A forest was shrouded in a faint black haze, casting a cold and damp atmosphere, where every tree grows in strange and grotesque shapes like monstrous creatures, looking immensely terrifying.
Throughout the forest, there were bubbling marshes everywhere. A single misstep would mean the end.
'Crack–'!
Suddenly, a piercing sound echoed behind a large tree, like two rusty iron bars colliding against each other.
Soon, a skeleton holding a shiny black bone spear emerged from behind a tree. The skeleton was still wearing tattered armor, and in its empty eye sockets, two strange red lights were flickering.
Just then, a faint silver light flashed like lightning and silently entered the skeleton's ear canal going straight into its skull.
Instantly, the red light in the skeleton's eye sockets went out like flames doused with cold water, and then the whole body collapsed into a pile of bones.
In the vicinity of the opposite tree, a figure lurking in the shadows revealed itself. This was a boy of fifteen or sixteen years old, carrying a dark longbow on his back, his face was covered in dirt and his clothes were tattered. But his eyes occasionally flashed with a chilling cold light, which made people's hearts palpitate.
If anyone saw the boy at this moment, they would involuntarily shiver. His aura was dead and oppressive, devoid of any human warmth.
The boy jumped down agilely like a cat, yanked out a silver arrow from the skull of the motionless skeleton, and then stretched out two fingers into the black eye sockets of the skeleton. Soon, he pulled out a green bead from inside the skull.
"Haha, my luck is not bad today, I got ten Undead Beads." Qi Bei's face showed a smile. Strangely, when he smiled, his dead and oppressive aura completely dissipated, and his eyes became lively, making him seem like a warm and friendly young man.
"The night is coming again. I need to find a place to rest for the night. Ah, I don't know when I can get out of this dreadful place." Qi Bei muttered to himself, tapped his foot on the ground, and skillfully jumped onto a tree. He disappeared between the trees with just a few jumps.
The moonlight poured down on this unholy place, and the Undead Mountain Range began to become lively.
Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, corpse-eating worms, flesh-devouring beasts…
At night, the Undead Mountain Range was a paradise, a place of revelry for the dead.
If a living person were to be here, they would think they were in hell.
In a dim rocky cave, Qi Bei sat cross-legged, with his tongue touching the roof of his mouth, his breath sinking into his dantian, and his palms placed flat on his knee joints.
A thin white smoke rose from the Baihui acupoint on his head, and at the same time, black ink-like stains kept seeping from his pores all over his body.
Suddenly, Qi Bei's body trembled, and several crisp explosions sounded within his body.
At the same time, a golden dragon pattern that looked as if soaring through the clouds and mist appeared on the palm of his left hand, emitting a multitude of golden rays.
The intense heat in Qi Bei's dantian surged, and thick true energy rushed up to his heart and lungs.
In an instant, Qi Bei's body turned scalding hot. It felt like his body was filled with boiling magma ready to explode.
"Ah…" He suddenly opened his eyes, his mouth wide open, and a loud roar burst out of his throat.
The sound of his roar soared to the sky, vaguely resembling a dragon's roar.
After the roar, Qi Bei felt his whole body relax, and he felt as light as a feather.
"The first level of the Divine Dragon Art, I've finally achieved it," Qi Bei muttered to himself. In his dantian, a cloud of golden internal energy was rotating slowly. He could feel the surging power within him, and he could even hear the hissing sound of a zombie from a distance of several hundred meters away.
However, Qi Bei quickly realized that it was not good. His roar had attracted some of the stronger undead creatures that could fly and burrow. The thick death aura that was outside, the chilling screams of the undead, and the sound of breaking through the air coming towards him, formed a symphony of hell.
Qi Bei jumped up and poured out a colorful array of Undead Beads from a bag, arranging them into a peculiar formation.
"Mogelas, Biyana," He held a black ancient book in his hand, reciting obscure incantations.
At the moment when Qi Bei finished reciting the spell, a mysterious magical rune rose from the black ancient book. More than a hundred Undead Beads on the ground suddenly shattered, and a thick death aura wrapped around his figure as he gradually disappeared.
A living person had disappeared out of thin air.
Just as Qi Bei disappeared, a huge force smashed the rocks blocking the entrance to his cave, and a skeleton covered in thick black bone armor appeared in front of the cave. Golden light flickered deep within its eye sockets as it scanned carefully inside the cave.
"Golden eyes, that's the most advanced type of undead. Even if there were ten of me, I wouldn't be able to defeat it head-on. But it seems this thing hasn't detected my presence yet. The magic of this world is truly amazing," Qi Bei thought to himself, secretly relieved.
Soon, the skeleton disappeared into the sky. High-level undead creatures already have a certain level of intelligence.
However, outside the cave, hundreds of low-level undead creatures had already blocked the way out.
As the day began to dawn, the undead creatures outside the rock cave that clearly hated the sunlight instinctively began to move towards the cave.
And at this moment, the magic of the invisibility spell was about to run out.
Qi Bei had a longbow on his back, held a bone knife in his left hand, gripped a black and red bone spear in his right hand, and his body was tense like a predatory leopard.
Suddenly, with a "puff", over a hundred Undead Beads turned into powder.
Qi Bei quickly leaped up, and drew the bone knife from his left hand like a white lightning bolt, instantly chopping off the heads of three zombies in front of him. His body followed the inertia and knocked down a skeleton, and the bone spear in his right hand was inserted into its eye socket.
The sudden movement caused all the undead creatures around him to riot and swarm toward Qi Bei in a fierce manner.
"Die!" Qi Bei shouted angrily, and the bone knife and bone spear in his hand suddenly emitted golden light. Wherever they went, it was like cutting melons and vegetables, leaving only limbs and bones.
Qi Bei didn't expect that his combat power would soar to such a level after reaching the first level of the Divine Dragon Art. His strength, speed, and reaction had all increased by more than three times compared to before.
Especially when his internal energy entered the bone knife and bone spear, the golden light emitted was as sharp as a divine sword, powerful and invincible.
However, Qi Bei didn't dare to be too happy too soon. These were all low-level undead creatures, and although his internal energy was gushing, it had a fatal weakness, which was that it couldn't last too long. After only a few attacks, most of it had already been consumed.
Qi Bei had already rushed out of the cave. He didn't dare to stay and fight because there were five or six hundred undead creatures around him. Once his internal energy was exhausted, it would be difficult to break through the siege.
The movement of low-level undead creatures was slow. With Qi Bei's speed, he easily reached the outskirts.
Qi Bei chopped off the head of a zombie in front of him, and with a flip, he slid over ten meters on top of a skeleton's head. His whole body glided like an eagle and landed, already out of the group of undead creatures.
He breathed a sigh of relief and was about to run away when suddenly, a pair of long, sharp, purple-black claws emerged from the ground like iron hoops and firmly grabbed his feet.
Qi Bei was startled and swung his bone knife which was emitting faint golden light in his left hand.
A "clang" sound came from the zombie's hand but it didn't come off, it was only left with only a three-inch cut, and the horde of undead not far away was now less than eight meters away.
Qi Bei yelled, and his internal energy surged into his feet as he pushed off the ground like a cannonball.
A zombie was lifted from the ground, or half of it since its lower body was completely gone. Its claws still tightly gripped Qi Bei's feet.
Qi Bei landed and looked at the half-bodied zombie.
The zombie's eyes glowed green, its body was incredibly hard, and there was a bright silver spot on its forehead. That meant it was a high-level undead, also known as a silver zombie. Even though it was incomplete, it was still a high-level undead.
Using the strength of its hands, the silver zombie charged forward with its half-body, its mouth full of sharp teeth biting toward Qi Bei's thigh.
Qi Bei slapped his bone knife horizontally toward the zombie's head, causing its mouth to miss.
With a fierce look in his eyes, Qi Bei twisted his legs and kicked, tearing off some flesh and blood from the zombie's claws, and regained his freedom. At this point, the undead horde was only half a meter away from him, and the skull in the front had already swung its bone blade.
Qi Bei dived, rolling several times on the ground before suddenly jumping up and leaping onto a big tree. He was now nearing the edge of a large forest.
As long as he used the dense jungle and his ability to hide, his chances of escaping would be greatly increased.
As Qi Bei looked back while jumping, his pupils suddenly shrank.
The silver zombie, which was now only half a body, was surprisingly three times faster than him, and its hands pressed down on the ground, leaping and leaving only a blur.
Qi Bei's nerves were stretched to the extreme, his spirit was highly concentrated, and every time he faced life and death, his tightly stretched nerves and focused mind allowed him to calculate and analyze rapidly.
Crash!
The large tree that Qi Bei had just jumped from was torn into pieces by the sharp claws of the silver zombie.
Qi Bei desperately leaped from tree to tree, but no matter how he turned, the silver zombie was closely following him. His back, thighs, and even his buttocks were left with bloody wounds.
"It looks like I can't shake it off. If I keep this up, even if I'm not torn to pieces, the corpse poison in my wounds will be enough to destroy me." Qi Bei thought to himself. His wounds were already beginning to rot, and the toxins were flowing throughout his body through his blood. If it weren't for his internal energy protecting his vital organs, he would have been completely immobilized. However, even with this protection, he wouldn't be able to last much longer.
Qi Bei was not panicked. This was not the first time he had faced a life-threatening crisis. He knew that at times like this if he didn't keep a calm head, death would only come sooner.
Just then, his gaze swept over a corpse-eating worm nest under a large tree to his right, and he felt a glimmer of hope.