Chapter 117: The Hunt

Han Meng had naturally heard of the legends regarding the Ash World.

The scent of humans did not belong in this world. Walking in the Ash World for a long time would inevitably attract a large number of Calamities. But Han Meng hadn't expected these Calamities to arrive so quickly; he had only been in the Ash World for a few minutes.

The bone claw pierced deep into the earth, grabbing Han Meng along with the soil and rock layers beneath him, ripping him out and climbing rapidly toward the sky!

His black trench coat was torn to shreds. Han Meng forcibly shattered the claw with a gunshot and escaped from the bone eagle’s grasp. The eagle’s hollow eye sockets burned with rage, its massive bone wings flapped, and it pursued Han Meng at an astonishing speed!

Even though Han Meng’s speed was not slow, the bone eagle was nearly twice as fast. He was caught up in a heartbeat, and a hurricane whipped up from the void, slamming Han Meng down from the sky!

Boom—!!

Han Meng’s body fell from a height of a hundred meters, cracking the black earth. He spat out a mouthful of blood, his face pale as paper.

At the same time, the numerous shadow centipedes nearby suddenly stopped. They looked around the wilderness as if they had lost their target, beginning to circle aimlessly in place... Finally, the fifth-order matriarch turned from the black tide, its head’s hollow sockets staring at Han Meng.

"Damn it." Han Meng saw this out of the corner of his eye and climbed up from the ground, swaying unsteadily.

Although he didn't know what had happened, the thing that had been attracting these shadow centipedes must have disappeared... These shadow centipedes had recovered from their blind state and shifted their attention back to him.

As the matriarch hissed, hundreds of shadow centipedes rushed toward Han Meng like a tsunami. The matriarch, resembling a winding small mountain, was also rapidly approaching.

With the bone eagle above and the shadow tide below, all of Han Meng’s paths of retreat were sealed.

He was now facing a siege by two fifth-order Calamities.

His tattered black trench coat fluttered. Han Meng let out a long sigh, silently lit a cigarette, held it in the corner of his mouth, and gripped his gun handle with a solemn expression...

……

On the black earth, a splash of vibrant crimson walked slowly forward.

This red was like the only color existing in this gray world. It was so glaring and eye-catching, as if it were showing its danger to every creature around. He walked quietly for several minutes, and no Calamity dared to approach him.

Suddenly, those hollow eyes trembled slightly, as if something were about to awaken. He stopped subconsciously.

"Where... am I?"

Chen Ling felt his brain was a mess, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. His hollow pupils regained their luster, and he looked around in a daze.

Just now... what happened?

Chen Ling’s last memory was of setting the warehouse on fire. He vaguely remembered having a feast in the sea of flames, but the specific process was blurry. The only thing that left a deep impression was the pain and suffocation of being burned to death by the fire at the end.

As for the process of fighting Xi Renjie and the others after the warehouse door was opened, and walking into the Ash World... he had absolutely no memory of it.

"Did I advance?"

Chen Ling noticed the changes in his body immediately, and his eyes lit up.

Before, he had been only half a step away from stepping into the second stage. It seemed that the final feast had saved him some time, allowing him to break through that window paper and step into the second stage of the Divine Path.

At the same time, he could sense that he had gained a new skill.

Chen Ling digested the information about this skill in his mind, and his expression gradually became strange... Compared to [Faceless], this skill seemed even more bizarre.

This skill had two functions.

One was similar to a sleight of hand, capable of conjuring non-existent things out of thin air, or turning an object into something similar in appearance. It was like a magic trick, but this trick only changed the appearance and possessed no additional effects.

Even if he turned his clothes into snakes, those snakes wouldn't actually bite anyone; at most, they could only serve to intimidate.

Looking at this function alone, the skill was a simple illusion, but what truly surprised Chen Ling was its other function...

He could use something on his person to swap with any object of similar appearance at close range.

For example, he could use a banana to swap for the gun in an enemy’s hand. In this way, the banana in Chen Ling’s hand would become a gun, and the gun in the enemy’s hand would become a banana... Of course, the banana here didn't have to be a real banana; it could be a rock, a piece of charcoal, or something else whose appearance had been modified by an illusion.

The simplest application of this function was to derive a "law": when Chen Ling and an enemy were pointing a gun and a banana at each other, regardless of who held which weapon, the one who would end up being shot would definitely be the enemy.

Of these two functions, the former was purely "void," while the latter could hide "reality" within the "void," alternating between the two, making it hard to distinguish truth from falsehood.

"Sounds like some kind of trick for killing..." Chen Ling thought thoughtfully.

"Then let’s call it... [Crimson Trick]."

After digesting the new skill, Chen Ling began to carefully examine his surroundings. This place looked very similar to the legendary Ash World, but he didn't know why he was here... However, Chu Muyun had told him that under the influence of the Twisted Divine Path, he would enter a state of brief mental confusion every time he advanced.

Perhaps his appearance here was related to that state of mental confusion?

Chen Ling walked aimlessly while pondering. Just then, a loud boom came from the distance.

Chen Ling turned to look. Large clouds of dust rose from the horizon, and several blurry shadows flickered within, as if a great battle were taking place.

"Is it a Calamity? Or a person?"

Chen Ling’s eyes narrowed slightly. After hesitating for a moment, he walked toward the scene.

Boom—!

The earth shook. A giant skeletal eagle soared from the flying dust. At the same time, a blood-covered figure was sprinting at low altitude, fleeing rapidly toward the edge of the horizon.

On the earth, a dense black tide surged. A massive shadow centipede, like a small winding mountain, followed closely behind the blood-stained figure.

Under the dual pursuit from land and sky, the bloody figure didn't miss any chance to escape, constantly looking for breakthroughs amidst the overlapping bone eagle and shadow tide. But his speed was still slower than the bone eagle’s. After dodging several times, he was slammed hard into the earth by a claw!

"Han Meng?!" Chen Ling’s heart shook as he recognized the fleeting figure.