Chapter 623: No Where Is Safe.

Thoren’s horror reached a new height when he saw the ash tide appear above him.

It was there.

At the top of the undead Sanguine Vulture. A ceiling of churning gray death, waiting. It had not chased him but had outflanked him.

While he had been fleeing from the tide behind him, the sky itself had moved ahead, circling, cutting off his escape route.

Now it hung above him like an executioner’s blade, and it was descending.

The vulture flew on, its hollow socket burning with the eerily soul fire fixed forward, unaware or uncaring of the doom above.

But Thoren saw it.

He saw the ash cloud gathering, thickening, preparing to descend. The same ash cloud that had devoured everything behind him.

The same howling, hungry mass of annihilation. And it was directly overhead.

His heart stopped.

For one frozen moment, he could not breathe.

He could not think.

He could not move.

The world narrowed to the gray mass above and the endless wasteland below, and he was caught between them like an insect in a trap.

Then instinct took over.

"Down!" he screamed through their mental link.

The vulture folded its wings and dropped.

The ash cloud fell with them.

It was a race now.

A vertical race between the diving undead Sanguine vulture and the plummeting sky. The wind screamed past Thoren’s ears, tearing at his clothes, whipping his hair into his eyes.

His stomach lurched as the ground rushed up to meet them. The ash tide roared above, less than a hundred meters away.

Less than fifty meters.

"Faster!" he screamed.

And the undead Sanguine vulture obeyed.

"Faster!"

The undead Sanguine Vulture pushed its speed to the limit. Its wings, already folded tight against its body, seemed to slice through the air itself.

It cut through the atmosphere with an unbending speed that was impossible to follow with the eyes.

The ground became a blur, and the wind became a solid wall. Thoren could feel the creature’s bones straining, its undead muscles tearing, but it did not slow.

The ash cloud reached for them.

It was less than ten meters away when the vulture leveled out.

The ground skimmed past beneath them, close enough to touch. The vulture’s wings snapped open, catching the air, and it shot forward like an arrow loose from a bow.

The ash tide crashed down behind them, striking the ground where they had been moments before, and the sound was like the world ending.

Thoren did not look back.

To be safe, he only allowed the vulture to fly close to the ground. So close that the ash particles kicked up by the undead Sanguine Vulture speed stung his face and hands.

So close that a single mistake would mean collision, death, the end of everything.

Even at that, his nervousness did not abate.

He frequently looked around, his head swiveling from side to side, his perception pushed to the absolute limit of what was possible.

One hundred meters.

That was all he could see. One hundred meters in every direction, and beyond that, nothing but the unknown.

The ash tide could be anywhere. It could be everywhere. It could be waiting just beyond the edge of his senses, patient and hungry and eternal.

Gradually, the distance between him and the ash cloud grew farther and farther away.

But he did not dare breathe a sigh of relief. He had made that mistake once already. He would not make it again.

He kept the vulture low, kept his perception stretched, and kept his eyes moving. The wasteland rolled past beneath them, endless and gray and dead.

When he could no longer see the ash cloud behind him, he raised his head to the sky.

It was there.

The ash cloud was there, directly above him. But this time, it was different. It was dormant. Slumbering.

The churning patterns had slowed, the howling had stopped, and the gray mass hung motionless in the sky like a sleeping beast.

Thoren stared at it for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lowered his head and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.

In the last couple of minutes, all his clothes had been drenched in cold sweat. His heart pounded heavily against his chest, a drumbeat that refused to slow.

His hands trembled on the vulture’s vertebrae.

His legs felt weak and his breath came in short, ragged gasps.

He was alive.

He did not know how. He did not know why. But he was alive.

Regaining his bearings, he looked at the distance. He saw nothing but wasteland. No hills. No mountains.

Nothing.

Everywhere was dim light and ash cloud. The world was bleak, monochrome, without features or landmarks or any sign that life had ever existed here.

For a moment, Thoren was confused.

Was he heading in the right direction?

Who knew if he was not heading toward his doom. Perhaps, he was flying deeper and deeper into a trap with no exit?

But everywhere he looked, it was the same wasteland staring back at him. Gray upon gray. Ash upon ash.

There was no way to tell north from south, east from west.

He shook his head.

Then he reached into his inventory and pulled out a wine jug. He took a long sip, letting the liquid burn down his throat, and forced his racing heart to slow.

"Right or not, I cannot stay here," he muttered, wiping his lips with the back of his palm.

He put the wine jug away and straightened his back on the vulture’s back.

"Forward," he commanded.

The undead Sanguine Vulture beat its wings and flew deeper into the bleak wasteland.

Although he did not know where he was heading. There was one thing he knew for sure. Staying means death and forward means a chance for survival.

Thinking of how confident and arrogant he was when he was descending into the abyss third floor, he couldn’t help but chuckle at his naiveness.

Even though he tried not to be proud of his achievement in clearing two floors in less than two months. He knew inwardly, his pride was increasing with each passing time.

He even looked down on those that cleared the higher floor. At that time, he thought there was nothing special about those clearing the abyss higher floor but now...

He knew...

There was more to clearing the abyss floor.