Along his way, Austin noticed that his entire path was surrounded by barren hills, cliffs and primeval forests. In fact, most of the area around him was dead!
And there were swamps everywhere. If there weren't swamps, then on the charred earth around him, there were deep and large gullies.
'It looks like a fierce and great battle took place around here. Everything seems so... dead!'
This idea hit Austin's mind out of nowhere when he looked around and saw the stunning black gullies in the distance. Along with that, several huge peaks far away from him seemed like they had been cut flat from the middle.
Another striking feature of the terrain around him was that the entire vast plain was covered in some sort of thick, scarlet mist, which was continuously drifting here and there and he could not see too far from where he was standing; at least not clearly.
The smell of this bitter bloody red mist was exactly the same as the smell of human blood. Whatever had happened here, several humans had died.
There was no doubt that the red mist that shrouded the ground was actually formed by human blood evaporating with time and filling the very air of this place.
At the same time, Austin heard several shrill cries resounding from the plains covered in scarlet mist and far away from him.
It was the sort of place no one dared to break into without permission or proper protection. The place was dangerous, deadly, and dead!
"Caw!"
Austin was standing on a large and desolate mountain, made up of barren grey stones and looking far into the distance. Suddenly, a loud noise made by some sort of bird resounded with a ferocity that could crack the stones beneath his feet.
Then, a creepy chill fell all over the sky.
Austin hurriedly looked up, and saw a giant, ferocious-looking bird flying across the sky at a rapid pace. It was large enough to instantly cover more than half of the visible sky. Its feathers were colorful and shiny. But the ground had become dark underneath, as if night had come early.
Austin was shocked. What a huge bird! It was like a huge cloud had covered the whole area and it was about to rain.
"Wait! There are more than one!"
As Austin gazed into the distance, he was immensely startled by what he saw. There were similar clouds in the distant sky and from the looks of them, they were also the same kind of giant birds.
All of a sudden, one of those huge birds dove down from the sky and grabbed at something on the ground with a pair of glittering claws, shining like solid gold, and cold as steel.
"Aargh!"
A scream arose from that place.
Then the giant bird leaped into the sky once again, but this time, with dozens of warriors struggling and screaming in each of its claws.
To Austin's horror, the bird sent all the warriors who were trapped inside its claws into its mouth and ate them all.
'This bird is eating people! It's carnivorous!' Austin thought inwardly with a pang of horror and disgust hitting his heart.
His heart sank.
It wasn't safe in here; he immediately used his bodily movement skill and rushed down the barren mountain at top speed. He didn't stop until he had arrived at a hill which was relatively unnoticeable.
Bang!
All of a sudden, the entire sky seemed to shake. A small mountain seemed to somehow float up into the sky, releasing a tremendous intent of murder.
"How can a mountain move?"
Austin found the sight strange at first, but then, that surprise turned into a look of horror as he realized the truth. It was not a mountain; it was a giant, cyan snake.
Its body was so enormous in proportions that as it knelt down in the distance, it looked like a small mountain.
The snake soared into the sky and fought with the giant bird who was eating the warriors. The former's scales fluttered, as did the colorful feathers of the latter. Blood spattered down, of all the creatures that were engaged in that battle. The fight was extremely fierce.
'It looks like there are a large number of wild beasts in the Fallen Immortal World.
It is said that this world is the place where the immortals actually died. That means it must be extremely dangerous indeed.
I need to be more careful every step of the way!'
Austin decided inwardly. Numerous complex feelings were rising and falling in his heart.
Not long ago, he had encountered the legendary thunder beast, and now, he was bearing witness to mountain-like snakes and carnivorous birds.
This reminded Austin that he had to be on the lookout for all sorts of monstrous creatures.
Austin then gazed into the distance on the ground. The ancient woods towered into the sky. The mountains and rivers seemed of primitive origin. Several old vines were twisting on those mountains. This was clearly a world that had formed several millions of years ago. It was ancient!
"Ah..."
Yet another scream of a human came from a mountain range in the distance. As soon as Austin heard it, he changed into a shadow and rushed over to see what was going on.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Supreme God of Martial Arts