The ground underfoot grew soft and muddy. Black sludge occasionally gurgled, a bubble rising and bursting with a wet pop, releasing an even more nauseating stench.
The twisted branches of dead trees were like dying, struggling monsters, their torsos half-subrged in the filthy water.
Dark green moss and strange fungi clung to their bark.
A dead silence hung in the air, yet it felt as if invisible whispers were weaving through the mist.
The occasional bizarre screech of an unknown creature from the depths, or the sudden, muffled churning of a mud pit, was enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
The mist here seed not only to obscure vision but also to warp perception, making it impossible to get one’s bearings and filling the mind with unease.
Even veteran hunters only dared to venture into the periphery of the Mist Marsh, never deeper.
Legend had it that a thousand-year-old Great Demon resided in the depths of the Mist Marsh, one that could swallow clouds, breathe mist, and command the swamp itself.
Even experts who had achieved Mortal Transformation would find it difficult to escape the fate of becoming bleached bones and white clay if they fell into its depths without sufficient preparation or a bit of luck.
This was a forbidden zone for the living, a forgotten land where even sunlight struggled to penetrate.
Yet now, this treacherous swamp had beco the only path to survival for Cao Yan and his companions...
Behind the roiling, thick fog lay imminent death—and a sliver of hope for life.
...
「Deep within the Mist Marsh.」
The dense fog, like a tide of milky white, surged from the depths of the swamp. It silently crept over jagged rocks and twisted deadwood, draping the small valley in layer after layer of a cold, damp veil.
Cao Yan sat on a large stone half-sunk in the mire at the valley’s entrance, wiping his saber over and over with a piece of blood-stained deerskin.
The Long Saber was nad "Fla Dragon," a gift from his second uncle, Cao Feng.
Its edge was now marred with several small nicks. It no longer reflected his calm face, only giving off a dull, dark sheen.
The bloodstains on his robes had long since dried and hardened into dark brown patches that clung stiffly to his body.
A wound on his left shoulder, deep enough to show bone, had been hastily sprinkled with Golden Sore dicine.
The powder, soaked with oozing blood and sweat, had ford a dark red scab. The slightest movent sent a heart-piercing pain through him.
Yet his hand, as he wiped the blade, was steady, without the slightest tremor.
Behind him, suppressed sobs, pained groans, and desperate sighs rose intermittently, like the gurgling bubbles in the swamp, stirring a panic in one’s heart.
More than one hundred and fifty disciples of the Seven Stars Gang were huddled in this makeshift sanctuary, every one of them injured and dispirited.
Among them, surprisingly, were Zhang Shuyao and the others who had initially goaded Jiang Yuanfan into "sparring" with Chu Fan.
They were originally "sacrifices" from the Seven Stars Gang, ant for the Moon Worship Sect. They had tried to escape on the way but were beaten black and blue.
A few of them had even had their legs broken, a miserable sight.
It was Cao Yan—the genius of the Cao Family with whom they had little connection—who had forcibly dragged them from the "bloody maw" of the Moon Worship Sect and fled into this Desolate Land, the Mist Marsh.
Their eyes were filled with terror...
But Cao Yan said nothing. He simply tossed aside the deerskin, unfastened the waterskin at his waist, and took several large gulps.
He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, trying to get himself into peak condition.
’How long can we hide?’
He didn’t know.
’Can we hold out until reinforcents arrive?’
That, too, was an unknown.
He recalled the words from a fragnted scroll in the Scripture Pavilion...
’A man is bound to die once.’
’A death may be weightier than a mountain or lighter than a feather.’
’If I had to choose again, I would still have acted. I would still lead this desperate group on a mad flight for their lives.’
’One hundred and fifty living souls... I couldn’t just stand by and watch them beco bleached bones at the feet of the Moon Worship Evil God.’
’This has nothing to do with duty or gratitude. It’s just an instinct—’
’—a reverence for life, carved into my very bones.’
Cao Yan had always believed that this cold, cruel world still held a sliver of warmth.
’If it doesn’t...’
’...then I will be that fla.’
That was the aning of the "Yan" in his na.
Cao Yan slowly rose to his feet.
The movent pulled at his wound. His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly before smoothing out again.
He sheathed "Fla Dragon" with a soft, dull thud.
His gaze swept over the valley, both inside and out.
The thick fog obscured most of his view, but he had to familiarize himself with this place—with the outline of every rock, every potential mire and pitfall, and every grotesque shrub that could offer cover.
’In a battle of life and death, a few square feet of ground can be the key to victory or defeat.’
The valley entrance was narrow, flanked by slick cliffs overgrown with slippery vines. It was a good place to defend, difficult to attack, but it was also a deathtrap...
...once blocked, not even a bird with wings could escape.
The terrain inside the valley was slightly elevated, with a few natural stone caves that offered so shelter from the elents. But a miasma seed to fill the deeper areas, making them impassable.
Cao Yan walked in silence, his footsteps nearly soundless on the soft, damp ground.
He was like a wounded yet wary lone wolf, patrolling his final territory.
The sun burned brightly outside, but the fog within the Mist Marsh only grew thicker.
After just a few steps, the figures of the people behind him blurred into the mist.
The already faint sounds of weeping gradually ceased.
It wasn’t that they were no longer afraid; exhaustion and despair had simply crushed their strength to even make a sound.
Only the occasional soft clink of sothing hitting a rock or a suppressed cough proved that the group was still there.
Cao Yan sat down cross-legged behind a huge boulder that overlooked most of the valley entrance. He regulated his breathing, trying to circulate his almost depleted Primordial Qi.
His Dantian was empty, his ridians like a dried-up riverbed. Every attempt to circulate his qi brought a pain like needles piercing his skin.
He rested his hand lightly on the hilt of "Fla Dragon." The cold touch helped him stay alert.
Ti trickled by in the dead silence and thick fog...
An unknown amount of ti passed. Perhaps an hour, perhaps only a mont.
Cao Yan’s closed eyes suddenly snapped open!
In their depths, a faint glint of blood-red light flashed and was gone.
His intuition for danger, honed by years of life-and-death combat, had alerted him to sothing wrong!
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