The fog over Blood Moon Lake was thicker than any Su Bai had seen before, as though the entire world had been sealed behind a blurred curtain. Heavy moisture swirled through the air, silently swallowing the edges of the scenery, as if a single wrong step would leave him lost in endless nothingness. Yet as the owner of the Mist Shop, Su Bai needed only two or three minutes for his eyes to adjust to this environment.
Soon, Su Bai could see through the layers of fog and make out the nearby scenery.
He stood just one step from the lake, its waters lurking soundlessly in the thick fog, as still as a boundless black mirror. Had Su Bai taken even a small step backward when he first entered the game, he might already have fallen into that silent abyss, leaving the icy currents to drag him into unknown depths.
But the light in the distance prompted Su Bai to move forward instead, following the slope up from the lakeshore.
To his surprise, colorful flowers bloomed along both sides of the slope, an unusual sight in the Nightmare World, with all its horrors and dangers. A gentle night breeze brought a familiar floral fragrance, like a fogbound morning somewhere in the Real World.
Su Bai couldn't help remembering that the last garden he had seen in the Nightmare World had been at the Lorimas Grand Hotel. But the soil in its rose garden had been soaked in blood, turning the once pure-white Lorimas Roses a glaring blood red. Standing among them, all he could sense was the unbearable stench of rotting flesh.
The flower beds around Su Bai now, however, were fresh and pleasant, as though neither time nor the horrors of the nightmare could touch this place.
Su Bai