The Boss King actually disguised himself as a novice village chief?!-Chapter 77 - 71 Flames Spurting from the Dense Fog

77: Chapter 71 Flames Spurting from the Dense Fog

77 -71 Flames Spurting from the Dense Fog

Leaving Star Dragon Ridge and bypassing the Shadow Zone, whose aura of Calamity had long since dissipated, they continued northward.

This was the birthplace of the Undead and also an Ancient Battlefield.

The mounds of corpses had been stripped of their last scraps of flesh by wind and carrion creatures, and the spears and longswords that had pierced the torsos were corroding in a caress of rust.

The sun, slanting through the hills and the Withered Wood, stretched out shadows, elongating the dead branches and the fang-like mountain range, resembling Abyssal Calamity, brandishing its claws and baring its teeth.

As they moved past the ridges, the towering mountains around them formed a ring, crafting a decaying city-state.

Mounds of skulls formed artificial hills, from which a perpetual gloom and deathly stillness spewed forth.

“Crack,” a skull rolled over, disturbing the pervasive silence.

The skull that had tumbled to the ground cracked open, and out from its eye sockets emerged a palm-sized dung beetle, shaking its disgustingly long antennae; it was thriving.

The battlefield, ruthlessly abandoned by life and shunned by all victors, attracted nothing but the wind and scavengers.

A figure wielding a sword stepped on the beetle, his iron boot exploding it into pulp.

“Is it here?”

The red-haired Undead turned its head to look around and answered its own question, “It should be here.”

The wailing wind scratched the air with its mourns, and tumbleweeds, rolled in from nowhere, brushed past the ankles, making one wonder if the desert was really that far away.

“The material needed is too obscure,” another Undead shrugged unafraid, even in the face of the desolate battlefield.

There was nothing to fear in playing the game, but still, there were things that could make its heart race with anxiety—like the possibility that this trip might yield nothing.

“Heart of Calamity” was a rather precious thing, having accumulated many fragments, but there was no option to combine them.

Some had speculated that perhaps the Heart of Calamity must be obtained from a BOSS, at least an elite monster.

So far, no one had acquired a second Heart of Calamity, and the only beneficiary was an Undead known as “Sydney’s younger brother,” an 11th-level Two-Headed Giant, enjoying the unique focus of all eyes.

Breaking the server’s limits, he reached level 11 in a strange way, becoming a gigantic two-headed creature, but everyone dismissed the idea of refusal; they had enjoyed enough of blades and spears hacking away, magic and supernatural power were their true pursuits.

The two involuntarily stopped in their tracks, having walked too far, the path ahead ceased to exist.

A white, dense fog obscured the distant mountaintops, and habit told them this was likely an “air wall,” with possibly more opportunities and definitely more danger lying ahead.

“Go forward?”

“Let’s go and see.”

The directionless fog, once they stepped in, completely robbed them of their sense of direction.

The two could only use each other’s voices to ascertain their positions.

“Shall we go back?” the red-haired Undead heightened its senses, the pressing sensation from the thick fog making it difficult to breathe, uncontrollably shaking its muscles.

Even when facing off against Lind and the Two-Headed People with all their firepower, it had never felt like this.

“There is a BOSS ahead!”

A BOSS meant a “Heart of Calamity,” the option for advancement lay right before their eyes; it was just a matter of dying once and dropping something insignificant, not a difficult choice.

“There is water,” the sound of a stream flowing against stones whispered in their ears, filling them with a strange feeling.

Could this be the source of the stream between Star Dragon Ridge and Prey Town?

Sniffing the air that carried the moisture, indistinguishable from that of the stream or the dense fog, they took steps forward.

The ground quickly became soft, yet not muddy; the water seemed to be always ahead, luring the creatures of this land who were deprived of water sources to follow their instincts and move forward.

The two bent down for a closer inspection.

“Sand and soil, similar to the terrain of the Ridge, it doesn’t hold water.”

They hadn’t strayed too far from where they should have left.

But after walking a little further, the sensation of the ground beneath their feet disappeared, the uneven terrain forcibly stuffing itself under their soles, making it difficult to move.

“Tree branches, and trunks, have we not continued heading west?”

Determining one’s direction in the thick fog was pure fantasy.

Broken stones, branches that tripped them, all led them to subconsciously believe that they had changed direction to the south without realizing it, perhaps even returning to the Withered Wood Forest west of the Star Dragon Ridge outpost.

Maybe if they walked a little longer, they would see the Ghost Claw Tree, choose to head north to the Mad Wise Ones’ village, or step south into forbidden territory—all choices were their own to make.

“Do you feel very hot?”

“Yeah, it’s like, we’re getting closer to a huge furnace.”

As they spoke, they extended their hands forward and could clearly feel the direction of the intense heat.

Continuing to approach that great furnace was clearly their only choice because, even if they turned around to leave, they were unable to be sure of the departure direction, and were likely to end up walking in circles on the spot.

Figure out what was ahead, then return to town “through death.”

The road ahead became twisted and bumpy, ruins and other structures began appearing—could there have been a town here as well?

Towns in the fog inherently possessed the power to stir the blood in the hearts of the Undead.

A little closer.

“Splash!” a leg carelessly stepping into deep water made a lot of noise.

The red-haired Undead reached down to probe: “It’s a pond, very deep, and very cold.”

His hand stirred the water’s surface, and in the quiet thick fog, the splashing sound was extremely grating.

“Wait, have you noticed…” his companion hastily reminded him.

“What?” The red-haired Undead looked up.

Suddenly, a gale struck from ahead, and the dense fog was balled up into a huge sphere in an instant, then dispersed after hitting the two of them.

Finally, their field of vision cleared up for a moment.

A quick sweep: ruined city-states, decaying forests, and ahead lay a gigantic black expanse of water extending beyond their field of view, far more than a mere pond could encapsulate.

Pressing their knee to the water surface, rings spread out rapidly from the center of the knee.

The fog hastily filled back in, once again blocking their vision.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It seems to be getting hotter and hotter!”

“Retreat!” Fear instinctively urged them to step back, whether it was the sudden appearance of a huge expanse of water in a dried-up area or the innate fear of a bottomless water body, they knew they could postpone exploration.

Withdraw a bit more.

The two of them ran back the way they had come, but their eyes never forgot to keep watch for the direction of the searing heat.

In the midst of the dense fog, a cluster of light suddenly flared up, a flickering yellow flame that quickly dashed by, expanding.

The air turned scorching hot in an instant; the heat from the fog was nothing compared to this moment.

Even before they could dodge, the fire that completely dominated their field of vision wrapped around the two Undead.

“What is that?”

From beginning to end, they had not been able to see where the light of the fire came from.