Chapter Sixty: Miasma Demon Mountain

Under the moonlit sky, the lone beauty stood with a faint curve at the corner of her lips, her smile so lovely it seemed to drain the moon itself of its radiance.

At dawn, stirred by the mountain’s peculiar veil of mist, Chen Qi jolted awake. He rose and looked around, and from the surrounding tents came the rustle of movement one after another. Such was the plain efficiency of a martial artist’s habits.

When Sun Ruohai folded away the tents, Chen Qi was fully exposed to the thin mist. Yet unlike ordinary people on Earth, before the fog could even draw near, it was melted away by the fierce blood aura surging from his body. In an instant, everyone was sheathed in a faint white haze, as though they had stepped into a realm of immortals.

After going through the Cloud Sea Sect’s morning exercise routine, the sect disciples set off again after a simple meal of dry rations.

They crossed several ridges in succession, but the mist did not lessen; rather, it grew denser and denser. Even with Chen Qi’s eyesight, he could only barely make out objects within a hundred meters, and anything farther was reduced to an indistinguishable blur.

Perhaps because of the heavy fog, the vicious beasts seemed lazier than usual. To that point, the group had not yet seen a single one.

No one spoke. Their pace was light as they followed the path opened by the inner disciples ahead, moving swiftly and smoothly over mountains and ridges.

Before noon, Chen Qi faintly made out a tall mountain ahead.

Its summit was the highest peak in the surrounding area, and the vegetation on its slopes was noticeably darker than that of the neighboring ranges. Most striking of all was the shape of the peak itself: high around the edges, low in the center, like an overturned bowl, giving it a most unusual appearance.

At last, the leader, Yun Tianxin, came to a stop and ordered a short rest. In her usual gentle voice, she then began to explain the basic situation of the mountain.

This gave Chen Qi more time to study it, and almost at once he noticed something strange. In many places on the mountain, the mist had taken on an eerie purple-black hue. In particular, the center of the summit and the middle slopes were shrouded in seemingly endless black miasma. It was clear at a glance that this was no kindly place.

After finally gathering his thoughts, Chen Qi listened carefully to his senior sister’s explanation and sorted through the information in his mind.

The mountain was called Miasma Demon Mountain, and its specialty was a vicious beast known as the Hundred-Eyed Miasma Demon. The strongest among them had already advanced to a fourth-grade beast, transforming its hundred eyes into a thousand. That was precisely the target of this expedition.

It was also worth noting that the mountain was infested with poisonous creatures, more numerous here than anywhere within dozens of miles. Not only that, but Miasma Demon Mountain was steep and treacherous, with marshes and miasma forests making the terrain even more forbidding. In the past, only the inner sect elders who came to collect poisons had ever ventured up here.

Once the team had rested enough, they set out again. Their footsteps echoed along the fog-veiled mountain path, lending the place an even deeper silence.

Towering black trees, lush and dense, rose on both sides of the road. Chen Qi walked between them, unease creeping over him. He could not help imagining that at any moment a snake might droop from a branch overhead, fall onto his collarbone, and flick its tongue toward his head...

Even the pungent medicinal powder smeared over his body could not dispel that fear. Yun Tianxin had prepared it before departure, saying it could keep the unbegraded poisons at bay.

Though the journey was full of nerves, it was not truly dangerous, and soon the group reached the mountainside, where what lay before them blocked the way:

An endless black marsh, from whose depths enormous black bubbles kept rising, bursting, and turning into strands of slowly ascending poison miasma.

The miasma above the swamp was extraordinarily thick, spreading with the fog and carrying with it a nauseating stench.

Yun Tianxin’s delicate brows drew together as she said, “According to the elder, when he came up the mountain, this black poison marsh was nowhere near this vast. I never expected it to have blocked the road completely by now.”

A handsome inner disciple beside her drew his sword and said, “No matter what, we’ve come all this way. We should at least try. If it truly proves too dangerous, then it won’t be too late to turn back.”

Chen Qi, standing behind them, had wanted to object, but when he saw the resolute looks that flashed across everyone’s faces as they nodded one after another, he could only sigh helplessly and follow the team as they slowly stepped into the poisonous marsh.

The moment he entered, a foul, fishy stench rushed into his nose, making his head swim and his senses dull.

“This is the legendary poison miasma.”

A trace of clarity rose in Chen Qi’s mind as he held his breath.

With his physique of eighteen points, he could go for more than ten minutes without breathing. After that, however, discomfort would intensify and begin to impair his movements.

Feeling the soft, sinking sensation beneath his feet, he could only gather blood aura to the soles, doing his best to move lightly and withdrawing his foot immediately before it sank too deeply.

Even so, Chen Qi could only force himself forward with difficulty. Holding his breath caused his combat strength to fall and his blood aura to weaken; advancing through the marsh also drained his stamina at an alarming pace, as though dozens of kilograms of sandbags had been tied to his calves.

After trudging on like that for several minutes, he suddenly heard a sharp cry beside his ear:

“Now, breathe!”

Before the words even faded, Chen Qi saw a tightly condensed streak of green force slash through the poison miasma, driving the toxic air apart to either side.

The world before him brightened at once. Seizing the chance, Chen Qi took a deep breath together with the others, greedily snatching at the fresh air.

A look of intoxicated relief spread across their faces.

Only after losing something does one learn to cherish it so much, even if it is nothing more than the most ordinary air.

But the miasma quickly surged back in, forcing everyone to hold their breath again. Just as disappointment flashed across Chen Qi’s face, a strange noise suddenly came from the marsh beside them.

At that moment, Chen Qi was in the split second of his mental shift, and the sound was mixed with the bursting of bubbles, making it less noticeable. For an instant he failed to react at all, and could only watch helplessly as a shadow shot toward his temple.

Sun Ruohai, beside him, reacted instinctively. With a slight movement, the tip of his sword snapped out and flicked the flying poisonous needle aside with a crisp clang.

The impact was not loud, but it was enough to draw everyone’s attention. Soon a handsome inner disciple stepped forward and drove a foot, charged with true energy, straight into that patch of marsh.

Chen Qi stood frozen, his face burning with humiliation.

In his own heart, he had already considered himself an elite outer disciple, someone who could defeat Sun Ruohai without trouble. He had never imagined that he would be saved by the very man he had looked down on. For a moment, he could not accept it.

After the shock came shame. He cursed himself inwardly.

Chen Qi, oh Chen Qi, you have only just stepped onto the path of martial arts and learned nothing at all, yet you have already learned arrogance! So quickly have you thrown away a martial artist’s vigilance.

The inner disciple’s powerful kick instantly blasted a huge pit in the marsh. Inside lay a black scorpion no larger than a palm, and the shadow that had just shot out was its tail stinger.

Naturally, it did not survive that strike, and with the mud it was smashed into a heap of fragments.

But that one kick seemed to have opened some hidden switch. Strange noises suddenly began to rise all around them one after another, and the dead-silent poisonous marsh came alive at once.