Chapter 56 (1/2)

Chapter 56 Between the Mountains

Nightingale was slowly moving forward on the mountain path.

The path under her feet was only shoulder width. On either side of her was a huge rock wall, separated by ten feet. But between them was a bottomless ravine and the shoulder wide path she was walking on, so directly next to Nightingale’s feet was a steep cliff and a huge wall out of rock. When she looked into the deep ravine she could only see darkness. While traveling on her shoulder wide path, Nightingale was always carefully leaning on the rock wall next to her, trying to avoid losing her footing and falling into the ravine.

When she looked up, only a thin shimmer could be seen from the sky, like a silver thread hanging in the night sky. However, she knew that it was just a little after noon – even during the day, she still needed to hold a torch. The light coming down the cliff was not sufficient enough to illuminate the road ahead. Walking on this path for a long time even gave birth to the illusion that she was walking in the mountains.

The only advantage here was that not much would fall down the gorge, despite the cold wind whistling through the mountains and lifting up the fallen snow.. Occasionally there were a few natural snowflakes that fell on her head from, and landed on the mountain walls or on the trail, turning into water vapor. Down here, the temperature wasn’t the same as it was in the outside world, occasionally she could see the hot air rising up from below the cliff.

If it weren’t like this, she wouldn’t dare to pass the Impassable Mountains during the Months of the Demons. She could hide herself in her own world of fog, but there, it would be still the same temperature. If she were to brave her way through the snow, she estimated that she would freeze to death after an hour of walking.

Nightingale didn’t want to spend an extra minute down here – she could always feel something in the dark, always watching her, making her blood run cold.

If she could, Nightingale would stay in the fog the whole way, but it was a pity that her strength wasn’t enough to do that. When she used her ability for a long time, she would quickly become exhausted.

Nightingale raised the torch and let it illuminate the opposite cliff. In the faint firelight, she could occasionally see dark shadows on the walls. Nightingale knew that those were caves, which were so deep that light couldn’t reach the end of each cave. They looked like orbs of darkness. But on the other side, nearly at the same position, was also a deep hole. It reminded her of the North Slope Mine’s rumors, which said that the mine used to be a monster’s underground lair, with many forks in the road that extended in all directions, dug out by monsters. The Northern slope was part of the mountain range, but it was so far and wide with so many caves, who could say that the caves weren’t connected to the mine?

The idea made her shiver.

To the West of the Impassable Mountain range was the abandoned barbarian wasteland. It was known that the Impassable Mountain range extended for several hundreds of miles, with countless undiscovered caves. Nightingale was afraid that this wasteland could give birth to countless monsters.

She did not dare think of going into the caves and only concentrated on moving forward.

Finally, she could see a change in the road further ahead. The shoulder-wide path split into two, one leading slightly upwards and the other one leading downwards, leading deeper into the darkness without end; no one knew where this pit lead to. While standing on the bifurcation point, the feeling of being stared at had become very intense, as if countless eyes were motionlessly looking at every move Nightingale made, making her have a dry mouth and tongue and giving her a creepy feeling.

Nightingale grit her teeth as she opened her world of fog and quickly stepped into it. Soon, the creepy feeling began to disappear.

While following the path leading upwards, the surrounding air temperature soon begun to fall, but above her head the small thread of silver became bigger. A quarter of an hour later, a huge cave opened up directly in front of her, with its entrance slightly higher than the path she was following. When she set foot into the cave she could see a faint fire deep within.