The foul stench in the air still hadn’t faded. But every now and then, a drifting breeze carried a fresh fragrance, completely different from the swamp’s reek.

Night Frost opened her eyes, stood up, and slowly walked to the broken window. She stood there and looked out toward the distant forest. This place was so quiet it was terrifying. She couldn’t sense even a trace of living presence.

The sea had devoured every living thing here, leaving behind only the trees that had stubbornly rooted themselves in this land. But now, even those trees seemed like they wouldn’t last much longer. Only a few plants suited to surviving in seawater were still alive.

Night Frost tapped her brow. Her eyes pierced through the darkness around her and landed on a patch behind a shrub that was starting to rot. She couldn’t see it too clearly, but there seemed to be a plant she had seen during the day. Looks like those things still hadn’t given up.

But the moment Night Frost’s gaze fell on it, it hurriedly pulled its branches back. And that one movement was enough for Night Frost to catch it.

Just in case, Night Frost set up another layer of Formation by the door, then returned to the corner. These were the plants that could survive in seawater. Before long, this land would turn into a rotten swamp. And those still-green plants would probably become the rulers of this place.

The Formation disguised the house, hiding both the house itself and everything inside it. Night Frost sat down cross-legged and returned to her meditative state.

The plant outside cautiously crept into the open space before the house. Its movements were light, but all of it was under Night Frost’s watch.

It stayed still for a long time. It was probably confused about why the house that had been here earlier, along with the food inside, had suddenly vanished without a trace.

But that fragrance was still nearby. Night Frost had to be close. It just couldn’t see her because of some special method she had used.

Following that strange scent, it slowly crawled forward. Its body was soft, so even when it bumped into the corners of the house, it didn’t feel pain. As it climbed along the invisible house, it gradually understood everything.

Night Frost and the others had never left. They had just hidden themselves in a way it didn’t understand. It lightly tapped on the wooden house until it found the gap at the window. Then, because Night Frost found it too noisy, she burned it on the spot.

This wasn’t the sea. There wasn’t enough water here to protect them. Night Frost’s flames could easily burn them into ash.

“Why are these things always chasing us so stubbornly... They’ve already suffered for it.”

The flood surged up again. After driving those plants back, Night Frost quietly flew along the surface of the sea. This ocean, and even this forest, stretched so far that she couldn’t see the end of it at a glance.

When the water receded, the group landed on a muddy road and shared a few slices of jerky, celebrating another boring day survived.

Over the next few days, the scenery around them never changed. After the ocean tides came the exact same forest again. Night Frost couldn’t help sighing at just how vast the Myth Abyss was.

They finally found a stream in a mountain ravine. But one sip in, and instead of cool freshness, it was overwhelmingly salty. The sea had poured into it and replaced the stream. Saltwater had filled the spring that once produced sweet water.

Night Frost hurried everyone away from the spring. If those plants surrounded them here, then even if Black Flame had a strong advantage against them, she’d probably still be dragged into another hard fight.

The occasional bird-type Monsters that landed here added a touch of life to this dead-silent forest. But the vines hidden in the dark were already preparing to erase that life and turn it into their nutrients.

Night Frost casually saved one of the birds and released it back into the blue sky. But the bird didn’t leave at all. Instead, it circled around her, chirping nonstop as if trying to say something.

Night Frost wondered if she should just yank it down and roast it. If it wanted to thank her, then it could do so by going into her stomach and filling the belly that hadn’t had much to eat in days.

Even though Night Frost didn’t really need food, people still had cravings and all that. And this bird looked like it had tender, dense meat. If roasted, it’d definitely smell amazing, right?

If Li Dogegg hadn’t stepped in to translate the bird language for her, Night Frost really might have eaten this helpless little bird.

“It says there’s something good nearby. It wants to take us there.”

The birds and beasts in the Myth Abyss were actually this intelligent. Night Frost couldn’t help marveling. She turned to Li Dogegg and had him pass her words on to the bird in the air.

After chatting with the bird for a bit, Night Frost got quite a lot of useful information. Far more than she’d ever gotten from Li Dogegg. For example, what this forest was called, roughly where they were in its depths, and which places wouldn’t sink.

A random weak little bird knew more than Li Dogegg. Li Dogegg, you really are the most useless one here! Just behave and be a dragon-shaped translation machine!

This forest was the one at the center of the continent. It was known as the Forest of Origin, recognized by all living things in this Abyss as the birthplace of life here.

But one day, a second sun rose. From then on, the continent began to sink. The seawater around it started surging upward. And when the third sun appeared recently, this forest called the Forest of Origin was completely swallowed by the sea.

After committing all that information to memory, Night Frost followed the bird toward the so-called “good thing.” It was a hill not too far from their group. After crossing that gently sloping hill, they arrived at the place the bird had mentioned.

The moment she got there, Night Frost’s eyes widened. In front of her stood what looked like an enormous white mountain. Looking closer, she finally realized it was actually a gigantic Monster. She couldn’t sense even the slightest bit of life from it.

Only after driving away the annoying nearby plants with flames was Night Frost able to properly examine this giant creature.

Compared to it, even the hill beside it seemed dull and insignificant. Standing at its feet, Night Frost was like an ant looking up at a towering mountain.

Other than that bug from Chapter Three, this was probably the largest Monster Night Frost had ever seen.

She placed her palm against its pale, smooth skin. She could feel Mana and Abyssal Aura still flowing inside it. It was already dead, yet a long, lingering current of Mana and Abyssal Aura still remained in its body, refusing to disperse. It left Night Frost in awe.

Eye Orb was far more professional than Night Frost in this regard. Even though this was a Monster it had never seen before, after a careful inspection, Eye Orb was still able to give her a rough estimate of its time of death.

“It died this morning... or rather, the seawater this morning gave it a little more time to live.”

Eye Orb spent some time recording the creature’s data. Its structure was very similar to fish-type Monsters from the surface world. It was about eighty percent similar to a creature called a whale. If they extracted its genes, Eye Orb could determine whether the two shared the same origin.

This Monster couldn’t survive without water. Eye Orb guessed that when the sea rose a few days ago, it had accidentally entered this place, only to become trapped by the surrounding hills and unable to leave.

When the sea receded, it was stranded here. Then the scorching sun beat down on it. The remaining moisture in these hills was completely evaporated. On top of that, the surrounding plants tore at it and gnawed on it. Its life had slowly been approaching its end.

The rise and fall of the seawater over the past few days had prolonged its life, but it had also brought it endless pain. By the time it reached this place, it no longer had the strength to smash through the hills and escape this cramped prison.

“Since it’s already dead... leaving it here would be too much of a waste.”

This whale was clearly a Monster from Cantata Two, yet Night Frost had the strange feeling that even against a Cantata Three creature, it wouldn’t necessarily be at a disadvantage. Its massive body gave her that illusion.

The bird landed on the whale’s corpse and feasted happily. Night Frost used a small knife to cut away some of the whale’s fat. She remembered there was a saying in District Nineteen near the sea in the surface world: when a whale falls, all things thrive.

When a whale dies, its corpse first feeds marine life. Then microorganisms break down its bones. In the end, everything returns to the sea. The death of one whale can nourish countless lives in the ocean.

It sounded beautiful, but the truth was cruel beyond words. After it died, very little of it would truly remain. That was its fate.

“This is good stuff.”

Night Frost cut open the whale’s insides and took out the Magic Stone. Not just the Magic Stone, but even things like dried fish inside it—she left nothing behind.

Just as Night Frost was enjoying herself with the dissection, a faint sound came from the nearby forest. It was footsteps. Very heavy footsteps.

Night Frost hid behind the whale’s tail with Eye Orb and Li Dogegg, who had been chatting with the bird, then looked around for the source of the sound.

Crack!

Night Frost heard it. Heavy footsteps were coming from the north. A branch had been stepped on and snapped with a crisp sound.

Who would be out here at a time like this? The sea had only just receded. How could a normal person survive in that sea?

If it wasn’t a humanoid being, then it had to be a Monster capable of moving on both land and sea.

“Is that... a human?”

Two dark figures stepped out from the shadowy forest. One wore a tattered cloak. It was soaked through with water and tangled with seaweed. The other wore no cloak, and her reflection appeared in Night Frost’s crimson-gold eyes.

The second one wore light clothing and was barefoot, stumbling through the mud and leaving a footprint with every step.

Her clothes were soaked through as well and looked incredibly heavy. The hem of her skirt seemed to have been torn apart by something, exposing her smooth thighs, but she didn’t seem to care.

She had beautiful blonde hair. Sunlight fell across her deathly pale skin. Looking closer, Night Frost saw that her body was covered in quite a few wounds, all of them soaked white by seawater.

The other one’s gender couldn’t be seen clearly because of the cloak, but Night Frost could tell she was a woman too.

They seemed to have suffered some kind of shipwreck. There wasn’t a single part of them left uninjured. Paired with that pure and lovely face, it really stirred pity.

“She has pointed ears?”

Li Dogegg told Night Frost that these people were called elves. The bird beside him added that, more precisely, they were jungle elves. They were the guardians of this forest, and apparently one of the earliest lifeforms born in the Forest of Origin.

They were a very gentle species, but they also had an extremely strong sense of territory...