He continued on, persistently attempting to harness the ability to fly using Death Qi. His movements were clumsy, but he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Without him realizing, the Death Qi before him grew denser. Even without activating the [Death Omen Eye], his naked eye could perceive massive formations of condensed Death Qi blanketing the path ahead.

Faintly, sounds of sorrowful crying and sobbing seemed to drift from the dark mist.

FLAP—

Several Dead Spirit Crows, under Lu Yuan's control, flapped their wings and darted into the dark mist.

Lu Yuan gathered the Death Qi, and his Lv. 1 [Netherworld Clothing] quietly materialized on his body. It solidified into a thin, translucent film of light. Then, step by step, he slowly walked in.

The map indicated he had now reached an unexplored area. The information transmitted by the Dead Spirit Crows was indistinct, barely allowing Lu Yuan to discern that... This seems to be an abandoned gathering point. Like... a small village?!

His gaseous Spiritual Power dispersed within the dark mist. Suppressed by the Death Qi, its detection range was compressed to less than one hundred meters. The drone behind him, carrying the resource pack, emitted static, like signal interference, as Lu Yuan maintained a calm expression and continued to delve deeper.

SCRAPE—SCRAPE—

Suddenly, a series of strange sounds came from ahead. The noise sounded like someone dragging something heavy and rough across the ground.

Lu Yuan's eyes flickered as he looked through the [Death Omen Eye]. He saw a dense, humanoid silhouette of Death Qi steadily advancing towards him from the dark mist. No, it wasn't just one silhouette.

Similar sounds echoed from all directions, near and far. The dark mist was filled with shadowy, vague figures. The unknown, the mysterious, the frightening... assailed him one after another.

For a moment, Lu Yuan felt a sense of déjà vu, as if he were playing some kind of horror game.

However... "The protagonist of a horror game can only run, but I... I can power through," Lu Yuan murmured softly. The nascent tension and thrill that had barely sprouted in his heart evaporated instantly.

Under his Spiritual Power detection, the full forms of the unknown assailants in the dark mist were revealed. They were figures of varying heights with robust bodies, tightly wrapped from head to toe in blackish-grey strips of cloth. Each figure dragged a weapon: pitchforks, hoes, sickles... They all appeared to be common agricultural tools.

Lu Yuan remained calm. The Death Qi around his body suddenly surged, transforming into thick, black, tentacle-like columns that shot out violently in all directions.

BOOM!

One column viciously struck the nearest robust, decaying figure. The figure was sent flying seven or eight meters without uttering a sound. Then, it shook its head and staggered back to its feet.

The spot where Lu Yuan's Death Qi had struck caved in, and the blackish-grey cloth strips wrapping its body tore apart. However, as Death Qi from the surroundings flowed in, the indentation bulged back out, and the torn blackish-grey cloth strips rewove themselves, mending completely.

"Nether Clothing?!" Lu Yuan immediately recognized the blackish-grey cloth strips on his adversary as some external manifestation of [Netherworld Clothing]. He couldn't help but grumble aloud, "Damn it, even a trash mob's Nether Clothing skill level is higher than mine... What kind of game am I even playing?"

He felt helpless but knew he had to press on. I'm a magician now, I'm a magician now! Lu Yuan repeatedly told himself. Meanwhile, he continued to control the columns of Death Qi, sweeping them around.

This was one of the simplest techniques for manipulating Death Qi. The Divine Servants of the Crow God Sect Lu Yuan had previously encountered basically controlled Death Qi at this level. He had tried Calophis's technique of condensing Death Qi into moon-shaped blades and launching them a few times, but he was still quite clumsy with it.

However, when using Death Qi to attack monsters also born of Death Qi, its inherent corrosive property had almost no enhancing effect. The surrounding Death Qi was especially dense, and the monsters brandishing farming tools were like cockroaches: they would fall only to get up again, over and over... Lu Yuan fought for a long time, the air filled with the sounds of CLANGS and BANGS from his attacks, yet he hadn't managed to kill a single mob.

He couldn't bear it any longer.

BOOM!

With a fierce stomp, the ground beneath him erupted. His figure transformed into a ferocious shadow and darted into the dark mist. Thick Death Qi wrapped around his body and hands like a cloak.

He casually swatted at a monster. Nearly a hundred tons of force crashed down, and the creature instantly exploded into fragments with a BOOM.

BANG! BOOM! BOOM!

One after another, they fell. Before long, Lu Yuan had cleared out all the surrounding figures with his bare hands.

He stood there expressionlessly, looking at the monster corpses at his feet. Once deprived of Death Qi's support, they rapidly decomposed as if weathered by time, turning into piles of greyish dust. Within the dust, a greyish-black bead the size of his little finger was revealed.

Lu Yuan's eyes gleamed for a moment before he bent down to pick it up. After a brief search, he had found about twenty such beads. Lu Yuan picked up one bead and inspected it closely. Based on appearance alone, this bead didn't seem different from the Red Beads he had obtained from the Crow God's Divine Servants before; only the color differed. The former resembled a crow's eye, while this one... It looks like the eye of a dead crow.

Can I absorb these? Lu Yuan wondered. Even as he wondered, he crushed the bead between his fingers. The greyish-black bead quickly turned to sand after shattering. A thick, blackish-grey liquid flowed from the remnants, seeping into Lu Yuan's skin.

Instantly, a stream of notifications flashed across Lu Yuan's class interface. On the [Death Teller (Extraordinary)] panel, his class Experience Points and the skill experience for [Circulation of Death Qi] were also increasing.

So, they're the same... Lu Yuan was elated.

Suddenly, numerous fragmented and dim images surged into his mind. In a daze, he suddenly found himself in a vast field. The sky before him was split into two colors. Half was azure blue, while the other half... was a murky, dense blackish-grey. A colossal mass of black fog rolled in like a tidal wave from the far side of the sky, devouring everything in its path. An indescribable fear and despair gripped his heart. An involuntary cry ripped from his throat—a stream of unintelligible sounds! Then, he was completely engulfed by the boundless black fog...

BUZZ—

Lu Yuan's body trembled slightly as he snapped out of his trance. He stood dazedly in place for a moment. Then, he lowered his head and slowly picked up a pitchfork-like farming tool lying beside a pile of monster remains at his feet.

Without the empowerment of Death Qi, the tool itself was so corroded it barely resembled its original form. Lu Yuan carefully examined every part of the farming tool. Finally, on the pitchfork's handle, he found a few strange, unfamiliar, and distorted characters.

He felt, strangely, as if he could understand the meaning of these characters and involuntarily read them aloud:

"Holy Light... bestows upon... Ans... Ka... abundance... and harvest."

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