Chapter 92 — Dead End
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 7
Yuyang Zi gave a bitter laugh. In his eyes, Meng Ji could not possibly be compared with those ordinary disciples. He sighed faintly and said, "Just now I was set upon by those whelps of the righteous path and spent a great deal of my vital essence. Then, of all things, a woman appeared and used the Canglan Sect's 'Divine Sword Summons Thunder True Art'..."
Meng Ji's expression changed drastically. "Among them there was actually a master of such caliber?"
Yuyang Zi said venomously, "More than that. I crossed blades with several of them—at least three or four whose cultivation and aptitude were shockingly high. In the end I had no choice but to invoke the 'Blood Curse' to force my way out!"
Meng Ji's expression shifted again and again. The Blood Curse was a famous true-art curse of the Changsheng Hall, capable of vastly enhancing one's cultivation in an instant—but the backlash afterward was terrifying. Not only would one's cultivation be greatly diminished; one's very lifespan might be shortened.
He was dazed for a moment before he came back to himself and said to Yuyang Zi, "Sect Master, what do we do now?"
Yuyang Zi's face was grave. He was silent a moment, then said with hatred in his voice, "The arrow is on the string; it must be loosed. After daybreak we go at once deep into the Dead Marsh, into the 'Inner Marsh,' to seek the treasure!"
Meng Ji's face changed drastically. He could not help saying, "Sect Master..."
Yuyang Zi waved a hand, cutting him off. "I know what you want to say. But if we withdraw from the Dead Marsh now, sooner or later we die at the hands of the other three great factions. Better to stake everything on this one throw!"
Meng Ji stared blankly at Yuyang Zi. Seeing the savagery in his face grow even more pronounced despite his pallor, he knew the man could no longer be talked around. Slowly he rose, lifted his head to the sky, and sighed softly in his heart.
This vast marsh of death, lying in the southwest of the Divine Land, stretched nearly eight thousand li in unbroken expanse, and since ancient times had seldom seen a human trace. It was divided into two regions: the Outer Marsh, where everyone now stood, which formed the periphery of the Dead Marsh and accounted for some seventy or eighty percent of its area. There the ground was riddled with bottomless mud pits and teemed with venomous insects—but to cultivators these were of little concern. So long as one was careful not to misstep, there was no great danger.
But in the deepest part of the Dead Marsh there was yet a mysterious place: a region perpetually shrouded in poisonous marsh gas, whose interior no one had ever seen. Even the occasional cultivator of high attainment who ventured in to explore had vanished without a trace. Thus both the righteous and the demonic paths alike were unwilling to enter rashly.
In recent days countless people had been searching the Dead Marsh for the treasure, but so far there had been no word of it. Yuyang Zi had long suspected in his heart that the treasure must lie within the Inner Marsh, most perilous and unfathomable of all. On any ordinary day he might still have weighed the risks, at the very least taken many days to prepare carefully. But now circumstances drove him, and he was like a gambler who has wagered everything, with no thought for anything else.
The night wind blew past.
Most of the Changsheng Hall disciples, exhausted from a full day of frantic struggle, had drifted into sleep. The flames of the campfires on the ground were gradually dying out. Yuyang Zi still sat cross-legged with his head bowed; Meng Ji, who had been standing beside him, had by now presumably gone over to the disciples.
Suddenly, Yuyang Zi's eyes snapped open, fierce and savage, and yet seeming to carry a trace of fear, as he looked all around.
The night was deep, the darkness pervasive.
Every muscle in his body suddenly tensed. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet.