Dark Space

Lin Shan grew slower and slower, while the strange bird remained full of vigor, its eyes blazing with fury. Its piercing gaze stayed fixed on him, as though it would never rest until it had killed him.

Lin Shan was helpless. Throughout his flight, he had kept trying to set the strange bird alight with the Red Lantern, but the flames were extinguished the instant they touched its body.

That was right-they were extinguished outright. There was not even a clash of supernatural powers. The Red Lantern's supernatural power simply vanished without explanation.

This only strengthened Lin Shan's resolve to flee!

But if he kept flying like this, the distance between them would only shrink. He had to find a way to shake off the two-headed bird behind him as soon as possible.

Lin Shan began descending, only leveling out when he reached an altitude of a hundred meters. The two-headed bird behind him continued its relentless pursuit, drawing closer and closer.

Lin Shan kept his eyes on the ground below, hoping to find a barrier that could shelter him from his pursuer.

As he passed a small hill, he suddenly felt a chill wash over his entire body, as though he had flown through a freezer.

"You'll do!"

Lin Shan rapidly descended toward the hill. A flicker of hesitation crossed the strange bird's eyes, but it did not slow in the slightest, following him toward the ground.

He covered the hundred meters in the blink of an eye, and could already see the anomaly's true form.

"A house?"

The anomaly actually took the shape of a house. It had a small footprint and only two stories, with white walls and red roof tiles. Characters for marital happiness were pasted on either side of its doorway. Even when Lin Shan approached, it did not attack him.

The more it behaved this way, the more unsettling Lin Shan found it. By then, the strange bird had arrived as well. It too saw the little house, and a trace of mockery joined the fury in its eyes as it looked at him.

Boom!

The strange bird landed. Its enormous body stood taller than the little white-walled, red-roofed house before it, and the gust raised by its high-speed landing stirred up a cloud of dust.

The two-headed bird stared coldly at Lin Shan, advancing toward him one step at a time.

The next moment, its oppressively menacing beak pecked at the air. A bloody hole instantly appeared in Lin Shan's body, and black blood bubbled out like spring water.

Lin Shan's face paled. Without further hesitation, he turned and ran straight into the little house.

He opened the door easily. The interior was pitch-black and empty, with no furnishings or decorations visible.

Just as Lin Shan was examining the interior, the two-headed bird outside raised a claw and kicked at the air. He immediately felt a strange force strike him from behind. With a crack, his fragile spine snapped into several pieces. Then he flew straight into the room, slamming heavily into a black curtain.

Bang!

The door slammed shut, and the last sliver of light in the house vanished completely. Fortunately, the Red Lantern in his hand still offered him a final shred of comfort.

He lay on the ground for a while, only getting up to explore once his spine had more or less healed.

Even without healing, he could have stood using his specter physique, but he would have had to endure excruciating pain. Avoiding pain was preferable, after all-he had no taste for torment.

Carrying the lantern, he returned to where the door had been, only to discover there was no door at all. There was only darkness stretching beyond sight.

He walked several hundred paces forward, but still found nothing. Darkness, and more darkness.

From his observations outside, the little house could not have occupied more than fifteen square meters. What was going on now? Folded space? Or an illusory space?

After walking for ten-odd minutes, Lin Shan began to feel as though he was going in circles.

He stopped walking. Red light flickered behind his back, instantly forming enormous wings four meters long. With a slight beat, they carved a red wound through the darkness.

An hour later.

Lin Shan sat cross-legged on the ground, deep in thought. The Red Lantern rested beside him, giving off a faint, ghostly red glow that illuminated a small area.

"There's no way I can get out of this space on my own..."

After considering it for a while, Lin Shan decisively gave up.

He took out the Parchment.

Lin Shan: [How do I get out?]

Parchment: [Payment of three months of lifespan is required.]

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Parchment: [Opening Inner Space requires the power of sequence 8. Become sequence 8 and tear open space.]

Seeing this reply, Lin Shan almost wanted to tear the Parchment apart. What did it mean to tear open space? There was no way he could do that now.

"This is Inner Space, and that house was only an entrance. In other words, my earlier guess was right. There really is an invisible layer of space, and most higher-level anomalies reside in it..."

An idea suddenly occurred to Lin Shan.

Lin Shan: [Locate the nearest sequence 8 anomaly.]

Parchment: [Payment of 60 years of lifespan is required.]

Lin Shan frowned. He had not expected it to be so expensive. It seemed anything involving sequence potions came at a steep price, especially when sequence 8 was involved.

In the end, he decided against using the Parchment. He still needed to obtain a sequence 8 formula. If this left him without enough lifespan, the loss would outweigh the gain.

Besides, if anomalies really existed in this layer of space, finding one should not be too difficult. At worst, it would take a little more time.

"I wonder if these medicinal herbs will lose their potency if they're stored too long?"

Lin Shan glanced at the bulging backpack on his back. Over the past three months, he had gathered forty-seven of the marked medicinal herbs. The one near the strange bird was the forty-eighth. Though he had encountered many dangers along the way, he had successfully evaded them through flight and teleportation. He had never expected to encounter a freak like that two-headed bird at the very last moment.

After that, Lin Shan flew aimlessly through the boundless darkness like a headless fly.

When he grew tired of flying, he walked along the ground.

He continued like this for an unknown length of time, until he finally sensed a trace of icy chill somewhere-the scent of an anomaly.

Joy stirred in Lin Shan's heart. He had finally found one. Outside, when he wanted to avoid them, they were everywhere. Yet when he wanted to find one, it had taken him this long. There was no telling how many days had already passed outside.

His physiology was now completely different from that of an ordinary person. He needed neither sleep, food, nor water-none of the things a normal person required to survive. Apart from Fallen flesh, anything he ate now was merely for the sensation, going through the motions. Blood Wing's supernatural black blood could supply all the energy his body needed.

Lin Shan slowly approached the anomaly's location. He dared not get too close. If he accidentally entered its attack range, the consequences would be unthinkable. A sequence 8's supernatural power was beyond his ability to resist. The one he had encountered during the migration had revealed only part of its body, and even that had left him unable to fight back.

He maintained a distance of roughly nine hundred meters, just within his teleportation range, where he would not have to worry about being attacked by the anomaly.

He waited quietly. If his guess was right, anomalies sometimes opened a passage to the space outside.

There was no telling how much time passed. Here, there was no sense of time at all.

Suddenly, Lin Shan opened his eyes as he sat cross-legged, red light swirling within them. His specter physique sequence had finally broken through into its second stage. Phantom blood wings emerged behind his back, a little larger than before and even more magnificent, with several strange patterns now marking their blood-red surfaces.