, Gu Qingfeng had thought that colossal thing was a ship.

Its rear half truly was shaped like a ship—a gigantic vessel cast from metal, like a mountain forged of iron, radiating immense oppression.

But its front half was a person.

A woman.

An enormous woman.

Only half her body remained.

Or rather, her body had completely fused with the hull, leaving only her upper half visible.

The place where human body met ship hull was covered in rotting scales, densely packed together.

The ship was already like a frigid mountain, yet the woman was not much smaller than the vessel itself.

From here, the woman actually looked quite beautiful, like a slumbering fairy.

Yet all she inspired in Gu Qingfeng was terror.

No matter how beautiful something was, once it became enormous enough, it would awaken the instinctive fear rooted deep within the human body.

Facing such a woman, Gu Qingfeng felt as tiny as an ant. To him, even her nostrils were likely unfathomable caves.

What was more, the woman herself looked profoundly sinister.

Her face was perfectly intact and carried a vivid, living air, as though she were asleep, but her body looked as though it had long since died.

Below her neck, the enormous body was already covered in signs of decay.

Her lush figure was riddled with holes. Where the openings were dense, they resembled a honeycomb, surrounded by blotches like corpse spots.

The scales where she connected to the ship were likewise rotten, the decay spreading upward in dense swathes as though it intended to devour her body whole.

Gu Qingfeng had never imagined there could be such a gigantic "person" in this world.

Or perhaps this was not a person at all, but one of the Gods and Devils?

In his understanding, only the Gods and Devils of legends possessed bodies as vast as mountains.

If this woman was one of the Gods and Devils, then what kind of terrifying existence had possessed the means to turn her body into such a gigantic ship?

Those long-necked strange people were clearly the haulers pulling the ship.

Using their long, thin necks, they dragged this incomparably enormous human ship along, their necks seemingly ready to snap at any moment.

Watching this bizarre scene, Gu Qingfeng found it hard even to breathe.

It was the immense pressure brought by the unknown.

But at that moment, the long-necked people, who had been focused solely on pulling the ship, suddenly turned their heads and looked at him.

They looked at him—and smiled at him.

Those smiles seemed painted on, especially false.

Under their gaze, an exceedingly strange sensation suddenly arose in Gu Qingfeng's body.

His neck felt a little itchy, and so did his head, as though his neck were about to lengthen and a fleshy crest were about to sprout from his head, turning him into one of them.

He even wanted to join their ranks.

At almost the same instant, the "Golden Core" in his dantian lit up with golden light.

When that golden light rose, the strange people stopped smiling, and Gu Qingfeng regained some clarity as well.

Then, the gigantic woman who had seemed to be sleeping all this time suddenly opened her eyes.

A large part of those enormous eyes was empty, as though only solitary pupils floated within vast eye sockets, carrying a mysterious dark-golden hue.

In an instant, the surrounding current underwent a tremendous change.

In that single moment, countless streams of gas erupted from the holes in the woman's body, forming furious torrents so fast they even produced thunderous roars.

To Gu Qingfeng's senses, it was like a gigantic engine had started.

And indeed, that was precisely what had happened.

The bizarre giant ship suddenly accelerated and shot forward.

A terrifying torrent swept over him. Gu Qingfeng could no longer control his body and was instantly blasted away.

Gu Qingfeng did not know how far he had been swept, nor how long he had been carried along. He only felt the world spin around him and time stretch endlessly.

By the time he came to a stop, he was already atop a sand dune.

He struggled to climb up and found himself covered in grains of sand, without a single drop of water on him.

Not only was there no water on him, there was no water anywhere across the vast area as far as he could see.

Because this was a desert.

It was as though the suddenly appearing deep flood, the long-necked strange people in its waters, and that gigantic, mystical ship with a human body had all been nothing but a bizarre dream.

Unfortunately, this was reality again.

At this time, the horizon had already turned the pale white of a fish's belly, and the dunes were washed in gold.

Standing alone amid these unknown dunes, he felt an indescribable loneliness.

Just last night, he had been laughing and chatting with Qi Lingguang and the others, discussing lively places to visit. Yet after merely closing his eyes for a nap, he was the only one left.

It made even the time he had spent chatting with Qi Lingguang and the others seem like an illusory dream.

Once the dream ended, only he remained.

Gu Qingfeng knew he would have no way of finding them for the time being.

That flood had come too quickly and too strangely, carrying him far too far away. He had no idea where he was now.

All he could say was that the joys and sorrows, meetings and partings of this mortal world were far too fragile. One moment they were still talking of heaven and earth, plotting where to go together; the next, like wind scattering clouds, they had been swept apart without warning.

He only hoped they were safe. If they were all still alive, then there would still be a chance to meet again.

For now, the first thing he needed to do was survive.

Compared with "locals" like Qi Lingguang and the others, he clearly had far more problems to face, such as how to leave this desert.

The water gourd on his body had already been lost, and this desert showed no trace of human presence.

The reversed Geng-Metal Power had given him quite a few mystical abilities, but surviving in a desert was not among them.

He had no experience whatsoever with wilderness survival.

The blazing sun soon hung overhead, bathing the desert in golden light.

Unexpectedly, Gu Qingfeng did not feel overly scorched.

It was not because his physique had become immune to intense heat, but because of the Precious Moon Garment.

Cool moonlight flowed from the garment into his body, bringing wave after wave of refreshing chill. It truly possessed the ability to "ward off summer heat."

But that still could not solve his lack of water.

One moment he had nearly been swept to death and drowned by a flood; the next, he could not find the slightest drop of water and feared dying of thirst. It had to be said that the Returning Ruins truly deserved to be called, in Number Three's words, "more hellish than hell!"

Last night's experience had already told Gu Qingfeng that the Returning Ruins was far too mysterious and bizarre. Strange things could happen at any time. Even after escaping the Golden Core Immortal Sect, he could not lower his guard in the slightest.

Perhaps only by reaching a place where humans had long lived, like Yuan Feeding City, could he find peace.

Gu Qingfeng could only choose a direction and walk, hoping to leave this desert first.

Even if he could not find people, he had to find water first.

Just then, a familiar throbbing sensation arose in his heart.

Following that feeling, Gu Qingfeng walked forward and soon discovered a scale amid a pile of yellow sand.

A rotting scale, it emanated a faint crimson aura within the golden desert.

Was this scale from that bizarre human-bodied ship?