William Carter felt that even though he was a ruthless person, these soldiers outside were even more cold-blooded and vicious than he was—practically emotionless killing machines. The cold gleam in the soldiers’ eyes made even the bloodthirsty William Carter feel uncomfortable.

Three thousand people, and in the blink of an eye, all their corpses lay strewn across the valley—this was the cruelty of war.

The entrance to the cave where William Carter was hiding was narrow and tucked into a corner of the cliff face, making it extremely hard to find. He thought he could escape this disaster this time, but soon realized he was wrong. After sweeping through the area, the enemy didn’t stop there—they doused the valley with kerosene, and before leaving, set it alight. In an instant, the valley became a sea of fire.

Thick black smoke poured in from outside the cave, making William Carter see stars before his eyes. He wanted to block the entrance, but there wasn’t even any dirt or stones inside the cave. Helpless, he could only grit his teeth and move deeper inside, but the cave wasn’t as deep as he’d imagined—after walking less than twenty meters, he reached the end.

“Cough, cough—” He coughed violently as he quickly felt along the cave wall, hoping to find a way out. After searching for a while, he was filled with despair—the cave was a dead end, with no other passageways at all. In the end, William Carter sat slowly on the ground, both helpless and exhausted. The arrow wound on his shoulder was still bleeding, draining his strength bit by bit.

Was he really going to die here? Die inexplicably in such an inexplicable place? William Carter lifted the corner of his clothes, covered his mouth and nose, and lowered his head with a bitter smile.

Chapter 0007: Salty Shade Valley

The oxygen in the cave was getting thinner and thinner, and his consciousness was gradually slipping away from his body. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He knew very well that if he closed his eyes, he might never open them again. If he wanted to survive, he had to stay awake.

The thick smoke had already filled the cave. An ordinary person would probably have fainted long ago, but William Carter was able to hold on purely thanks to his extraordinary willpower and survival instinct.

He didn’t notice that the blood flowing from the wound on his shoulder didn’t disappear after hitting the ground. Instead, as if drawn by some kind of suction, it flowed toward a spot not far away and vanished. The blood that had flowed in from the cave entrance also gathered there and disappeared without a trace.

Just as William Carter could no longer even maintain a sitting posture and his body was about to collapse, he suddenly felt the ground beneath him tremble.

He wasn’t sure if it was real, since his consciousness was growing more and more blurred—it could have been a hallucination.

“Bang!”

A muffled sound suddenly echoed in the silent cave, startling William Carter. He struggled to lift his eyelids and looked in the direction of the sound.

After glancing twice, he wondered if the smoke had blurred his vision, because he saw something so bizarre that he couldn’t help but raise his hand and rub his eyes hard. When he looked again, his eyes gradually widened, and his mouth slowly dropped open in shock.

Not far from him, an arm was stretching out from beneath the ground. Rather than an arm, it was more like a skeletal hand—perhaps because of its age, the bones had turned a dark brown, with shriveled black flesh connecting the joints.

In a pitch-black hole where no one should ever have been able to find anything, an arm suddenly stretched out from underground—this was the height of eeriness. William Carter felt his scalp tingle, his hair standing on end. If he hadn’t been covering his mouth and nose with his clothes, he would have screamed out loud.

“Crack, crack—”

As the sound of stone breaking echoed, cracks began to appear in the ground around the arm. The cracks grew larger and more numerous, and the ground seemed to be breathing, rising and falling.

William Carter, just a short distance away, stared in shock. He had the urge to flee immediately, but his body suddenly felt like it no longer belonged to him—he couldn’t move at all, and could only sit there in a daze.

“Whoosh! Clatter!”

Suddenly, the broken stones on the ground flew apart, and a skeleton with only dried flesh and no skin sat up from the earth. Even though the cave was filled with thick smoke, William Carter seemed to catch a whiff of a rotten stench.

A ghost... Is it a ghost?!

William Carter had never believed in ghosts. He had killed so many people, with countless souls under his blade, but never had a single ghost come looking for him. But now, he couldn’t explain what was happening—his world had completely changed on this day.

Clatter, clatter!

The withered skeleton slowly stood up from the ground, and William Carter’s heartbeat grew faster and faster. He heard the skeleton’s bones creaking as it moved, and saw its skull slowly turn toward him.

He couldn’t see the skeleton’s eyes, only two black holes, within which ghostly red lights flickered. When those two red lights landed on William Carter’s face, he seemed to forget how to breathe. An invisible pressure suddenly descended, as if it would crush and shatter his body.

The lifeless skeleton now seemed to possess life, and it walked step by step toward William Carter.

William Carter couldn’t move, and could only watch helplessly as the skeleton approached, bent down, and brought its head close to his—its fleshless, terrifying face nearly touching his own.

Without warning, a blinding light suddenly shot from the skeleton’s brow, striking the center of William Carter’s forehead. All he felt was a buzzing in his head, then everything went black, and he knew nothing more.