Chapter 264: Mist

Several hundred miles away from the cave where Xu Chen and the others were resting.

At the location of the mountain gap.

A bewitching woman, dressed in tight-fitting scale armor and beautiful to the point of being almost flawless, was sitting alone atop a broken peak several thousand zhang high.

Under the blowing of the gloomy night wind, her fiery red hair fluttered in the wind, looking like flames and emitting a bright radiance.

At this moment, she stared blankly into the depths of the gap, let out a long, faint sigh, and then seemed to speak to herself: "I've sent him here; you should be at ease now, right?"

However, after a moment, the woman said again: "It's useless for you to think about it; I will not follow you to the Mortal World!"

Not long after she finished speaking, two lines of clear tears rolled down the woman's stunning cheeks.

"Why are you crying? Haven't you harmed me enough? If it weren't for you, how could I be unable to defeat even a single demon beast? Only after he leaves can I stay behind with peace of mind to take my revenge!"

"Hahaha, you help me? What do you have to help me with? Just by relying on your so-called Divine Pattern Battle Technique?"

"Forget it, I won't argue with you either. But since you are unwilling to give up this body, then wait until the day I devour you, and you won't have to bother me anymore. You've seen enough, haven't you? Once you've seen enough, it's time to go. Heitian could find this place at any time, and when that happens, he won't be able to escape death either."

"That's more like it. I don't know what's so good about this short and weak human man; I could crush him with a single finger!"

"Alright, alright, he is the best. Let's go, if we don't leave now, it'll be too late!"

The woman spoke to herself as if suffering from schizophrenia, crying and laughing by turns. A pair of red wings covered in mysterious patterns suddenly spread out from her back and flapped a few times, and her stunning figure vanished into a phantom red light.

In the vast, endless mountains and the dark, cold night, there was no longer any aura or trace left on the empty broken peak.

……

Xu Chen did not sleep well all night, feeling as though he had a strange dream all night long. He kept feeling that the Demon Monarch Youtong was sitting beside him, yet it was Feng Feiyi who had talked to him all night.

However, after waking up, he didn't remember a single word of that conversation.

The sky was already bright, though as hazy as always. This world had a moon and stars, yet it seemed to have no sun.

Xu Chen walked out of the cave chamber and looked toward the direction of the mountain gap he had entered yesterday, feeling a sense of loss.

"Junior Brother, today I'll take you to see the area nearby where we fell in!" Chen Yang handed over a pitch-black dry biscuit and a cup of spring water with a face full of excitement.

Xu Chen took it and took a bite. It was dry and carried an extreme bitterness. As he swallowed it, he was surprised to feel a trace of faint Yuan Qi.

Seeing Xu Chen's frowning expression, Chen Yang smiled bitterly: "Don't blame me, Junior Brother. The conditions here are only like this; there isn't much to eat."

Xu Chen shook his head and said: "It's not bad to have something to eat. Actually, after I fell into Minghuang, I hadn't eaten for a long time either, relying entirely on Bigu Pills to sustain myself. Although this dry biscuit doesn't taste good, it's still much better than the coarse grain biscuits from the sect, at least it can replenish Yuan Qi."

Chen Yang seemed touched and wiped away some saliva: "Junior Brother, say no more. Although the coarse grain biscuits at the sect didn't taste good, I can't stop drooling whenever I think of them!"

"Haha, I was like that too. It wasn't until I fell into the Black Wind Ridge cavern and went hungry for a month that I discovered the sect's coarse grain biscuits were actually quite delicious!" Xu Chen laughed heartily.

Although the two fellow disciples had never met before, when they spoke of their shared experiences at the Taiyuan Sect, they felt a special sense of familiarity and closeness.

Just as the two were chatting and laughing, True Monarch Guiling, Lu An, and Zhong Hui emerged from their respective cave chambers one after another to come over and greet Xu Chen. Even Wang Daolin, with a bruised and swollen face, ran over cautiously to pay his respects with a hint of sycophancy.

Xu Chen's arrival brought a unique sense of relaxation and liveliness to this small group of five cultivators.

It also gave everyone a bit more hope for survival.

After a simple breakfast of dry rations, the group set off toward the depths of the gap.

This gap was immensely huge, with steep cliffs that reached out of sight on both sides. Even though Xu Chen's Divine Sense had broken through to three hundred miles, he still could not see the top. It seemed as if this mountain wall had no top at all, piercing through the entire Cangming Sky.

Within the massive gap, apart from the ubiquitous cliffs and giant rocks, there were large quantities of strange plants. Occasionally, one could see birds, beasts, insects, and snakes of peculiar shapes. Although they looked very similar to some in the Mortal World, their auras were completely different, carrying the dual auras of Nether Beasts and Demon Beasts. Moreover, most were extremely ferocious; even the inconspicuous insects and snakes were highly poisonous.

The group walked while conversing.

Xu Chen also gradually clarified the general situation of this place.

The height of the steep mountain walls on both sides was indeed unknown; even True Monarch Guiling had never reached the top.

Because the higher one went, the more an extremely powerful pressure would appear, like the pressure of heaven and earth. After being forced up for a hundred miles, even True Monarch Guiling could not withstand the pressure and had to give up.

In fact, according to True Monarch Guiling's explanation, this huge gap was more like a giant cave, just exceptionally large, which is why it looked like a piece was missing.

After passing through this huge gap, one would enter a vast expanse of white mist.

The mist exerted a very strong pressure on Divine Sense. True Monarch Guiling could only see an area of no more than ten miles, and the Divine Sense of the others was compressed to an area of several hundred zhang.

It was precisely because of this that no one dared to venture too deep into the white mist, otherwise they would lose their way and perhaps never be able to come out.

However, the good news was that the location where everyone fell in was almost at the boundary between the white mist and the gap. The mist was not too thick, and as long as one distinguished carefully, one could still find the right direction.

This was also the reason why Chen Yang and the others quickly entered the gap area after falling in and were then discovered by True Monarch Guiling.

The cultivation of the six people was not bad. If judged solely by the strength of their Souls, almost all of them had the strength of the Danyuan Realm or above. Therefore, the group's speed was not slow, and they sped like lightning toward the white mist. About two hours later, according to Xu Chen's judgment, they had traveled at least nearly a thousand miles. White mist began to appear ahead, and further away, it was just a vast expanse of white, making it impossible to distinguish heaven from earth. When Divine Sense reached into it, it was indeed greatly obstructed, as if sinking into a quagmire, and could not see very far.

Standing at the edge of the white mist, Xu Chen released his Divine Sense to its full extent to probe. He could see about seven or eight miles, which, although not as far as True Monarch Guiling, was much further than Wang Daolin, Chen Yang, and the others.

Xu Chen breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.

Although this range of Divine Sense was not large, it was enough to maintain a certain level of safety.

Because some powerful creatures were also hidden within this white mist. According to True Monarch Guiling's warning, if one continued deeper into the white mist, there might be powerful demon creatures comparable to the Shenling Realm, and even he did not dare to probe too much.

Because it was his first time encountering the white mist, Xu Chen did not dare to go too deep either.

And this vicinity had already been explored countless times by True Monarch Guiling and the others, especially True Monarch Guiling, who had explored it no fewer than a thousand times over the past few hundred years, having once ventured as far as a hundred miles, but without any harvest.

Therefore, the purpose of coming today was mainly to familiarize Xu Chen with the environment.

Of course, everyone also harbored a glimmer of illusion, hoping that Xu Chen might have some different discoveries.

After all, Xu Chen was a newcomer, and his background was more mysterious, his experiences more bizarre, and he even knew a powerhouse like Demon Monarch Youtong who was comparable to a Great Vehicle Golden Immortal.

If he ultimately had no harvest either, then leaving Minghuang might truly just be a mirage.

Xu Chen followed behind True Monarch Guiling, with Chen Yang and the other three scattered around.

In the flowing white mist, there were huge rocks of all sizes everywhere, with the tall ones reaching several thousand zhang—in the Mortal World, these would purely be towering mountains—while rocks of dozens or hundreds of zhang were everywhere. Walking among them was exactly like being in a maze.

And among these giant rocks that were like mountains, one could indeed see many strange plants and animals.

The body shapes of these plants and animals were more similar to those of the Mortal World.

Xu Chen pulled a pale green wild grass with a faint Yuan Qi fluctuation from a crack in a rock and examined it carefully.

"The crops, Spirit Medicine, and Spirit Grass that we planted at our dwelling were all found near the edge of this mist."

Seeing that Xu Chen was very interested in the plants that appeared, True Monarch Guiling explained with a smile.

Xu Chen nodded slightly and said, "These things that look like weeds actually have weak fluctuations of primordial energy in most cases, but the Five Elements Qi is so impure that it is difficult to determine their attributes, so they cannot be used in medicine or pills."

True Monarch Guiling smiled bitterly and said, "That is exactly the case, so it is very difficult to find anything particularly useful. I have stayed here for seven hundred years and have only found a dozen or so that are barely usable. Furthermore, I have been studying Ghost Cultivation and Ghost Pill techniques, so I have not researched these Spirit Grasses and Spirit Medicines much. You are skilled in alchemy, little friend; perhaps you can slowly figure out some methods to make better use of them."

Xu Chen could not help but feel ashamed and said, "Senior's cultivation is so profound that you can even invent strange Spirit Pills like Ghost Pills; how would this junior dare to show off? However, since the Souls and bodies of you and the others have been eroded by Underworld Qi, I discovered a strange item in Minghuang that might be able to help purify it."

True Monarch Guiling suddenly stopped in his tracks, his face unable to hide his surprise and excitement as he said, "Minghuang actually has such a good medicine?"

Xu Chen nodded and then explained via voice transmission, "Senior knows that there is a Spirit Medicine in the Mortal World that assists in Spirit Transformation called Blood God Grass, right?"

True Monarch Guiling nodded and said, "I naturally know of Blood God Grass; it is a top-tier Spirit Medicine for Spirit Transformation, but its yield is scarce and it is rarely seen in hundreds of years. Could it be that what you are talking about is Blood God Grass?"

Xu Chen shook his head slightly and said, "It is not Blood God Grass, but it has similar functions to Blood God Grass. It is called Divine Blood Paste, and it is the foundation for the Nether Human Race in Minghuang to resist the erosion of Underworld Qi and survive. After I discovered it, I collected some. After we return, you and the other Daoist Friends can take it to test it first. If it is effective, perhaps everyone's cultivation will improve significantly soon, and that way our chances of finding a way to leave Minghuang will be greater. If you can recover to your peak state, once you return to the Mortal World, you will no longer fear the True Spirit Heavenly Tribulation!"

True Monarch Guiling was so excited that his whole body began to tremble slightly, and he said via voice transmission in an extremely excited tone:

"To tell you the truth, little friend, my Primordial Spirit is actually nearing completion, but because of insufficient Spirit Qi, my physical body cannot support my Soul, so I have been suppressing the continued growth of my Primordial Spirit, otherwise I fear my physical body would burst, causing my Dao foundation to be completely destroyed. If Divine Blood Paste can really purify the poison of Underworld Qi in the Soul and body, plus sufficient Spirit Stone replenishment, I can fully reach the peak strength of the Shenling Realm."

(End of chapter)