Chapter 334

The next day arrived, and the teens could be seen preparing to move out.

Throughout the night, for the first time in a while as they were on Bone Ridge, the sound of bones assembling and crumbling didn’t echo through the lands and the air.

Everywhere was strangely quiet, which made the whole region feel wrong to the teens because they weren’t used to it.

But anyway, it was still good for them.

With the guardian dead, it wouldn’t be long before tons of different beasts decided to use the region as their own.

And soon, this region would be full of life again.

The moment the sun rose up, the teens set out without wasting even a second.

They had already searched the hollowed ground and there was nothing of tangible use they could use aside from the wall of weapons, which Ray decided to store into his system.

He felt the bone weapons would be useful to him on his travels, hence he took them.

Aside from that, nothing of interest was in the Herald’s lair.

The teens could be seen slowly sprinting around the wide hollowed ground.

During the night, Van had sent a few mechanical spiders to survey the land onward and, according to feedback, the edge of the region was just twenty meters ahead.

It wasn’t that far for the teens and they had all day to reach the second region.

So for the first time in a while, they didn’t rush ahead.

They were slowly making their way there with a peace of mind they hadn’t had since the beginning of their movements.

Ray was even chewing on a bone from the meat of the previous night as he slowly sauntered forward with one hand tucked in his pocket.

"I wonder what the region would be like," Chloe finally uttered as she stared straight ahead.

"This land is totally unpredictable, so we can’t even guess," Kai sighed.

"Unfortunately, my spiders couldn’t go beyond the border because of my reach," Van added as he held one hand slightly in front of him with a mechanical spider resting on it.

He rubbed its head a few times.

Trisha didn’t say a word as she continued walking forward stoically, while her eyes visibly twitched with every crack of the bone Ray was chewing on.

"I... crunch... I don’t understand why you all didn’t like these bones. This is where the nutritious parts are stored," Ray uttered as he continued chewing on the bones, easily breaking them under his powerful jaws.

Crunch—!

Trisha’s eyes twitched again.

"Not all of us have monstrous jaws or teeth that are able to break through those powerful bones," Chloe scoffed as Ray was visibly having a field day breaking the marrow.

Ray opened his mouth, about to take another bite of the bones, when Trisha’s eyes flashed with a dark, cold look.

"If you take a bite of those bones again, I will make sure I snatch them from you and shove them up your ass."

Ray froze mid-crunch and step.

He slowly turned to look at her with a confused expression on his face.

Even the others froze and stared at the girl, wondering if she was serious.

Ray chuckled inwardly as he was about to bite down on the bone.

’Ha. She’s just kidding....’

"Just dare me and eat that." Trisha poised herself in a way that seemed like she was about to lunge forward.

Ray looked at the bone, then at the girl for a few seconds before taking a step away and tossing it aside.

"You know what? My teeth’s aching me," he muttered before flinging the bones in his hands away and wiping his mouth clean.

Trisha scoffed and then began walking forward.

The others looked at each other briefly before shuddering.

"So scary."

And with that, the journey continued.

Then, half an hour later of constantly arguing and chatting with one another, they finally reached the edge of the Bone Ridge.

Staring them in the face as they reached where the supposed border between the two regions was, they glanced at each other.

Then looking back in front of them, they stared at a wall of fog spreading outwardly and not even spilling into the Bone Ridge region at all.

The fog looked like a demarcation of some sort.

"Uh.... Should we—?"

Ray stared at the fog for a few moments before reaching out and touching it.

His hand easily passed through and, luckily, nothing attacked him.

"Let’s go."

And then, he pushed himself forward, crossing the wall of fog and disappearing into it.

The others exchanged brief glances before they saw Trisha walk into the fog too.

Then one by one, they walked into the wall of fog and appeared on the other side.

There, they could see the land sprawled in front of them as clear as day.

No single fog was in front of them.

And this region was damn different from the others. It was a world filled with mountains.

The mountains stretched endlessly across the horizon, rising like the shattered remains of a world long forgotten.

Jagged peaks clawed into the sky in uneven clusters, their sharp edges dark against the dim light above.

Some stood tall and narrow like enormous stone spears, while others leaned unnaturally, as though they had been broken and left to rot in place.

Thick mist drifted endlessly between them, swallowing entire sections of the range until only silhouettes remained visible through the haze.

But what made the region truly unsettling were the hollows.

Massive openings riddled the mountainsides everywhere—countless caverns, tunnels, and gaping voids carved deep into the stone.

Some were small enough to resemble wounds in the rock, while others were so enormous they looked capable of swallowing entire cities whole.

From afar, the mountains appeared empty inside, like colossal shells abandoned by ancient giants.

The wind never stopped there.

It surged through the countless openings in long, mournful currents, producing deep echoes that rolled endlessly through the range.

Sometimes the sounds resembled distant screams.

Other times, they sounded almost like whispers carried from somewhere deep beneath the earth.

The terrain itself was merciless.

Narrow pathways clung dangerously to steep cliffsides, crumbling under the slightest pressure.

Ravines split the land apart without warning, vanishing into depths hidden beneath layers of fog.

Loose rocks constantly tumbled from above, their echoes lingering far too long in the silence below.

And despite the sheer scale of the mountains... the region felt empty.

Not peaceful empty. Wrong empty.

No beasts roamed the cliffs.

No birds crossed the skies.

Even insects seemed unwilling to exist there.

The only thing alive was the endless sound of wind moving through hollow stone.