Chapter 22: Soul Rings Fall from the Sky
The next morning.
He had slept soundly the previous night, but in the morning, a whimpering sound suddenly reached him. As the sound grew louder, he couldn't help but feel a wave of annoyance in his drowsiness.
But it was this very sound that jolted him awake. Eyes wide, he looked around in bewilderment, for a moment finding it hard to imagine waking from such a torturous dream so easily.
"Who's making noise?!"
"Huh, you're recovering well?"
Upon waking, Uchiha Uranium checked his body's recovery. Whether it was due to his strong constitution or his proper care, there were no signs of infection; everything was progressing smoothly.
Then he began to listen to the sounds around him. The sound was coming from outside, and not far away.
"Let's go out and take a look. If the wind sickle beast is still around, the corpse must have stank. This area is safe."
Thinking this, Uchiha Uranium pulled his faded clothes over himself, held onto the wall, and slowly made his way out. Tripping over the gravel, he had to walk slowly to avoid his wounds suddenly opening or falling.
After a moment, he avoided the trap and reached the door, but the changes around him startled him.
The outside world had changed drastically.
It seemed as if he had thrown out several blood-stained bandages earlier. Every stone around him, its gray surface streaked with varying degrees of red, as if blood had suddenly appeared in the middle and then slowly flowed down, a terrifying sight.
The markings varied in size, darker and lighter in color, but they all shared a common denominator: an unsettling eerieness.
Yes, eerie. It was like someone afraid of heights standing on a height, or someone afraid of insects encountering a millipede taller than a person. Both psychological and physical discomfort washed over them, their sixth sense warning them to stay as far away as possible.
"The radiation concentration is a bit high,"
Uchiha Uranium frowned. He was accustomed to these kinds of changes in the rocks; he'd seen them several times before, even thinking they were ambush by a stone spirit beast, only to be met with amusement.
But why was the surrounding area so heavily irritated by radiation in just one night when such a change had clearly accumulated over ten days and a half?
After much reflection, Uchiha Uranium could only attribute it to his own increased spirit power, which had led to a corresponding increase in nuclear radiation. Furthermore, his blood was an even more terrifying source of radiation. After all, his mere presence would destroy everything around him. It was normal for blood to have this ability.
"Where's that sound? Why did it disappear the moment I came out?"
"I'm scared, I'm scared. Let's go back first."
The boy suddenly retreated into the cave. He sensed something was amiss. From the unusual noise earlier to the silence now, it felt as if they were deliberately luring him out.
Sure enough, the next moment, a massive figure descended from the sky, crashing down on the boy's previous position. If he had been a few seconds slower, Uchiha Uranium, with his current physical condition, would have been unable to dodge it. The consequences of such a blow were predictable.
"Huh?!"
"Roar~"
Damn it, it's a Wind Scythe Beast!
Run!
Without hesitation, the boy turned and ran deeper into the passage, not even considering a head-on confrontation or even a preliminary confrontation.
"Huh! I'm scared to death! What's going on? Has it been on the rock above me, preparing to attack me?"
Around the corner, Uchiha Uranium gasped for air, still terrified. He leaned against the wall, his hand pressed against his pounding heart, fearing it would burst from the freshly stitched wound.
The strange thing was that even after falling to the ground, the wind sickle beast outside did not roar, did not fire wind blades, or make any other sounds. The surroundings were eerily silent, as if they were lying in ambush.
But soon, a pungent, sickening stench of decaying flesh slowly drifted in from the outside. Uchiha Uran was startled by the smell; it was a familiar one.
Soul beasts killed by radiation decay at a much faster rate than normal. The flesh within their bodies rapidly dissolves, and their fur becomes dry and brittle. Their teeth, claws, and bones also become loose, losing their former texture.
What's going on?
With this question in mind, Uchiha Uran slowly poked his head around the corner and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the corpse of the soul beast at the cave entrance. But when he saw a faint purple light condensing above the male wind sickle beast's body, he was stunned. Dead?
Killed by a fall?
He couldn't believe it. The wind sickle beasts, so majestic yesterday, the male and female dominants who had dominated the water source, had both died suddenly after just a short time in his presence. It was so unbelievable, so puzzling.
"Ehmm, if it's dead now, then why should I be so vigilant? Damn it! I had nightmares all night long, all about those two wind sickle beasts hanging me up and beating me, eating me, then resurrecting and eating me again. And then this happened in reality. Holy shit, I'm so scared!"
Uchiha Uranium glanced again at the purple spirit ring outside, which hadn't dissipated, then at the scars on his body. For a moment, he was confused. Why, after a night, the source of his nightmares had already died?
It was exactly as he had imagined!
"Huh, finally, no more fear."
Uchiha Uranium breathed a sigh of relief, then slowly walked outside, holding onto the wall. He wanted to see what was going on. Even if someone died after staying around him too long, he still had to understand why it could resist its instinct to avoid radiation.
You know, other spirit beasts would run away from him, fearing they'd be caught, wishing their parents had a few more legs. But the life-or-death crises he faced were almost all from the type who had no fear of nuclear radiation and fought head-on.
From the Exploding Owlbear to the Wind Scythe beast couple, the races and habitats between the two were so vastly different. Why was this so? Uchiha Uranium wanted to understand.
Otherwise, the next attack would be his death.
Looking at the half-rotted Wind Scythe beast before him, Uchiha Uranium was silent for a moment. He could vaguely discern a clue from its ferocious features: it didn't seem like he was standing there.
From the last Exploding Owlbear, which was almost seven or eight hundred years old, to the two Wind Scythe beasts, now over twelve hundred years old, it was like a giant spider's web, trapping all living things. If anything began to struggle, the web would tighten until it was completely annihilated.
And all around him, it felt as if a vast conspiracy was brewing, whether it was to drive him here, to prevent him from entering the forest, or perhaps some other motive was driving the other side's actions.
If they really wanted to kill him, why send just one soul beast? Wouldn't it be better to just send a ten-thousand-year soul beast to crush him? Although he had narrowly escaped death each time, he still managed to survive.
If they could send out a soul beast that would not be affected by nuclear radiation, why would they kill him directly when he was in a coma?
What is the conspiracy behind this?
Who is targeting him?
What is the purpose?
He didn't know, he only knew that he had to keep moving forward.
Thinking of this, the young man sighed slightly, and his mind recalled the past and all these strange things.
"Alas, life in this terrible forest is already so difficult, I'd better not make trouble for myself."
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(End of this chapter)