# 1128
Chapter 1129: Ashes
Shen Qingzhu sat against the cliff face, clutching his wound, his mind racing as he rapidly calculated the terrain from their recent escape, searching for a way to break through the demons' blockade and escape.
Just then, Shen Qingzhu felt his palm growing increasingly itchy. He scratched it下意识ly twice, then suddenly realized something was wrong. He extended that hand and held it open before his eyes.
His pupils contracted sharply!
On the palm of his left hand, right in the center, a thumb-sized growth had somehow appeared.
This growth was soaked in the blood on his palm, writhing slightly, as if something was about to break out from within. The itch was unbearable.
This growth had appeared precisely at the spot where his palm had touched the ashes drifting down from the sky.
As it gradually grew and writhed, faint whispers began to echo faintly in Shen Qingzhu's ears. Though barely audible as a mosquito's buzz, their appearance still made Shen Qingzhu's heart sink!
"Cthulhu?!"
Having dealt with the Red Moon in the fishing village, he naturally knew what those whispers meant. His eyes flickered sharply with alarm. Ignoring the fatal wound on his waist and abdomen, he quickly pulled himself up from the ground!
A fierce expression flashed across his face.
Snap—!!
A crisp finger snap echoed, and the surrounding air rapidly compressed into a thin, invisible blade. The blade scraped against the air, leaving trails of searing flames coating its surface.
With a light flick of Shen Qingzhu's fingertip, the air blade对准 his left hand and毫不犹豫地 sliced down without hesitation.
A痛苦闷哼 sounded, and half his palm tumbled to the ground.
The flames on the blade's surface temporarily cauterized the wound on his palm, preventing excessive blood loss, but the intense pain still continuously bombarded Shen Qingzhu's senses.
He gritted his teeth, his face pale as death, yet his eyes remained fixed on that severed half-palm in the blood pool, and the writhing growth at its center.
Death was not what he feared most—he feared Cthulhu contamination. If this cut failed to block their invasion, the next one would be aimed at his throat.
In the blood pool, the growth attached to the severed half-palm writhed frantically for a moment, then split open down the middle, revealing a tiny fissure. Countless red insects crawled between the flesh, forming a red eyeball the size of a mung bean.
This eyeball surveyed its surroundings, finally landing on the pale-faced Shen Qingzhu ahead. Then, the four fingers still connected to the palm came alive, springing off the ground with a snap. The half-palm flipped mid-air and landed steadily, resembling a four-legged fleshy spider, scrambling rapidly toward Shen Qingzhu!
What kind of grotesque creature was this?
Shen Qingzhu's eyes narrowed. He snapped his right fingers, and the severed half-palm on the ground was rapidly compressed by the air, crushing and deforming. As a fireball ignited, it was completely charred into cinders.
Staring at this repulsive mass of black flesh, Shen Qingzhu took a deep breath. His racing heart finally began to calm.
When he turned back to gaze at the dancing ashes outside the mountain, his expression had completely changed.
He had only touched the ashes for a moment, and yet the effect had been this terrifying. What would happen if someone remained exposed to this ash storm indefinitely? What manner of monster would they become?
Shen Qingzhu tore his gaze from the swirling ashes filling the sky, glanced at the demons circling above the mountain, then looked down at the worsening wound on his waist. After a moment, he苦涩地 smiled.
He leaned against the mountain wall, slowly sliding down to sit, and pulled a cigarette from his chest, lighting it and placing it between his lips. He took a deep drag, the hazy smoke shrouding his pale features.
He had no intention of going out to fight anymore.
If he went out and survived, his air barrier could block these ashes from touching him. But if he died from blood loss or was killed by the demons, his corpse lying in the ashes would eventually become a monster... Better to die quietly here, at least his body would remain decent.
He extended his right hand and touched his chest, feeling something hard beneath.
He sighed deeply, closed his eyes.
The firelight crept along the cigarette, burning embers scattered in the breeze drifting through the cracks in the ground. As the smoke gradually thinned, Shen Qingzhu's body grew colder by the moment.
...
Two figures raced through the crevices in the mountain at breakneck speed.
An Qingyu observed her surroundings while下意识ly scratching her palm with her fingertip, as if feeling an itch.
Ahead, Lin Qiye's form suddenly halted.
"What's wrong?" An Qingyu asked.
"We've reached a valley up ahead." Lin Qiye withdrew his spiritual感知, his expression somewhat strange. "Moreover..."
"Moreover what?"
"There are many resentful spirits gathered there. It's odd."
An Qingyu frowned, glancing up at the sky. "We don't have time to detour... Can we just slip into the void like before and pass through?"
"The valley isn't too large. It should be possible."
Lin Qiye made a rough estimation and nodded slightly.
White Slash could indeed carry people into the void, but they couldn't stay long. Plus, Lin Qiye still had to carry An Qingyu—with two people, the duration was even shorter. However, with their speed, passing through the valley quickly shouldn't be a problem.
Lin Qiye drew White Slash, grabbed An Qingyu, and both their forms vanished simultaneously.
After returning to the black-and-white void world, the two immediately raced forward at full speed. Within moments, they passed through the narrow mountain crevice, their vision suddenly opening up as they arrived in a valley.
Upon stepping into this valley, An Qingyu immediately understood what Lin Qiye had meant by "odd."
The sky was filled with ashes falling like heavy snow, dyeing the surrounding black peaks and the entire valley in gray and white. The ash piled on the ground reached about thirty to forty centimeters high. In this lifeless world, countless black shadows stood within the dancing ashes, hands pressed together, piously gazing up at the rift in the sky that continuously poured down the ashes.
These were all resentful spirits.
Just as An Qingyu was about to turn her head, her peripheral vision caught a familiar figure stumbling out of a crevice in the ground.
It was the greedy resentful spirit they had encountered in the crevice earlier—the one constantly searching for "gold."
His emaciated body crawled rapidly through the piled ashes, still seemingly searching for large stones. Grayish-white ashes fell onto him, quickly coating him in gray and white.
After crawling for over a dozen seconds, his body suddenly shuddered, like a stone statue, frozen in place within the ashes.
After a long moment, he slowly raised his head. Those hollow eyes gazed up at the continuously falling ashes above, gradually filling with fanatical excitement!