Chapter 117: Chasing Down

Han Meng was naturally familiar with the legends of the Grey Realm.

Human aura did not belong in this world. It was said that prolonged travel in the Grey Realm would inevitably attract numerous calamities. However, Han Meng never expected these calamities to appear so quickly; only a few minutes had passed since he entered the Grey Realm.

Bony claws plunged deep into the earth, clutching Han Meng along with the soil and rock layers beneath him, ripping them out and rapidly ascending towards the sky!

His black trench coat was torn in several places. Han Meng forcibly shattered the claws with a shot, escaping the bone eagle's grasp. Fury flickered in the eagle's hollow eyes as its massive bony wings flapped, pursuing Han Meng at an astonishing speed!

Even though Han Meng was already moving quickly, the bone eagle was nearly twice as fast. He was caught in an instant, and a hurricane, conjured from nothingness, slammed him violently out of the sky!

Thud—!!

Han Meng's body plummeted from a hundred meters high, creating dense cracks in the black earth. He violently coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face as pale as paper.

At the same time, the many shadow centipedes nearby suddenly halted. They surveyed the surrounding wasteland as if they had lost their target, beginning to aimlessly circle in place… Finally, the fifth-tier mother centipede turned from the black tide, its head's aperture fixing on Han Meng.

"Damn it," Han Meng muttered, seeing this out of the corner of his eye, as he shakily climbed to his feet.

Though he didn't know what had happened, whatever had been attracting the shadow centipedes must have disappeared… These creatures had snapped out of their blind pursuit and redirected their attention back to him.

As the mother centipede let out a shriek, hundreds of shadow centipedes surged towards Han Meng like a tsunami. The mother itself, like a winding miniature mountain, also rapidly approached.

With the bone eagle above and the tide of shadows below, all of Han Meng's escape routes were sealed.

He was facing the combined assault of two fifth-tier calamities.

His tattered black trench coat swayed gently. Han Meng sighed deeply, silently lit a rolled cigarette, placing it between his lips, and grimly tightened his grip on his gun's handle…

Across the black earth, a vibrant crimson slowly advanced.

This splash of red seemed to be the only color existing in this grey world. It was so dazzlingly conspicuous, as if openly declaring its danger to all surrounding creatures. He walked quietly for several minutes, and no calamities approached him.

Suddenly, his hollow eyes trembled slightly, as if something was about to awaken. He instinctively stopped.

"Where… am I?"

Chen Ling felt his mind was a mess, as if he had just woken from a nightmare. Luster returned to his hollow pupils, and he looked around blankly.

What… had just happened?

Chen Ling's last memory was of setting the warehouse on fire. He vaguely remembered feasting amidst the flames, though the specific process was hazy. The only vivid impression was the pain and suffocation of being burned to death by the fire at the end.

As for the events after the warehouse door opened—his fight with Xi Renjie and others, and entering the Grey Realm—he had no recollection whatsoever.

"I advanced?"

Chen Ling immediately noticed the changes in his body, and his eyes lit up.

Before, he had been just half a step away from reaching the second tier. It seemed his final "feast" had shaved off some more time, allowing him to fully break through and ascend to the second tier of the Divine Path.

At the same time, he could sense that he had gained a new skill.

Chen Ling processed the information about this skill in his mind, his expression gradually turning peculiar… Compared to "Wuxiang" (Formless), this skill seemed even stranger.

This skill had two main effects.

One was similar to a sleight of hand, capable of conjuring non-existent things from nothingness or transforming an object into something visually similar. It was like a magic trick, but it only altered appearance and conferred no additional properties.

Even if he turned his clothes into snakes, these snakes wouldn't actually bite; at most, they would only serve to intimidate.

Considering only this effect, the skill was a simple illusion. However, what truly surprised Chen Ling was its other function…

He could remotely swap any nearby object with something on his person, provided they were similar in appearance.

For example, he could use a banana to replace a gun in an enemy's hand. In this scenario, the banana in Chen Ling's hand would become a gun, and the gun in the enemy's hand would turn into a banana… Of course, the "banana" didn't need to be a real banana; it could be a stone, a piece of charcoal, or anything else whose appearance had been altered by illusion.

The simplest application of this function extended into a "law": If Chen Ling and an enemy simultaneously pointed a gun and a banana at each other, regardless of who held which weapon, the enemy would always be the one hit by a bullet.

Of these two effects, the former was purely "illusory," while the latter allowed him to embed "reality" within the "illusory," creating a deceptive interplay of truth and falsehood.

"It sounds like some kind of trick used for killing…" Chen Ling mused thoughtfully.

"Then I'll call it… Scarlet Trick."

After processing his new skill, Chen Ling's gaze began to carefully survey his surroundings. This place looked very much like the legendary Grey Realm, but he had no idea why he was there… However, Chu Muyun had once told him that under the influence of the Twisted Divine Path, he would enter a brief state of mental confusion with each advancement.

Perhaps his appearance here was also related to that state of mental confusion?

As Chen Ling pondered, he walked aimlessly forward. Just then, a tremendous roar echoed from the distance.

Chen Ling turned to look. Large clouds of dust rose from the horizon, and several blurry shadows flickered within them, as if a fierce battle was underway.

"Are they calamities? Or humans?"

Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly. After a moment of hesitation, he still took a step and walked towards it.

Boom—!

The earth trembled as a colossal bone eagle soared skyward from the swirling dust. Simultaneously, a blood-soaked figure hurtled through the low air, fleeing rapidly towards the edge of the horizon.

On the ground, a dense black tide surged. A massive shadow centipede, resembling a miniature winding mountain, followed closely behind the bloody figure.

Under the dual pursuit from land and sky, the bloody figure relentlessly searched for any escape possibility amidst the overlapping bone eagle and shadow tide. However, his speed was still slower than the bone eagle's. After several consecutive evasions, he was slammed back into the earth by a powerful claw!

"Han Meng?!" Chen Ling's heart jolted as he recognized the fleeting figure.