Ashatu

With the Red Lantern's help, the rest of the journey went much more smoothly.

He encountered no more eerie entities along the way, though he did come across two supernatural beasts fighting. Lin Shan took a detour before getting too close.

Only now could Lin Shan be certain that none of the beasts capable of surviving in the Ash Fog were pushovers. Every last one was a supernatural creature.

On a small hill somewhere.

Lin Shan looked ahead at the enormous-horned Ashatu. It stood nearly two meters tall and looked somewhat like an ox, with the huge horn on its head accounting for two-thirds of its body.

This was a small herd of eight Ashatu, wandering aimlessly across the land.

According to the stone tablet he had seen in the forest earlier, these were called the fallen. Were all wild beasts called the fallen? If not, what was the difference between wild beasts and the fallen?

He had far too many questions, and no one to answer them. If he asked the Parchment everything, even dying on the spot would not give him enough lifespan to pay.

"How am I supposed to get that horn...? That huge horn must be incredibly hard. Breaking it off with brute force isn't very realistic." Looking at the Ashatu nearby, Lin Shan found himself at a loss.

Ashatu, oxen, the Red Lantern, red, bullfighting!

An idea suddenly occurred to Lin Shan. Hopefully, these Ashatu were like the cattle on Earth, and rapidly moving objects could provoke them.

Holding the lantern, he gave a slight mental command, and a red silhouette suddenly appeared on the horn of an Ashatu nearby. This was another way to use the Red Lantern that Lin Shan had worked out during his journey. He could create red silhouettes anywhere within sight. Not only that, these silhouettes could also ignite anything they touched.

He did not have the red silhouette burn the Ashatu. His blood was the fuel needed for the flames, and with bodies that large, he could drain himself dry without burning them to death.

He merely had the red silhouette stand on one Ashatu's horn and sway from side to side, drawing the attention of the others.

Sure enough, all bull-headed creatures under heaven were one family. Fallen or otherwise, the other Ashatu's eyes instantly turned red when they saw the silhouette moving, and they viciously thrust their horns at it.

A huge horn passed through the red silhouette and slammed into the horn beneath it, sending sparks flying with a clang of clashing steel.

Lin Shan watched in alarm. Were those horns made of iron? That was not the sound normal horns made when they collided.

Clang, clang-!

The impacts continued. The other seven Ashatu surrounded the one with the red silhouette on its horn, taking turns ramming it. The Ashatu in the middle stared in terror as its companions, eyes bloodshot, frantically drove their horns into it. Its hooves trembled with fear.

Finally, with a crack, the enormous horn snapped off and fell to the ground. Lin Shan clenched his fist in excitement. This had been much easier than he had imagined.

It was all thanks to the Red Lantern. Without it, obtaining the horn on his own would have been as difficult as climbing to heaven. No wonder even the Parchment had marveled at his luck earlier. Whatever he needed simply fell into his lap. No other Spectral Object could possibly have produced this effect.

He continued using the red silhouette to lure the Ashatu away. Once the herd had gone far enough, Lin Shan approached and picked up the horn from the ground, discovering that it weighed at least twenty-five kilograms.

...He still had fifty kilometers to travel. Carrying this enormous horn was not very realistic, and the red silhouette could not carry things for him either.

After thinking it over carefully, he figured the Sequence Potion formula probably did not require an entire horn. He took out the Parchment, but before he could write down what he wanted to know, writing had already appeared on it.

Parchment: [After obtaining Ashatu's Horn, you felt confused. You believed that the ingredients for the Sequence Potion should not require an entire horn, so you prepared to ask the Parchment. Through the writing on the Parchment, you finally understood the exact method of preparing the formula.]

Lin Shan had noticed that when he wrote down a question, the Parchment only answered it, but when it displayed writing on its own, it seemed more human. He did not know whether that was good or bad. At this stage, he still could not do without the Parchment.

The black writing vanished as soon as Lin Shan finished reading it, and new writing appeared.

Parchment: [Sequence Nine-Heart Light. Dissolve 10 g of Specter Thread Fish spirit ash in 50 ml of pure water. Take 10 g of the black powder remaining after burning Ashatu's Horn and dissolve it in 80 ml of pure water. One Purple Soul Flower.]

None of this had been recorded on the stone tablet. If he had experimented on his own, who knew how many attempts it would have taken to work out the exact proportions?

It was worth noting that there was no charge this time. Any questions concerning this potion sequence were covered by the twenty years of lifespan he had paid earlier.

Holding the Red Lantern, Lin Shan summoned flames to ignite Ashatu's Horn, which lay on the ground in front of him. The flames were a translucent red and gave off no heat. In fact, there was a sinister chill as they burned.

The horn, over a meter long, was completely enveloped in red flames. Its material began to soften and melt, and a foul, fishy stench assailed his nose. Lin Shan paid it no mind. It still smelled better than he did.

After only twenty-odd seconds, the flames suddenly went out. The job was not finished; the lamp oil converted from his blood had run dry. Lin Shan could only endure the pain and draw more blood to replenish it.

He replenished the lamp oil once more during the process. Only after the red flames had burned for over a minute was the horn on the ground completely consumed, leaving a scattering of black powder.

By now, Lin Shan's face was deathly pale, and his already weakened body had become even more limp and powerless. He had drawn blood three times in total. The little cup held about a hundred milliliters, so all the blood he had drawn could have filled half a bottle of mineral water. Though the amount was still within an adult's tolerable range, weakness was unavoidable.

He staggered over to the black powder and tore another scrap of cloth from his pajamas, which were already missing a corner, then wrapped up the powder on the ground.

The twenty-five-kilogram horn had yielded less than 150 g of black powder after burning. Once Lin Shan had gathered it all, he braided a grass cord, tied the cloth bundle shut, and fastened it to his waist.

Looking at the two little cloth bundles at his waist, Lin Shan felt a sense of accomplishment well up within him. Although he had been through a great deal, collecting two ingredients in just two days still lifted his spirits.

As long as he traveled another fifty kilometers and reached the Purple Soul Flower forest alive, he could glimpse that supernatural power. He would be able to keep living!

Calming himself, he picked up the lantern and continued on his way. It would be dark soon, and he did not know whether nightfall brought any additional dangers in the Ash Fog.

The sky gradually darkened, and the sun on the horizon was replaced by a blood-red full moon.

Beside a campfire, Lin Shan leaned against a tree, with the red lantern set in front of him. Even now, he did not dare turn his back on the Red Lantern. A Spectral Object was still a Spectral Object. He could not assume she would refrain from attacking him just because they had grown acquainted.

He did not intend to travel at night. There were too many unpredictable factors after dark. This land was certain to have eerie entities like the Specter Thread Fish, which only appeared at night. It would be safer to rest well and wait until dawn before continuing.

Night fell.

Just as Lin Shan drifted into a light sleep, the earth suddenly shook, and muffled roars from wild beasts rang out.

He jolted awake.

"What's going on? What are those beasts roaring about in the middle of the night?"

The thought had barely crossed Lin Shan's mind when an intensely concentrated darkness surged like a tide from above the Ash Fog!

Terror gripped Lin Shan's heart, but he saw what seemed to be an invisible barrier overhead, holding back the darkness. The darkness battered it frantically, trying to break through!

"It's the Red Lantern. It's protecting me!"

Lin Shan saw the lamp oil in the little cup burning faster and guessed that the barrier must be the Red Lantern's doing. The darkness outside the barrier certainly could not be anything good. Perhaps it was another eerie entity!