Chapter 93 — Miasma
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
Looking outward from within, as Ming Li flew through the air, the surrounding miasma parted like cloud and mist before him and closed again behind, and above his head and beneath his feet there was nothing but that gray haze.
On he flew, and flew a long while, and Ming Li's expression gradually grew grave. This wall of deadly, poisonous miasma was the clearest boundary between the inner marsh and the outer marsh of the Dead Marsh. The outer marsh, though riddled everywhere with bottomless pits, was not greatly dangerous if one proceeded with care. But here in the inner marsh, to say nothing of the rest, the miasma alone was deadly beyond measure. Should an ordinary mortal encounter it—never mind drawing a breath of it, even holding one's breath—the merest touch of that poison against the skin would let it invade within moments, strike the heart, and kill.
Ming Li's cultivation was now greatly accomplished, far beyond the little disciple he had once been on Mount Canglan, yet even so he dared not treat such poison lightly. Everywhere in the Dead Marsh lurked deadly peril, and the inner marsh above all was a savage, primeval land, its dangers impossible to fathom. He therefore redoubled his caution and advanced warily.
Yet this wall of miasma proved unbelievably thick. After flying a while longer he was still within it, surrounded by ever denser gray. Ming Li was secretly alarmed. By his own reckoning he had by now flown at least a hundred zhang. In this savage, cursed land the miasma had never dispersed since ancient times; even if some rare treasure were to appear within it, surely no one in ten thousand years would ever know, let alone obtain it.
Such were his thoughts, yet Shihun's radiance only grew brighter, and the gray miasma around him churned without cease, as though its speed too were faintly quickening.
Suddenly Ming Li's heart gave a leap. Deep in the miasma ahead, a blue light flashed—and vanished in an instant. The color was pale, yet somehow it struck him as faintly familiar.
Almost at that same moment the miasma, which had been churning quietly, abruptly sped up, suddenly boiling like water in a cauldron.
Above and below, to left and right, the gray miasma began to whirl madly. Countless vortices of miasma, great and small, burst into being ahead of him, each with a faint drawing force that came at Ming Li from every direction. Xiao Hui on his shoulder did not dare stir, giving soft little cries and clutching tightly at Ming Li's clothes.
Ming Li's face was like still water, but his brows had drawn deeply together. Suddenly he gave a cold snort, tensed his whole body, and from within Shihun's blue radiance a golden light burst forth, shining in tandem with the blue and forcing the surrounding miasma back several more paces. At the same instant Shihun shot into the air as though it wholly disregarded the danger ahead, driving straight into the largest of the miasma vortices before him.
The instant his figure entered that immense vortex, Ming Li felt the pulling force around him surge. A howling gale rushed in from every direction, all of it deadly poisonous miasma. Ming Li's face went pale; the raw force of nature tore him up bodily and sent him flying straight into the sky.
In an instant the shrill wind whistled without pause and the clouds of vapor seethed like a furious wind god roaring. Suspended in midair, Ming Li drew a deep breath, then suddenly thrust out both hands—the left forming a seal, the right a dharma sign—and upon his face golden and blue energies rose together, flickering again and again before swiftly merging into one. Had an expert of the righteous path been present, he would surely have been struck dumb with amazement.
The "Supreme Ultimate Profound Purity Way" of the Canglan Sect and the "Great Brahma Prajna" of the Brahma Sound Temple had, in this young man, been perfectly fused into one!