Cold Stiff

Lu Heng gripped his stone axe with its chipped edge and slowly walked deeper into the dense woods.

Years of accumulated dead leaves and humus covered the ground beneath his feet.

Layers of dry leaves had been packed down, giving only muted, faint crunches underfoot, soft yet gritty, with a silence that felt oppressive.

The wind in the woods was very light.

Filtered through layers of branches and leaves, it made almost no sound.

His palm held the axe handle firmly, and his mind was clear.

This stone axe was completely worn out.

The intense wear of logging day after day had left its edge covered in chips and ragged burrs.

He could barely still swing it, but if it jammed or struck something hard once more, the entire stone blade would shatter beyond use.

He dared not risk relying on this damaged axe alone.

Before setting out, Lu Heng had deliberately selected a dense hardwood branch at the forest's edge.

He had shaved off every fork and side branch, then repeatedly ground and sharpened the tip into a solid, keen spearpoint.

With that, a simple wooden spear had taken shape.

He tucked the Wooden Spear diagonally behind his waist, with the hem of his outer garment resting lightly over the shaft.

It neither swayed nor dug into him as he walked, and it did not restrict his movements. If danger really struck, he could draw it with a single reach.

This was the fallback he had secured beforehand, guarding against a sudden weapon failure that would leave his hands empty.

The trees grew thickly together, their heavy trunks standing in overlapping rows.

They fragmented his view, leaving everything beyond ten meters a blind spot. He could not see into the depths at all.

Lu Heng advanced steadily, probing ahead, when his foot inadvertently brushed a dry, broken branch.

The branch rolled under the force and lightly struck a trunk with a short, muffled knock.

It was not loud.

But in these deathly silent woods, it could carry a very long way.

The silence held for several seconds.

Then an unusual sound drifted through the distant trees.

It was not the light, irregular footfalls of a wild animal.

It was a dragging, steady, rigid thud.

Each step came with a pause, stiff and sluggish, repeating without a trace of life.

Lu Heng stopped instantly, instinctively pressing himself against the thick tree beside him.

Holding his breath, he focused on the source of the sound.

Through the gaps in the foliage, four upright, human-shaped outlines slowly emerged.

At first glance, their heights and builds looked no different from those of ordinary survivors.

At the instant he first saw them, a faint conjecture flashed through Lu Heng's mind.

Had he run into other people?

But instinct suppressed every hopeful thought.

He made no sound and did not lean out or wave. He merely narrowed his eyes and watched, remaining tense and alert throughout.

The longer he watched, the more wrong they seemed.

Those four figures showed none of the movement patterns of living people.

They did not avoid the branches jutting out before them, letting the foliage lash their faces and shoulders.

They did not adjust their steps or bend to cushion their footfalls.

Their arms swung stiffly throughout, their movements straight and eerily mechanical.

The four figures spread out slightly, slowly converging from three directions.

Their target was precisely where he had made that sound.

As they drew closer, every semblance of disguise fell away.

Their skin was a dead, ashen white, steeped in lingering cold.

The skin of their faces was taut and hard, clinging tightly to the contours of their bones.

A thick, murky gray-white film clouded their eyes, leaving them unfocused, dull, and utterly lifeless.

An extremely faint wisp of chilling white vapor lingered around them.

It was not the warm mist of a living person's breath, but a deathly cold aura from bodies that had lost all life and were sustained by frigid air.

With every step, their knees caught for an instant before stiffly straightening.

Their entire bodies resembled frozen puppets: clumsy, slow, and rigid.

The muscles in Lu Heng's back abruptly tightened.

He swiftly lowered his gaze to the bracelet interface.

It was completely clean and blank.

There were no danger markers, no creature entries, and no system notifications of any kind.

In this world, unfamiliar anomalies never warned him of their dangers in advance.

Their nature, weaknesses, and killing moves all remained hidden and unknown.

The only way to understand a threat was to test it himself.

The four eerie humanoid monsters steadily closed in.

They moved slowly, but never took a step back or showed the slightest hesitation.

Unwilling to be passively surrounded, Lu Heng lightly ground his foot against the dead leaves, lowered his body, and advanced toward the foremost one.

The damaged axe had a broken edge, so he dared not chop with full force.

Keeping his wrist low and controlling his strength, he aimed precisely at vulnerable areas such as the neck and shoulder joints, delivering short, repeated chops.

After several rounds of exertion, the stiff body finally lost its support and crashed heavily onto the dead leaves.

The instant the corpse hit the ground, blue light flared from his bracelet, and an entry immediately refreshed and unlocked.

[Cold Stiff]

Description: A mutated humanoid body eroded by the Frost Forest's extremely cold ground energy. Its life has been extinguished, leaving only the instinct to prey on living creatures. Its body is stiff, and its movements are slow.

Trait: Its flesh carries cold-erosion corpse poison. Once a scratch breaks the skin, the toxin enters the bloodstream, continuously eroding the body and draining stamina.

The entry had barely come into view when the remaining three Cold Stiffs closed in on him.

Lu Heng twisted with his momentum and thrust his wrist forward with all his strength, driving the damaged axe viciously into a gap between the bones of the second Cold Stiff's chest.

Crack-

A muffled, hard snap of resistance sounded.

The already damaged stone blade lodged deep between the rigid flesh and bones.

It was stuck fast.

No matter how fiercely he tugged with his wrist or pulled backward with his torso, the stone axe did not budge, locked completely inside the corpse.

The deadlock lasted half a second.

The third Cold Stiff had already closed in from the side.

Its rigid arm reached straight out to claw at him, its fingertips blue-black and hard, carrying deadly cold-erosion corpse poison.

There was no time to keep trying to pull the axe free.

Lu Heng immediately made his decision, releasing his grip and abandoning the axe.

He reached behind his waist and firmly closed all five fingers around the shaft of the Wooden Spear he had prepared.

His feet slid swiftly sideways, narrowly avoiding the path of the sweeping poison claws.

The Wooden Spear felt solid in his hand, its point cold, hard, and sharp.

The damaged axe was completely finished.

Now, with only a homemade Wooden Spear remaining, he faced three Cold Stiffs slowly pressing toward him.

The woods remained deathly silent.

Only the stiff, dragging footsteps remained, thudding against the dead leaves, one after another.

His fingers tightened around the Wooden Spear's shaft, his knuckles unconsciously trembling slightly.

Lu Heng knew clearly that this trembling was not born of fear.

The successive bouts of work had already exhausted him mentally and physically. The hurried sequence of abandoning the axe and dodging aside had tensed every muscle in his body and drawn his nerves taut to the limit, causing his body to instinctively tremble with tension. His mind remained utterly calm, without the slightest panic or desire to retreat. Instead, he used that physical tension to cast aside every stray thought and devote himself entirely to the confrontation.

Only three Cold Stiffs remained. Their movements were still rigid and sluggish; they could only shuffle straight forward, unable to circle around to flank him, much less anticipate his movements. The only thing he needed to guard against was the cold-erosion corpse poison coating their claws. As long as they did not scratch his flesh and break his skin, there was no hidden lethal danger.

Lu Heng planted his feet with one ahead of the other, held the Wooden Spear across his body, and slowly swept his gaze over the three monsters.

The stone axe had been abandoned on the second corpse and could no longer be retrieved. The homemade Wooden Spear in his hands was now his sole support. It lacked the hardness of a stone edge and could not withstand forceful chopping or hacking. He could only attack by finding openings to thrust into, patiently drawing them out and maneuvering rather than rashly engaging at close quarters.

The rightmost Cold Stiff was the first to shuffle within striking distance. Its stiff arm extended straight out, its blue-black nails clawing directly toward his chest. Its movement was so slow he could see it clearly, and its trajectory never changed.

Lu Heng shifted lightly half a step sideways, easily evading the lunge.

Taking advantage of the opening when its attack was fully extended and its body could not turn in time, he drove his wrist forward, precisely thrusting the spearpoint into the gap in its elbow joint.

The Cold Stiff's body was frozen rigid, and its joints were natural weak points.

The Wooden Spear plunged more than halfway in. The monster's body jerked to a halt, but it did not fall immediately, still flailing its arms on its remaining instincts.

Lu Heng did not linger. He swiftly withdrew the Wooden Spear and stepped back to open the distance.

A trace of gray-black filth clung to the spearpoint-the very cold-erosion corpse poison marked in the compendium. He deliberately raised his hand clear of his sleeve, keeping the venom from brushing the fabric and eliminating any possibility of it touching his skin.

The other two pressed closer one after another, dragging their feet and hindering each other. Crowded together, they were instead unable to attack in unison.

A flicker of certainty crossed Lu Heng's eyes. They had the appearance of an encirclement but no awareness of cooperation; he could dismantle their scattered attacks one by one.

The faint trembling in his arms had not yet faded, and he could feel it distinctly every time he gripped the Wooden Spear.

Yet he grew increasingly calm. That tension instead sharpened his senses considerably, letting him catch every tiny preliminary movement as the monsters raised their legs and arms.

He stopped dodging passively and actively circled in small steps, moving behind one monster's flank. Driving the Wooden Spear forward with both hands, he thrust its point straight through the vital spot at the back of its neck.

The Cold Stiff convulsed violently twice, its rigid limbs abruptly drooping, before it plunged heavily into the thick pile of dead leaves and never moved again.

In a blink, only two remained.

The pressure of the situation abruptly eased, but Lu Heng's breathing stayed steady, without the slightest lapse in vigilance.

The remaining two monsters continued repeating their monotonous forward lunges, slowly shuffling after him.

He quickly calculated his options. The Wooden Spear's durability was limited, and repeated thrusts would wear down its point too; he could not expend it indefinitely. Better to seize the right moment and finish off the last two in one go, leave these woods as quickly as possible, and return to the Shelter early to initiate the upgrade and reinforce the cave entrance's defenses.

The hand gripping the spear shaft still trembled slightly, but that was the tension of readiness, the excitement of impending battle, not fear arising in his heart.

Lu Heng settled his mind, raised the Wooden Spear steadily into position, and quietly waited for the next round of attacks to come.