A desolate wilderness. Savage beasts roared in the distance.
This wasn't Earth. This was another world—a continent far removed from modern civilization. Here, magical beasts reigned supreme. They drank blood and devoured the weak. The strong ruled, and the rules were written in flesh.
The weeds in the valley were yellow and waist-high. In a bowl-shaped depression, Liu Guanan was locked in a deadly fight with a carrion—a mutated undead.
He rolled, narrowly dodging a swipe of rotting claws. Hands and feet scrambling, he darted back two meters. His fingers flicked behind his back with practiced ease. A wooden arrow appeared in his hand. With a swift draw, the bow arched like a full moon. The arrow shot out like a meteor.
Whoosh!
Bullseye. The arrow struck the carrion in the left eye, sinking two inches deep. Black-red blood burst out, shredding the eyeball into pulp. A gruesome sight—but one Liu Guanan had seen a hundred times before.
Carrion weren't easy to kill. They were corpses twisted by ancient toxins. Muscles atrophied. Fluids dried out. Their bodies were hard as stone—normal arrows bounced right off. But Liu Guanan's arrows were special: shafts carved from local wood, arrowheads honed from beast bone, and fletched with feathers of the huamei pheasant—adding speed and precision.
He reached back for another arrow—and froze. Empty.
His expression shifted. A gust of foul wind brushed his ear. Reflexively, he raised his bow. Crack! The iron-hard bow snapped in two, splinters flying. A force like a battering ram slammed into him. His palms split open. Pain screamed up his arms.
Liu Guanan twisted his body mid-air, curled into a ball, and rolled under the carrion's armpit, barely dodging another swipe. He tumbled to the ground and scrambled backward until he was ten meters away, panting hard.
Two carrion. The one with an arrow in its eye was tall—around 1.7 meters—but hunched. Its back was curved like a hook. Half its flesh had already rotted away, exposing sinew and bone. Its tattered clothing was soaked in purple-black blood. White maggots wriggled through its dry, tangled hair, slipping from nostril to nostril.
The second one was shorter, but even more decayed. Half its chest had collapsed, exposing pale ribs. Its eyes were gone—just empty sockets—and thick maggots chewed lazily at what was left of its face. But its fingers...
Its fingers were terrifying. Everything else had rotted, but the nails had grown wild—three inches long, curved and razor-sharp, glinting with a cold gleam.
Liu Guanan forced two deep breaths. He had to slow his heartbeat. The corpse gas in this valley was thick after millennia of build-up. Even on the outskirts of the Corpse Graveyard, just standing here for five minutes left his chest tight, strength drained. But he couldn't walk away—not with this prime loot on the line.
He'd been lurking around the edge of the Graveyard for a week. He knew carrion rarely acted alone. Normally, the slightest noise would draw a swarm. These two were exceptions—lured out by a team of unlucky scavengers who had failed to return. Twelve men. Wiped out.
Liu Guanan had waited. He knew there wouldn't be a better chance.
He chose the archer class for one reason: survival.
Archers could fight from range. If things went bad, he could run—he'd always have a few dozen meters' head start over melee fighters. More importantly, bows were cheap. Metal weapons—swords, axes, halberds—cost a fortune. But bows? He could make one from sticks and bones. No smithing, no money, no problem.
To his surprise, he had talent. After a few days of clumsy practice, he could hit targets within ten meters with 90% accuracy. At fifteen meters, it dropped to 60%. Past twenty-five? His shots barely scratched.
That's why close-range fights like this were a nightmare.
Carrion flesh was tough. Unless he landed a shot within ten meters, even his best arrows barely left a mark. And carrion were lazy—if you stayed out of range, they just went back to sleep. But get too close...
The two carrion advanced, staggering. But Liu Guanan knew better than to underestimate them. They moved slow—until they didn't.
At five meters, they pounced.
Like twin shadows, they lunged—sharp claws tearing through the air with a whistling screech.
Liu Guanan was ready. He dropped low, bending back in a perfect iron bridge. The claws skimmed his clothes, slicing through fabric like butter. Cold sweat drenched his back.
With a roar, he grabbed the rock he had hidden earlier and slammed it toward the arrow embedded in the tall carrion's eye.
Crack!
The force drove the bone-tipped arrow straight through its skull. A burst of white from the exposed shaft. The rock shattered on impact, caving in the corpse's nose and splattering a cloud of writhing maggots. The carrion shuddered—and collapsed.
Liu Guanan didn't stop. He rolled sideways, grabbing both halves of his broken bow. He looped the bowstring around the short carrion's ankle and yanked. The corpse tumbled.
Without hesitation, Liu Guanan leapt up, grabbed a basin-sized stone, and brought it down hard on its head.
Thud!
The rock cracked into pieces—but the carrion didn't. It straightened with a stiff jerk, strands of yellowed hair drifting in the air.
"Sh*t!"
He didn't have time to grab another rock. He jumped, stomping down on its back—but the instant his foot touched the corpse, a violent force shot through his body.
He flew backward.
Boom—!
Liu Guanan flung the rock with all his might. It struck the bone arrow lodged in the tall carrion's eye socket, driving it deep into the skull. The force split the arrow clean through, revealing the white animal bone beneath. The rock shattered upon impact, collapsing the carrion's nose inwards. Maggots burst from the ruined cavity as the corpse staggered and then collapsed, its limbs twitching violently before falling still.
Not wasting a second, Liu Guanan rolled along the ground. Through past encounters, he had learned that carrion creatures were stiff and inflexible, especially when it came to bending over—one of their fatal flaws.
Gripping the two halves of his broken bow, Liu Guanan used the bowstring as a makeshift rope. He whipped it around the smaller corpse's ankle, yanking with all his might. The creature stumbled, crashing to the ground face-first. Liu Guanan sprang forward, grabbed a rock the size of a washbasin, and slammed it down on the back of the creature's head.
Smash!
The rock exploded into fragments, but the carrion barely flinched. A few tufts of dried yellow hair floated down as the corpse slowly rose again, rigid and relentless. There was no time to search for another weapon. Liu Guanan leapt, planting both feet onto its spine. But as soon as he made contact, a horrifying force hurled him backward like a ragdoll.
Boom!
He slammed into the ground five or six meters away, his back landing squarely on a rock. Pain erupted through his chest, and blood sprayed from his mouth. His vision blurred, but the corpse was already coming for him—drawn by the scent of blood.
The smaller carrion lunged, doubling its previous speed. A black blur swept across the dust as claws flashed toward Liu Guanan's head. In desperation, he rolled blindly, feeling the deadly wind tear past his face. He heard the screech of claws against rock—razor sharp, slicing effortlessly through stone.
Realizing the mortal danger, Liu Guanan bit down hard on his tongue. The pain jolted him awake. He found himself beneath the carrion's feet—one foot already descending toward his abdomen.
"Shit!"
If that thing landed on him, his guts would spill out. He rolled again with all his remaining strength. The rotting foot scraped the ground beside him, kicking up a cloud of dust. He had no strength left to keep dodging, but there was no choice—he had to survive.
In a flash of insight, he noticed the broken bowstring was still tangled around the carrion's leg. He lunged, grabbed it, and gave it a brutal twist—entangling the creature's other foot. The moment it tried to step forward, its balance collapsed. It toppled forward, falling hard onto the ground. Liu Guanan scrambled away just in time.
He couldn't let that corpse touch him. Its rotting flesh and writhing maggots were a walking plague.
Scrambling to his feet, Liu Guanan rushed toward the fallen tall corpse. It was still twitching on the ground, incapable of rising. Without hesitation, he yanked the animal bone arrow free.
But just as he did, a drop of dark liquid splashed onto his thigh.
Sizzle...
A hiss filled the air. His pants burned through instantly, a hole rotting open in the fabric. Smoke curled from his skin as the fluid corroded straight into the muscle. Liu Guanan screamed—the pain was searing, like acid chewing through his soul.
His eyes widened in terror.
Corpse fluid! The deadliest poison in the entire wasteland.
He had seen what it did before. Two men from a previous group had been splashed—and within ten minutes, their bones were all that remained.
Already, a thumb-sized hole had eaten into his thigh, and the edges kept spreading like wildfire. Pain exploded through his body. There was no time.
Gritting his teeth, Liu Guanan pulled a six-inch dagger from his waist. The blade gleamed silver. Without hesitation, he pressed it against his own thigh.
Slice!
A chunk of flesh the size of an egg fell away. Blood gushed down his leg, but he couldn't stop. Pain flooded his brain, blinding and deafening. But it was better than melting alive.
No time to bandage. No time to scream.
He stumbled toward the fallen small carrion, dagger still in hand, and plunged the blade straight into its eye socket.
Right here. Right now. One shot to end this.