Chapter 611 - 608: Calamity

Chapter 611: Chapter 608: Calamity

’The sun is gone again...’

The sunlight wasn’t constant; its warmth lasted only for a time. When it vanished, the land would grow ever colder. A frigid wind scraped across Mo Ling’s body, a thread of chill burrowing into his heart.

Whenever the sun disappeared, Mo Ling’s body would grow somewhat stiff. When he curled the bones within, the movement was more sluggish than in the warmth.

When it was too cold, his body would begin to tremble involuntarily. This made him a little warmer, but it also slowed his movements even more.

This land seemed somewhat desolate. Mo Ling had traveled for a long time without finding anything to touch. The ground was covered in sharp sand, and it had been ages since he’d last felt the Hua Hua and grasses that had once been everywhere.

As his body grew colder, his sense of touch became exceptionally sensitive. The sharp grains of sand scraped against him, causing a raw pain, and Mo Ling had no choice but to slow his pace.

But after he slowed down, he felt the sand beneath him begin to vibrate faintly.

’What is this?’

Mo Ling had never experienced such a sensation before. There was no record of it in the knowledge the old Finger Insect had passed on to him before its death.

The sand was moving. Was it because the earth itself was moving?

Mo Ling stopped in his tracks, quietly sensing the vibration.

The vibration grew more and more violent, and the sand began to give way. Mo Ling grew even more confused. He had never encountered a situation like this and didn’t know whether to press on or wait where he was.

Would it be like a storm, over in a little while? Or would it be like the sea, never-ceasing?

Mo Ling was a little worried, but mostly, he was excited.

He was finally feeling something different. All his previous sensations had words to describe them, but there were no words at all for this strange vibration.

This meant he could be the creator of its word.

But why was there no record of such a word?

Had no Finger Insect ever felt this vibration?

Or perhaps...

’The Finger Insects who felt this vibration... all died...’

A sudden premonition gripped Mo Ling’s heart. During his journey, he had come to know many things, personally touching many words that had only been concepts, but he had never encountered the danger the old Finger Insect had spoken of.

Mo Ling remembered it clearly. The old Finger Insect had once said:

"To touch the world is to touch danger."

Could it be that this vibration was that unavoidable danger?

’Is this... a calamity?’

Just as he was thinking this, the vibration suddenly intensified. The sand beneath him roiled, and the unstable layer instantly collapsed, swallowing Mo Ling into a sea of cold sand. As the frigid, sharp grains enveloped him, he belatedly confirmed that he had been caught in a calamity.

’Am I... going to die?’

Mo Ling didn’t want to die. He had yet to tell his companions about everything he had touched, had yet to experience a more beautiful world.

He didn’t want to become a cold, stiff corpse like the old Finger Insect.

Finger Insects came to know the world slowly and with great difficulty, but this made the world’s beauty all the more precious.

The things he touched had broadened Mo Ling’s mind, and he had grown even more eager to touch more.

’There are still so many things I haven’t touched...’

The sand grew tighter and tighter. Mo Ling was now completely submerged in the sea of sand.

This sharp sand gave him an "embrace" completely different from the sun’s—an embrace that could bring death. When the pressure of the sand reached a critical point, Mo Ling would be crushed completely.

’I don’t want to die.’

Amid the continuous vibration, Mo Ling felt the dance of every grain of sand. They scraped across his body, scoring the folds of his skin—sharp, biting, vicious...

Mo Ling touched the world’s malice, but this, paradoxically, made him calmer.

That malice broke through the shackles on his mind, and in that instant, he remembered something.

His fingertip gently touched the churning waves of sand. A massive, cubic void suddenly enveloped all the sand Mo Ling had touched.

A cool breeze blew past. Where Mo Ling had been swallowed, only a deep, cube-shaped pit remained. He shook the sand from his body and, before the pit could collapse, sprang out in time.

The vibrations returned, and the pit was once again swallowed by the surrounding quicksand.

’Did I escape the calamity?’ Mo Ling still found it hard to believe. In the midst of the crisis, he seemed to have accidentally triggered something, but now that the danger was past, he had forgotten the feeling.

It seemed to be some kind of survival instinct, an impulse to seek advantage and avoid harm, etched into his subconscious.

Mo Ling had no time to reminisce now; he still had to evade the constantly sinking quicksand. With the experience of being swallowed by the sea of sand, he now understood the principle behind this type of calamity.

The vibrations caused the sand to sink. The greater the weight the sand bore, the faster it would sink, which was why he had been trapped so quickly just now.

And the way to deal with this calamity was...

Mo Ling curled his body up and then, just as he had sprung from the pit, launched himself in an instant, landing on another part of the sandy sea.

Before the sand could give way, he jumped again, leaping to another spot.

And so it went. The vibrations continued, and Mo Ling kept jumping across the sea of sand. A Finger Insect’s body was extremely fragile, but it was also full of energy. Back in the cave, Mo Ling had often played jumping games with his companions. He never thought it would actually come in handy.

Finally, Mo Ling felt the vibrations begin to subside, and the sea of sand no longer collapsed. He slowed the frequency of his jumps.

After the vibrations disappeared, he landed on the sea of sand once more. This time, the sand held firm.

’I did it! I escaped the calamity!’

A profound fear washed over Mo Ling in hindsight. He had never imagined that the calamity the old Finger Insect spoke of would be so terrifying. No wonder no Finger Insect that had experienced one had ever survived.

Although he had survived this ordeal, fear began to well up in Mo Ling’s heart.

’If I keep touching the world, I’ll definitely die.’ The thought appeared in his mind once more. Only now did he understand why the elder Finger Insects had given up their explorations to hide back in the cave.

Everything ahead was unknown. The world was beautiful, but it was also terrifying. They could only touch this world clumsily; when true danger and calamity descended, they had no way to cope at all.

To be weak is to hide.

This was, fundamentally, the correct path to survival.

Those Finger Insects who lacked self-awareness were the real heretics.

Curiosity was a poison. To touch the world so unguardedly was a path to certain death.

The same despair his predecessors had once felt now descended upon Mo Ling.

’I survived this calamity, but what about the next one?’

Fear spread through Mo Ling’s entire body. It was something colder than the wind and sand, leaving him completely stiff, unable to move...