Just like that, as if deceiving himself, Henry Clark began to cautiously explore this wasteland. Having witnessed the terror of that giant wolf, he remained extremely vigilant at every moment. Yet, for some reason, ever since entering this world, his soul body's ability to float had disappeared—he could only walk on the ground like an ordinary person. Moreover, when he touched the stones and soil, he could feel their texture, as if he still had a physical body and the ground and rocks were all solid objects. In this situation, he could only rely on his eyesight to observe his surroundings, staying as alert as a rabbit at every moment, so much so that even the slightest sound would make his heart pound with fear.

However, by proceeding with such caution, in just a few dozen hours, Henry Clark had already traveled over a hundred kilometers from his point of arrival. Along the way, he hadn’t encountered a single monster. On this vast and boundless plain, the number of monsters seemed to be extremely sparse—at least, Henry Clark hadn’t seen even the faintest trace of one, not even in the far distance. This finally allowed him to feel a little more at ease.

As a soul body, Henry Clark had walked over a hundred kilometers without feeling thirsty or hungry, and even his stamina remained intact. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel that his strength seemed to have diminished a bit... It must be an illusion, Henry Clark tried to comfort himself, but deep down, he had a bad premonition.

(Energy conservation, mass conservation—perhaps even soul bodies must abide by these laws. It’s said that someone abroad once conducted an experiment: they placed a dying person in a tightly sealed scale, and at the moment of death, the body’s weight did decrease slightly. That weight was said to be the weight of the soul. Now, my soul has traveled such a long distance, yet I’m not thirsty, not hungry, not even tired. But where does the energy for all this walking come from? Could it be from the very power that makes up my soul? If I keep walking like this, won’t I eventually dissipate into nothingness?)

Henry Clark was truly anxious. In fact, ever since arriving in this hell, he had always carried this anxiety in his heart. Even ants struggle to survive; someone like him, who still had things he wanted to do, was even less willing to die. He still wanted to see his family again, to create something, to care for his parents in their old age... Yes, he didn’t want to die!

With this obsession, Henry Clark headed toward that distant, horizon-spanning void. He wanted to see what was over there. After all, this plain was so vast it was almost absurd. At his walking pace, it wouldn’t just take ten days or half a month—he might have to walk for years. Judging by how his strength had already diminished after just a few dozen hours, if he kept going like this, he would probably dissipate completely in at most half a year, not even a trace of consciousness left. So, his only possible hope was that horizon-spanning void.

As the saying goes, “A horse can die running toward a distant mountain.” Although Henry Clark could see that pitch-black, horizon-spanning void in the far distance, when he actually tried to walk there, he realized the journey was unimaginably long. From his point of arrival to the void, Henry Clark had walked at least two or three hundred hours. In the end, he could no longer keep track of time, and even forgot to worry about whether monsters might appear—he just kept heading toward that void. Along the way, his strength kept diminishing, and he could clearly feel it: compared to when he first arrived in this world, his strength had decreased by at least thirty to forty percent. It was clear that his soul body was indeed gradually weakening.

Just as Henry Clark was lamenting about how he might eventually die, he had already covered about half the distance to the horizon-spanning void. He estimated it would take another four or five hundred hours of walking to get close to it. As he walked and calculated how much weaker he was becoming, suddenly, a wave of dread swept over him from behind—a sense of imminent danger. He had felt this same sensation when the giant wolf appeared. Now, feeling it again, Henry Clark was startled and quickly looked back.

Far off in the sky, at an extreme distance, there was a tiny black dot. If Henry Clark weren’t now a soul body, with vision far sharper than when he was alive, he would never have been able to see something so far away. Although he couldn’t yet make out what the black dot was, his intuition couldn’t be wrong. Ever since becoming a soul body, Henry Clark’s sixth sense had grown much stronger—perhaps this was a unique advantage of being a soul body. Freed from the constraints of the flesh, both his will and soul were liberated, so it made sense that his sixth sense would be heightened.

Seeing that black dot flying in this direction, Henry Clark hurriedly searched for large boulders nearby. But as he looked around, his heart sank—he had unwittingly wandered onto a flat plain. There wasn’t a single large rock in sight, not even a small stone. The nearest boulder was several kilometers away. At his current speed, he wouldn’t even make it a few hundred meters before that flying monster caught and devoured him. After all, this monster could fly, unlike the giant wolf that could only run. In just a few seconds, Henry Clark could already make out the monster’s shape—it was clearly a nine-clawed, human-headed monstrous bird.