Chapter 161 - 55: [Anshiba]

Chapter 161: Chapter 55: [Anshiba]

The sky above the Gray Moss Field was shrouded in haze. Ashen moss and sparse grasslands stretched across the earth. The gloom overhead was as vast as the far field itself, with dark clouds sticking and clumping together like a mirror image, forming an inverted leaden-gray prairie suspended in the sky.

Bluish-gray bones, massive moss-covered rocks, rusted broken swords, snapped spears, and tattered war banners stood like a forest across the Gray Moss Field. Interspersed with a sparse wood of Rusted Copper Trees, they formed the distant ruins of an ancient battlefield. The mist drifted like ghosts, flickering between the scattered broken swords and spears.

The bones of warhorses, Rusted Copper Tree Roots, and rocks twisted together to form horse-shaped undead with Rusted Copper Deer Antlers. They galloped in herds through the woodlands and far fields, or stood silently like forest demons. They used their clawed front hooves to dig up humus and bones from the soil, binding them together with the Rusted Copper Tree Roots on their bodies.

CLANK. CLANK.

The steady footsteps sounded like some sluggish behemoth. A figure in the mist trudged slowly across the far field.

Amidst the heavy clashing of armor, Anshiba dragged his massive body, clad in Nether Bronze Armor, carrying a Flame-shaped Greatsword on his back. His enormous combat boots were pressed deep into the hard, cold soil by his sheer weight, leaving behind giant footprints.

The weight of the shoulder armor slightly restricted the movement range of his thick arm armor, but it built an incredibly burly and terrifying physique. The thick chest plate connected seamlessly with the curved neck of the Frog-beak Helmet, resembling the armored plating of a tank.

The heavy Nether Bronze Armor made his movement extremely slow.

Anshiba thought, "Being a bit slower is fine. I’m not an impatient person anyway. And the one thing I have no shortage of now is time."

He could have found a mount to speed up crossing this distance, but his weight was simply too immense. The ordinary Skeleton Warhorses on the Gray Moss Far Field would be squashed flat by his Nether Copper backside, flattened into a pancake of mixed Rusted Copper Tree Roots and bones.

Although a reinforced Skeleton Warhorse strengthened with Nether Copper could bear his weight, it would be just as slow and clumsy as he was. Its charging speed would barely match his own jogging pace.

The Necro Earth-Devouring Demon Insect had been used not long ago and was still in a dormant state. Large undead had very poor endurance. Even with a Nether Copper Power Wheel installed as a mobility aid, it still needed to rest for a long time to fully recharge.

Furthermore, taking it step by step, leisurely crossing this vast, cloud-covered plain, had become one of Anshiba’s life habits.

It was just like in the past, when he religiously drank a cup of disgustingly bitter, sugar-free black coffee every morning at seven o’clock, paired with a pack of dry, tasteless hard biscuits. He would then walk to work, greet an unfamiliar old lady walking her dog at the street corner at seven thirty-five, and pet her massive, fat golden retriever. At seven fifty-two, he would ignore his nagging, balding boss at the company entrance, and at eight o’clock sharp, he would sit at his cubicle to begin repeating the exact same life as the day before.

Though dull and tedious, it was stable and reassuring.

It was currently 7:30 AM. In this other world, his Ghost Knight Armor UI had a clock display module that automatically calibrated to the local meridian time, accurate to the millisecond.

Such meticulous time design made Anshiba feel quite pleased. Perhaps the god toying with his fate also liked to keep a schedule.

He admitted to himself that he was a boring, rigid man, but he had no intention of changing. Since death had given him a job, he would simply do it. There wasn’t much else to say.

Oh... speaking of which. Looking at the 7:32:15 AM timestamp on his armor UI, Anshiba remembered what he had been doing at this time yesterday.

He looked down and saw his giant combat boots stepping into the footprints he had left the morning before. There was a slight variation in the footprint at this spot. Following his own tracks from yesterday, Anshiba slowly crouched down. Struggling to lower his head, he peered at a bush in front of him.

The Deer Antler Frog Beak Helmet featured terrifyingly specialized defense and was forged solidly with the chest plate, meaning it could never be knocked off. However, this also made his movements clumsy and arduous. The field of vision was exceptionally narrow compared to other helmet types; trying to see anything through the dark slit of the Frog-beak Helmet’s visor was no easy feat.

Hidden among the crisscrossing branches of the bush was a tiny nest. A fuzzy bird, looking much like a gray puffball, huddled inside in terror, shielding its three chicks with its wings.

[Eradication Target Organism Detected]

[Eradication Priority: Extremely Low]

A phantom BEEP BEEP BEEP flashed symbolically twice inside his helmet before turning off—after all, this target’s priority was virtually nonexistent.

Anshiba ignored it. He reached out with Hand Armor large enough to crush a human skull and rummaged around his chest plate. He pulled out a small twig laden with wild berries. Pinching the twig carefully between his startlingly large Nether Copper fingertips, he somewhat clumsily tucked the bunch of berries next to the nest.

He had picked them from around his own grave at 7:12 AM because he had set a memo for it the day before.

"Am I truly free, bird?" Anshiba’s booming voice echoed inside his chest plate. "Or is death merely the beginning of a new imprisonment?"

Unlike his shriveled, gloomy, and dull life, the wild berries were bright red, plump, sweet, and juicy.

He didn’t wait for an answer. Amidst the slow clinking of armor, he gradually stood up, dragged his heavy feet, and continued toward his destination. Like a train that always ran exactly on time, he rumbled forward on his tracks—never delayed, never early.