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With no more than twenty days left before the cold season struck, the scavenging hunt needed to sortie—quickly and urgently.

They packed their things, prepared the carts, loaded them with gear and weapons plus some dry rations, then the procession of the fifteen packed and readied men marched towards the exit of the village to say their farewells.

The womenfolk and the children of the village were all rattling with sobs.

“I’ll be waiting for you, Daddy! You have to come back! You must!”

“Be careful out there, son! Listen to the captain and follow his instructions, all right?”

“You need to get back, husband! Your son’s only just two-plus! You need to come back and teach him how to fight yourself!”

It was like the men were saying their final farewells.

And yet, it was.

Of the fifteen men, how many men will return, no one could say. This was not the first time a scavenging hunt had to be sent out to forage for food. Maybe one of these fifteen men might be lost. Maybe all of them. The people of Oststern had gone through such pains before.

Under the somber and watchful gazes of their families, the fifteen men broke into an ancient but no less epic war dance—the waving of their weapons, the thumping of their chests, and the guttural cries of the warriors who were about to leave the fastness of the village to face the terrors outside—that was a custom that belonged also to the soldiers in the military. A ritual that they would perform before they marched to war. A demonstration of their resolve and courage to face the demons outside and not back down.

With the war dance ritual completed, Feng and his men were preparing to leave when Li Mu stepped out.

“Feng, I’m coming with you.”

Every pair of eyes at the gates of the village panned toward him.

Li Mu had been secretive about his power, working like an ordinary person in the fields every day, hence everyone in the village had been kind and gentle with the Chosen One, believing that without his power returning yet, he could even be weaker than some of the older and senior folks in the village.

“We cannot allow that! You’re a Chosen One who will one day be an officer in the military! With your power and memory still not yet returned, we cannot allow you to endure such risks with us!” Feng denied the request flatly.

“Well, actually, a part of my power has returned,” revealed Li Mu. He swung his weapon and fired a bolt that sliced through a boulder just outside Oststern that was almost the size of a man into halves.

“Wow! That’s incredible!” Xing Yan was the first to clap her tiny little hands with an exclamation.

That changed how everyone looked at Li Mu.

“He’s one of the Chosen Ones indeed! He’s become so powerful without us even noticing it!

“That blow alone makes him almost as good as Feng, who’s already one of the best men we have in Oststern!”

“Not bad,” Feng nodded approvingly. “That places you in the Worm Realm at least.” But he shook his head again. “No, still you’re a Chosen One and the wilderness is just too dangerous for you. You will be an officer one day in the military where power and authority will be at your fingertips. Hell, the fate of all humanity rests on the shoulders of all Chosen Ones like you. We cannot let anything go wrong with you!”

“I’ll just have to be more careful,” Li Mu said, “There won’t be any problem. What’s more, I have this ability to sneak away quickly.” He blurred at where he was, leaving a trail of more than ten afterimages while he reappeared a hundred meters away. Then he vanished again and rejoined Feng. Everyone barely two or three seconds.

“What incredible speeds?!”

Everyone was astonished.

Feng had a quick talk with the village headman until finally, they provisionally agreed to Li Mu’s dogged persistence to join the hunt.

“Well, I hereby convey my gratitude for this, Li Mu. But I need your word that you’ll always obey my instructions. Or I’ll have men drag you back here. Understood?” warned Feng sternly.

“You have my word,” Li Mu bobbed his head.

Feng exhaled with relief.

And that was it. The scavenging hunt of Oststern embarked on their fateful journey.

They left the village.

After almost a half-hour of trekking, Li Mu looked back. There was Oststern’s Tree of Eternity in the distance like a green umbrella-like landmark that marked “Home” for these men.

This was his first time stepping out of the village.

There was not a sign of life outside.

Death and despair pervaded the atmosphere that clung to the earth like moisture on the skin, like the vapors that rose in the swelter of the blistering heat.

With the soil dried, parched, and cracked as if a nuclear eruption had once taken place here and had annihilated all life, all they saw were patches of black thorny vines without leaves strewn on the ground.

“That’s a Blackbriar. It doesn’t have any nutritional benefits,” Feng explained.

With extensive experience in scavenging and hunting for food in the wild,

Li Mu only needed to maintain a low profile in the group.

The scavenging group trekked for more than fifty miles in the whole afternoon.

Finally, they reached somewhere where they encountered more vegetation.

They found some plants with leaves and stems that could be consumed as food, which they plucked and stored away.

Time just passes by so quickly especially when one is busy toiling.

Night descended swiftly upon them.

The scavenging hunt found a shelter to stay the night.

Sunsets in the wilderness often are ominous. If one were to only hear the whistle of breezes during the day, then one would be in for a tremendous shock and horror at the incessant roars and hisses of beasts in the night, to say nothing of the ghostly will-o’-the-wisps that heralds not hope and comfort, but rather such creepiness and horror that Li Mu could even feel his hairs standing on ends.

To erase the smell of human flesh, every scavenger had applied something black on their faces which Li Mu quickly learned that it was mud mashed with leaves of the Tree of Eternity. Next, they employed a form of passive breathing known as the embryonic breathing technique to pretend to be lifeless especially when they sensed wild beasts prowling nearby. With raising a fire an obvious impossibility, they could only depend on their dry rations as sustenance.

This was the first time Li Mu saw the true wilderness of the Battlefield of Chaos and it was an enlightening experience.

The inside and outside of any human settlement, including Oststern, were two starkly contrasting worlds.

The wilderness outside is the real Battlefield of Chaos.

Without the protective dome-like effulgence of the Tree of Eternity, Li Mu could properly feel the difference between Nature here and Nature on Earth. Like how the atmosphere here is richer in Spiritual Qi compared to Earth, everything is stronger, sturdier, harsher, if not deadlier here. Even the gravity here is ten times stronger than that of Earth.

The strength and power of Cultivators and even champion Cultivators are all being restricted.

Take Feng for instance. A Worm-Realm Cultivator like him could only be one of the best champions of a modest little village in this world. In the eyes of the militaristic regime, he was but merely a weakling. He might have the same strength, power, and endurance comparable to the other Worm-Realm Cultivators Li Mu had encountered before, but unlike them, he could not fly. He could only walk.

In the meantime, Li Mu was doing his best he could to “feel” and get used to the atmosphere of the wilderness, channeling his Talismanic Power so that he could attune himself to the intrinsic nature of this dimension as soon as possible.

At the same time, he grew interested in something Feng was just telling him about: demons.

From the conversations that he had been having with Feng for the past few days, the “demons” that he mentioned seemed like ethereal beings, not unlike ghosts and spirits, but much deadlier. These “demons” appear in the night to wander around the wilderness, attacking and consuming the flesh of other wild beasts or even their own kind to grow and become stronger.

“So does these ‘demons’ have sentience or souls of their own?” Li Mu once asked.

But Feng did not know the answer to that question and that bothered Li Mu like an itch he could not scratch.

But something told him that these “demons” could be the key to locating the missing fragments of Wang Shiyu’s psyche and soul.

The peaceful scavenging lasted for another two to three days.

To Feng’s surprise, their sortie this year had been relatively safe and lucky. They had not encountered any wild beasts at all up until now nor were they assailed by any of the malevolent or deadly “demons” that Feng told him about. In fact, they had even stumbled about the carcasses of several beasts which looked like an internecine battle resulting in the deaths of both sides, and that saved the scavengers the trouble of having to hunt.

“If this goes on, I daresay we’ll have enough food in another five days. Then we’ll be able to head home,” said Feng.

“Gods, we’re just so lucky this time!”

“Maybe the gods really are helping us.”

The scavengers were ecstatic.

Even Feng, in spite of his experience and reservedness, couldn’t help feeling relieved and joyful too.

He could not even remember having a hunt that was this easy and uneventful before. “Was this really the Tree of Eternity keeping them safe?” he wondered.

Another three days breezed by.

Another three days were just as quiet and unremarkable as the last.

Zero hazards and zero threats.

“Whew! Well, that’s enough food for everyone at last! It’s late now, so we’ll stay the night here and set off for home tomorrow,” said Feng with a satisfied look at the cart laden full of food and gear.

They have had a good haul.

The villagers back home will be able to survive this winter even with the poor harvest. There might be a need to stretch the ration thinner somewhat, but at least no one would have to die this winter.

The shroud of night befell the scavengers once again.

The scavengers applied the black tar-like mud on themselves and employed the same embryonic breathing technique as usual while they take turns keeping watch. It was Li Mu and Feng’s turn to take the watch before midnight.

“You should get some rest, Li Mu. I think it will be a peaceful night, so I should be enough,” said Feng. The scavengers have been doing their best to make the hunt as comfortable as they could for Li Mu. It was not just the fact that he was a Chosen One, but at the same time, the scavengers were immensely grateful that he volunteered to come along to help and they, with the whole village of Oststern included, were touched by the gesture.

After all, he could have just stayed back and enjoyed the spoils without even lifting a finger.

“I’m fine, Feng. You, on the other hand, could do with some rest. You’ve been working hard lately,” said Li Mu.

Feng smiled. “It’s okay. I’m used to such abuse. What’s more, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky this time. I was just beginning to wonder if the wilderness has turned tame on us, hahaha…”

Li Mu smiled.

“I bet it’s your being a Chosen One who’s been bringing us good luck,” joked Feng.

“Um, let’s not go overboard with all the flattery.”

An amused Li Mu thought.

Midnight was about to strike, and everything seemed quiet and smooth.

Feng yawned. He was about to rouse another scavenger for the next watch when his eyes caught sight of something deep scarlet. Petrified, he shuddered stiffly for one second before his eyes shot wide with dawning horror. He looked up at once.

Li Mu was already looking up.

Something was wrong with the sky overhead.

What started at first was a silvery moon hanging in the darkened sky had taken a morbid and horrific turn when a dark umbra slowly shifted into view from its rear. As it peeled further and further away, it fully exposed its blood-red luminescence and cast upon the earth of the Battlefield a sheen of macabre crimson.

The blood moon gradually dislodged itself from its otherwise innocent and pure twin.

“Double moons?!”

Li Mu gasped with astoundment.

He had seen enough of the moon here in the Battlefield of Chaos.

It appears every night here in this dimension and never once had Lu Ye ever seen it in other forms aside from a full moon. In fact, for some reason, the moon seemed to Li Mu like it was a hundred times closer as if he could just pluck the moon off the sky if he wanted to.

Yet right now, having two moons in the sky and one of them as red as blood was a spine-tingling sight to behold.

“Two moons and one of them’s a blood moon…” Feng gasped, recoiling with mounting panic.

Li Mu peered at him.

For the first time since they met, Li Mu registered fear on Feng’s face—a heretofore unseen side of one of the champions of Oststern. Shivering with fright, he stammered, “I-It’s coming! Disaster is coming! Quick, Li Mu! Get everyone up NOW! We need to get back to Oststern as quickly as we could before the blood moon fully appears!”

All around them, the entire jungle erupted into a crescendo of angry and ferocious roars and howls of beasts in a mania.

Further away, will-o’-the-wisps flitted around like frenzied predatory avians provoked and angered.

But what bothered Li Mu the most was how the rusted sword was beginning to tremor.

Li Mu abruptly sprang to his feet.