Chapter 69: Sudden Encounter
The corpse they had just thrown away in haste was growing right in front of their eyes. As Han Xuhan and Mu Ran stumbled back in horror, a revolting transformation took place in that body at an unbelievable speed.
Strips of shriveled skin tightened up and ripped apart around its torso, revealing a shifting mass of bones and muscles in a barrel-like shape. Its shoulders were punctured from within as spiked outgrowths formed an armor of bones.
Its four limbs elongated and grew three times more muscular, giving the body the appearance of a quadrupedal beast. The predatory appearance was only enhanced further when its spine warped upwards, the neck ballooned into a massive pipe, and it opened an enlarged jaw spraying mucus and pus everywhere.
The corpse moved on to its four limbs and locked its sight on the two frozen young cultivators just dozens of meters away.
Han Xuhan recalled the horror shrouding the man’s eyes at the penultimate moment of his death. That look was now replaced by an instinct-driven, indifferent, brutal gleam.
Tendrils of the familiar gray fog were being pushed out of its nostrils and mouth as its barrel-like chest pulsed without a rhythm.
Han Xuhan’s limbs were stiff, mind numb, feet cold, and throat dry. He could barely form a coherent thought as every cell of his body screamed for immediate escape.
Thankfully, Mu Ran immediately took action, breaking him out of his brain freeze and attracting the mummified, mutated corpse’s attention.
His spear left his hand like a bolt of lightning and struck the monstrosity right inside its half-open mouth.
"CAACKKHH!"
The yelp it let out was not a sound any human could produce. Using both forelimbs to tear the spear off with its jaw, the corpse leaped away like a frog, its limbs sending sand and gravel toward them.