"Peak... Golden Core?!"
The instant this scalp numbing judgment surfaced in his mind, Mo Fan felt as though all the blood in his body had frozen solid.
What kind of concept was peak Golden Core?
The might Elder Lin Dong had displayed back then was, in all likelihood, around this level.
It was an existence that needed only to twitch a finger to grind Mo Fan as he was now, along with his entire undead legion, into bone powder!
His legion might now be formidable, all but armed to the teeth, and it could still lord it over the Foundation Establishment tier just fine.
But facing a peak Golden Core demon beast?
He probably was not even qualified to so much as test the thing's limits!
Not the slightest hesitation, and certainly not a single death courting thought.
Sorry to disturb.
Mo Fan muttered in his heart.
You go on sleeping, old timer. I'll pick an auspicious day and come pay my respects some other time.
He did not dare so much as draw a full breath.
Sending his mind out in a thread thin strand, he cautiously directed Unit 004 and Unit 003 up ahead, having the entire undead legion draw in its formation at once as they prepared to retreat without a sound.
But at the very moment he was about to turn and slip away...
The intuition honed through long stretches on the razor's edge between life and death let Mo Fan keenly sense that something was off.
"Wait..."
Mo Fan halted mid stride.
He stared fixedly at that vast blood red mountain range within his [ Death Vision ].
If a living, peak Golden Core Blood Red Python truly lay coiled up ahead...
Then under the perception of Death Vision, there ought to be a cluster of life fire there, as piercing as the blazing sun and so vast that one could not bear to look directly at it.
But right now, all he saw was blood red aura so dense it had reached the utmost extreme, as if it would never disperse!
No soul fire flickered.
There was not even the slightest trace of the life pulse belonging to a living creature!
What was more, judging by the savagery and bloodlust that the Blood Red Python had displayed when he glimpsed it from afar on the fringe...
With him now brazenly closing in to this degree, how could it possibly show no reaction whatsoever?
This clearly was not normal!
To verify his conjecture, Mo Fan forcibly pressed down the fear in his heart and decisively shut off his Death Vision.
The world before his eyes instantly reverted to a stretch of dim, murky mist.
Two breaths later, he opened it again.
He checked several times, and the result was exactly the same each time.
That blood red silhouette was still vast, still terrifying, and the peak Golden Core pressure permeating the air truly existed.
But it remained deathly still throughout. Not the faintest breath of a living creature could be felt.
It was like a mountain range steeped in blood.
Mo Fan sucked in a cold breath laced with the reek of blood.
An exceedingly bold judgment gradually took shape in his mind.
The aura is real.
The peak Golden Core pressure is real too.
But... that thing up ahead seems to have fallen into some exceedingly eerie state. Or perhaps...
Mo Fan's eyes gradually lit up.
It might not even be alive anymore?!
Once this crazy notion appeared, Mo Fan's heart, which had already been beating its retreat, could not help but pound wildly.
Thump. Thump.
Hummm...
As Mo Fan's mind settled anew, the undead legion, which had already been preparing to fall back, halted all at once.
The soul fires in pair after pair of eye sockets flared to life again, and the formation slowly wheeled toward the depths of the blood mist.
That said, excitement was one thing, but Mo Fan had not let his guard down because of it.
His head remained absolutely clear.
He readjusted the formation, planting Unit 004, the largest in frame and the thickest in armor, firmly at the very front.
As for Mo Fan himself, with utterly no spine to speak of, he hung far back at the very rear of the formation.
Not only that, Mo Fan also secretly set the Mana within his body churning madly as death energy surged faintly around his shoulder blades.
[ Floating Soul Wings ] remained half activated at all times.
The moment the slightest stir arose in the mist ahead, or that "python" showed any sign of coming back to life...
He would absolutely spread his wings and flee without a shred of hesitation!
As for those skeletal brothers up front?
Sorry, boys.
When catastrophe strikes, every man looks out for himself. If anything really goes wrong, I promise I'll burn you some extra spirit money later.
Without the slightest psychological burden, Mo Fan finished preparing to sell out his teammates at any moment.
Only then did he direct the squad forward, cautiously pushing toward the depths of the blood mist.
The deeper they advanced, the eerier the surrounding environment became.
The living mutated demon beasts, on the contrary, grew fewer and fewer.
But every single one that occasionally darted out of the blood mist far surpassed those on the fringe in strength, and its flesh had mutated in even more horrifying ways.
Just as they came within a hundred meters of that blood red mountain range...
ROAR!
A Shadow Leopard the size of an adult water buffalo suddenly launched itself from the rock wall beside them.
This Shadow Leopard's cultivation had astonishingly reached [ Peak Foundation Establishment ]!
Two short but sharp arms protruded grotesquely from its back, and it moved so quickly that several black afterimages trailed through the air.
Had this been the Mo Fan of before, encountering a Shadow Leopard of this caliber would absolutely have meant a bitter struggle on the verge of death.
But today was not like the days of old.
Mo Fan did not even have to lift a finger himself.
Unit 004 abruptly thrust its enormous bone shield upward, forcibly bearing the full, earthshaking force of the Shadow Leopard's pounce.
Its two deformed arms hooked onto the edge of the shield in the same motion, and the Shadow Leopard twisted sharply, seemingly trying to vault over Unit 004.
However...
Before it could complete the maneuver, Mo Yan's cold iron longsword had already come slashing down from the side.
Unit 003 followed close behind, its enormous claws sealing off the Shadow Leopard's retreat.
And then, the beating began.
In the span of only a few breaths, the exceedingly ferocious peak Foundation Establishment Shadow Leopard was torn apart beneath a flurry of blades and claws.
This armed to the teeth pack of undead, working together with seamless coordination, pinned it firmly to the ground and hacked it to pieces.
Mo Fan casually stuffed the highly valuable demon beast corpse into his Storage Pouch and turned his gaze forward once more.
He soon noticed that the nearer they drew to that "blood red mountain range," the more mutated demon beast corpses lay scattered about.
What was truly bloodcurdling was that these corpses had not all died from killing one another.
Some had already rotted heavily, giving off a thick, foul stench.
Others looked as though the essence blood and marrow had been drained clean from their entire bodies...
Leaving only slack, empty husks of skin sprawled limply across the rocks.
Great swaths of dried, dark red mucus had also begun to appear across the ground and stone walls.
Alongside them were enormous furrows left behind by some unimaginable colossus dragging its body across the earth and grinding everything flat.
That deathly stillness, oppressive to the utmost extreme, drew Mo Fan's nerves taut bit by bit.
At last...
After passing through the final layer of dark red blood mist, so thick that it almost refused to disperse, Unit 004, walking at the very front, suddenly halted.
It had not been attacked.
Rather, the path ahead had been completely blocked.
Hiding at the very rear of the formation, Mo Fan drew a deep breath, slowly lifted his head, and gazed forward through the gaps in Unit 004's enormous skeletal frame.
One glance, and Mo Fan froze.
What met his eyes were massive scales, each one fully the size of a tabletop and colored a deep, profound dark red!
These scales resembled slabs of impregnable heavy shields, overlapping one another and meshing tightly together.
They formed a vast, winding body that coiled through the mist and struck terror into the heart.
It was like a stretch of the Great Wall abandoned in the mortal world, extending toward an end that could not be seen through the mist.
Its size was more than ten times as outrageous as when Mo Fan had glimpsed it from afar!
However...
This "python," radiating peak Golden Core pressure, lay utterly motionless.
Mo Fan swallowed through his parched throat, screwed up his courage, and took a few steps forward before slowly floating into the air.
From this broader vantage point, Mo Fan finally saw the entire colossus.
At the center of that vast body, running along the spine, an exceedingly long and narrow pitch black gash had split open.
Its edges were jagged and uneven!
The gash extended almost all the way from head to tail.
Inside, it was utterly empty.
There was no flesh or organs at all.
Only a layer of transparent membrane remained, already dried by the air.
Mo Fan stood stunned for a full half minute.
A chill shot straight up his spine and spread across his scalp.
He finally realized just what he was looking at.
That was no dead Blood Red Python's body at all.
It was something the Blood Red Python had left behind in the depths of this cliff...
A snake molt!