As that eerie conjecture surfaced in his mind, every muscle in Mo Fan's body had already tensed to the utmost.
Those two blood-red eyeballs, just condensed from severed limbs, ruined carcasses, and the snake molt...
Hung eerily in the huge gash of the molt, radiating a savage, chaotic life fluctuation.
Mo Fan held his breath, mana quietly gathering at his fingertips...
And the entire undead legion was likewise coiled and ready under his mind's command, braced to meet a great battle.
However.
One second passed. Ten seconds passed. A full minute passed.
Those two blood-drenched eyeballs, each fully the size of a lantern, astonishingly just hovered there at the gash, utterly motionless.
Launching no attack. Coming no closer. Just quietly watching them.
"..."
Hiding behind Unit 004, Mo Fan couldn't quite make out what this thing was actually trying to do either.
But here at the eerie, unfathomable source of the mist...
"If the enemy doesn't move, I don't move" was, much of the time, no different from sitting in place and waiting to die.
Since the other side wasn't moving...
Then strike first and seize the advantage. Test its mettle!
"Get it!"
Mo Fan gave a cold shout in his heart.
Receiving the command, Mo Yan was the first to turn into a black shadow and rush forward.
The mottled cold-iron longsword, wreathed in thick death energy, swung high...
Then came slashing down hard at the snake molt's head!
CLANG!
A teeth-grating clash of metal against iron reverberated across the empty cliff bottom in an instant.
Blinding sparks flew everywhere.
Mo Yan was jolted back several meters by that overwhelming recoil...
Yet there was still no change whatsoever upon the snake molt.
It hadn't even managed to leave a shallow white scratch.
But this was only the beginning.
Screee!
Unit 003 dove down from high in the air...
Its bone-white claws bearing a shrill whistle as they tore through the air and clawed viciously at the two blood-red eyeballs!
BOOM!
Unit 004 was even more direct.
It strode forward on its thick bone legs like a moving city wall and slammed with utter savagery into the trunk of the snake molt!
And then...
[ Death Missile ]
[ Corpse Explosion ]
Mo Fan even had the distant WTF join in the wild barrage.
For a while, black death energy, ghostly green venom fire, along with deafening impacts and explosions...
Reverberated in an unbroken chain across the entire cliff bottom.
Dust and rubble rolled sky-high, completely drowning the huge snake molt.
However.
Once a full half incense stick of time had passed...
After the smoke and dust slowly dispersed beneath the dawn wind...
The expression on Mo Fan's face grew uglier and uglier.
Not a scratch!
Those two eyeballs still hung there quietly.
Without even a shred of damage.
No matter how eerie the thing hidden inside the snake molt might be...
The husk it wore on the outside was, in the end, a snake molt from at least a Peak Golden Core demon beast!
Peak Golden Core!
That was a tier the current Mo Fan simply couldn't reach.
His undead legion, which at absolute best was Foundation Establishment tier...
Smashing all manner of attacks against it was quite literally like taking a wooden stick to tear down a city wall.
Aside from making a lot of noise, they couldn't break its defenses at all!
Refusing to believe it, Mo Fan directed the skeletons to keep up the wild barrage for a good while longer.
The result was still the same.
If anything, the cold-iron longsword in Mo Yan's hands...
After hacking again and again with everything it had against those impregnable scales, had already developed a dense mess of tiny nicks along its blade.
"Hold on..."
Mo Fan raised a hand, calling a halt to the undead legion's futile labor.
He stared fixedly at that vast snake molt, feeling nothing but a chestful of frustration.
What the hell are you trying to do?
The more he fought, the more Mo Fan felt something was off.
Because from beginning to end...
This eerie thing hidden inside the snake molt hadn't once struck back!
It was like an indestructible punching bag.
Standing there, letting Mo Fan's undead legion surround it, pummel it, hack at it, and slash at it.
Without even the slightest intention of dodging.
But what truly made Mo Fan's hair stand on end...
Was still those two huge, blood-drenched eyes.
At first, amid the chaotic explosions, Mo Fan hadn't noticed this.
It was only when, to dodge a piece of rubble sent flying by Unit 004's impact, he'd subconsciously shifted a dozen or so steps to the left.
The next moment.
Mo Fan's movements suddenly halted.
Those two blood-red eyeballs, once hanging motionless at the gash...
Had astonishingly also rotated slowly to the left, following the direction of his movement.
Mo Fan stopped in his tracks. The eyeballs stopped too. Their gaze still landed firmly upon his body.
Mo Fan frowned.
An indescribable sense of the uncanny slowly rose from the bottom of his heart.
The Soul Wings at his back gave a beat, and he deliberately flew several dozen meters to the right.
Squelch...
Along with a faint, strange sound like mucus scraping against flesh...
Those two blood-red eyeballs slowly rotated once more within the gash.
Like two huge, unwieldy probes.
Not a hair off. Locking onto him once again. Still staring fixedly at him!
Mo Fan felt a chill crawl up his heart.
He dropped back down to the ground and immediately had Unit 004's body, with its bone shield vast as a hill, lie crosswise in front of him.
The huge frame utterly blocked the line of sight between the two sides.
Mo Fan waited a few breaths. Then he drew a deep breath and quietly poked his head out from the other side of Unit 004.
And then...
Mo Fan's expression froze.
Those two blood-red eyeballs, dripping mucus, had astonishingly already rotated over to this side.
Waiting quietly for him to show his face.
"..."
It was as if, from beginning to end...
The target this eerie thing cared about was neither the vast Unit 004, nor Mo Yan, who had been swinging its sword the whole time, and certainly not that big, rowdy crowd of undead around it.
It was Mo Fan.
It's watching me?
The instant this thought appeared in his mind, Mo Fan subconsciously drove his [ Death Vision ] to the utmost...
Once again carefully observing that cluster of chaotic soul fluctuation hidden deep within the snake molt.
Soon. He discovered something even stranger.
This thing, cloaked in a Peak Golden Core-tier snake molt, did indeed display outrageously high defensive power.
But the twisted life fluctuation truly hidden inside the snakeskin wasn't actually all that terrifying.
At least, judging from the tier fed back by his Death Vision...
Foundation Establishment.
At most, no more than Foundation Establishment tier. Not even remotely deserving of the label Peak Foundation Establishment. At the absolute best, early or mid-stage Foundation Establishment.
For a moment, Mo Fan grew even more baffled.
At the same time, he found the whole thing exceptionally absurd.
The real thing clearly wasn't strong. Yet it just so happened to be sheathed in this layer of a Peak Golden Core turtle shell.
Couldn't break it. And it wouldn't move on its own.
You son of a bitch... Are you seriously sitting here playing a staring contest with me?!
And the kicker was, they really were big eyes.
Mo Fan looked at those two blood-red eyeballs, each a couple of sizes bigger than his own head.
Then he looked down at himself.
The more he looked, the more cursed he felt.
He simply gave up thrashing about.
In any case, with his current means, physical attacks couldn't break through that layer of snake molt defense at all.
And this thing seemed, for the time being, to have been possessed by something.
Only watching. Not making a move.
"You lot carry on."
Mo Fan simply plopped down on a nearby rock and waved a hand at the undead legion.
Hearing this, Mo Yan didn't hesitate in the slightest.
It once again raised the already nicked cold-iron longsword and hacked away like a heartless lumberjack.
Unit 004 kept ramming. Unit 003 kept clawing.
WTF, meanwhile, stood in the distance like a fixed gun turret, lobbing Death Missiles one after another.
The whole undead legion, like workers on an assembly line, began surrounding this huge snake molt and pouring out damage, madly and mechanically.
Meanwhile, Mo Fan sat at the very rear. Chin propped in both hands, he sank into deep thought.
The two sides.
One was an undead legion that knew not the meaning of fatigue.
The other was a freak that, no matter how you looked at it, didn't seem like a normal living thing.
The biggest thing the two sides had in common was that both had all but inexhaustible stamina.
And so...
At the bottom of this cliff before dawn, an exceedingly absurd scene emerged.
On one side, a demolition site pounding away in full swing.
On the other, something utterly motionless, letting the wind blow and the rain beat down on it.
Only occasionally would those two huge blood-red eyeballs, as Mo Fan shifted his body or changed position on the rock, let out a clammy squelch.
Then they would slowly follow along, turning after him.
This eerie standoff dragged on for who knew how long.
The cold-iron longsword in Mo Yan's hand had nearly rolled its edge completely over, even showing faint signs of snapping.
While that snake molt... Still hadn't gained so much as a single new gash.
"Damn it."
Just what the hell kind of thing is this?
Somewhat irritable, Mo Fan lifted his head and glanced up above the cliff bottom.
The darkness had gradually dispersed. The grayish-white dawn was seeping in bit by bit from above the heavy mist.
Daybreak was drawing nearer and nearer.
If this dragged on so pointlessly any longer...
Then even if he never figured out just what this thing was, he'd have to withdraw from the cliff bottom for now and return to the servant district.
Otherwise, once broad daylight came, it would be all too easy to expose his tracks.
Just as Mo Fan grew anxious, beginning to estimate how much longer he could stay here...
Suddenly. Mo Fan's movements gave a violent lurch.
Because out of the corner of his eye, he keenly sensed something.
Those two blood-red eyeballs at the snake molt's gash... Were gone.
Mo Fan stared blankly for a moment. Alarm bells blared wildly in his heart.
Hm? It bolted?
The next second.
A sense of being watched, so intense it nearly made every hair on his body stand on end, came without warning from directly in front of him.
Mo Fan's body froze in an instant.
Then, bit by bit, he lowered his head.
At a spot less than two meters from his face...
Those two huge blood-red eyeballs, once set into the head of the snake molt a hundred meters away, had somehow appeared silently before him!
No process of moving. No whistle of rushing air whatsoever.
Just hovering quietly in midair. Dark red mucus dripped ceaselessly from the surfaces of the eyeballs. Utterly motionless. Staring straight at him.
"Holy shit!"
Mo Fan all but reflexively burst out with a curse.
The Soul Wings at his back gave a sudden violent beat! His whole body shot backward several dozen meters in an instant, like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on!
Unit 004, too, wheeled around with a thunderous crash the very instant Mo Fan issued the command. Its vast frame thrust sideways, firmly blocking Mo Fan behind it.
However.
Those two eyeballs hovering in midair still launched no attack whatsoever.
They merely rotated once more in midair, exceedingly slowly, following the position Mo Fan had flown back to.
And then...
An even eerier scene emerged.
That snake molt in the distance, once stretching for several li and vast as a mountain range, suddenly began to quake violently!
Clatter, clatter!
Dark red scales, each like a shield, scraped against one another, letting out a shrill, teeth-grating sound.
Great swaths of snakeskin began to cave downward in a manner that utterly defied common sense.
Contracting. Folding.
Then, as though drawn by some unseen force...
That snake molt, vast as a mountain range, astonishingly began to gather madly toward this spot, centered upon the two blood-red eyeballs hovering before Mo Fan.
Bit by bit. Compressing. Recombining.
Hiding behind Unit 004, Mo Fan stared fixedly at the scene before him, something that surpassed all comprehension.
For some reason...
Watching that huge snake molt contract ceaselessly, its outline growing stranger and stranger...
Mo Fan suddenly felt... It was somewhat familiar.
A premonition that plunged him into an icy pit slowly rose from the bottom of his heart.
This thing... It hadn't been counterattacking.
From the very start... It had been watching me this whole time. Observing me.
And now... It seems to be... Learning me.