Chapter 112 The Blood Lake

The team traveled along the rugged mountain path and finally reached the summit.

Calling it a summit was a bit of a misnomer, as it was actually a "gap" in the Dragon Spine Mountains, a relatively low-altitude point along an ancient road built specifically for traversing the mountain range. Towering peaks rose on either side, giving the impression that the cliffs were about to crush you—a truly spectacular sight.

Lili, as usual, darted ahead of the group. She seemed to have no concept of fatigue. Even as the sturdy horses that had climbed the mountain with the team were panting heavily, she still had the energy to skip and jump in front: "I see the Blood Lake! I see the Blood Lake!"

Hao Ren followed behind. Hearing Lili's excited shouts, he hurried forward. Standing on the open ground at the summit, he finally saw their destination. They were still some distance from the Blood Lake, but the air quality in this world was excellent, and there were no clouds to obstruct the view. From the mountaintop, he could see a long way.

At the foot of the mountains, vast plains and forests stretched out. The Beinz Blood Lake, surrounded by the forests and plains, shimmered with a magnificent ruby luster. Just as the legends said, the lake water was as red as blood, sparkling in the sunlight, both eerie and magnificent.

Becky's voice sounded from behind: "It'll be much easier going down. The mountain path ahead is better than the eastern slope, and the gradient is gentler. After descending, we'll head southwest to Leyton Town, the last proper town before entering the Blood Lake area. We'll rest there briefly, and passing through Leyton Town's checkpoint will bring us into the Blood Lake region."

"This thing is truly spectacular," Hao Ren said sincerely. He had imagined what a "Blood Lake" might look like countless times, but it never went beyond simply recoloring photos of Earth's lakes. Now, seeing it with his own eyes, he realized that his imagination had its limits. The visual impact of such a vast expanse of blood-red water spreading before him was extraordinary. It not only dyed the land red but also projected an eerie red glow into the sky. Sunlight shining on the Blood Lake created a hazy light effect, giving the impression that the Beinz region was enveloped by an otherworldy barrier. The entire lake area was shrouded in a strange atmosphere. Hao Ren stood on the summit for a long time before he suddenly noticed that some of the colors around the Blood Lake didn't seem to be solely dyed by the lake light. "Is that a forest?"

Becky looked in the direction Hao Ren was pointing. It was a large forest stretching between the Blood Lake and the mountains, the only path to the Blood Lake from Leyton Town. This forest had an unusually uniform vegetation distribution rate, with almost every part covered by "treetops" of the same density, and the whole thing had an unsettling purplish-red hue. Becky noticed that Hao Ren and the others were looking at the forest with surprise, and a look of unsurprise appeared on her face: "The first time you see it, it feels pretty incredible, right? That's the forest, the Twisted Woodland. It's said that when the goddess destroyed the world, the remaining fragments of her angry thoughts stayed in the lake, thereby eroding the surrounding plants to generate this. As I said before, there are many strange and dangerous creatures around the Blood Lake, and that forest is one of the most dangerous: It's a plant, unprecedentedly huge, covering half the plain, but we have to pass through the forest."

Hao Ren was taken aback: "A plant?! What do you mean?"

"The literal meaning, you don't even know this? You should have at least heard of it," Becky shrugged. "All the trees in the entire Twisted Woodland are actually the same plant. It's the tentacles that some abnormally large and ancient existence pierced through the surface and exposed. A small group of elven scholars spent over a hundred years to confirm this fact. But you don't have to worry, the Twisted Woodland itself isn't aggressive. We just need to be careful of the poisonous plants and beasts that grow in the forest."

Hao Ren got goosebumps. He looked at the large purplish-red forest on the plain at the foot of the mountain, imagining that the thousands of plants there were actually branches of some weird, massive, ancient creature, and that he was about to travel through the body of that living behemoth. It made his hair stand on end. Lili made no secret of her fear, tucking her tail between her legs and hopping backward a couple of times: "Is there another way?"

Becky pointed to the north of the forest. The exposed plain soil there had a deeper purplish-red luster, seeming to be covered with crystal shells that sparkled in the sunlight, and the purplish-red plain connected to the mountains on the other side of the Blood Lake: "Other than that, there's only one other way to get to the Blood Lake, but that requires going around the poisonous plains north of the lake, and finally traversing the sacred mountains of the mountain people and werewolf tribal kingdoms. It's even more dangerous. Don't think the mountain people are hospitable, they don't like anyone entering their sacred mountains, and the werewolf tribal kingdoms are the same."

Lili puffed out her chest, indicating that she was a werewolf: "Wouldn't it be okay if someone of my own kind introduced me?"

Honestly, if her figure was like Vivian's, that chest-puffing action might be a little more convincing...

Becky glanced at Lili: "Are you sure you're really a werewolf? I feel like you don't even know the rules of werewolves as well as I do. Over the years, only a few bishops of the Radiant Church and the previous Wise King Bedivere have been welcomed into the sacred mountains by the werewolf tribes and the mountain people because of their virtue. Where do you get so much confidence?"

Hao Ren knew that this husky would screw up, and quickly pulled Lili back: "Hehe, she grew up on the plains like Izhaks, and her bloodline isn't pure..."

Of course, her bloodline isn't pure, she's one-sixteenth Pekingese. This isn't a lie, Hao Ren's greatest feature is that he doesn't lie.

Becky started walking forward: "Alright, let's go down the mountain, let's try to get to Leyton Town before night, I don't want to spend the night in the mountains."

The climate of the Dragon Spine Mountains was just as Becky said, drastically different on the two sides of the mountains. The eastern side facing the grasslands was dry, cold, and sparsely vegetated, while the western side facing the Beinz Blood Lake had warm, humid air. Although the thought that this humid air might come from that strange blood-colored lake made one feel uneasy, the western side of the mountains was indeed much more comfortable.

The surrounding rocks were no longer as bare as on the eastern slope, but were instead covered with low plants and strangely shaped vines growing tenaciously in the rock crevices, and of course, moss in some places.

When the team reached the mountainside, Becky suddenly stopped. She pointed to the distant cliff and exclaimed, "Look over there!"

Following the direction Becky was pointing, they could see a clearly collapsed mountainside. The solid mountain covered with vines, moss, and bushes seemed to have been cleaved from top to bottom by a god, leaving behind an almost vertical ninety-degree cliff. This landslide had directly carved a straight, high wall under one of the peaks of the Dragon Spine Mountains. On the fractured cliff, they could see exposed grayish-brown rock, and at the foot of the mountain, they could vaguely see dust that had not yet completely dissipated, as if this terrible collapse had only happened recently.

Hao Ren instantly thought of the loud noise that everyone had heard not long after they climbed the mountain—could it have come from the western slope of the mountain range?

Lili looked up at the sky. She vaguely remembered that the sky had been covered with very thick clouds when everyone was climbing the mountain: "Maybe the clouds reflected the sound, and the landslide on the western slope of the mountains reached the eastern slope."

Hao Ren coughed twice, thinking to himself, what's wrong with this silly girl today? She actually suddenly revealed the nature of a physics master. Could it be that her usual silly personality is all a disguise?

But then Lili started picking up rocks from nearby and throwing them hard to see if she could hit the distant rocks, and Hao Ren was relieved: It looks like she's still a goofball...

"The Dragon Spine Mountains collapsing, this isn't a good omen..." Becky muttered to herself, her voice revealing the fear of a local native who had been brainwashed by various religious legends, while Vivian quickly summoned a small bat to fly to the newly collapsed cliff, because she saw some traces that made her quite concerned.

Soon the little bat found the evidence Vivian expected. The vampire girl sucked in a breath of cold air: "Those rock giants really did split off from these cliffs, and... definitely more than four!"

At the edge of the rocky cliff, they could see a series of indentations with specific shapes, looking as if they were traces left by giants buried in the mountain trying to break free from their shackles, and although Vivian couldn't immediately determine the huge amount of rock that had fallen below, she also saw many similar traces of detachment.

The entire mountain peak was showing signs of disintegration. How many stones had turned into that terrible, huge monster?