The strange chicken reacted with lightning speed, ducking sharply and nimbly dodging Qian Fan's attack. The branch grazed its purplish-black feathers, scattering a few wisps of down.
It hopped aside and tilted its head, seemingly assessing this opponent who had lost his power. Then it attacked again, faster than before, the wind whipped up by its claws stinging Qian Fan's cheeks.
Without the reinforcement of divine power, Qian Fan's reflexes and strength had been greatly diminished. Faced with the strange chicken's swift, ferocious attacks, he fumbled to keep up.
Seizing its chance, the strange chicken lunged forward and pecked at Qian Fan's neck. He instinctively leaned back. Though he avoided the fatal blow, a deep, bloody gash still scored his neck. Warm blood trickled down and dripped onto the front of his robe.
His boot soles crushed the rotting leaves underfoot with a muffled squelch. Beneath the impenetrable canopy, the sound was unusually clear, only to be swallowed almost immediately by the boundless silence.
The strange chicken's claws dug into his collarbone through his torn collar, their sharp tips almost piercing his skin. Its obsidian eyes remained fixed on a spot diagonally ahead, where a peculiarly shaped Crooked Ancient Tree stood. Where moss had peeled away from its bark, a section of stark white finger bones lay exposed, still curled in a grasping pose. Half a broken jade pendant hung from the wrist bones, gleaming coldly white in the faint light.
Qian Fan's heart clenched, and an ominous foreboding welled up inside him. He instinctively pushed aside the ferns beside him to examine the finger bones, but accidentally brushed against the transparent sap on their leaves.
As though alive, the sap rapidly climbed along the veins in his wrist, spreading toward his heart. Its cold, uncanny touch felt eerily like