Decaying World Chapter 159

Chapter 159

The Mist Zone.

Within the hazy white Mist, it was difficult to determine one’s location without a road underfoot as a reference.

Relying on the maps obtained from the Rain Palace and the Wang family, Lin Hui stumbled along, constantly correcting his bearing until he finally found the marked area ntioned in the handbook.

Standing on the crumbled gray-white rocky cart path, Lin Hui looked at the road surface ahead, which had been trampled into ruin by massive footprints, and exhaled.

The map made by the Clear Wind Temple's exploration team has long lost any reference value here. The only one that’s still sowhat useful is the one given by the Wang family...

He reached out and produced the pale yellow parchnt map he had already consulted many tis, confirming his current direction.

Starting from here, heading further out, is the Bone-Corroding Plains ... Crossing the Bone-Corroding Plains leads to the Jade Sea ... There should be a giant stone pit left behind from a battle involving the forr Palace Master of the Rain Palace in this area... I need to find it.

He looked around, slowing down to circle and search on both sides of this dead-end road.

Before long, he found a small, dark green pond, more than ten ters in diater and unfathomably deep.

Standing by the pond, Lin Hui stopped as he watched the white bone remnants bobbing and drifting inside.

Found the stone pit... Using the stone pit as the center, I need to find the landmark left by the governnt—the Scale Stone Stele.

He circled around and imdiately discovered a rectangular black stone stele jutting crookedly from the ground by the pond.

The stele was half the height of a person, with the majority of it buried in the earth. The exposed part bore the three characters for "Bone-Corroding Plains", carved and filled with an unknown white pignt. Following the characters was a directional arrow pointing to the right side of the stele.

Lin Hui examined it closely and found a line of small text carved at the bottom.

"With this as the boundary, there are no more roads outward. Due to the excessive difficulty of maintenance, all subsequent paths are guided by Scale Stone Steles. If a Scale Stone Stele is found damaged, please pile the corpses of slain Mist Zone monsters at the foot of the stele and await its repair—Taisu Federation · Tuyue City Governnt Office."

Past here, further ahead is no longer the relatively safe zone maintained by Tuyue... Lin Hui gazed in the direction the Scale Stone Stele pointed. The Mist there was heavy, and he could vaguely see dense, unknown phantoms flitting past like flowing water.

The number of monsters was far, far greater than on this side of the stele.

He took out the map enhanced by the Wang family, checked it, and then compared it with the one given by Big Brother Liu Wujun of the Rain Palace.

The Rain Palace map also had the text marker for the Scale Stone Stele at this location, but it held more information than the stele, specifically regarding the Bone-Corroding Plains.

“Bone-Corroding Plains: Before entering, ensure all water sources on your person are sealed to avoid contamination by acid mist and acid rain. Current acid rain cycle in the Bone-Corroding Plains for this decade: Once every four to five days, with an average duration of four hours. Please ensure filtration for the mouths and noses of mounts and livestock.”

Clearly, these warnings were internal tips from the Rain Palace for their own people; they were much more detailed than other maps.

Lin Hui looked at the handbook again, finding the location of the Purgatory-ized monster group marked on it.

Next to a black stone forest in the Bone-Corroding Plains near the Jade Sea... The described range is a bit large; looks like I can only search the general area.

The Purgatory-ized monsters this ti were a group known as the Oil-Foot Deer-n. Their original characteristic was that they were a semi-humanoid race living in the Bone-Corroding Plains, capable of secreting large amounts of oil.

They once had a brief period of border trade with the Outer City of Tuyue and possessed their own crude language, though no written script.

Six years ago, they often accumulated their excess secreted oil and brought it to a few fringe towns in Tuyue’s Outer City to trade.

But a while ago, the Inner City’s Cleanup Squad issued a notice confirming that the Oil-Foot Deer-n had been specially polluted. Based on the external manifestations of pollution described in the notice, Lin Hui confird it was exactly what he knew as Purgatory-ization.

Standing by the Scale Stone Stele, he carefully checked the opening of the water skin on his body, tied it shut, and sealed it.

Then he checked the Surrounding Wind special effect, ensuring it gathered so clean air to surround him, and finally replenished the nearly exhausted Tranquil Incense.

Gripping Ruyi in his hand, he strode quickly in the direction indicated by the stele.

Walking less than two hundred ters, Lin Hui felt the surrounding air beco slightly choking. The road underfoot completely disappeared, replaced by semi-dry, pale green mud that carried a sour stench.

There were no plants, no insects. In this direction, he hadn't even encountered any Mist Zone monsters for the ti being. As he moved forward, the sour sll in the air gradually beca more pungent.

Continuing forward for another kiloter or so, Lin Hui could barely sll anything other than the acidity.

The intense sour stench completely dominated his sense of sll.

Having grown accustod to the lack of a road underfoot—just a flat expanse of pale green mud—he gradually began to accelerate.

After another few kiloters, the Wang family map and the Rain Palace map in Lin Hui’s possession began to heat up simultaneously.

He took them out to look.

He discovered that a faint black arrow pattern had surfaced on the maps. The arrow pointed to his front right.

Is this map navigation? A Mist version? He instantly felt it was a novelty.

Seen from this angle, in conditions where everything around is shrouded in Mist and you can’t tell north from south, the only thing those large caravans can truly rely on is this kind of special map. There really is a reason these exist...

Lin Hui had heard such rumors before, but only now did he confirm why these maps were all closely guarded secrets, treasured by the major clans and never circulated externally.

So this thing actually had such a precious function.

He glanced around; front, back, left, right—everything looked the sa. Without this map, he simply wouldn't be able to tell where he had walked.

And in the vast Mist Zone, once one lost their direction, the outco was inevitably death.

At tis like this, a map was indeed the lifeline of the large caravans.

Sighing with emotion, he accelerated his pace, unleashing his movent technique to skim forward.

The pale green mud underfoot constantly vanished behind him, and new green ground constantly erged from the Mist ahead.

Lin Hui ran for about ten kiloters or so and soon saw a second Scale Stone Stele.

At this mont, the maps in his robes quickly cooled down as he approached the Scale Stone Stele. Clearly, there was so special connection between the two.

Lin Hui walked up and found that the stele seed to have been struck by sothing, knocking it askew. Deep gouges and scars remained on its edges.

He reached out, held both sides of the stele, and tried to set it upright, but the stele didn't budge an inch.

Speechless, he could only give up.

This new stele also recorded writing and directional arrows.

“Face the stele as the standard: Due North—Oil-Foot Tribe. Due West—Bone Jade Ruins. Northeast—Jade Sea. Due South—Tuyue City.”

The writing on the stele was much less than before, and the characters were large, likely crude additions made later to replace blurred ones. But even so, Lin Hui still saw obvious traces of erosion on the edges of the characters.

He thought for a mont, confird where due north was, then slowly drew his sword, strapping the scabbard back onto his back.

Chi!

Unfolding his movent technique, he extinguished even the Tranquil Incense, relying only on the Surrounding Wind special effect to maintain clean air for breathing.

To be honest, the most frequent use of this special effect so far was relying on it to bind clean air and isolate the external environnt.

As for actual defense, he rarely used it. After all, Lin Hui hadn't encountered many who could compare with his speed; he rarely needed defense.

The sour, foul wind swept past him. The Mist ahead parted like ocean waves to both sides.

Several minutes later, Lin Hui suddenly furrowed his brows, faintly slling the scent of blood.

He slowed his pace, gripped his sword tight, and restrained his aura as he moved forward.

Proceeding for another half minute, the Mist ahead suddenly dispersed, revealing a small, natural Mist-Free Zone.

From a distance, this area looked like a hollow space beneath an inverted bowl. Inside the cavity, on the pale green mud, stood a crude, small village built of black rock.

The village used a three-story small stone fort in the center as a marker, surrounded by over a dozen black stone houses.

These houses were rectangular prisms—four large stones stacked like blocks to form a box without a gate; that was the basic structure.

With an average height of three ters, the dozen or so black stone houses surrounded the central stone fort to form the village.

Unfortunately, this village had long since lost all signs of life.

The ground littered with scattered bones proved that living things had been here not long ago, but now...

Lin Hui walked into the village and stopped in front of a large white skeleton, three ters long.

The skeleton had a deer's head and a human's body, its hand still clutching a rough black stone club. The bones were covered by a layer of dried, tattered brown fur. Inside, all flesh and blood were long gone.

Lin Hui squatted down and inspected the skeleton.

No traces of Purgatory-ization... He sighed and stood up, walking further inside.

Going deeper, along the road and beside the houses, shattered and incomplete skeletons of Deer-n were everywhere.

By the ti he walked to the central stone fort, he had counted at least thirty Deer-n skeletons, and not a single one showed traces of Purgatory-ization.

"Didn't they say this place was polluted?" He sighed softly.

His voice echoed gently in the surroundings, but no one answered. Only the wind passing through the holes of the stone fort's broken gate made a whistling sound.

He wandered around inside the stone fort. Apart from unknown moldy at and bones, there were only skeletons of larger Deer-n.

But strangely, he didn't find a single skeleton of a small Deer-man here.

This inevitably sparked so associations in Lin Hui’s mind.

He walked around the stone fort and found a large room that seed to be a study.

Inside the black rock room, a large stone table of irregular shape sat simply on the ground.

Several rough, oval stones by the table served as natural stools.

On a stone platform to the right of the table and stools, which looked like a bookshelf, lay two brown leather scrolls. They were over a ter long and as thick as an adult's fist.

The scrolls were tied with rotten black rope and placed casually on the stone platform.

Lin Hui stepped forward, gently pulled the rope apart, and unrolled one.

Inside were all sorts of crooked, scrawled black symbols—ghostly marks that seed to be introductory pictographs for learning the Taisu script.

Looks like these Deer-n also wanted to actively embrace civilization. What a pity... He guessed that soone had used the pretext of pollution to take the opportunity to slaughter the entire tribe.

Even possessing a natural Mist-Free Zone, they still couldn't avoid eting with misfortune...

Pa-da.

Suddenly, a small, transparent, pale purple stick-shaped crystal fell out of the scroll he had unrolled.

Picking up the crystal, Lin Hui examined it.

Seems to be so kind of natural Athyst?

If it were before, he might have just thrown this thing away. After all, Athyst wasn't rare; even in Tuyue, this kind of mineral wasn't a precious item.

But at this mont, when he picked up the crystal stick, he suddenly felt an itch on his shoulder.

Chi.

A speck of purple light abruptly flew out of the crystal stick and accurately sank into the second green Nine-Eye crystal on his shoulder.

The next second, the second of the Nine Eyes glowed faintly, signifying that charging was complete.

This thing can actually store Spirit?? Lin Hui was astonished. Although he didn't know the intensity of the Spirit that flew out, just the fact that this Athyst stick could store Spirit made it extrely rare.

At least until now, this was the first thing he had encountered that could store Spirit... no, it should be the second. The first was a head.

Putting away the Athyst stick, he looked through the other scroll, but this ti, nothing was hidden inside. He circled the stone fort a few more tis, confirming there were no other gains, before Lin Hui withdrew and left this tribal settlent.

But he hadn't walked far when the Mist-Free Zone behind him was quietly subrged by the Mist.

Hm?? What’s going on? He halted and looked back in the direction he had co from.

It’s impossible that the Mist just happened to erode right as I arrived. I definitely brought about so change that allowed the Mist to enter...

Thinking of this, Lin Hui took out the Athyst stick he had just found.

After a mont of thought, he used his movent technique again to dart back to the foot of the stone fort. But the surrounding Mist continued to pour in, filling the area.

Unable to determine the cause, he guessed it was the Spirit contained within, but he couldn't prove it. He could only save ti and press on, heading to the next Purgatory-ized tribal point.

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