Chapter 4253 — A Bizarre Sight

At first they were only a few scattered pieces, but the farther they walked, the denser the white bones became, until at last they appeared in heaps and piles. By now the sun had already sunk in the west, and from time to time the group could glimpse, among those heaps of bone, wisps of ghostly fire drifting faintly—what people commonly call will-o'-the-wisps.

The already gloomy surroundings grew all the more terrifying against that ghost fire. Even though the group already knew the why and wherefore, actually finding themselves in such a place made them exchange glances, their scalps tingling.

Wei Zhao checked the map in his hand and saw that, sure enough, they had arrived at the Spirit Beast Boneyard.

Legend had it that among all things in this world, any creature possessed of spiritual nature could sense its own death in advance. The greater the spiritual nature, the more accurate the premonition, and the earlier it came.

And the reason spirit beasts were spirit beasts was that their spiritual essence was inborn, far stronger than that of ordinary creatures. Word had it among the common folk that many spirit beasts could sense their coming death months ahead and thus make their preparations early.

Mystifying as this sounded, it was not mere rumor passed from mouth to mouth—many people had witnessed it themselves. After all, on Cloud Terrace Island spirit pets could be seen everywhere; often, shortly before death, they would leave home and wander off to die in a boneyard. Such things were common enough to be unremarkable.

Even in the mundane world such things often happened; many household pets showed similar behavior before they died.

Wei Zhao had once heard Hong Zhong and the others say that nearly every place on Cloud Terrace Island where spirit beasts gathered—especially the depths of remote mountains and dense forests—was certain to have a spirit beast boneyard at its core. Almost all the spirit beasts of that region, upon sensing that their end was near, would come of their own accord to the boneyard and quietly wait there for death.

Though spirit beasts were strictly ranked, and under normal circumstances the weaker ones on the outskirts could neither enter nor dare to enter the core depths, when death approached they alone were permitted to pass—and unimpeded at that. Not a single spirit beast would bar their way; this was a tacit understanding shared among all spirit beasts.

Wei Zhao studied the route map carefully. Once they passed the Spirit Beast Boneyard, it meant their destination was not far off; if all went smoothly, the infant ginseng was nearly within sight.

Just then, Wei Zhao noticed that Huang Xiaotao's breathing beside him had grown somewhat rapid—she was clearly nervous and afraid. He gently clasped her hand in reassurance, signaling that there was nothing to fear.

All around was dead silence, and the others ahead could plainly sense Huang Xiaotao's unease. Guo Dengtao even turned back and smiled, giving her a comforting look. She was a girl, after all; even the men found this ghostly place creepy, so a little fear was only natural.

"Hmph, if you're that timid, you shouldn't have come out adventuring at all. Not the slightest bit of use, and nothing but trouble besides..." Seeing this, Feng Hongyu turned her head and regarded Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao with scorn, seizing the moment to rattle off her taunts.

All along the way she had done little but sneer at the two of them; it seemed that without such behavior she could not display her own sense of superiority, and would choke on the pent-up feeling. Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, for their part, had always treated her as so much thin air, too indifferent to bother with her.

This time, however, before Feng Hongyu could finish, she was cut short by a shriek from Huang Xiaotao.

Wham! In the utter stillness, Huang Xiaotao's scream rang out with peculiar shrillness, instantly startling a great dark flock of birds into flight not far off. It came without the slightest warning and gave everyone a severe fright.

A closer look showed they were nothing formidable—just ordinary carrion crows and the like. To spirit beasts this place was a graveyard; save for those whose time had come, no spirit beast would come to such a place.

"Are you insane! Screaming out of nowhere like that—if you're such a coward, are you trying to scare the rest of us to death!" Feng Hongyu had gone pale as a flower too, and once she recovered her wits she unleashed a torrent of abuse at Huang Xiaotao.

She was not the only one; Guo Dengtao, Wang Feng, and the others all wore grim expressions as well. The surroundings had been deathly still before, without a stir, and none of them had expected so many carrion crows to be lurking in the dense forest. Under the night sky, those pairs of eyes glinting with a faint ghostly light made one feel like a corpse being eyed by them—it sent a chill straight down the spine.

"A ghost..." Huang Xiaotao called out, her voice trembling, then buried her head in Wei Zhao's chest, her whole body shaking and shivering without pause.

However strong-hearted one might be, she was still a frail girl after all! Wei Zhao smiled and, his heart aching for her, gently stroked her back. But when he followed the direction of her pointing finger and looked, his expression froze at once.

Whether the miasma overhead had thinned with the coming of night, or whether this place was simply too eerie and chilling, at this moment a blood-red moon hung clearly above their heads, its light even brighter than in the daytime—except that it was tinged with a faint bloody hue, and one could even catch the stench of blood and rot.

Bathed in that blood-red moonlight, not far ahead, a scene of utter bizarre and sinister wrongness brought Wei Zhao and the others to an involuntary halt.

A spirit beast resembling a rhinoceros from the mundane world had its head drooping limply to one side, its neck twisted at a grotesque, appalling angle, connected to its massive body by only a thin layer of skin.

Its huge head dragged along the ground, leaving a long smear of dark red blood, while a hole the size of a half-grown man gaped in its flank; the intestines and organs within had spilled out across the ground, and even now they were still dripping blood...

Whether from imagination or not, even across a distance of some forty meters, Wei Zhao and the others could clearly smell the acrid stench of gore emanating from it.

Had that been all, it would have been bad enough—one could pinch one's nose and endure it. But the crux of the matter was this: the creature, in such a state, was somehow not yet dead!

That head dragging on the ground was, astonishingly, devouring something with a ferocious snarl. A closer look revealed that what it chewed was the very intestines and organs that had spilled from its own belly. It gulped them down in great mouthfuls, blood bubbles frothing at the corners of its mouth all the while...

At the same time, several carrion crows nearby were fighting over those intestines and organs, some even snatching them straight out of its belly. Whatever spirit beast this was, it paid them no heed at all, only gnawing away at its own entrails spilled across the ground. (To be continued...)