I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords-Chapter 63 - 062. In the Mist_1
Chapter 63: 062. In the Mist_1
Chapter 63: 062. In the Mist_1
Though Lu Ban’s home, Jiangcheng, was near a river, it seldom saw heavy fog; most of the time, there was only a wisp of mist hovering over the river, partially veiling it like a sheer scarf on a woman’s face, shrouding the mountains and waters.
But now, he was facing a dense fog that obscured visibility.
The vast white fog spread through the air; beyond a meter outside the coach, it became excessively blurred. Looking up, the night sky was invisible, while looking down, he could barely see the gravel road—there was an unsettling feeling emanating from the churning fog.
The only comforting aspect was the faint glow of lights in the distance, their man-made brilliance piercing through the fog, indicating direction and emitting a sense of warmth.
The coachman was a man with deep brown hair and dark skin. He put down his whip and looked back.
“I need to take a leak.”
Lu Ban’s fellow traveler nodded, and they watched the coachman get off and walk into the dense fog.
He didn’t go far; Lu Ban could still vaguely make out the coachman’s figure through the thick fog.
“My name is Cui Siter, but you can call me Old Cui. As you can see, I’m a detective.”
The fellow traveler struck a match and lit the tobacco in his pipe.
“?”
Lu Ban was a bit puzzled.
Shouldn’t the name Cui Siter belong to a foreigner, or was this person surnamed Cui and named Siter?
Quite odd indeed.
“However, if you’ve just completed your first guiding task and are dealing with fellow travelers for the first time, you probably finished fewer than four tasks, right? To dare choose the [Corrosion] difficulty under such circumstances is quite bold of you.”
Cui Siter took a puff from his pipe, his gaze shifting from the coachman, who was now pulling up his trousers, to the dim lights in the distance.
“Luckily, you’ve met me. With me in charge, the [Corrosion] difficulty is just more prone to mishaps. As long as we are careful and deliberate, and avoid triggering too many events, there won’t be…”
As he shifted his gaze back, the words suddenly ceased.
“Hmm? Did you see that?”
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Cui Siter asked Lu Ban.
Lu Ban nodded.
Before them, the coachman had vanished.
Just a moment ago, the coachman had shivered, pulled up his trousers, and as he turned around, the fog thickened, obscuring his already faint outline before drifting away.
Then the coachman disappeared.
Without a sound, without any warning, without any struggle.
Cui Siter reached into his coat, pulling out a revolver from the holster under his arm.
He approached the coachman’s seat cautiously, not daring to get off to investigate, simply lifting the lantern on the side to light the spot where the coachman had stood.
The gravel road and the weeds showed no signs of disturbance.
The fog seemed to retreat slightly at the sight of the light, revealing a twisted, grey-white object.
“Right.”
Suddenly, a voice came from behind Cui Siter; he jerked in surprise, quickly retracting his hand holding the lantern and turned around to look.
Lu Ban was holding a crowbar, seated by the door.
“Don’t talk so suddenly…”
Cui Siter broke into a cold sweat.
“Oh.”
Lu Ban nodded, then continued.
“My name is Lu Ban.”
“Huh?”
Cui Siter was taken aback, not immediately grasping the meaning of Lu Ban’s remark.
“My name is Lu Ban, introducing oneself is a matter of courtesy,”
Lu Ban repeated.
“…I see.”
Cui Siter felt that there might be something off about this man before him.
If it weren’t for the fact that fellow travelers wouldn’t be hostile, he might have had to use his revolver as a precaution against Lu Ban.
“Besides not actively seeking trouble, the [Corrosion] difficulty often brings problems our way. It seems we’re facing our first test.”
He took the driver’s seat and hung up the lantern.
“Our task is the same, we must at least make it to Dried Water Town successfully,” he said.
Lu Ban did not raise any objections.
He couldn’t ride horses, nor did he know how to drive a carriage, so he sat in the back on guard.
In the thick fog, only the one or two points of light ahead sustained their hope.
“This place isn’t just an ordinary wilderness path… It’s some kind of abandoned village,” Cui Siter said as he drove the carriage and looked around.
The fog wasn’t constant, with the carriage’s movement and the barely perceptible night breeze, the dense fog would also surge like the tide. When it receded slightly, one could see the roadside weeds and the rubble hidden within them.
These were the remnants of buildings, it was unclear what kind of impact had caused the walls to collapse like this. Some that were still standing appeared and disappeared in the fog, like some enormous beast ready to pounce.
There was no sound in the fog, no chirping of insects, no birdsong, no rustling of nocturnal animals—nothing at all.
The cold fog carried a hint of damp decay, penetrating deep into the lungs, making one’s body chill and uncontrollably shiver.
The world was utterly silent, as if death itself.
Only the sounds of the horse’s hooves and the carriage wheels rolling over the gravel filled their ears.
“I had been to Night Country once before on a mission, but that was an easy survival task. I lasted six hours in a wine cellar until dawn, and it ended. As long as you have guns and bullets, dealing with common monsters isn’t a problem,” Cui Siter said, either really guiding the newbie or to alleviate his own fears.
“I haven’t encountered this situation before. Are we really getting closer to those lights?” he asked, somewhat doubting.
At that moment, he realized there were no sounds around them.
Yes, even the sounds of the horse hooves and carriage wheels had vanished.
Cui Siter turned his head to look back at the carriage, where Lu Ban sat in his seat, silent.
The disappearance of the noise of the horse hooves and carriage wheels meant that the carriage had stopped.
“Giddy up!” Cui Siter cracked the whip, but the horse did not move an inch.
“There seems to be something up ahead.”
Lu Ban lifted a hand not holding the crowbar and pointed.
Cui Siter picked up the lantern and reached forward.
He saw that, in front of the horse, where the thick fog was dispersed by the light, there was a stone statue.
The statue was shrouded in fog, with its specific features indiscernible.
A light emerged behind Cui Siter.
Lu Ban was holding a powerful flashlight, piercing through the fog’s cover, and the light shone on the statue.
It was a humanoid statue, with limbs slightly damaged, positioned in a kneeling gesture as if saluting toward a certain direction, sideways to the carriage.
But the statue’s head was not that of a human being.
It was a fish.
It was as if a fish’s head had been forcibly chopped off and stuck onto a person’s neck.
The shape of the fish head was also quite strange, much sharper, more elongated, with its mouth half open revealing uneven teeth inside. The gill slits were slightly ajar, revealing the finely carved internal structure.
“Normal statues wouldn’t look like this,” Cui Siter’s voice was very soft, as if worried about disturbing something lying asleep in the fog.
“This kind of statue, obviously made to worship some deity, wouldn’t be deliberately carved incomplete. But the teeth of this fish, and where the head connects to the neck, all look unnatural, as if…”
“As if it was a real living creature that turned into this,” Lu Ban finished Cui Siter’s sentence. He extended the crowbar and tapped the statue, chipping off a small piece, it was indeed stone.
“Let’s bypass it, at least there are lights guiding…”
Cui Siter raised his whip towards the front, but he didn’t finish his sentence.
Because within the fog, even those lights carrying warmth and hope had disappeared.
*
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