A full month passed as Han Yu continued deeper into the Harrow Mountains.
During this ti, his life beca strangely routine.
He rarely had to fight.
Beasts still appeared now and then, but most of them were weak enough that he only killed them when he needed food. With the spices he had brought this ti, every al beca sothing to look forward to.
Grilled at dusted with salt, crushed herbs, and powdered spices tasted far better than the bland als he had endured before. When the wind howled outside his shelter and frost crept across the stone, he would sip from his Spirit Cinnamon Whiskey, letting the warm burn spread through his body.
If not for the atmosphere of dread, his life here might have almost felt peaceful.
But the unease never left.
Instead, it grew heavier with every passing day.
So nights, while ditating, he heard strange sounds.
They sounded like cries.
Sotis like a woman sobbing.
Sotis like a man screaming in rage.
Sotis like a child calling for help.
They felt real.
Too real.
Yet whenever he opened his eyes and spread his spirit sense, there was nothing.
No beasts.
No cultivators.
No visible spirit.
Only wind twisting through stone, snow sliding from cliffs, and branches creaking under frost.
He could not tell if these were hallucinations, tricks of the wind, or echoes of sothing far away.
And the ritual sites only made his thoughts darker.
In this ti he had found two more.
The first was made entirely of beast corpses. Dozens of them, arranged in a rough spiral pattern. So had been torn apart, others drained dry. The second was worse. It had nearly a hundred beast corpses, and among them were five humans. Their bodies were frozen stiff, blood drained, faces twisted in terror.
Han Yu studied the fang marks.
They were not the sa as Madam Cold Fang’s.
The spacing was different.
The depth was different.
And the freezing was wrong.
These bodies were not frozen from inside.
They were frozen from the cold air.
"Not her," Han Yu muttered. "And she would not co this far anyway."
This was sothing else.
Sothing that belonged to these mountains.
By now, he had entered the Middle Ring again, following the sa long path he had taken before. He still avoided the Inner Ring, choosing to go around it rather than through it. From everything he had seen, he was almost certain the Evil Mountain Spirit stayed near the Inner Ring, if not deeper.
That was where beasts were strongest.
That was where death was thickest.
Humans were rare there, so when it wanted human blood, it likely traveled outward.
That explained the scattered ritual sites.
That explained the wide range.
Because of this, Han Yu beca more cautious than ever.
He never truly slept.
He only ditated lightly, keeping part of his mind alert.
He sealed caves, he carved rock, and he used talismans.
But even then, he wondered.
What if it could pass through walls?
What if stone ant nothing to it?
What if it could enter dreams and kill from within?
He had read about such spirits.
Not all of them needed physical bodies.
And then, a week later, near the outer edge of the Middle Ring, sothing changed.
hummm....
Han Yu opened his eyes during ditation and felt it.
A new energy.
It was not the Evil Mountain Spirit.
It was not a beast.
It was refined.
Controlled.
Diffused, as if coming from very far away.
He extended his spirit sense and traced it.
The source was toward the Inner Ring.
Roughly six kiloters away.
Han Yu frowned. ’Close but still in the Inner Ring.’
There was a mountain pass here.
One of the few places where one could move between regions without taking a massive detour.
If he avoided it, he would need to travel around, which could easily add an entire month to his journey.
Normally, he would still choose the long path.
But the energy he felt worried him.
It was not chaotic like beasts.
It was not twisted like the Evil Mountain Spirit.
It felt... deliberate.
He stood still, weighing his options.
SHUA
Then the unease inside him exploded. It was no longer a quiet pressure, it was like a warning bell screaming inside his bones.
He did not think, he just moved.
WHOOSH
He shot out of the cave he had been resting in, flying low and fast.
He had barely left when the world behind him tore apart.
BOOM!
The mountain shook.
Stone shattered.
Snow burst into the air like smoke.
Han Yu turned in midair, his eyes wide.
The cave he had just left was gone.
In its place were massive claw marks carved into the mountain face.
Each mark was nearly twenty ters long.
Not scratches.
Gouges.
As if sothing had casually raked its hand through stone like it were soft mud.
Han Yu’s heart sank.
He spread his spirit sense desperately.
And then he saw it.
Floating in the air was a presence.
Half physical.
Half ethereal.
The top half looked vaguely human with broad shoulders. It had long arms and hands ending in nearly twelve inch long claws. A chest that still had the shape of a man. But its skin was pale and faintly translucent, like mist shaped into flesh.
Its face was twisted while sharp fangs jutted from its mouth. Its eyes glowed blood red, burning with hunger and madness.
The lower half of its body was not solid at all. It was a swirling mass of blood red mist mixed with dark specks that looked like ashes or shadows.
It did not flap wings.
It did not move its legs.
It simply hovered, as if the air itself obeyed it.
Han Yu felt cold.
Not from the air.
From fear.
"This... is not a simple Jiangshi," he whispered.
The presence turned its head slowly as its eyes locked onto him. And in that mont, Han Yu felt sothing press against his soul.
It was like cold fingers brushing across his spirit.
Like soone breathing directly into his mind.
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