Red stopped moving as soon as he spotted the object. The shape and coloration left the youth with no doubt - he was staring at an egg. It was a big one too, larger than his own head.

The egg was grayish in tone, and other than its prodigious size, nothing stood out to Red at first glance. The youth drew his gaze away and inspected the rest of the chamber. There were still no signs of monsters, but Red did spot some pieces of what he presumed were broken eggshells around the egg.

‘This is a nest, or at least, it was at some point.’

This much Red could conclude. The weird thing, however, was the fact that other than the eggs, there was almost no sign of monster presence here. Even if the beasts were very stealthy, they would still leave traces of their prey and other things if they were making their lair in this cave. Red then thought of another possibility.

‘Abandoned eggs.’

This wasn’t uncommon in nature. Many reptiles, such as snakes, often abandoned their clutch of eggs after laying them. Red imagined this was what might have happened here: a monster dug this hole, laid its eggs in here, and then left to continue living its life. However, this didn’t explain everything to Red.

The youth hesitated, but he soon made up his mind. He approached the egg in the center of the room, and he couldn’t help but frown.

‘There’s no life in it.’

Red could tell this through his crimson sense. He had done a fair bit of experimenting with his power in the last 7 years, and as such, he confirmed that his crimson sense could indeed detect the fluctuations of an unborn young, whether it be a human or a chicken. As such, it just took one glance for the youth to be able to tell there was no life in the egg.

Red looked around at the pieces of eggshell. There were only a few bits of them, scattered all around the room, which told Red that the monsters that hatched from the eggs probably ate their own shells for sustenance. Either that, or a predator came along and ate it.

It was hard to tell, but the youth estimated there might have been at least a dozen eggs in the cave before.

‘And yet, this one remains whole.’

Monster physiology was a complicated topic. With so many types of monsters in the world and with so many levels of strength, what went as common knowledge for one might be thrown outside the window for the other, and this might go even for monsters of the same species. Yet, no monster or living being could escape one truth.

Everything rotted.

Even the corpses of mighty monsters would eventually be consumed by the earth. Even if it took longer than normal for the more powerful beasts, it was still an inevitable truth.

Yet, here Red was, with a dead egg that showed no signs of rotting. Its shell still seemed rigid and whole, and there was also no odor of rot coming from it.

Who knew how long this egg had been here? Months? Years? If one was to judge by the surrounding area, it was most certainly not laid recently, and as such, it should have already begun to rot by now.

‘Could it be that it’s alive?’

There was always the possibility his crimson sense was wrong. It happened before against other cultivators, so it wasn’t impossible that a monster might be able to do the same thing. Yet, if this was the case, why was this the only egg remaining in the cave?

This line of logic didn’t make sense, and yet the situation was undoubtedly confusing to Red.

The youth decided to put the egg itself aside for now and look at the bigger picture.

‘Burrowing, laying eggs in the ground, abandoning their young. Just by that and considering where we are, it’s clear this was the work of a reptile monster, possibly a snake.’

Yet, why would a snake monster leave the canyon to lay eggs here? Was this a common occurrence with monsters in the canyon? Red wasn’t that well informed about the fauna of those lands, and as such, he couldn’t judge if this situation was abnormal or not.

What about all the monsters that had hatched from the other eggs? Did they return to the canyon or were they still around the forest? Perhaps some of them were still in the general area, and if Red couldn’t sense them, that could prove to be fatal to him.

In the end, this all brought the youth to a single issue: should he still cultivate here?

Obviously, with all the uncertainty surrounding the area, Red would have preferred to pick a safer place, but he didn’t really have the privilege to keep searching. The Full Moon would arrive tonight, and if he missed that opportunity, he could only try again in a month.

Despite the current circumstances, Red recognized he wouldn’t find a safer place than this one in the area, or else Rog would have told him. As such, he thought it better to stay here. He could make some preparations on the off-chance that snake monsters suddenly swarmed him in the middle of his cultivation, even if he wasn’t fully confident about what he was dealing with.

‘… Now, what do I do about you?’

Monster eggs were valuable materials for cultivators, even the dead ones. Red, however, was concerned about cultivating with this egg around, but he also didn’t dare smash it to pieces, as the odor of whatever was inside could attract unwanted attention to him.

In the end, he decided to leave the egg alone for now and seal the entrance to the cave. If, by the end of his cultivation session, the egg was still there, then Red would take it back with him to examine it. For now, he couldn’t afford distractions.

…

Almost an hour later, Red managed to block the cave entrance with enough logs and rocks. If something popped out of the cave, then these blockades would alert the youth.

Still not satisfied with his general safety, Red continued to examine the valley and the surrounding region for the following hours with as much thoroughness as he could muster. He found no traces of any monsters or other oddities, but this didn’t make him feel safe.

Instead, it just gave Red a greater sense of unease.

‘How did those monsters manage to move around without leaving a single trace?’

Unfortunately, no reply was forthcoming, so Red returned to the valley. The youth then started to prepare his surroundings for his cultivation session.

First, he picked the spot he would sit down to cultivate, which was near the center of the small valley. Next, he started to lay twigs all around the area, so that anything wandering through without his notice might potentially make enough noise to alert him. Red then created some rudimentary traps, such as tripwires, designed to create noise and alert him, rather than hurting anything.

The youth also felled most of the trees in the valley with the help of his sword. He wouldn’t have any ambushers climbing through the tree canopy and bypassing all his preparations.

By the time Red was done, the sun was almost setting. The youth examined his preparations with a frown. There were many things that these alarms and traps didn’t account for, such as an attack from beneath the earth or from the sky, but it was already the best Red could do with his limited resources.

‘Maybe I should have tried making an Alarm Formation.’

It would have certainly been convenient, but Red knew the idea wasn’t feasible back then with his limited time and resources. However, the youth decided to make that a priority of his over the next few months once he went back.

Once all this preparation was done, Red sat down cross-legged on the forest floor and entered into a meditative state. His expanded awareness reached towards the crimson mist being, who seemed to be agitated.

“It’s time.” Red said inside of his own head.

There was no response other than a wave of unease from the mist transmitted into the youth’s mind. Despite its otherworldly powers, the being never seemed to be very stable emotionally. Then again, it was a demon, after all.

Red continued. “I will do something reckless this time.”

Still no response.

“I need you to not fight back.”

“… Difficult.” The voice responded this time, carrying a tone full of anger that reached into Red’s mind.

“If you fight back, I die.” Red said. “If I die, no one else will help you.”

“Be… Quick.” the voice said before falling silent.

The youth could feel through his expanded awareness that the mist seemed to be barely restraining itself. It was like an animal trying to resist its own instincts, and Red knew that without guidance and force of will, it would have already long lost itself.

This was, of course, all due to the Moonstone Energy.

As Red opened more of his special acupoints, it became increasingly difficult for the being to ignore this foreign energy entering his body. It sought to convince the youth to expel this energy more than a few times, but it was not something Red could afford to do.

The mist was then forced to coexist alongside this energy in his body, much to its dismay. Yet, in doing so, it also made one thing clear to Red - harmony wasn’t possible between the mist and this energy.

They would eventually clash with the youth’s body as the battlefield, where one would consume the other, and only one would prevail in the end. It was hard to say if Red would survive when it was all said and done.

‘It was wishful thinking to hope these two otherworldly energies could live in peace inside my body.’

This was yet another concern for the youth, but not a pressing one for now, as the mist seemed to behave as he asked. In the end, to Red, this was just another incentive to find a way to rid himself of this curse.

Night eventually fell, and the Full Moon rose in the sky, with all its brilliance. Red looked up and saw the shimmering form of the incomprehensible being on the Moon, in a state of apparent hibernation. Its gaze didn’t appear at all, a sign of what was about to happen.

The youth got up, and without hesitation started to perform the Rain Dance vein opening technique. Even now, Red didn’t feel comfortable executing these rather silly movements, but he was more than used to doing it at this point. A few minutes later, he felt an aching sensation within his veins, indicating they were ready to absorb the surrounding Spiritual Energy, which already started to gather inside his body.

With that done, he sat back down again.

Red took out his insectoid core, laying it on his lap, as well as putting a fistful of Vein Opening Pills on his mouth. To consume this many pills at once wasn’t a wise course of action, but the youth was determined to succeed at all costs.

Just as the medicine started to take its effect, a glowing sparkle of green energy started to take form in the night sky, converging on Red’s location. The insectoid core in his lap began to glow, and the youth knew.

It was time to open his final acupoint.