Chapter 1 A Glimpse of Horror

The towering waves, hundreds of meters high, stretched endlessly, crushing everything in their path with unparalleled force. Buildings twenty or thirty meters tall were like paper in the face of this watery behemoth, and even the sturdy trees lining the streets were uprooted.

Looking up at the approaching wave, Fatty forgot to breathe. A deep sense of helplessness enveloped him, a despair far beyond mere difficulty. Before the might of nature, humanity seemed utterly insignificant.

He no longer expected to survive such a disaster. The earth trembled, people retreated in terror, and all living things waited in shivering anticipation for divine punishment to descend.

In the blink of an eye, the wave was less than five hundred meters away, the tall crests roaring, the churning white foam a shocking sight against the gloomy backdrop.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fatty seemed to notice something. Wu, who had been standing behind the glass door, was gone. The next moment, his expression froze, his pupils contracting. A hundred meters away, in front of the wave, a figure in black leaped high into the air, cleaving through the raging tide with a single stroke.

The blade light was like a bolt of silk, extending dozens of meters in an instant, tearing apart the wave with overwhelming force. Its power did not diminish even after that, striking straight into the gray sky behind the wave.

Fatty opened his mouth in astonishment, his mind blank. After a long while, his blood, which had grown cold, began to flow again. The figure standing in the air, back to them, gave him an unparalleled sense of security. If the wave was a miracle, then he was certain that Wu, with a blade in hand, could slay gods.

The cleaved wave vanished silently, and all sounds disappeared from the world except for the whistling wind.

But Jiang Cheng and Fatty knew that the lurking figure was still there, because Wu had not moved.

Staring at the distant gloom, where undercurrents surged, it felt as if something enormous was stirring. It was an indescribable sensation.

The wind seeped in through every crack in the building, lingering in the hall and around the people, carrying a damp, salty smell, like the breath of some giant creature.

Jiang Cheng and Fatty naturally had no idea what Wu, who seemed so relaxed, was facing. Wu held his blade in one hand, unmoving, sensing, feeling the presence of that thing.

But what Wu found slightly incomprehensible was that the opponent, having failed with one attack, did not retreat, nor did it even attempt to conceal its aura. On the contrary, Wu could feel the presence of that thing everywhere.

But... how was that possible?

What kind of existence was this thing?

It felt as if he himself, no, no, the entire world here was being...

Hesitation breeds trouble. To verify his terrifying suspicion, Wu gathered his strength and unleashed a strike, but this time not into the boundless gloom, but downwards, straight down. He plunged towards the ground, then stabbed his blade deep into the earth with a backhand stroke. The blade light tore open the ground, creating a huge fissure that plunged downwards until, a moment later, a buzzing sound erupted that nearly shattered hearts and lungs.

Jiang Cheng and Fatty instantly covered their ears. The buzzing seemed to come from ancient times, the weight of history like a massive millstone, grinding them to dust.

Even more terrifying, images flashed through their minds, like slides: an isolated island, the sea, an endless forest, countless people in strange clothing huddled together, bowing before an altar made of white stones, bodies with bound hands and severed heads falling before the altar, blood soaking the ground beneath...

On the altar, a barefoot girl in white robes closed her eyes, only her eyes visible through the veil. But her eyes were tightly shut, and two lines of blood flowed from the corners of her eyes. Strange, obscure sounds came from beneath the veil, like some long-lost song, a hymn to the creator, filled with divine holiness.

Accompanying this supremely holy ritual, living people were pushed forward, beheaded, and thrown onto the altar along with the remaining limbs and torsos. Foul-smelling blood dyed the white sacred stones red. Amidst the divine hymns, terrifying skeletons that had long existed on the altar, now almost fossilized, began to tremble.

They shook, rubbing against each other. Flesh and blood gathered on the pale, withered bones, and monsters never before seen in historical records slowly rose. Some had ribs with wings, some had webbed feet for swimming. The barbs in their mouths were covered in disgusting mucus, and their dark green scales, like armor, reflected a cold light in the glow of the torches.

And these monsters appearing in Jiang Cheng and Fatty's minds, in the next second, surged out of the huge crack Wu had cleaved open, rising continuously from the ground.

Monsters three, even four or five meters tall roared as they charged towards Wu. Wu swept his blade, bisecting the fastest-moving monster. The monster, with only its upper body remaining, displayed an astonishing vitality, dragging its intestines as it stretched out its sharp claws on the ground, until Wu crushed its head with a kick.

The real danger was on Jiang Cheng's side. Jiang Cheng and Fatty were still trapped by the visions in their minds, while some of the monsters were rapidly crawling towards them.

Just as a toad-like monster was about to smash the glass door with a swipe of its claws, a utility pole crashed down, smashing the toad monster's head to pieces.

Then the utility pole was lifted again. The starving ghost, several meters tall, wielded the pole in one hand and grabbed another monster with the other, throwing it away.

The starving ghost, the scarecrow, and the killer, Wu's three powerful assistants, appeared together, like a wall in front of the building's door. The seemingly ferocious monsters were no match for them, their blood and flesh splattered everywhere, but they charged forward with fearless courage and in countless numbers.

At that moment, Jiang Cheng could not care less about the apocalyptic scene outside. He clutched his head in pain, the holy hymn seeming to drill into his brain. He had almost lost the ability to think, his eyes bloodshot, so red they could drip blood, all the blood in his body rushing to his head.

But Jiang Cheng was still resisting. He was about to succeed, he was about... he was about to see the face of that girl in white!

In his subconscious, the figure seemed somewhat familiar, as were the sound of the waves near the isolated island, and the salty smell in the air.

In his mind, he was standing in the girl's world, stepping over bones in a pool of blood, climbing up the altar, struggling to walk towards the girl.