Chapter 626 – Stranded in the Swamp
Then, from those trenches, lines of walking corpses, puppets, and various monsters broke out, and began to bite and devour each other, becoming a hellish landscape.
In the face of the power of nature, everyone lost control of their voice, having been shocked by this spectacular scene. This was the deity’s creation of Nature, it was the power of the ancient times when the clouds could be overturned and in a second the sun, moon, mountains, and rivers could be flipped. The flow of time here was not fast, and they were afraid it was out of sync with the outside world. Moreover, they soon found that there was not much difference between day and night. Perhaps the only thing that made it easy for people to recognize the time was the alternating changing of the sea and mulberry fields, which could never happen in the outside world.
Before he understood the laws governing this place, Lin Xuanzhi decided to have everyone sit there for now, while he himself went out to find more about the situation. Yan Tianhun knew that his strength was still weak, and going out would also be dragging down Lin Xuanzhi, so he didn’t move to go out. He just silently stuffed a few bottles of life-saving medical pills into Lin Xuanzhi’s hands.
After three changes of mulberry fields and seas, Lin Xuanzhi finally came back. The malevolent Qi on his body was so thick that it could condense into tangible matter, and his face was as white as snow, which looked like his spiritual Qi was exhausted. There was also a thin wound on his cheek, which cut a sorry figure.
When he saw Lin Xuanzhi’s appearance, Yan Tianhen almost cried. He was just about to help Lin Xuanzhi sit down when he heard Lin Xuanzhi say, “On the day when I was out, I climbed over this mountain. The other side of the mountain is still a black forest, and there is a huge sinking swamp inside.”
Speaking of this, Lin Xuanzhi vomited a mouth corrupted Qi and said, “The malevolent Qi and miasma are very thick, and the strength I can exert is less than half of that before, but those native monsters can use this malevolent Qi to attack, and we have no advantage. The marsh is difficult to cross. The monsters block the road — the closer to the center, the greater their difficulty.”
And Lin Xuanzhi had found that ever since they got to the edge of the Tomb of Youshan, all the compasses they brought no longer worked. There was no sun and no direction of wind, and they could only identify their position by their feeling. After deliberation, they collectively decided to pass through the swamp by using magic treasures and arrays. Here, however, there was a difficult problem that they had to face — no one knew what was waiting for them on the other side of the swamp.
They counted the magic treasures, medicinal pills, and talismans they had on hand. There were quite a few, so they could take a gamble. After Lin Xuanzhi’s observation, he also found that whenever it snowed over the swamp, the monsters would move much more slowly, and whenever it rained, the monsters’ chaotic activity would reach its peak.
It’s just that the snow was too cold and the road ahead would be more difficult.
After calculating a good time and watching the change of mulberry fields and seas several more times, the group decided to hit the road. They were still in the original order. When crossing the sea, they left the cliff cave that had given them a short refuge.
As soon as they came out, they met a huge scavenger eagle falling from the sky, and Ah Bai was nearly snatched away. As a result, the scavenger eagle was chopped down by a lightning bolt from Hu Po, and burned the top of its head. Then it turned, flapping his wings and running away in a mess.
Yan Tianhen looked at that with a muddled face. Firstly, because he didn’t know when Hu Po had gotten so powerful. Secondly, he didn’t expect that the monsters who fought without regard to their lives in the Tomb of Youshan could be afraid. What did this mean?
As the saying goes, the violent ones fear the rash ones, while the rash ones fear those without regard for their lives.
As long as the monsters knew fear and cherished their lives, this showed that they didn’t need to fight these monsters to death and only needed to win.
After all, fighting them to the death would only waste more spiritual Qi, which was not beneficial.
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Although Taotian was a bit slow, he also realized this and nodded subconsciously, saying, “Moreover, the deeper you go, the heavier the malevolent Qi and miasma. These things may depend on malevolent Qi to live. Perhaps they can use these two types of Qi to cultivate.”
Along the way, Taotian felt more uncomfortable the further in they went, but he was not a delicate little peach blossom, and he didn’t complain.
After reaching the edge of the swamp, the humidity of the air seemed to have improved several grades at once. Even with a cleaning body spell, they still couldn’t expel this sticky air that contained a lot of malevolent Qi and demonic Qi. Fortunately, everyone’s robes were engraved with arrays, which could resist this for a period of time.
In the swamp area, just from looking from the outside, one could see a lot of local monsters that had been swallowed alive by the swamp, and those monsters had the posture of rushing forward one after another. After the one in front was swallowed, the one in the back would rush forward.
Yin Chongyue asked in confusion, “What is under the swamp?”
“Sparrow spirits.” Taotian swallowed deeply and said, “I don’t know whether it can be considered a sparrow spirit, but there is extremely thick spiritual Qi in the soil below the swamp, which has been piled up and hidden for many years.” Taotian swallowed again, wiped the saliva that was coming out, and said, “I can feel it, the ground underneath the entire swamp is covered with sparrow spirits.”
As soon as this was said out loud, everyone couldn’t help but take a cold breath.
No matter how vivid the storybooks and legends made it out to be, they were all events that transpired tens of thousands of years ago, and with the fabrication and transformation added from later generations, no one knew what really happened back then.
They couldn’t even be sure of the Tomb of Youshan’s original form — whether it was Puluo Mountain, and whether Puluo Mountain was the most suitable place for cultivating immortality within the Southeast Land. But now, as long as there was no error in Taotian’s senses, even if it was not sparrow spirit, it was still something that could compete with sparrow spirits.
The reliability of that rumor…..was self-evident.
Yan Tianhen’s eyes looked straight at the monsters that dived into swamps one after another and said, “Say, do you think we have any way to lift these swamps?”
Lin Xuanzhi said, “Don’t even think about it. Our purpose this time is to find the blood cypress tree sap. We can steal other treasures if it is along the way, but don’t think about the rest.”
Yan Tianhen let out a disappointed cry of “Oh”.
The poison was pervasive, and it could almost be condensed into dark clouds. There was still darkness ahead, but they could take advantage of this darkness.
After Lin Xuanzhi and the others discussed the countermeasures, they then sat on the flying leaves Lin Xuanzhi made by himself before he came, getting ready to break through the swamp.
The functions of flying leaves were similar to that of flying boats, except that the flying boats were long-distance and the workmanship was more exquisite, while the flying leaves were for short trips, but at the same time, they consumed less spirit Qi. If they run out of sparrow spirits, they could still use spiritual Qi to carry on for a while.
Moreover, the biggest advantages of flying leaves was that they were flexible and light, and easy to control the direction. In such a dangerous place, it was most suitable for five people to take a flying leaf together. The consumption of sparrow spirits here was ten times here faster than the consumption outside. Yan Tianhen simply took out a handful of sparrow spirits and put it down in the middle of the array.
Looking at the burning sparrow spirits, Yin Nian’s lips twitched involuntarily. “Aren’t you spending too extravagantly?”
Yan Tianhen confidently said, “What’s more important — sparrow spirits or your life? No amount of sparrow spirits is worth this prince’s life.”
Yin Nian could only say it was admirable.
The biggest crisis in the swamp was that the miasma was thick, and they could not land. Moreover, they did not know where the edge of the swamp was. If they accidentally deviated from that direction, they may never be able to come out of the swamp.
Adding the two together, it meant certain death if they ever lost their way.
In order to avoid such a situation, every time Lin Xuanzhi saw a tree growing from the swamp, he would make a unique mark on it for reference.
Originally, it was still calm and tranquil, but then suddenly, out of the swamp came a monster that looked like a fish but had nine heads and three pairs of wings, causing Lin Xuanzhi and the others to lose their original sense of direction. This monster was sticky, slippery, immune to fire and water, and extremely lethal. It could release poison.
If the little peach flower demon couldn’t naturally dispel malevolent Qi and miasma, they might have suffered a big loss. After a turbulent battle, the nine heads of the fish monster were finally penetrated by one of Lin Xuanzhi’s swords at the same time, and it finally spat out a black bead, falling back into the mud again, very much dead.
Lin Xuanzhi took the round bead quickly, and his face changed slightly. “It’s a demonic core.”
Demonic beings had demonic cores, and monsters had monster cores.
These things were not monsters, but demons.
Before, they always didn’t understand what these things were, since they couldn’t find any cores, but now they were basically certain.
It was indeed typical of demonic beings.
Bai Yanqiu couldn’t help but feel lucky and said, “Fortunately, there is a natural magnetic field here, so it is difficult for outsiders to come in, and the demonic beings inside also can’t get out. Otherwise, once the demonic beings start to rage, it will be another disaster for the Nine Lands.”
Yin Chongyue also nodded and said, “You are not wrong. Even I have never seen these demonic beings before, and their ranks are not low. I’m afraid that their weak spots won’t be very obvious.”
Lin Xuanzhi pinched that bead and said, “This thing seems to be able to avoid the misama. I will divide this thing in half and put one on each flying leaf to see what the effect is.”
The demonic core was hard, but Lin Xuanzhi’s forged engraving pen was not to be looked down on either, so the demonic core was cut in half and put into the array of flying leaves, and stood side by side together with the sparrow spirits.
Everyone immediately felt their heads become bright and clear, and a filter screen even seemed to be added on the heavy and uncomfortable air, which became much fresher.
“It turns out that you can really use this to avoid the miasma.” Yin Chongyue raised his eyebrows and said, “Let’s take a few more of these. We can even sell it outside.”
Lin Xuanzhi glanced at him and said, “Have you noticed that our direction seems to be different from before?”
Yin Chongyue, “…..”
Yin Chongyue looked in all four directions, and it was borderless and vast. How was it possible to know what direction they had just gone? And this swamp, unknowingly intentional or coincidental, turned out to be completely symmetrical in all directions, and no difference could be seen. If they always traveled in the same direction, it’s fine, but once the direction was changed and messed up, it was not easy to find the road again.
The fields were boundless, the sky was dark, and everyone was lost in confusion and thought. The sparrow spirits could burn for a period of time, but the edge of the swamp still couldn’t be seen. If they just went around like a headless fly, the final result was self-evident.