Eerie Purple Fire

The crowd continued on.

More than two hours passed, and the surrounding environment remained entirely unchanged; not only had they failed to find a water source, but they also had not seen any other living creatures.

A young girl of barely twenty standing beside Lin Shan looked at him and asked in despair, "Brother Lin, do you think we can still make it back to Earth alive?"

Lin Shan rolled his eyes, as she had asked this question countless times along the way: "Xiao An, don't even think about returning to Earth. It'll be a miracle if we can just survive."

"Old Lin is right. Based on my years of webnovel experience, the probability of going back is slim to none," interjected a young man nearby.

"Shut up, Wu Wang. This is reality, not a novel!" Xiao An said angrily.

Wu Wang looked at Xiao An and replied with a sarcastic drawl, "Ah, yes, yes, yes, this is reality and not a novel, and you haven't crossed over either-you're still sitting safely at home."

"..."

Lin Shan watched the two bickering with amusement; the two of them were people he had met along the way, and because they were of a similar age and shared common topics, they had practically formed a temporary team.

Compared to the bickering of the two, Lin Shan remained completely calm throughout. He was certain that this wasn't Earth, but could there be anything worse than this? Whatever happened next, it was just more of the same.

"There's the sound of flowing water!" someone suddenly shouted.

"It really is the sound of water." Lin Shan listened carefully, and a rushing sound reached his ears; it seemed there was a fast-flowing river nearby.

Immediately, many people showed looks of excitement.

"We're saved!"

"We'll definitely be able to make it out!"

"As long as we find food next, this place will be a second Earth!"

Pessimistic emotions receded and joyful feelings grew, as the crowd caught sight of the hope for survival.

At that moment, the sky had grown somewhat gloomy, and a hazy gray fog drifted through the air, making it impossible to see any stars.

"Ah..." A female suddenly let out a piercing scream that carried exceptionally far through the empty woods.

"What's wrong?" The expressions of the crowd shifted as they hurriedly asked, a trace of a bad premonition rising in everyone's hearts.

"Bones-they're human skeletons!" The female lost all color in her face, her body trembling continuously as she stumbled backward.

The crowd looked in the direction the female was pointing, and saw two skeletons hanging from a towering tree ahead, swaying back and forth in the wind and looking exceptionally hair-raising.

Lin Shan and a few bold males stepped forward to observe closely. Although human skeletons here were terrifying, it was also a good thing, as it proved at least that people had been here before.

"These remains are a man and a woman, and there are many rough cracks on them, nearly weathered away. The environment of a different world is very different from Earth's, so we can't determine their age," someone frowned and said.

Someone even joked, "If this world has transcendent elements, maybe these two people died just a few minutes ago, and now their bones have already weathered away."

Hiss. The crowd drew in a sharp breath. Such a thing would definitely be a joke on Earth, but now that something as absurd as crossing over had happened, what was impossible?

For a moment, some people in the crowd began to grow suspicious, looking left and right. Even Lin Shan felt a chill all over his body.

Seeing the terror spreading, Lin Shan hurriedly spoke up to comfort them: "Human remains mean that someone has been here before. It seems we aren't the only ones, and human settlements might exist in this world too."

Hearing Lin Shan put it this way, the crowd seemed to see hope once more, temporarily driving away the fear in their hearts.

They walked for another half hour, by which time everyone was already utterly exhausted. Mental fatigue and thirst tortured every single person.

From the time they started until now, the crowd had walked for nearly five hours, and they hadn't even cleared this patch of woods.

"Could we have run into a ghost wall!" someone muttered.

"Nonsense. Although the environment hasn't changed much, didn't you notice the flowers on the ground growing sparser and sparser?"

"Huh... You're right. I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it."

"Let's keep walking and get out of this forest first. When it really comes down to starving to death, the surrounding tree bark and leaves are edible, so don't be picky at a time like this."

"We can make do with food, but having no water source is the most troublesome part. Who knows if there's any dew in this world..."

Lin Shan observed the people around him, and could clearly see that the psychological endurance of these people was very strong; up to this point, no one had displayed any extreme reactions.

"There's a river!" someone at the very front suddenly shouted, and the crowd stepped forward to look.

They saw that two hundred meters away, a hundred-meter-wide river lay horizontally across the middle of the forest like a silver dragon. They couldn't make out the specific details, but could only tell from the rushing sound of the water that the current was extremely swift.

For the final hundred-meter stretch, the crowd ran toward the river at a sprint.

Looking at the river before them, the crowd felt a continuous stream of pleasant surprises.

"Ah, this water is so clear."

"Look, there are even fish, though they look a bit strange."

Xiao An looked at the surging water before her with some worry: "Could it be poisonous, or have some other hazard..."

"Even if it is, can you afford not to drink?" Lin Shan replied.

Xiao An replied helplessly, "No. Between dying of poison and dying of thirst, I choose dying of poison."

"Death, death, death-can't you say something nice? What if drinking this water not only has no hazards but actually brings benefits? For example, it might be spiritual water or something, and drinking it strengthens the body..." Wu Wang interjected from the side.

"Heh." Xiao An sneered derisively, "Do you even believe that yourself?"

While the three of them were talking, some people had already prostrated themselves by the riverbank and gulped it down frantically, though most people were still watching from the sidelines.

Ten-odd minutes later.

Seeing that the people who drank the river water were completely fine, even more people could no longer endure their thirst and began to drink, though they only took shallow sips.

Lin Shan also took a small sip. The river water was exceptionally ice-cold, as if it had been chilled in a refrigerator.

"Ah-!"

A miserable scream rang out, followed immediately by similarly wretched cries echoing one after another.

Lin Shan watched helplessly as a young man not far away was ignited by a purple flame. In an instant, the raging inferno engulfed his entire body, and his skin instantly sprouted a layer of large blood blisters before being burned to a pulp right away. He collapsed onto the ground in agony, twisting and struggling.

It was already too late to save him. His agonizing screams as he burned in the purple flames resounded through the entire forest, making everyone shudder with dread, and it looked like he wouldn't breathe his last anytime soon either.

There were a dozen others just like him who were spontaneously combusting!

Purple flames! Purple ones!

Lin Shan remembered-the person before his eyes was none other than the young man who had earlier made him pluck the flowers! He hurriedly shouted, "Hurry up and throw away the Purple Soul Flowers you picked earlier!"

It was too late. The speed of the flames was simply too fast, taking less than the blink of an eye. Anyone who had a Purple Soul Flower on their person spontaneously combusted at the exact same moment, collapsing onto the ground to roll and wail. Some people jumped straight into the river, but this kind of flame could actually burn underwater!

The scene of living people being consumed by fire was far too cruel. Xiao An dared not look any longer. She turned her head away, closed her eyes, covered her ears, and opened her mouth, though whether she wanted to cry or scream was anyone's guess.

Just at that moment, a sudden change occurred. The people who were spontaneously combusting suddenly lunged toward the normal people nearby, and as long as they were touched by a stray spark, the bystanders immediately caught fire as well.

The fire gradually spread, and in the blink of an eye, another dozen people were ignited!

The remaining people screamed in terror, hurriedly fleeing into the forest to put distance between themselves and the spontaneously combusting individuals.

Lin Shan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead as he ran, his heart beating exceptionally fast. He had just brushed shoulders with the Grim Reaper; that young man had lunged at him first, and fortunately he had managed to dodge out of the way.

At this moment, the people in the clearing were divided into two factions: the spontaneously combusting ones and the normal ones, separated by a hundred meters in the middle.