Chapter 9: Specter Thread Fish True Form
"I'm heading out for a bit, back soon." Lin Shan lit a torch, holding the remaining six in his hand, and said flatly, "If I don't come back, don't look for me."
"In the middle of the night, where are you going? And why are you saying things so scary?" Zhao Xiao An asked from the side, looking puzzled.
"Some private matters." With that, he walked straight outside.
"Be careful," Zhang Zhonghua reminded.
"Mn, I will." Lin Shan nodded.
Watching the firelight gradually vanish, everyone else wore thoughtful expressions.
No one called him back; everyone had their own choices, and they were simply banding together for safety. If others had their own secrets or opportunities, it wasn't really anyone else's place to pry.
The Parchment could also display a map in his mind. Following the markers, he slowly approached the location of the Specter Thread Fish.
It was still that same river at the exact same spot. The Specter Thread Fish hadn't moved at all, though he didn't know if that was because anomalies couldn't move.
Upon approaching within fifty meters of the Specter Thread Fish, Lin Shan swallowed hard, walking while occasionally looking up at the sky.
When he drew within thirty meters, the surrounding space began to experience turbulence, and an unknown aura gradually spread... The surroundings began to be affected, and the air grew unusually bone-chilling.
This is... something like a domain? Lin Shan's pupils suddenly constricted, his heart trembling.
When he looked up at the sky again, he discovered a huge blue full moon hanging high overhead.
Lin Shan quickly retreated until the blue full moon overhead vanished, then stopped and planted a torch in the ground to light it.
He changed directions and repeated the process, taking less than ten minutes to plant torches in all four directions one by one. These resin-made torches could burn for over half an hour barring accidents, leaving him with plenty of time.
Once torches were planted all around him, Lin Shan once again cautiously walked toward the direction of the Specter Thread Fish.
The bone-chilling aura remained, and the blue moon overhead appeared once more, as if nothing had changed.
"Tap, tap, tap."
The sound of his soles contacting the ground clearly entered his ears. Though the sound wasn't loud, it seemed exceptionally distinct to Lin Shan.
He walked forward step by step: twenty meters, ten meters!
Upon approaching within ten meters, the scene before his eyes made Lin Shan's scalp tingle.
A spiral pillar-like object floated above the river, vibrating at a high frequency throughout its entire body. Most terrifyingly, viewed from bottom to top, it resembled a black pillar propping up the sky, and there was no telling how tall it was.
The pillar grew upward in a spiral shape. Because the light was too dim, he couldn't see the edge at a glance, but just within his field of vision alone, it was already over ten meters high!
Along with the vibration of that spiral pillar came a buzzing sound. Ink-like, dense darkness spread outward from the surroundings; the darkness tried to approach Lin Shan, but was blocked firmly outside by the firelight.
However, as the darkness encroached, the torch in Lin Shan's hand also grew feeble, as if it might extinguish at any second.
Frightened, he hastily pulled out a backup torch, planted it on the ground, and lit it. When the second torch was ignited, the surrounding firelight grew even more intense, and that strand of darkness finally settled down.
Approaching another five meters, Lin Shan once again produced a backup torch, planting it in the ground to light it.
For the final five meters, every step was made against immense pressure. The bone-chilling aura caused the flow of his blood to stagnate, and the cold sweat on his forehead had already frozen into fine ice shards.
Finally, he took that last step. In an instant, a severe sense of fainting struck his consciousness; besides the bone-chilling cold, an unknown aura was assaulting his consciousness.
He felt his vision blur gradually, double images already appearing before his eyes, and he could faint at any moment.
He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, the fishy taste of fresh blood waking him up slightly. He knew that if he fainted now, it would be equivalent to death.
With great effort, he extended his frozen arm, thrusting the torch out to burn the base of the pillar. He didn't dare look up; at this distance, if he glanced up at the Specter Thread Fish true form, he might faint immediately.
He could see the part being burned very clearly: it was composed of countless intertwined fine threads, constantly vibrating at a high frequency. As it was burned by the flames, Lin Shan seemed to hear a scream-a scream planted directly in the soul, giving him a trance-like sensation of his soul leaving his body.
As the burning continued, those fine threads began to twist continuously under the flames, and fine grey debris kept dropping down.
"Sizz-!"
Another scream rang out, shaking Lin Shan to the point that his soul directly left his body!
Only now did he realize that humans really did have souls. This feeling was both miraculous and terrifying, and he could even see the top of his own head!
Lin Shan knew he couldn't keep burning. If the target screamed one more time, his soul might truly detach from his body for good.
He bit the tip of his tongue hard once more. His vision began to sink, and his soul and body merged. Tearing a piece of cloth off his pajamas, he squatted down and wrapped up all the fine ash along with the dirt. During this, his body emitted clicking sounds-that was the sound of his body's joints being frozen stiff. Given his previous physique, he wouldn't even have been able to move right now.
"Click, click~"
Accompanied by clicking sounds, Lin Shan slowly retreated. When he exited the ten-meter range, the pressure around him plummeted, and the bone-chilling cold slowly dissipated.
Right at that moment, a sudden change occurred!
One of the torches planted around the perimeter suddenly went out for no apparent reason!
Lin Shan's pupils suddenly constricted, his heart trembling. Ignoring the piercing pain brought on by muscle frostbite, he ran outward for his life.
The spiral-pillar anomaly discovered that it could move, immediately resuming its fish-shaped lump form.
The next second.
Dense to the extreme, ink-like darkness suddenly diffused outward into the surroundings. Wherever the darkness reached, even the ground was eroded with a sizzling sound, turning into scorched earth.
It was enraged!
The darkness arrived in the blink of an eye, yet it was blocked outside by the firelight in Lin Shan's hand, unable to advance even a fraction of an inch.
The flame on the torch began to sway wildly and irregularly from side to side, as if it would extinguish the very next second.
The heart that Lin Shan had just relaxed tightened once again as he accelerated toward the outside of the domain.
The tottering flame finally extinguished, and at this moment only the final distance of three meters remained between Lin Shan and the outside of the domain.
He leaped fiercely-with his current physical constitution, jumping three meters posed no difficulty. The darkness behind him had already touched him, and a bone-piercing, marrow-scraping agony penetrated deep into his soul. Accompanied by a foul stench, he felt his internal organs rotting; this foul stench was emanating from within his own body!
"Thud!"
He crashed heavily onto the ground. The blue moon above his head vanished-he had escaped!
However, he would not live much longer either.
Smelling the foul stench radiating from the inside out of his own body, he could not help asking himself: was it worth it? Rot had already appeared across all his internal organs, and being able to stay alive right now was entirely a miracle.
This was probably to be credited to the 'Specter Physique' constitution.
Sensing his increasingly feeble body, a thought stirred slightly within him as he took out the Parchment.
Using the Quill, he slowly wrote:
Lin Shan: [How much longer can I live?]
Parchment: [Remaining lifespan fifty-one years and three months. Affected by a curse, the true surviving time is thirty-seven days.]
It seemed querying the balance cost no money, and this feeling of knowing the balance of one's own life was truly fucked.
The originally fifty-one-year lifespan was directly cut down to thirty-seven days...
Lin Shan: [Is there any method to eliminate this curse?]
Parchment: [Requires payment of one month's lifespan.]
Lin Shan: [Pay.]
Parchment: [Become a Transcendent lifeform.]
A trace of brilliance returned to Lin Shan's eyes; the only thing that could be used to deal with Transcendence was Transcendence.
In other words, as long as he became a Transcendent lifeform within thirty-seven days, he could counteract this curse.
He had already obtained one of the three materials, and the final Purple Soul Flower held no difficulty either-he just needed to acquire Ashatu's Horn next!
There was still hope!
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