Chapter 4563 — No Retreat After All

Unlike last time, Wei Zhao and the spirit bird were both now at the Nascent Soul stage, and reaching the swamp's surface proved far easier this time around. The ghostly thing connected their divine senses without a word, allowing Wei Zhao to perceive everything outside with perfect clarity.

As expected, two men were once again keeping watch from a tree fork not far from Five-Poison Swamp—only this time it was not the bald brute and the swarthy fellow he had seen before, but a different pair entirely. When he had observed their faces clearly through the ghostly thing's divine sense, Wei Zhao was struck dumb: they were two familiar faces again.

"Brother Yanji, those two bastards are really too much, aren't they? We've still got ten days before the shift change, but they slipped off early and left us to take the blame. Two months squatting out here was bad enough, and now we've got ten more days tacked on. It makes me mad enough to spit blood!" one of them fumed.

"Let it go, Old Guan. A man under another's roof must bow his head. We're the new hires at Dragon Boat Escort Agency—we don't have their deep roots, so taking a little loss is unavoidable. Just grit your teeth for now," the other replied, his face dark.

"Hah... back when we were at Heaven-Supporting Escort Agency, those two were nothing in front of us brothers. If they dared pull a face like that at me, I'd slap him halfway to the next life!"

"Hmph. If it weren't for that cursed Ling Yi, how would we have fallen this low? Driven to the wall, forced to throw in our lot with Dragon Boat Escort Agency, letting these snobs shit and piss all over our heads! So as far as I'm concerned, this posting is just perfect. I want a good, long look at the place where Ling Yi's bones will rot—and vent a little of this rage!"

"Right, right. Good riddance to the bastard. With us brothers standing guard here, even if he doesn't die, we can still let Old Zong deal with him. The moment that jade token shatters, he comes running—heh heh, and then we'll have done a great service!"

"Great service my ass. Do you even know what this place is? This is Five-Poison Swamp—even an immortal who jumps in has to report to the King of Hell. How many lives do you think Ling Yi has? He jumps in and comes out alive? Is this swamp his family's property? Hahahaha!"

The two men keeping watch above were, astonishingly, old acquaintances Wei Zhao had known since the very day he first arrived in the Southern Continent—acquaintances, moreover, with whom he had old scores to settle: Li Yanji and Guan Zhiyuan.

After the shameless, faithless deeds they had pulled back then, their reputations had been thoroughly ruined; by all rights, they should have found it near impossible to keep working in the escort trade. What Wei Zhao had not expected was that they would turn around and join Dragon Boat Escort Agency—that agency really did refuse to walk the beaten path. It took in any piece of garbage at all.

Then again, they already had a demonic cultivator holding down the fort, so a bit more trash hardly made a difference.

Wei Zhao clenched his fist, half-minded to go straight up and finish off these two bastards. But at the thought of the sensing jade tokens in their hands, he reined the killing intent back in. Just as the two had said, the moment the token shattered, the summons would come. If he truly drew the Old Sect of the Western Mountains down on himself, that would be anything but good for Wei Zhao.

With his current strength at the early Nascent Soul stage, he would not be as wretched in the face of the Old Sect of the Western Mountains as he had been before. But to pit this little strength against a mountain-opening-stage demonic cultivation titan was plainly wishful thinking; the end result could only be the same as before—flight into Five-Poison Swamp. And this time the Old Sect of the Western Mountains would personally stand guard over the swamp and never give him the slightest chance to escape.

What was more, Wei Zhao had only just broken through to early Nascent Soul, and had not even consolidated his strength. To clash head-on with the Old Sect of the Western Mountains at such a moment would be absolute folly. After thinking it over, he returned to the space below. The same four words as ever: there was always time.

Wei Zhao stepped back onto the platform. Since his strength had undergone a qualitative leap from before, the aftershocks of the Five-Element Killing Qi no longer had the slightest tempering effect on him; only when he came into direct contact with the Five-Element Killing Qi was the effect still fairly noticeable.

Relying on the forced tempering of the Five-Element Killing Qi, Wei Zhao quickly consolidated his cultivation base completely. Even so, these days did not last long, for Wei Zhao discovered that the tempering effect of the Five-Element Killing Qi grew less and less pronounced, and his rate of advancement was nowhere near as astonishing as it had been at the start.

Wei Zhao carefully observed the swamp above his head. Standing on the platform, he had a chance of encountering the Five-Element Killing Qi, but its density was far less than in the middle layer of the swamp; the odds of running into it were not high, and often he would have to wait the better part of two hours for a single encounter. And the crucial point was that the Five-Element Killing Qi in this lowest layer was far weaker than that of the middle layer—the gap between them could be a hundredfold or more.

If he could cultivate in the middle layer of the swamp, Wei Zhao believed the results would be as astonishing as they had been at the beginning. Unfortunately, that was simply impossible. To stand in the middle layer, he would have to ride the spirit bird up—and then he would be forced to shield the bird with true qi, or it would certainly die.

With his current strength, Wei Zhao could carry the spirit bird up and down at will without trouble. But to split his attention and shield the bird while cultivating was pure nonsense. In a place like the middle layer, even going all out he might not last a single moment himself—let alone with a spirit bird to boot.

After pondering a while, Wei Zhao finally dismissed the notion of cultivating in the middle layer. It was far too dangerous; he would have to wait until his strength had grown considerably greater.

As for where to go from here, Wei Zhao had two options before him. One was to keep cultivating on the platform with the occasional bursts of Five-Element Killing Qi. The effect was not as absurd as before, but it was still far better than cultivating on his own.

Thinking back, though, ever since entering this space below, he had been in a state of extreme, bitter cultivation, his strength soaring all the way from the peak of mid-stage Golden Core to his current early Nascent Soul. Now that his cultivation base was consolidated, it was not that he could not keep grinding away—no doubt he would break through to the next level before long—but such relentless strain lacked any sense of balance, and in the long run it might not be a good thing.

The other option was not to charge out of Five-Poison Swamp and kill those two bastards Li Yanji and Guan Zhiyuan—Wei Zhao was not about to risk a confrontation with the Old Sect of the Western Mountains just yet! (To be continued...)