Chapter 249: Chapter 249- Green Gas (4) "Given the nature of this place, the blood I spat out earlier should have been absorbed by this tunnel of flesh."
Grey’s brows furrowed as he stared at the dark stains on the ground.
"Even its own blood and flesh are constantly being devoured and reabsorbed... so why would it reject my blood?" he muttered, his expression growing increasingly pensive.
A moment later, a sharp glint flashed through his eyes.
Without hesitation, Grey raised his fist and struck his own chest.
’Thud!’
The impact echoed dully through his body. He coughed violently, and a mouthful of fresh blood spilled from his lips, splattering onto the fleshy floor below.
This time, the reaction was immediate.
The blood wriggled slightly before being swallowed whole by the tunnel of flesh, vanishing completely within seconds—as though it had never existed.
As this happened, the purple phantom slowly turned its head. Strands of long hair slipped aside, revealing its blank, unfathomable gaze as it stared straight at Grey.
Grey pinched his nose and let out a light laugh.
The look the phantom gave him made it painfully clear, it wanted to punch him far more than he had wanted to punch himself.
Honestly, Grey had no doubt that if the purple phantom struck him, he wouldn’t just cough out blood. A few internal organs might come along with it.
Turning away from the phantom, Grey crouched and focused on the ground once more, specifically, the spot where his blood had vanished.
"Weird..." he muttered. "The blood I just spat out was absorbed... but this black blood is still here."
The pitch-black blood lay beside the fresh stain, unmoving and untouched, as if the tunnel of flesh was deliberately avoiding it.
"Something is definitely wrong."
The instant those words left his mouth, a sharp spike of fear erupted in his heart.
Deep within his body, the Mosasaur that was previously dormant and silent, suddenly lifted its head, its instincts flaring violently.
In that same moment, every strand of hair on Grey’s neck stood on end.
An overwhelming sense of imminent life and death crashed down on him like a tidal wave.
Dodge! Do everything you can to dodge!
Grey reacted instantly.
He sprang backward into a clean backflip, barely touching the ground before twisting into a rapid cartwheel to the side. Yet even as he moved, the sense of danger didn’t lessen.
It intensified.
If anything, it became suffocating.
Without a single moment of hesitation, Grey summoned everything at his disposal. The Soul Devouring Bird, the purple phantom, and the shadow all surged forward at once, forming a barrier before him.
Still, the danger refused to fade.
Gritting his teeth, Grey pulled the purple scythe from his storage ring. At the same time, he unleashed the full power of his cultivation base, his aura erupting violently as he circulated the dormant cold yin energy within his body.
The air around him grew heavy and frigid.
Then what felt like forever in a single moment... or what even felt like a moment later...
Grey’s perception dimmed.
The world before his eyes seemed to darken, as though night had fallen all at once.
But in truth, the surroundings had not grown darker.
Something enormous had appeared.
Before him loomed a massive face, towering several meters tall. Its pitch-black eyes gleamed with a cold, malicious light, while its features twisted into a ferocious, grotesque grin.
There was no distinction between its pupils and the whites of its eyes, everything was black, bottomless, and unnervingly hollow.
The sheer gloom and eeriness it radiated made Grey’s heart tremble.
The instant the face appeared, it surged forward, rushing straight toward him.
The Soul Devouring Bird was the first to respond.
It screeched sharply, its cry echoing through the tunnel as it shot forward, its wings slicing through the air before colliding head-on with the massive face.
Boom!
In an instant, the Soul Devouring Bird’s body shattered, scattering into countless fragments.
Yet the massive face did not slow down in the slightest. Its twisted grin only widened as it continued advancing.
Of course, what was destroyed was merely the bird’s physical manifestation. Its true essence remained, the tattoo etched into Grey’s body.
Still, the backlash was brutal.
The moment the Soul Devouring Bird collapsed, Grey spat out another mouthful of blood, his complexion turning deathly pale.
The impact on his soul was severe.
Although the Soul Devouring Bird had not truly died, the damage felt as though an invisible hand had reached deep into Grey’s chest and violently squeezed his heart.
Pain surged through him like a blade.