Chapter 622: The Feeling of Death

Thoren’s terror was absolute.

The ash tide devoured everything behind him. It did not consume and it did not destroy.

It erased.

The ground, the rocks, the craters, the scattered bones of creatures that had died in this place long before he arrived.

All of it vanished into the churning gray mass ash as though it had never existed.

The ash tide howled behind him like a ferocious beast, a sound that was not wind and not thunder but something older and hungrier.

It was the sound of oblivion given voice.

Every hair on his body stood on end.

His skin prickled.

His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged animal. He urged the undead Greater Dune Scorpion forward through their mental link, pushing the creature harder than he had ever pushed any mount.

The scorpion responded instantly, its many legs a blur of motion, its massive body low to the ground as it skittered across the ash-crusted wasteland.

The undead Greater Dune Scorpion was fast.

Terrifyingly fast.

Its legs, each one thicker than a man’s torso, moved with a precision and power that defied its size.

It covered ground in great bounding strides, its segmented body flowing over the terrain like water over stone.

The ground cracked and shattered under its weight.

But the ash tide was faster.

Too fast to be precise.

Thoren looked back and immediately wished he had not. The wall of ash was closer now.

Much closer.

It filled the horizon behind him, a towering mass of churning death that blotted out everything.

The howl it made was louder now, a grinding, shrieking roar that seemed to come from every direction at once.

It was not chasing him.

It was hunting him.

Previously, the ash tide had been over two kilometers from him. Now it was less than one, and the distance was closing at alarming speed.

Six hundred meters.

Five hundred meters.

Even at five hundred meters, he could feel the terror of the ash cloud. It radiated cold. Not the cold of ice or winter, but the cold of absence.

The cold of a place where life had never existed and never would. It pressed against his back like a physical weight, and he could feel it pulling at him, trying to drag him backward into its embrace.

His mind raced.

’If that thing catches me, I will...’

He could not finish the thought as his heart skipped a beat, then another. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.

His hands, gripping the scorpion’s carapace, were slick with sweat. Right now, he wished to pray, hoping for a miracle to happen but he knew better.

In the abyss, you either survive or not. Nothing like a miracle could ever happen. He might be fortunate to be rescued or saved by some awakener if the situation was a normal one.

But what lies behind him was far from normal.

It was abnormal.

Since he arrived on the third floor, nothing had gone according to his plan. The world seems to be holding a grudge against him. Like he had somehow offended the world.

First, his perception had been restricted to nothing but one-hundred-meter radius. Just when he thought nothing could be worse than that, the most ridiculous thing he ever saw happened.

In the next couple of seconds, the distance shrank at a speed that made Thoren’s spine crawl.

Two hundred meters.

The ash tide was right behind him.

He could hear it.

He could feel it.

The air around him grew thick and choking, filled with particles of gray that burned his lungs and stung his eyes.

The temperature dropped and the light dimmed. The world narrowed to a single, desperate race against annihilation.

His breathing was heavy now.

Ragged.

His chest heaved with every breath, and each exhale came out as a cloud of steam in the suddenly freezing air.

Perspiration covered his entire body, soaking through his clothes, plastering his hair to his forehead.

He was trembling, not from cold and not from exhaustion but from fear. Curious, he looked over his shoulder.

He saw it.

The ash tide was a wall of howling darkness, a living nightmare that reached for him with a thousand grasping tendrils.

He could see shapes in it.

Faces.

Hands.

Mouths opened in silent screams.

Or perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him and nothing was inside the ash tide. But that did not matter.

What mattered was that it was going to catch him.

Thinking of this, his face twisted in horror. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened.

"Fuck!" he cursed.

He did not think.

He did not plan and simply acted.

He jumped.

He leaped from the back of the undead Greater Dune Scorpion, his body arcing through the air. In the same instant, he withdrew the scorpion back into his undead space and summoned another creature.

The air before him shimmered and tore open, and from the void emerged a vulture.An undead Sanguine Vulture, its feathers the color of dried blood.

Everything happened in a blink.

Thoren landed on the vulture’s back. His boots hit the bony ridge of its spine, and he grabbed hold of the exposed vertebrae that served as a saddle.

The vulture’s wings spread wide, catching the freezing air, and Thoren screamed with every ounce of air left in his lungs.

"Fly!"

The undead Sanguine Vulture obeyed.

Its wings beat once, twice, and then they were rising. The ground fell away beneath them.

The vulture climbed higher and higher, creating a massive distance between them. And for a moment, Thoren couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, wiping the bead of sweat from his forehead.

"That was clo..."

Before he could complete his statement, a feeling of death washed over him. All the hair on his body stood on end.

In that moment, all he heard was the heavy pound of his heart against his chest. Time seems to stretch far longer than expected.

But Thoren knew better.

"DOWN!"