I changed the world.

Zhang Jing approached the monster, stepped on its body, and pulled out the bone spear embedded in it. This was the second monster he had hunted in this world. A moment later, another blurry white shadow flew out from the monster's body and pierced its chest. Zhang Jing took out the "Demon Refining Pot" and examined it. The spiritual liquid had noticeably increased again, but this time the increase was only half of what it had been before. He wondered if it was because this monster was weaker than the previous one.

The blindfold wasn't working well, so we need to be even more careful... Zhang Jing thought to himself.

After cleaning the bone spear with the monster's fur, Zhang Jing made another unsettling discovery. He found that certain parts of the monster's body also showed signs of decay, resembling some kind of severe skin disease. Pus was oozing from the rotting wounds, which looked extremely disgusting.

Zhang Jing shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up at the sky. Apart from the ashes falling like snowflakes, the sky was gloomy and the thick clouds made it impossible for him to see any celestial bodies such as the sun.

When Zhang Jing communicated with the scroll and entered this world, he had already sensed that it seemed to be a world similar to a grotto-heaven. However, now it seems that it is obviously not that simple.

He took out the scroll again and found an icon with a circular badge that was closest to him. He decided to make this his first small target and go check it out.

If I'm not mistaken, the cultivation technique I want should be found in this world.

After adjusting his backpack, Zhang Jing checked his location and continued forward...

........................

Perhaps it was good luck, but Zhang Jing didn't encounter any more dangerous monsters on his journey after that. However, the further he went, the more bewildered he became, as he discovered even more bizarre things...

In this strange forest, he would occasionally find trees and other plants growing "upside down".

These trees, growing "upside down," have roots that should be deeply embedded in the soil, now spread out like branches and leaves, while the branches and leaves that should be lush and verdant are now embedded in the soil. The entire tree is completely upside down, "growing" there in an extremely incongruous yet visually striking manner.

At first, Zhang Jing thought they were some kind of exotic plant, but he soon discovered that most of these plants had many more "normally growing" counterparts, and that various plant species had...

Chapter Ninety: Silent Hill?!

If such a scene were to occur at an art exhibition on Earth, it might be hailed as an avant-garde artwork and elicit a laugh. However, seeing it before his eyes now, Zhang Jing found it anything but funny. This absurd and bizarre scene, which he often encountered in the jungle, even caused his expression to gradually become serious…

The falling ashes and snow seemed endless and without end, which even gave Zhang Jing a vague illusion that the world was a deathly gray place.

As darkness gradually fell, Zhang Jing began to realize that night was perhaps about to fall in this world.

Although he didn't know if day and night cycles existed here in the Earth's sense, or when they would occur, judging from the current situation, they probably did. Zhang Jing looked up at the sky and decided to start looking for a place to camp.

Before Zhang Jing could choose a suitable location, the thick, seemingly unchanging, gloomy clouds overhead suddenly began to churn, followed by a series of rumbling sounds. Streaks of red and white lightning flashed through the clouds, intersecting with each other, and occasionally bursting forth with a few dragon-tooth-like thunderbolts, exploding into dark red sparks.

After that, every now and then a bolt of lightning would strike straight down from the sky, snapping a tree in half at the ground with astonishing force.

Zhang Jing frowned and quickened his pace. At this moment, the thunder in the sky began to strike more frequently, and several bolts of lightning even struck not far from Zhang Jing.

"Crack..." Another bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, hitting a tree less than fifty meters away from Zhang Jing, and a plume of black smoke rose up afterward...

The falling ashes and snow did have some effect at this point, objectively preventing the fire from starting. Zhang Jing discovered that the trees that had been struck by lightning and were burning were reduced in intensity and did not spread because of the large amount of "snowflakes" falling.

Zhang Jing did not stop his journey despite the increasingly severe thunderstorm; on the contrary, it made him even more eager to find a suitable place to camp before nightfall...

The raging thunder churned the dark clouds in the sky, making them resemble menacing monsters, transforming them into various shapes. Then, a new change began to occur: the clouds started to shatter, and strange, discordant cracks began to appear within them. Zhang Jing subconsciously stopped in his tracks, gazing at this magnificent scene he had never seen before in the sky. It was as if the sky had suddenly split open with countless gaps, and these cracks led to the unknown void…

Before long, a black lightning bolt began to strike out from one of the openings, followed by a second and a third. These lightning bolts fell to the ground like meteors, with one of them landing less than a hundred meters away from Zhang Jing.

What he saw next made his eyes widen. The black lightning, after striking the ground, did not burn or explode; instead, it quickly transformed into a living monster…

Zhang Jing reacted swiftly, immediately dropping to the ground and using the surrounding bushes and low plants to conceal himself, pressing himself tightly against the ground and observing the distant monster only through the gaps in the plants.

The monster had now stretched out its body, seemingly surveying its surroundings. It was a monster of similar size to the first one he had encountered, only much uglier in appearance...

Its entire body was covered with tentacles resembling those of an octopus, some large, some small, some even intertwined. Its skin looked dark and greasy, with mottled dark patterns. It was impossible to distinguish where the head ended and the body began; it was just a constantly writhing mass. Besides the tentacles, it also had countless eyeballs growing on its body. These densely packed eyeballs resembled pustules all over its body. Zhang Jing glanced at it and couldn't help but feel nauseous, his skin crawling with goosebumps.

The monster just floated there, without any support, like a jellyfish floating in the ocean, drifting in the void, its eyes all over its body constantly turning, as if surveying all directions.

Zhang Jing lay firmly on the ground, feeling his emotions fluctuating violently. Some kind of special force was stirring up the negative emotions in his heart. He realized that the creature was clearly surrounded by a force field that could influence other people's emotions. Oppression, cruelty, violence, temptation, fear, and all kinds of negative emotions were pressing down on the space around it.

A cool sensation came from his chest at just the right time, which made his mind clear up suddenly. It was the power from the purple jade pendant on his chest that made him break free from the emotions he had just been in.

Zhang Jing tried his best to calm himself down. With the help of the jade pendant, the feeling of being disturbed was still there, but he could suppress it. After all, his long-term cultivation, coupled with his own personality, made his mind far from weak.

With golden flames flickering in its eyes, this monster, in Zhang Jing's secret technique vision, was surrounded by intense black energy, like black flames, making it no ordinary monster.

Using the techniques to break the spell within the Qi Restriction could weaken the opponent's ability, but using it would also mean being detected. After much deliberation, Zhang Jing decided not to provoke this monster. After all, he knew too little about it, and rashly provoking a powerful enemy in this unfamiliar environment was unwise.

The monster didn't linger and quickly headed in another direction...

After lying there for a while, Zhang Jing felt his emotions gradually calming down and returning to normal. So, he carefully crawled out of the thorn bushes, and after carefully looking around and finding no further danger, he breathed a sigh of relief.

........................

The strange phenomenon in the sky did not last long. Soon, the cracks in the void closed again, the lightning gradually subsided, and the gray clouds and the ashes and snow remained the same. Everything seemed to have returned to calm.

The sky darkened quite quickly, and finally, as night fell, Zhang Jing found a reasonably ideal campsite—a particularly dense thicket of bushes, with large foliage resembling wild horse manes growing alongside the shrubs, reaching over half a person's height. Zhang Jing then took out a piece of plastic sheeting from his backpack. This thick plastic sheeting was very useful in the wild, with many uses, such as serving as a makeshift tent.

After searching around and finding a few sturdy branches, they went into the bushes, used the branches as a framework and secured them with ropes, then covered them with plastic sheeting. After a flurry of activity, they had set up a small space in the dense bushes, like a simple little tent.

Outside the small tent, the bushes acted like a natural protective umbrella. Zhang Jing stood outside, checked and adjusted the area, then dragged his hiking backpack inside.

The tent was small, shaped somewhat like a classic Chinese "人" (human) shaped roof, barely big enough for a person to sit on. Zhang Jing adjusted the side of the tent, creating a small hole through the bushes to see outside. After looking around, he climbed out of the tent again.

He scavenged around for some dry leaves and tall grass, which were quite common in the forest and were almost everywhere. After some effort, Zhang Jing added a thick layer of dry leaves and grass to the bottom of the tent to make it more comfortable to rest.

By the time all this was done, it was almost completely dark. Thick clouds obscured the view, making it impossible to see the moon, stars, or other celestial bodies. In addition, the dense cover of tall trees, the faint fog, and the falling ashes made the light and visibility in the forest poor.

Zhang Jing carefully returned to the tent. With his eyesight, he could still see clearly even in complete darkness. He took out a bottle of mineral water from his backpack.

Zhang Jing only brought two bottles of water with him this time, so he didn't dare to drink too much. After taking a couple of small sips, he carefully screwed the bottles back on and put them away. After all, they hadn't found a water source yet, so he had to conserve some.

Since we had already eaten dinner before coming, we didn't need to eat any more food.

Sitting bored in the small tent, immersed in the silent darkness, Zhang Jing vaguely felt that the insecurity that had always existed since he came into this world seemed to have lessened considerably.

Zhang Jing sat cross-legged in the tent, glancing at his digital watch with a luminous function. It was 00:04 at night. The sky was completely dark, without a trace of light, and even with Zhang Jing's vision, things were quite blurry in such darkness.

After a brief silence in the pitch blackness, the world began a new commotion with a strange and peculiar rustling sound.

Zhang Jing suddenly sensed a change, and a strong sense of crisis welled up in his heart. He quickly pulled out the flashlight from his belt, turned it on, and shone it around.

Under the blazing white light, everything in the scene was undergoing drastic changes. In the small space within Zhang Jing's sight, the bushes covering the tent were withering at a visible speed, as if they had been contaminated by some kind of potent toxic substance, rapidly turning into a dehydrated, withered black color...

"Damn it, what happened now?!" Startled, Zhang Jing immediately rolled over and half-squatted on the ground, his left hand quickly pressing against the spear beside him. For a moment, however, he dared not touch the withering bushes, fearing that some poison might be attached to them. Fortunately, when he made the tent, he had left an observation opening in the bushes on one side, through which he could observe the situation outside the bushes. Although the bushes were slightly deformed and shrunken due to their continuous withering, the observation opening was not completely sealed. Zhang Jing hurriedly and carefully peered through.

The scene outside almost made his heart stop beating...

The whole world seems to be a hypocritical hell adorned with a thin layer of paint, and now, these layers are aging, peeling, falling off, and disappearing...

The surrounding mist had thinned to almost nothing, and the vast forests, shrubs, trees, and rocks... had been stripped of their "skin," leaving only withered branches and bare black trunks. This was no longer a forest, but a place resembling a mythical hell. Even the inconspicuous rocks had somehow transformed into grotesque and grotesque shapes, covered with mottled marks that looked like bloodstains.

The forest floor had become dry and cracked land, and it continued to crack at a visible rate, like a movie scene on fast-forward.

Some cracks, seemingly caused by drought, continued to widen and extend until red, lava-like flames shone through from the bottom...

Until the scorching air rose in gushes like moisture near a blast furnace, and sparks and smoke began to rise and scatter like coal ash burning in the wind...

The ashes falling from the sky had somehow turned an eerie red, and the red snowflakes continued to fall endlessly.

"Holy crap... what's going on?" Zhang Jing stared grimly at the surreal scene before him. Even with his cultivation level, he felt a cold sweat running down his back. What was this? Silent Hill?

His heart pounded, and adrenaline surged. Zhang Jing's first reaction was to turn off the flashlight beside him. Because the leaves of the surrounding bushes were constantly withering and falling, the cover wasn't as dense as it had been initially. If any light shone through and attracted anything, it could cause trouble…

In fact, even without a flashlight, Zhang Jing could clearly see the surroundings and even the distance. Relying on the red light shining from the ground, the dim light illuminated the surroundings as a deep red, as if smeared with blood.

The temperature around him was rising. Through the gaps in the scorched bushes, Zhang Jing could clearly see some plants growing near the cracks in the ground. Ashes from the rising heat wafted into the dark night. He subconsciously looked down at his feet, where he was standing on rotten, yellowish-black earth.

Blood-red light emanated from the cracks all around, making the whole world seem as if it were built on lava, filled with eeriness and heat.

Even more strangely, he seemed to hear some mysterious call in his ear, as if someone was whispering something... Zhang Jing couldn't help but listen carefully, and his mind immediately became confused. At this moment, a cool sensation came from the jade pendant on his chest again, which went straight to his brain and instantly made Zhang Jing wake up.

Feeling a chill run down his spine, he immediately shifted his attention, no longer daring to listen to those eerie whispers.

Golden flames flickered in his eyes. Utilizing a secret technique to observe, Zhang Jing felt that everything around him was shrouded in black mist, as if the entire world had been tainted and defiled by some force. Moreover, this defiled power seemed to sense his probing and began attempting to invade his eyes…

Chapter Ninety-One: This is a Monster's Paradise

With a burst of fire in his eyes, Zhang Jing burned away the invading black energy. He then withdrew his secret technique, rubbed his eyes, and dared not spy any further.

Zhang Jing tried touching the scorched bush with a flashlight, but found no reaction. He then tried touching it with his finger, but immediately pulled back, as if the bush was hot. Finding no problem, he boldly touched the bush with his hand again. Finding that it didn't seem to have any effect on him, he felt a little relieved. At least he didn't have to worry about "weathering" into a dried-up corpse like the bushes.

His luck seemed "good," at least where his tent was now, there were no "cracks" extending directly towards him, which made him hesitant to venture out of the bushes for the time being. He felt that hiding here was perhaps much safer than being in the open.

A series of chattering sounds came from afar. Hearing this, Zhang Jing felt a sudden, inexplicable unease. His heart tightened, and he quickly widened the observation port with his finger, peering into the direction. The light mist hadn't completely dissipated, and with the red glow rising from the gaps, he saw several blue dots hovering there. One of these blue dots drifted leisurely towards his direction…

Closer...closer still...finally, Zhang Jing recognized it. This wasn't some blue dot of light, but a flying head...

Yes, a head. Although it was still quite far away, Zhang Jing could still make it out clearly. It was roughly the head of a human with a large, hooked nose, a receding hairline, and a bald top. Only blue, shimmering, hair-like tentacles floated on the back of the head, resembling a will-o'-the-wisp from a distance. This was also why Zhang Jing had initially seen the blue speck of light. Below the head, where the neck should have been, there was nothing, as if the neck had been severed!

As Zhang Jing carefully observed, the head floated slowly towards the bushes where he was...

The head flew closer and closer, but it clearly didn't notice Zhang Jing's presence. It just flew aimlessly, looking around. The other blue dots that Zhang Jing had seen earlier seemed to have flown off in other directions and disappeared from his sight.

When the head flew to a distance of about twenty meters from Zhang Jing's location, it was originally flying in another direction. Suddenly, it stopped, as if it had discovered something, and turned its head and began to twitch its nose, as if it were sniffing something.

The head circled in the sky a few times before changing direction. Its nose twitched like a mouse searching for food as it flew towards the bushes where Zhang Jing was.

The head floated up to the bushes where Zhang Jing was, twitched its nose, hovered back and forth for a while, tilted its head with some doubt, and made a rather human-like expression. It slightly opened its mouth, revealing a set of sharp, inhuman-like fangs, and slowly lowered its height, as if to confirm something again...

Just as the head was slowly descending, the bushes suddenly rustled, and Zhang Jing burst out from within, his sword flashing like a crescent moon in mid-air before fiercely slashing at the head.

With a soft "poof," the monster let out a short hiss, could no longer maintain its levitating posture, and fell to the ground more than ten meters away with a thud. After a few twitches, it lay still.

As Zhang Jing was walking over to take a look, at that very moment, he felt an extremely high-frequency scream in his ear, making his internal organs feel like they were about to clench...

"Stop!" Zhang Jing made a hand seal and pointed behind him, instantly lowering the scream by eight octaves, as if it had been interfered with. The next moment, Zhang Jing drew a tactical dagger from his waist and swung it out...

Looking back, he saw another monster with a dagger pinned straight to its face, its mouth wide open; clearly, the scream from before had come from it. Zhang Jing almost immediately understood what had happened: he had only been paying attention to one monster, while the two had actually attacked from both sides.

The monster let out a mournful cry and fell to the ground, only to be met with another slash to the head by Zhang Jing, who had already closed in...