096 Otherworldly Incubator (4100)

From the moment Xiunan’s right hand touched the initial badge, an inexplicable resonance coursed through his body. It was familiar, yet distant—like a faint voice calling your name from a mountaintop shrouded in mist.

In an instant, Xiunan slipped into a trance.

His eyelids closed, and his spirit began to sink.

Darkness enveloped him; not a sound stirred.

It felt as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss, descending endlessly toward a solitary death. A profound, heartrending fear burst forth from his chest, wildly sprouting and growing unchecked.

Until, at a certain moment, Xiunan opened his eyes again. He found himself suspended in midair, the surrounding air thick and viscous like flowing water. He drifted downward like a falling leaf, swaying gently from side to side.

Below him emerged a lush, verdant forest.

Xiunan landed on the ground, surrounded by glowing green plants growing wildly.

He lightly pressed his foot down, sensing that the soil beneath was unusually loose, almost unreal.

It was as if the earth were thick, waterlogged mud.

Scanning his surroundings, he began to cautiously explore. The continuous rustling of leaves overhead accompanied his every step. Though walking through this vibrant forest, an inexplicable unease gnawed at him.

He pressed on, time slipping by unnoticed.

Suddenly, the dense woodland gave way to a clearing—a charred plain scarred by fire, ash drifting down like black snow.

Here…

Xiunan glanced at the cracked, barren earth beneath his feet, then back at the lush forest behind him. Strangely, the burnt land felt more comforting.

He quickened his pace across the scorched ground, each step cracking the brittle surface like snapping biscuits. This area had clearly been ravaged by intense flames; the soil was dry, cracked, and curled up in concentric rings.

The deeper he ventured, the more pronounced the signs of burning became.

Here and there, he spotted tree stumps, blackened to charcoal yet stubbornly upright. But they were fragile— even the breeze stirred by Xiunan’s footsteps caused their charred surfaces to flake away into dust.

At last, his steps halted as he crested a hill and saw a vast pit ahead—at least a kilometer across, deep and immense like a meteor crater.

Around the rim, radial cracks spread outward, the scorched earth blackened and burnt.

A wave of intense heat swept toward him, making sweat bead on his brow. Braving the scorching air, Xiunan stepped forward.

Crunch. One boot touched the edge. Small stones tumbled down, clattering as they rolled.

Lowering his gaze, he summoned Baimu unexpectedly with success. He instructed Baimu to grasp his shoulders and fluttered down.

Five minutes later, they hovered about ten meters above the ground.

Xiunan stared silently below, astonished to find a white skeleton at the crater’s center—human-shaped and roughly the size of an average man.

He commanded Baimu to gently set him down.

Touching the ground, he retracted the Death-Eyed Vulture rune.

A fierce heat radiated immediately, threatening to consume him. Without the protective rune’s light veil covering his body, his clothing would have turned to ash in an instant.

The source of this heat was the skeleton itself.

Taking a few cautious steps forward, Xiunan saw the skull’s twisted, agonized expression. Its limbs were contorted and overlapped; cracks riddled every bone.

The skeleton lay toppled, as if crawling, one outstretched hand limp against the ground.

Xiunan observed for a long moment before noticing a strange message beneath the extended arm—scrambled, written in an unknown language.

Fortunately, the system translated it instantly.

The message was simple, just two words:

“Be careful!!!”

“Careful? Careful about what? It doesn’t say…” Xiunan frowned, standing up.

A riddle?

He bent down and shifted the skeleton aside, revealing a narrow hole descending into the earth, roughly the thickness of a human arm.

Suddenly, a pale grey silhouette flickered deep within. A chill ran down Xiunan’s spine, filling him with dread and revulsion.

The next instant, something like a serpent or tentacle burst from the hole, its black spiked trunk whipping violently and shredding Xiunan’s body apart.

Five hundred meters away, at the crater’s edge, a towering figure stepped down from the air like a glitch in a broadcast.

---

Still trembling, Xiunan glanced back at the pit’s center, sensing a malignant force watching him, twisting wildly.

“What is that white shadow?” he wondered, heart pounding as he hurried away.

Hours later, he encountered a similar scene.

This time, a dim canyon stretched wide at the bottom, narrowing sharply overhead to a mere slit—forming a triangular shape. Darkness pressed in, barely brighter than pitch black.

The rune light veil on Xiunan’s skin glowed faintly, illuminating about five meters around him.

Step by step, he moved forward, the echo of his footsteps the only sound in the silence.

Glancing into a shadowed corner, he sensed life slowly stirring.

After some distance, he came upon another cracked, pale skeleton. Like a knight, it knelt on one knee, its right hand—now bone—resting on a shattered sword.

Approaching cautiously, Xiunan read the skeleton’s message again:

“Be careful!”

Beneath it was the same narrow tunnel.

He carefully bypassed it and continued, but the mud beneath grew thicker, like waterlogged clay.

At the border between light and shadow five meters ahead, the soil seemed to writhe, layers undulating like waves—alive, or concealing something beneath.

Without hesitation, Xiunan entered meditation.

His figure vanished instantly, leaving only a trail of black footprints racing toward the canyon’s end.

“Finally out…” he exhaled.

Looking up, he found himself in a frozen world, the ground blanketed by large blue ice crystals sparkling like gems.

The cold was biting—a stark contrast to the fiery crater.

Winding through the ice fissures, Xiunan soon discovered a skeleton trapped within the crystal.

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