Chapter 1359: If You Seek Death

Ethan nodded in agreement, then raised a hand and pointed ahead.

A gray-white bird hung in midair. Its wings were frozen mid-flap between two branches, with nothing supporting it from below.

"Look at that one," Ethan said. "Can you sense any life in it?"

Auri followed his finger.

She studied the bird for a moment, then pointed at it, looking even more confused.

"I can!"

Auri focused again.

"But only a tiny bit."

It was alive?

Ethan looked down at the shattered remains of the squirrel and boar, his heart sinking.

Had he just killed the creatures here with his own hands?

He was about to apologize when Auri continued, "But they really want to die."

Ethan turned toward her.

Auri kept her eyes on the bird, sensing the faint trace of life inside it.

"It wants to die very badly."

A grim possibility occurred to Ethan.

Perhaps the gray-white power preserved these creatures exactly as they had been when it overtook them, freezing their bodies in that moment while keeping their last breath of life intact.

But that didn’t mean time had truly stopped for them.

Unable to eat for so long, their remaining life would continue to weaken. Then, just as they were about to die, the gray-white power would preserve that final spark, refusing to let them pass away.

All they could do was endure their hunger forever.

They wanted to die, but couldn’t.

This so-called immortality was tragic.

Auri released Ethan’s hand and walked beneath the bird. She raised both arms and jumped, but her fingertips fell far short.

She tried again.

Still nowhere close.

Ethan stepped behind her, gently lifted her up, and set her on top of his head.

Now level with the bird, Auri immediately brightened. She steadied herself with one hand on Ethan’s head, then carefully reached out and tapped the bird with a finger.

Ethan instinctively held his breath.

The bird didn’t crumble like the squirrel and boar.

The moment Auri’s fingertip touched its feathers, a cheerful chirp rang through the forest. The sound was crisp and brief, but it broke the silence that had hung over the gray-white woods for so long.

When the chirp ended, the bird vanished.

No fragments or feathers remained in the air. Only the branches on either side continued swaying gently in the wind.

Ethan stared at the empty space, now more certain of his earlier theory.

This gray-white energy had frozen time at a single moment, then forcibly preserved the entire ecosystem exactly as it had been.

It was close to immortality.

But the price was far too steep.

The bird’s chirp also drew the others over. They searched curiously among the branches and bushes, hoping to find the only living creature that had made a sound in this forest.

They didn’t find the bird, but they did discover a sign buried in the soil.

Most of the wooden sign remained aboveground, while its bottom was embedded in the gray-white earth. A line of text had been carved into its surface, but horizontal scratches covered the lower half, leaving some of the words completely illegible.

Ethan crouched and brushed the dust away.

"Land of Immortality, Land of Gray. No trespassing. If you seek death..."

The message ended there.

He leaned closer to inspect the scratches, but still couldn’t make out the rest. Then again, it was possible the inscription had never been finished.

"Land of Gray. No trespassing..."

Ethan quietly repeated the words.

Considering the frozen animals and trees around them, the meaning seemed obvious enough.

The beating of wings suddenly came from overhead.

A powerful gust bent the treetops and sent sheets of gray-white leaves swirling through the air. Everyone looked up to find a strange, enormous bird hovering above the forest.

Unlike everything else here, it wasn’t gray-white.

Red and white feathers covered its body in alternating patches. Its massive wings cast a broad shadow over the ground below.

The bird lowered its head and spotted the intruders. Its beak opened at once as red-black energy gathered from deep in its throat, compressing into a flickering beam.

The next instant, a red-black laser shot down from the sky.

Elira stood directly in its path.

She swiftly spread her Divine Sovereign Moth wings. The runes and eyes covering them lit up at the same time, firing multicolored rays from different points. The rays converged above her into a single rainbow-colored laser.

The two attacks collided in midair.

Red-black and multicolored light pushed against each other, spraying fragments of broken energy from the point of impact. Elira’s wings beat continuously as the runes on the Divine Sovereign Moth grew brighter, but her laser was still forced steadily back toward the ground.

The fragments raining from the collision didn’t dissipate.

They remained sharp and solid, slicing through branches and leaves before embedding themselves in the gray-white earth. Judging by the energy still lingering in those fragments, the giant bird’s attack was far more dangerous than it appeared.

Ethan rushed through the bushes to Elira’s side, swept her into his arms, and ran out of the attack’s path.

Elira stopped sustaining her laser.

Without her energy supporting it, the multicolored beam immediately dispersed. The bird’s red-black laser continued down its original path and slammed into the ground.

Boom!

The gray-white earth collapsed inward.

The impact shoved the nearby trees aside, and the struck area grew darker, changing from gray-white to a deep gray bordering on black.

Elira’s heart pounded in Ethan’s arms.

If that laser had hit someone, would it have turned them into a gray-white statue too?

The giant bird stopped firing when it saw its prey escape.

It beat both pairs of wings, driving a gale down onto the forest. The trees bent in the same direction under the force. Riding the wind, the bird folded its wings and dove from the sky, aiming to ram Ethan headfirst.

That was a mistake.

Seraphina’s body rapidly expanded as scales spread across her skin. When her enormous dragon form appeared among the trees, the surrounding trunks were shoved aside, branches snapping against the edges of her wings.

Before the bird could reach Ethan, Seraphina’s claw came sweeping in from the side.

Her palm struck it head-on.

Red and white feathers scattered through the air as the bird was swatted away. It crashed through several gray-white trees before managing to spread its wings again and barely stop itself in midair.

It looked deeply troubled.

Why did bad things always come to bother it?

The bird raised its head again, gathering red-black energy inside its beak. The light darkened the air around its mouth, and before it had even fired, the surrounding leaves began to lose their outlines.