When the last familiar clamor of the residential district was finally cut off by the towering mountains of junk behind him, a pure, unprecedented solitude washed over Ling Feng like a physical tide, drowning him.
This was the Sea of Scrap.
A place marked on the map only as "Unexplored Forbidden Zone."
The map Shi Lei had given him devolved into blurry, speculative lines here. The rest of the way, he was on his own.
The dangers of the Sea of Scrap were not the kind that lunged at you, claws bared. They were more like the very breath of this land—silent, yet omnipresent.
The first danger came from beneath his feet.
Ling Feng was walking across a relatively flat "plain" formed by countless giant pipes and the chassis of abandoned hovercraft. According to the map and the direction of the wind, Wind Howl Canyon should be in this direction.
Suddenly, his highly focused spiritual energy caught a faint, ominous vibration. It wasn't coming from the surface, but from deep underground. His instinctive understanding of mechanical structures made him realize what was happening in an instant.
Without a moment's hesitation, he threw himself towards a massive, wrecked engine block that looked the most stable!
The second after he hit the ground, the "plain" a dozen meters in front of him collapsed with a deafening roar!
It wasn't a plain at all, but a fragile "crust" formed from accumulated waste. Beneath this crust was the entrance to a huge, long-forgotten underground waste disposal facility!
A giant crater, over fifty meters in diameter, appeared before his eyes, accompanied by the shriek of twisting metal. The pit was bottomless, revealing only an endless darkness from which a corrosive, gaseous wind billowed out. If not for his extraordinary perception, he would have already fallen to his death, leaving no trace behind.
He lay behind the engine wreckage, his face pale, his heart still pounding with fear. In this wasteland, the most lethal betrayals were often the silent ones, coming from the earth itself.
The second danger came from the shadows.
After the harrowing collapse, Ling Feng became even more cautious. He began to move along the edge of the towering junk mountains, ensuring that at least one side was relatively stable.
In the shadow of a "mountain of containers," formed by hundreds of stacked shipping containers, he found a source of water—relatively clean distilled water, dripping from a broken condenser pipe. Just as he was about to take out his canteen to collect this precious resource, a thick stench, a mixture of rust and rotting flesh, made him freeze.
He slowly looked up.
About ten meters above him, on the edge of a container, a dark figure hung upside down, silent and motionless, like a giant bat preparing to strike.
It was a cyborg who had completely lost its human form. Its limbs had been replaced with long, slender metal prosthetics, like those of an insect, with hooked ends that allowed it to cling easily to any metal surface. A row of compound eye sensors, glowing with red light, was embedded in its head, locked firmly onto Ling Feng.
This was the most terrifying predator of the deep Sea of Scrap—a "Rust Stalker."
They were scavengers who had gone completely insane, transforming themselves into monsters that existed only to hunt.
Ling Feng held his breath. He knew that running was useless. In this complex terrain, he could never outrun this creature.
The Stalker moved.
It made no sound. Its four metal limbs coiled like springs, and then it launched itself downwards, a black cannonball hurtling towards Ling Feng!
In that split second, Ling Feng didn't retreat. Instead, he took a sharp step forward!
He met the monster head-on!
This completely illogical move caused a momentary hesitation in the Stalker's modified brain. And that moment was all Ling Feng needed!
He wasn't trying to fight it head-on; he was using the momentum of its fall against it!
As he and the monster crossed paths, Ling Feng pushed his spiritual energy to its absolute limit, focusing all his perception into the alloy staff in his hands. He didn't aim for the monster's hardened torso. Instead, he used the tip of the staff to strike with pinpoint accuracy at the joint of one of its rear limbs, the very one it was using as a support to push off!
CRACK!
A crisp sound of shattering metal parts echoed.
The Stalker let out a piercing shriek. Its body, now off-balance, slammed heavily onto the ground. One of its legs was twisted at an unnatural angle, temporarily crippling it.
Ling Feng didn't linger after his successful strike. He didn't even look back. He unleashed all his strength and ran, sprinting forward without a second thought.
Behind him, the Stalker's inhuman roar of impotent rage echoed through the wasteland.
The third danger came from the wind.
He ran tirelessly for what felt like an eternity until the roars behind him finally faded.
Ling Feng ducked into the cabin of an abandoned transport ship before he dared to stop and catch his breath. He leaned against the cold bulkhead, his tense muscles still trembling with residual fear.
He had won, but at a cost. That one, precise strike had drained a massive amount of his spiritual energy, and his brain throbbed with a stabbing pain. More importantly, his surroundings were becoming increasingly strange.
The wind was getting stronger.
And it seemed to carry something else within it.
It was like the tormented groans of countless people, or the desperate cries of the hopeless. The sounds seemed to bypass his eardrums and resonate directly in his mind.
Hallucinations.
The constant tension, fatigue, and the strange energy field of this land were finally beginning to take their toll on his sanity.
He shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the sounds, but it was useless. He could feel his will being slowly eroded, ground down by this ceaseless, demonic sound.
He quickly reached into his coat and grasped the jade pendant.
The familiar coolness spread through him instantly, like a barrier purifying his mind. The tormenting auditory hallucinations receded like a tide in the face of this soothing power, and his world returned to silence.
He let out a long breath, his reliance on and curiosity about the pendant deepening once more.
He stepped out of the cabin and looked in the direction the wind was coming from.
At the end of the horizon, two colossal mountains of junk, like pillars holding up the sky, formed a long, narrow, bottomless canyon.
All the wind that had driven him mad, all the sounds that had terrified him, originated from there.
Wind Howl Canyon.
The end of the legend, and the true beginning of his trial.
Ling Feng stood up straight.
He looked at the canyon, which resembled the maw of a great beast, and a question rose in his mind:
According to the legend, how does one speak to an "Echo"? In a wind strong enough to tear the soul apart, any sound would be superfluous.
Unless... it's not a conversation that uses "sound" at all.
A bold idea, clear and sharp, surfaced in his mind, which was now lucid and protected by the jade pendant.