But the next second, his blood froze.

The chains that bound the coffin—very dark chains, blacker than the abyss—were breathing.

No, it wasn't the chains breathing.

It's a coffin.

With every breath, the chains would contract and wriggle, like blood vessels wrapped around a giant beast.

The entire chain forest undulated with it, as if they were merely nerve endings extending from the coffin. The black mist gathered again, but instead of drifting aimlessly, it flowed towards the coffin like a pilgrim, being consumed by it.

Blore heard a voice.

"You're back."

The sound was like a rusty needle, slowly piercing Blore's brain.

It didn't come from the vibration of the eardrum, but sounded directly from deep within his skull - as if the speaker had been dormant in the folds of his brain and had just turned over lazily at this moment.

Blore froze in his tracks. The chains creaked in discontent beneath his feet.

"You're awake..."

His Adam's apple rolled, unsure whether to respond out loud.

Will the sound disturb this eerie silence?

Or is silence more dangerous?

In the end, he chose a compromise - holding the words on the tip of his tongue and uttering them softly with a whisper, as if comforting a sleepwalker who might explode at any moment.

(Cangwu. It was Cangwu who was speaking.)

This realization made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up slightly.

The existence that dwells deep in his spiritual landscape sleeps in a coffin on the top of the cliff most of the time, as quiet as a forgotten metaphor.

Blore would have almost forgotten His existence—if it weren't for the abnormalities that were quietly growing.

He thought of the illogical creations in his mental picture:

A golden flower suddenly bloomed on the edge of the cliff, its petals as thin as a cicada's wings but emitting a cold metallic luster;

The back of the silver leaves are inlaid with tiny pearls, and the veins are capillaries made of sapphire fragments;

There was even a vine with glass fruits on its branches that changed color with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

At that time, he thought it was a natural change in the scene, until one night, the fragments of memory suddenly came together - the strange creature at the end of the Crimson Forest, the one that was about to disappear and the last one to live here with him.

Cangwu.

He seemed to be sowing seeds in his spiritual world like a beast marking its territory in a wilderness.

"What brings you here?"

Cangwu's voice sounded again, this time with obvious fatigue.

It was not the drowsiness of someone who had just woken up, but the weakness of a seriously injured person who had been forcibly dragged out of a coma.

Blore felt a throbbing in his temple and a warm liquid trickling down his nose—blood.

His awakening was tearing at his nerves.

"I have no idea."

He whispered back, wiping the blood from his nose with his sleeve. The Chained Forest rustled and laughed at his feet.

As he continued walking forward, he noticed that the black chains on the coffin were oozing blood.

It was not liquid, but some kind of semi-solidified dark red colloid, dripping slowly like diluted gum.

Every drop of "blood" that falls to the ground will immediately grow tiny golden flowers and silver leaves, but will be swallowed up by the black fog in an instant.

Cangwu's sigh set off a miniature storm in his mind: "Stop...ahead is..."

Before he could finish his words, Blore suddenly kicked something.

Looking down, he saw half-buried in the chains was a broken tombstone with his own name engraved on it.

Blore never cared about these things. He continued walking, but found strangely that he could not reach the side of the coffin.

The eardrum suddenly vibrated.

At first it was a distant hum, like the beating of a mechanical heart from deep beneath the earth.

Then the sound grew closer and heavier—it was the roar of huge gears meshing, the groan of metal when the spring was wound to the extreme, and the heavy footsteps of time itself rolling across the dial.

He looked up, and the black mist above the coffin was lifted like a curtain by an invisible hand.

A huge bronze dial appeared, suspended in the void and slowly rotating.

There were no numbers on the dial, only twelve twisted scratches, like scars torn by sharp claws.

The pointers were two intertwined swords, their blades stained with dried blood and rust. As the gears turned, the air rippled wherever the sword tips passed.

"This is......"

Before the doubt could form, Blore suddenly found that his hand was changing.

The originally tanned skin lost its vicissitudes and became as cool, white and delicate as ivory.

The knuckles of his fingers made a slight crisp sound, and his already slender fingers stretched out again. His nails shone with the luster of mother-of-pearl, and star patterns appeared on his fingertips - as if these hands were born to wield power and overturn the world.

crackle.

His spine suddenly lengthened, and his shoulder blades stretched back like wings.

The pain came suddenly and violently - like millions of red-hot steel needles were inserted into the bone marrow at the same time.

Blore arched his body suddenly, a hoarse gasp escaping his throat. His knuckles were the first to make a crackling sound, as if stretched by invisible hands, and the tendons stretched out clear lines under the skin.

Tiny drops of blood oozed from the cracks in the nails and were absorbed by the skin before they could even drip, turning into strange red lines.

Spine is the next traitor.

He heard a sound like bamboo joints exploding in his back, and every vertebra was multiplying wildly.

The muscle fibers were forcibly stretched, making a tearing sound like wet cowhide exposed to the scorching sun.

The shoulder blades protruded backward like butterfly wings emerging from their cocoons, stretching the skin into a translucent film, beneath which blue-purple blood vessels could be seen spreading like twisted tree roots.

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