He took another step, but unfortunately, this time he was unlucky and fell completely off the cliff.

The narrow underground passages were unpolished, and when you bumped into oddly shaped rocks, you couldn't pinpoint the source of the pain.

In the pitch-black cave where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, Shi Jinzhe stood up, leaning against the wall. The thorns on his body were soaked with blood and firmly bound to him, tearing his skin in several places.

There's only one path ahead, and the golden thread is still there; this is also a road.

After waiting a while, he barely adjusted to the darkness and walked forward with blurred vision.

Blood was dripping from my body, and I kept coughing up blood. After wiping it away carelessly, I suddenly felt something wet and sticky crawling across the back of my hand.

He grabbed the thing with his backhand; it was long and thin, and its surface was slightly hard as it twisted. If you touched it closely, you could feel slightly raised diamond-shaped patterns.

At that time, he was dealing with the most familiar thing—the snake.

It wasn't big, only about half a meter long. After being in the damp underground for a long time, it got very wet and slippery, making it difficult to grab.

The snake twisted and turned, unable to escape the clutches of the demon. Finally, it gave up resisting, its body sinking as it resigned itself to being caught in Shi Jinzhe's hand.

How do you manage to survive here?

Are you all alone here?

Regardless of whether the snake could understand him or not, Shi Jinzhe seemed to have finally found a glimmer of hope and began to chatter incessantly at the snake.

After talking for a few minutes, he realized that the thorns on his body showed no aggression towards the snake, and the two were at peace. The snake even hooked its tail onto the thorns and hung there.

The thorns on the vine retracted, leaving it smooth, except for the part that was broken when it was locked, which was still covered with thorns.

"strangeness…"

This place shouldn't be able to support anything, so how can this snake get along so well with the thorns?

Time has dulled my thinking too much; thinking feels like squeezing my brain, and my nerves throb with pain.

He tried hard to recall the clues, remembering what the system had said about Shekh being born in darkness…

Yes, after she developed consciousness and a body, there must have been an initial landing point. What was the first scene she saw of this world...?

Could this strange thicket be the place she once stayed?

The underground cave was filled with poisonous gas. Shi Jin was poisoned without realizing it, unaware that his bloodied and mangled palms had lost their skin, with a faint layer of bloody aura like red lines encircling the outside.

The groundwater was above his knees, and a snake swam past his leg. Just ahead was a fork in the road, and the golden thread and the snake went in the same direction.

He followed them in, and the path, which was only wide enough for one person to pass, gradually widened. The ground also became much drier, and tree roots appeared under his feet. Shi Jinzhe tripped and fell, but the brambles around his waist lifted him up.

He mumbled a thank you incoherently, then got up and headed towards the tree.

The stones here are relatively smooth, but only relatively so. They are a little better than the previous path, but their height and width are beyond imagination, as if some enormous creature had stayed here.

Finally, they arrived at the giant underground tree. Shi Jin looked up and admired this underground tree, which was beyond their imagination.

It doesn't really resemble a tree; it has no leaves, and its tangled black roots twist together like a deformed steel cable, bending upwards. The branches above sway gently without wind, like outstretched, slender arms, their tips faintly glowing with purple light.

Purple?

This tree is related to Shekh.

As Shi Jinzhe regained his thinking ability, in the moment of his daze, the small snake that he had been holding in his hand took the opportunity to break free and quickly climb up the tree.

Ignoring the pain in his body, he came to the tree, only to find that the so-called tree was actually a twisted thorn bush, with sharp thorns just like the outside, which could prick people.

But at the same time, he made a new discovery: there was a long black snake skin among the branches of the giant tree. Its size and shape meant that no one but Shekh could have left behind such a snake skin.

"Another snake molt..."

Despite the different colors, Shehr's color deepens with each evolution; before she came in, her tail was already a deep purple, almost black.

And that black ribbon, impervious to water and fire, does not impair vision, and merges directly into the scales after transforming into a snake.

More importantly, it can store energy that she cannot handle at the moment.

A bold idea popped into Shi Jin's mind.

Shekh was born in darkness, this black snake shed its skin...

Perhaps it was her first shed snake skin.

Her ribbon came from this snake skin, and if that's true, Shekh's original power must have remained in this snake skin.

Shi Jinzhe looked closely and indeed found a break in the snake's molted skin.

"It's not a complete snake molt; the missing piece is the ribbon..."

The instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm is innate. In addition to her humanity and divinity, Shekh also possesses bestiality due to her serpentine form. Even if she lacks human consciousness, she must have a natural sensitivity to danger.

This was a backup plan she had prepared for herself after sensing something was wrong. When she regained all her memories, she naturally remembered the snake molt.

The snakes in the water, and the snakes in his hand, all ran up the tree. They can live in such a harsh environment because of this snake molt.

And this living thorny land, the way the thorns move is very much like snakes because they have been imbued with the characteristics of snake molts, and the thorns are covered with sharp spikes, making them extremely aggressive, precisely because of the dark power contained in snake molts.

The first shed skin of a snake that separates from its body possesses such energy; if she could retract it completely…

Going from zero to one is always the hardest. If she wants to reach ninety-nine, or even one hundred, one thousand, or ten thousand, she must go through this process.

“Shekh said she trusts me. The golden thread passes through here, and this snake skin is very important to her. I must get it back.”

Ignoring the sharp thorns on the tree, Shi Jin climbed up this giant thorny tree.

In order to lower the system's guard and divert its attention, Shekh could not reveal the secret directly. The snake's molt, hidden until now, finally had the chance to see the light of day again.

Trees are hard to climb, especially when you get to the top, the brambles tied to your body always pull you down.

Shi Jinzhe strongly suspected that the entire thorny area was a branch of this giant thorny tree.

His injuries didn't stop him. He got used to being hurt by thorns. Shi Jin grabbed a branch, pushed off the trunk with his legs, and flipped over onto the forked trunk. The impact made his feet hurt even more.

Shi Jinzhe lowered his head and saw thin red lines of blood around his calf.

His blood faded.

Furthermore, under the negative influence of the [Inner Demon] card, he is losing his physical body.