The exit from the abyss gaped ahead,
a wound torn raw in the rock.
Bai Lin dragged his still-bleeding body upward along the stone slope, running for his life.
From behind came a heavy, rhythmic tremor.
Not an earthquake.
It was… the heartbeat of something colossal.
Thump——
Thump——
Thump-thump——
Each beat shook dust from the walls.
The Demon Emperor's voice rang inside his skull, lower than ever:
"Bai Lin, don't stop.
This place… is not meant for the living."
Bai Lin gritted his teeth. "What the hell are they? Those things don't feel like ordinary monsters."
The Demon Emperor was silent for several seconds, as though weighing his words.
"One sentence is enough:
They are not life as you understand it."
Bai Lin: "Dead people?"
Demon Emperor, cold:
"Not quite.
But… closer than you think."
Bai Lin's heart sank. Blood and sweat mingled on his forehead.
He had nearly reached the rim of the exit when the light suddenly changed.
As though it were being sucked away.
The entire sky dimmed several shades in an instant.
Not clouds—
fragments of black ash were drifting upward, against gravity.
Bai Lin: "Now what?!"
Demon Emperor, whispering:
"Don't look up."
Bai Lin frowned. "Why?"
For the first time, real urgency coloured the Demon Emperor's voice:
"Because…
it is looking at you."
Bai Lin's breath caught.
Before he could react, a deafening BOOM erupted from the depths of the abyss,
as though something had slammed into the rock wall.
Then came a sound that set his teeth on edge.
Tap… tap… tap…
Like bone striking wood.
Cold crawled up Bai Lin's spine.
He couldn't help it—he glanced back.
Black mist surged upward from the bottom of the gorge.
Inside the mist, countless tiny white joints writhed,
like countless finger bones.
Bai Lin cursed under his breath: "Fuck… these aren't normal creatures."
Demon Emperor:
"I told you not to look."
Bai Lin forced his gaze away and kept running upward.
But the next instant—
Snap!
Like a sheet whipped through the air.
A pitch-black humanoid shadow leapt out of the abyss,
clinging to the cliff face, sliding silently along the stone toward him at terrifying speed.
Bai Lin sucked in a sharp breath: "A shadow?! Is it solid?!"
Demon Emperor, voice low:
"Don't let it touch you."
Bai Lin: "What happens if it does?"
The Demon Emperor no longer explained. He simply said:
"You will die."
Flat. Absolute.
The shadow had already reached the middle of the slope.
Its body bent at impossible, nauseating angles, boneless.
Bai Lin spun and sprinted,
but suddenly his heart gave a violent thump.
Pain lanced through him; he nearly collapsed.
Demon Emperor: "Hold it together! Now is not the time for it to flare!"
Bai Lin clutched his chest, lungs burning, breath ragged: "My heart… feels like it's going to explode…"
Demon Emperor, grim:
"You just absorbed too much…
power that doesn't belong to you.
It's rampaging inside your body right now."
Bai Lin pressed a hand to his heart, barely able to breathe.
Yet the shadow was now only three steps behind him.
The Demon Emperor suddenly barked:
"Bai Lin—stop breathing!"
Bai Lin's mind reeled: "What?!"
Demon Emperor:
"The shadow tracks prey by breath!"
With every ounce of will, Bai Lin held his breath.
The shadow froze less than a metre behind him.
A featureless "face" leaned in toward the side of his head,
as though sniffing his very soul.
Bai Lin's entire body locked rigid; his blood seemed to freeze.
His heart pounded like a war drum:
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!!!!
Demon Emperor, whispering:
"Endure for five seconds…
just five seconds."
Bai Lin's lungs screamed for air.
The shadow crept closer still.
Its body fluttered like black cloth caught in an unseen wind.
At the exact moment Bai Lin thought he would black out—
The shadow suddenly jerked, as though summoned by something else.
It twisted into an inhuman angle
and whooshed back down into the abyss.
Bai Lin collapsed to his knees, gasping desperately.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
But before he could take two full breaths—
BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!
The entire floor of the abyss exploded.
A colossal black arm—
too enormous to belong to this world—
reached out from the roiling mist.
It was not made of flesh.
It was a monstrous limb formed from countless compressed bones.
Bai Lin's face drained of all colour.
"That… that thing is…?"
The Demon Emperor's voice had never been heavier:
"Do not look at it."
Bai Lin panted: "Why…?"
The Demon Emperor was silent for several seconds.
When he finally spoke, the words were soft as an echo:
"Because…
if you meet its gaze, it will remember you."
Bai Lin's heart stopped.
Deep within the abyss, that titanic hand slammed into the ground,
causing the entire mountain to quake and crumble.
The Demon Emperor's final words pinned Bai Lin in place, unable to move:
"Bai Lin,
remember this—
what you saw tonight
is not here to kill you.
It is here… to record you."
Bai Lin froze.
Behind him, the abyss churned with black mist.
The giant hand reached out again.
The Demon Emperor's voice became a command:
"Run!
Before it truly crawls out—
you cannot win."
Bai Lin clenched his teeth until his gums bled,
gripped the bone spike until his knuckles went white,
and bolted into the depths of the mountain path.
Behind him,
something ancient was slowly prying the world open.