A Terrifying Behemoth

Night fell, and the Red Moon hung overhead.

An icy wind blew in from afar, making him shiver for no apparent reason...

"The Ash Fog is active again. The days ahead won't be easy."

No sooner had he spoken than a mantis-like creature lunged at Lin Shan, reaching him in the blink of an eye.

Holding the Red Lantern, Lin Shan had already sensed it. His heart light condensed into a pale golden spear and instantly pierced the unknown creature.

Once the creature stopped struggling, Lin Shan stepped forward to inspect it. It was indeed a mantis.

The mantis was half a meter long, with a brown shell. Its forelegs resembled two exceptionally sharp broadswords, their edges lined with serrated barbs. A single slash would surely carve out a chunk of flesh.

Lin Shan studied the mantis's forelegs for a while, then turned his heart light into a blade and cut one off, keeping only the sharp section at the tip.

He then whittled a piece of wood into a handle and fitted it onto the blade, completing a crude dagger. If an emergency exhausted his spirituality, he could use it to defend himself.

By dawn the next day, the mantis corpses around him had piled into a small hill. Lin Shan opened his eyes, the two dark panda-like rings around them particularly conspicuous.

These giant mantises had kept ambushing him throughout the night, as though he had stirred up a mantis nest. He had not dared change locations after dark. The mantises were manageable-he could casually dispose of these pseudo-transcendent creatures-but encountering an uncanny entity because he moved would have been trouble.

He had therefore spent the entire night on guard against mantis ambushes. Only as dawn approached had things finally settled down.

Including last night, he had now gone two full nights without sleep!

He untied the horse tethered beside him and checked the markings on the Parchment. His first destination was still 300 kilometers away.

"Hyah!" Lin Shan called softly, turning toward his destination.

The horse began galloping. Along the way, Lin Shan adjusted its course from time to time. Horses lost their bearings in the Ash Fog just as people did.

With the unknown suppressive force gone, the uncanny entities in the Ash Fog had begun stirring. In barely two hours of travel, he encountered two places where he suspected such entities lurked. Fortunately, their supernatural influence covered only small areas, and Lin Shan detoured around both in advance.

Tap, tap, tap!

Suddenly, Lin Shan heard the sound of feet stepping through water. His heart tightened. This was solid ground... where had the water come from?

Tap, tap, tap!

The splashing sound persisted, yet the road ahead was flat ground without a trace of water.

Lin Shan's heart rose into his throat. Steeling himself, he looked down beneath him.

The next second.

His hair stood on end, and terror shook him to his core. The horse beneath him had become a complete skeleton. That "tap, tap, tap" had not been splashing at all, but the sound of its hoof bones striking the ground!

The horse seemed entirely unaware that nothing remained of it but its skeleton. It continued running at a brisk pace, picking up speed all the while.

Lin Shan could no longer sit still, unsure how to respond. He could see nothing unusual around him, yet the horse beneath him had turned to bare bones without him noticing...

He hastily took out the Parchment and wrote with a trembling hand:

Lin Shan: [What's going on?]

Parchment: [Unknown.]

"..." Lin Shan stared at the word "Unknown," cold sweat dripping from his forehead.

The horse beneath him had stopped obeying his commands entirely and was galloping desperately.

It ran at its utmost speed for a full hour.

At last, it seemed to reach its limit. Its forelegs abruptly lifted, and when they came down again, it collapsed into a scattering of broken bones.

Lin Shan swung himself off as the horse fell, escaping unharmed. He first looked toward the ground the horse had just crossed, then at the broken bones scattered everywhere. He stood solemnly in silence for a long time.

Only now did he finally understand what had happened. The place they had just passed through was a boundless sea of bones. Nothing could be seen from the other side; only after crossing that sea and looking back could one see its true form.

When the horse had strayed into it, it had already noticed the changes to its body. Yet it had still carried him across that sea of bones on its skeletal frame.

In other words, this horse, which had lost its life after accompanying him for only two days, had saved his.

A bitter feeling stirred in Lin Shan's heart. He shaped his heart light into a shovel and directed it to dig a deep pit, then gathered the scattered horse bones and buried them inside.

He raised a grave mound and found a large stone nearby to serve as a headstone. On it, he carved: "Here lies the nameless black horse, mount of Lin Shan of the Human Race."

"There's not much I can do for you. If I ever make a name for myself in this world, having carried me will bring you some fame too."

After smoothing the headstone, Lin Shan turned and left. He would have to travel the rest of the way on his own feet.

That night, beneath the Red Moon, Lin Shan ate some of the dry rations he carried. They were simply the gray steamed buns from the camp. After two days, the buns had hardened, and biting into them was like gnawing on hard dough, utterly tasteless.

His first destination was still two hundred kilometers away. Losing the horse along the way meant he had traveled only a hundred kilometers that day, half his planned distance.

Every step ahead would be like treading on thin ice. If he encountered another uncanny phenomenon like that sea of bones, he could declare this dream called life over.

Lin Shan prayed silently, hoping his luck would improve from here on.

Having gone two nights without sleep, he soon fell asleep.

"Lin Shan, what do you think lies above the Ash Fog?"

"Do you want to take a look above the Ash Fog?"

"Let's go and see together."

"You're so weak!"

"You can only live inside the circle right now. Don't go wandering off. It'll be a lot of trouble if you die..."

"Oh, I forgot. A creature as weak as you could die just from hearing me speak... several racial nations perished that way. I never meant to hurt them... I hope you're all right."

The ethereal voice kept echoing through his mind like an intricate, unfathomable incantation, filling him with inexplicable dread and shaking him to his core.

Lin Shan's eyes snapped open, and he gasped violently.

Blood was seeping from his ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth-all seven orifices. The sight was particularly horrifying!

"A dream?"

"But what's with this blood?"

Lin Shan looked at his blood-covered hand. He had been so exhausted last night that he had fallen straight into deep sleep the moment he closed his eyes. Fortunately, nothing dangerous had happened.

He glanced at the blood on his hand again and said uncertainly, "Or perhaps something did..."

Picking up the Red Lantern, he continued on his way. After everything he had experienced, Lin Shan had grown remarkably unflappable. A little bleeding was nothing. As long as he was still alive, he just had to keep going.

Rumble! Rumble!

Lin Shan was carefully making his way forward when he suddenly felt the earth quake and the mountains shake.

Then the sky abruptly darkened.

Woooo-

A cry resounded throughout heaven and earth, somewhat like a ship's horn, its roar shaking the entire world.

Lin Shan instantly felt deafened, his head threatening to split. Clamping both hands over his ears, he looked up at the sky.

The Ash Fog blocked the sky, leaving him unable to see anything except that it had gone dark. Far in the distance, he could vaguely make out a towering pillar, wreathed in Ash Fog. That pillar was moving farther and farther away, and every time it rose and fell, it produced a tremendous rumble.

A fallen creature-a fallen creature of an extremely high sequence!

The thought arose in Lin Shan's mind, filling him with horror.

"What sequence is that fallen creature? Will I have to face things like that when I advance to higher sequences?"

Lin Shan felt numb. The thing was so enormous that he could not see its full shape. He could barely make out one towering pillar that might have been a leg.

"One step could wipe out a whole city..."

The more he saw, the more keenly he felt his own insignificance.

Shaking his head with a bitter smile, he put those thoughts aside and continued forward with the Red Lantern. He would not dwell on things too far beyond his reach. He set himself only a small goal: travel 70 kilometers today.