Chapter 624: The Jaw and...

Thoren could not tell how long he had been flying. The undead Sanguine Vulture did not tire. It did not need rest. It did not need food or water or sleep.

It could fly for eternity if he commanded it, its undead body sustained by the dark energy that bound it to his will.

That was the nature of the undead. Tireless, relentless and inexhaustible.

Unfortunately, that was not applicable to him.

His body was not undead. His mind was not immune to exhaustion. The tension that had gripped him since the ash tide first appeared had not released its hold.

It had only tightened, coiling around his spine like a serpent, squeezing with every passing moment.

His muscles were knotted.

His jaw ached from clenching.

His eyes burned from staring into the gray void, searching for threats that never appeared but never truly vanished either.

His nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

He could not stop.

He knew that.

Rest was a luxury he could not afford, not in this place. If his enemy were human, he would have landed hours ago, found a defensible position, and fought his way out.

If his enemy were a beast, he would have summoned his undead legions and overwhelmed it with sheer numbers.

Push come to shove, he would have fought.

But what was after him was not human.

It was not a beast.

It was a calamity.

The ash tide was not something that could be fought. It could not be killed or wounded or reasoned with.

It simply was.

And it would simply consume him if he gave it the chance.

"Dammit!" he cursed, his face marred with fury.

Right there, he felt lost.

Alone.

The emotions he had been holding back began to spiral out of his control. Anger came first, hot and sharp, filling his chest with fire.

Then fear, cold and creeping, wrapping around his heart like icy fingers. Then confusion, a fog that settled over his mind and made every thought sluggish and uncertain.

With his experience of conquering the Bleeding Desert, he thought the third floor wouldn’t be any different. Thus...

He had prepared for it.

But this place was not the Bleeding Desert.

This place was something else entirely. Something beyond his imagination. Something that had not been in any of the reports or records he had studied.

The darkness pressed in around him. The endless gray wasteland stretched in every direction. The ash clouds swirled silently overhead, dormant but watching.

Always watching.

His breath came faster and his heart pounded. The weight of the situation crashed down on him all at once, a tidal wave of despair that threatened to drag him under.

He was going to die here.

He was going to die alone in this gray hell, swallowed by ash and forgotten by the world.

Then he saw it.

A gigantic object in the distance.

Thoren blinked and his spiraling thoughts screeched to a halt. He furrowed his brow, squinting through the gloom.

The object was pale.

White.

It stood out against the gray wasteland like a bone in a graveyard.

Instantly, many puzzling questions appeared in his mind.

What was it?

Where did it come from?

Was it a beast?

Was it alive?

And if not a beast, perhaps it was a structure? A structure belongs to this damned world.

Without thinking, without hesitation, he urged the undead Sanguine Vulture to fly toward the object.

The vulture banked and adjusted its course, its eerily soul fire socket fixing on the distant white shape. It flew with the same relentless speed as before, cutting through the ash-filled air.

Gradually, the object grew larger, closer and clearer.

When Thoren was close enough to see it properly, he was stunned.

It was a jaw.

A massive white skeletal jaw, jutting up from the ground like the remains of some ancient titan.

It was over three meters in height and diameter, a curved expanse of bone that seemed impossibly large.

The teeth were still intact, each one as long as a man’s arm, each one gleaming with a faint, pearlescent sheen.

The bone itself was weathered, cracked in places, but still solid and whole.

Thoren stared in stunned silence.

He had seen many strange things in the Abyss. He had walked through the Bone Plains, where the skeletons of creatures so vast they defied comprehension littered the ground.

But those had been dead for millennia.

Those had been fossils, relics of a forgotten age but this jaw was different.

It was fresh.

It was preserved.

It was as though the creature it belonged to had died only recently, its bones not yet claimed by the ravages of time.

Curious, he dropped from the back of the undead Sanguine Vulture.

He landed softly on the ash-crusted ground and walked toward the jaw. As he drew closer, the scale of it became more apparent.

Standing beside it, he was like an ant compared to it. The jaw towered over him, casting a pale shadow in the dim light.

He could have walked between its teeth without ducking. He could have stood inside its mouth and still had room to spare.

"...This..." His voice trailed off.

He reached out and touched the bone. It was cold, smooth and hard as iron.

"What type of beast would have this..."

Since he arrived on the third floor, this was the first thing that was close to a living creature. The first sign that this wasteland had ever supported life. \

The first proof that he was not entirely alone in this gray hell.

He circled the jaw slowly, examining it from every angle. The teeth were serrated, designed for tearing flesh. Whatever creature this had been, it had been a predator.

Just as he was examining the massive jaw, he saw something.

A boot.

It was half-buried in the ash near the base of the jaw. A leather boot, worn and scuffed, its laces still tied. It was attached to a leg.

A human leg.

Seeing this, Thoren’s blood ran cold.