A biting wind whipped through a flurry of blood-red rain, dancing relentlessly beneath a leaden sky. The ground beneath had long been saturated with a purplish-black hue; every clod of earth embedded with fractured bones that crunched into fine splinters beneathfoot, as if silent wails were welling up from the depths of the earth. In the distance, torrents of blood cascaded from the firmament, slamming against hidden reefs and churning up blood-froth several feet high. Those bubbles congealed in mid-air into ferocious ghostly faces, baring their fangs as they lunged at the living, only to dissolve into wisps of black smoke the instant they touched the warmth of human vitality, leaving a pungent, scorched stench drifting on the wind.
Most terrifying of all was the sea of blood mist blanketing the world. It was not ethereal water vapor, but the condensed essence and blood of billions of grievance-ridden souls. When it touched the skin, it burrowed into the flesh like maggots, gnawing away at vitality along the blood vessels. Occasionally, the mist gathered into colossal palms that slammed down abruptly from the fog, grinding any slow-witted creatures into pulp and absorbing them into the churning sea of blood below. Half-corpses floated and sank within the marsh, some still twitching slightly, emitting wheezing, rattling gasps from their throats. Look closer, and their chest cavities had long since been hollowed out, leaving only pitch-black holes where their hearts should hav…
Chapter 293