91: Chapter 91 First Exploration of the Fog Valley and the Misplaced Danger

Liu Yuan bowed to accept the order, his eyes devoid of any hesitation, holding only absolute obedience.

Three days later, in the northwest of the Southern Region, lay a desolate land rarely visited by humans.

Jagged rocks and withered, stunted trees formed the monotonous backdrop of this place, while the air was filled with a dry scent, a mixture of dust and decay.

Lin Chen and his group of five, dressed in dark, agile clothing suitable for movement, stood quietly before the entrance of a massive valley.

Before them lay the legendary "Mist Valley."

The gray-white mist, thick enough to be almost tangible, was like an endless, slowly writhing high wall that completely isolated the inside and outside of the valley into two worlds.

The mist seemed to possess life; at times it churned like raging waves, at others it coalesced into the outlines of giant beasts, only to quietly dissipate again, exuding a heart-palpitating eeriness.

Lin Chen cautiously probed forward with his Divine Sense, yet the moment it touched the edge of the mist, that invisible power of investigation was like a clay ox entering the sea—instantly swallowed and dissolved, leaving him unable to perceive even a fraction.

He frowned; the isolation effect was even more overbearing than he had anticipated.

"Family Head, this mist is strange." Liu Yuan walked to the mist wall and took out several Formation Flags carved with intricate runes from the storage bag at his waist.

He formed hand seals, muttered incantations, and then flicked his wrist, sending one of the Formation Flags transforming into a streak of light, precisely shooting toward the ground at the edge of the mist.

However, a bizarre scene unfolded.

The refined iron flagpole, after sinking less than three inches into the mist, broke silently as if corroded by the strongest acid. The upper half fell to the ground, the fracture smooth as a mirror but carrying a trace of gray Death Qi.

Liu Yuan's expression sank immediately. He retracted the remaining Formation Flags and shook his head: "It's no use. Conventional probing Formations cannot function in this mist. The mist itself possesses extremely strong spirit-dissipating and corrosive properties."

Liu Ruxu, standing beside him, wore a grave expression on her pretty face.

She had been comparing the direction using the compass she carried, but at this moment, the compass needle was spinning wildly as if it were drunk.

"Family Head, my tracking compass has also failed. This mist not only blocks Divine Sense but also disrupts geomagnetism; a sense of direction is useless here. If we enter rashly and get separated, I fear we will never come out. I suggest we first establish a temporary observation point on the perimeter to record the patterns of the mist tides before making further plans."

Her suggestion was very prudent and was the optimal solution for exploring dangerous areas conventionally.

Lin Chen silently watched the churning mist wall, not answering immediately.

At that moment, the rough stone ring on his right thumb suddenly transmitted an extremely faint, almost imperceptible warmth.

This feeling was different from the Bloodline resonance when Su Qingyao healed him; it was more like a slight palpitation... an attraction to an object of the same origin.

He slowly shook his head, his gaze becoming firm: "We don't have time to wait. Since the people from the Shadow Moon Pavilion dare to use this place as a stronghold, they must have a way to enter and exit. They may have already gone in; if we wait any longer, we will only allow them to set up at their leisure and hide all their secrets."

He unslung a heavy pack from his back and took out a coil of exceptionally tough rope.

This rope was woven from Yao Beast tendons mixed with the fibers of "Iron-Thread Vine," impervious to water and fire, and difficult for sharp blades to cut.

"Conceal all your Qi, do not actively release spiritual power. We will use the simplest method: connect with the rope and explore by foot, leaving markings." He handed one end of the rope to Liu Yuan, his tone brooking no doubt. "Ruxu, you walk in the middle of the team, responsible for using the special fluorescent powder to record the directions we travel and all anomalies. Liu Yuan and I will be in front, the guards in the back, in a diamond Formation, with three zhang between each of us. Remember, do not untie the rope at any time."

Seeing that his mind was made up, the others said no more and immediately began to act.

The five of them quickly tied the rope around their waists, forming a stable diamond Formation.

Lin Chen took a deep breath, took the first step, and entered that cold, viscous, gray-white world.

As soon as he stepped in, it felt as if he had walked from the heat of summer into the dead of winter.

A bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped his whole body, his vision was severely compressed, and visibility was less than one zhang.

There was a very strange sensation underfoot—soft, slippery, as if stepping on a thick carpet, with water soaked beneath the carpet.

By the faint light close at hand, Lin Chen saw that the ground was covered with thick, unknown dark green moss and the remains of plants that had rotted into mud.

In the air, a heavy, fishy stench—like soil after rain mixed with rotting plants—drilled straight into his nose.

They walked very slowly, treading firmly with every step.

Lin Chen walked at the very front, gripping a short sword in his hand, all his senses heightened to the limit.

Except for the footsteps of himself and his companions behind him, which were deliberately lightened, and the subtle sound of the rope occasionally rubbing against their clothing, the entire world was dead silent.

In this mentally exhausting manner, the team slowly advanced about half a mile.

Suddenly, on the left flank of the team, one of the Lin Family guards responsible for keeping watch let out a suppressed low cry.

"Ugh!"

Accompanying this muffled groan, the rope tied around his waist suddenly snapped toward the left, and a massive pulling force arrived instantly!

"Hold steady!" Lin Chen gave a low shout, immediately lunging and sinking his stance, his feet nailing firmly into the soft ground like iron spikes.

Liu Yuan behind him also exerted force simultaneously. Together, the two of them forcibly checked the massive power that was about to drag the guard into the depths of the thick mist.

The taut rope, like a string on a zither, emitted a "humming" vibration.

"What is that!" The guard's terrified voice came from the left.

Lin Chen looked toward the sound and saw, within the thick mist, a semi-transparent "thing" with an outline resembling a stretched and twisted human figure, tightly coiled around the guard's left arm.

The thing had no facial features, only a mass of blurry shadow, yet one could clearly see that the spiritual light halo and the flesh and blood essence on the guard's arm were being frantically devoured by it at a speed visible to the naked eye!

The guard was both shocked and furious; he waved his long saber with his other hand and slashed fiercely at the shadow.

However, where the blade passed, it was as if it had struck the air, passing directly through that semi-transparent body without causing any substantial damage.

"Physical attacks are ineffective!" Liu Yuan's voice rang out calmly.

Just then, Liu Ruxu in the center of the team took action.

She was not panicked in the slightest, quickly taking out three "Exorcism Talismans" she had prepared long ago, the cinnabar runes on them dripping with a fresh, vivid red.

Without hesitation, she bit her fingertip, dotted a drop of her essence blood onto the Talismans, and chanted incantations rapidly.

"Execute!"

Driven by her spiritual power, the three Talismans suddenly ignited into a mass of scorching white flames, like three small suns, carrying an aura of supreme rigidity and yang, and were flung toward the twisted shadow.

As the flames touched its body, the shadow finally reacted!

It emitted a piercing, silent screech that had no actual sound but exploded in one's mind.

The body wrapped around the guard loosened abruptly and became significantly thinner, clearly having suffered heavy damage.

But it did not dissipate; instead, as if completely enraged, it abandoned the guard, its body flashed within the mist, and it lunged fiercely at the slightly weaker-aura Liu Ruxu with even greater speed!

"Watch out!"

Just as Liu Ruxu was preparing to activate the second Talisman, Lin Chen moved.

He did not summon his Flying Sword; that would consume too much spiritual power and would be easy to lose control of in this bizarre environment.

He stepped forward, blocking in front of Liu Ruxu, holding his fingers like a blade, a layer of extremely condensed cyan spiritual power instantly covering his fingertips.

After his Foundation Establishment, this spiritual power had undergone a subtle mutation; within its original endless vitality, it now possessed a trace of the sharpness and evil-breaking properties of Metal-element power.

It was also at this moment that the stone ring on his thumb transmitted an extremely subtle "sense of direction," like a compass finding the North Pole.

His heart stirred, and without the slightest hesitation, following that feeling, he thrust his right index and middle fingers out like lightning!

His fingertips were not aimed at the Mist Demon's massive body, but instead pierced with pinpoint accuracy into a walnut-sized, constantly shifting gray light spot at the center of its body!

That was the core indicated by the stone ring!

"Puff."

A sound, so slight it was almost inaudible, like a bubble popping, rang out.

The viciously lunging Mist Demon's entire body stiffened abruptly, and then, like a pricked balloon, it collapsed and dissipated, completely turning into the most ordinary mist and merging with the surrounding environment.

Only at the spot where it had dissipated, a small pinch of gray, sand-like crystals, shimmering with faint light like crushed diamonds, drifted down.

Liu Ruxu caught her breath, still shaken, and looked at Lin Chen with increased reverence.

Lin Chen picked up the crystals; they felt ice-cold in his hand, containing a faint yet exceptionally pure energy.

He put them away and said in a deep voice: "Keep moving, everyone stay alert."

The squad regrouped, the atmosphere even more oppressive than before.

With the previous lesson in mind, everyone gripped their weapons tighter, their nerves stretched to the limit.

They walked forward for who knows how much longer when Lin Chen, walking at the front, suddenly stopped.

Under a damp rock wall not far ahead of him, several black arrowheads were half-buried in the soil, and on the tail feathers of the arrowheads was imprinted a tiny, water-drop-shaped secret mark.

Shadow Moon Pavilion!

Liu Yuan immediately stepped forward. He crouched down and, on the mossy ground next to the arrowheads, discovered two corpses that had long since turned cold.

The corpses had been drained of their essence blood and looked like mummies, but on their clothing, which had not yet completely rotted, was embroidered the emblem of some small Family in the Southern Region.

"It's a cannon-fodder team controlled by the Shadow Moon Pavilion." Liu Yuan used his short blade to lift the collar of the corpse and, after a careful examination, said in a low voice, "The wounds are the same as what we encountered just now; they were drained by Mist Demons. Judging by the stiffness of the corpses and the coagulation of the blood, the time of death is no more than two hours. They are ahead of us."

As soon as he finished speaking, as if to confirm his judgment, the thick mist ten zhang ahead suddenly churned violently without any warning!

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Several sharp sounds of piercing the air rang out, and a few arrows shimmering with a ghostly green light broke through the mist like poisonous snakes, heading straight for the group!

"Scatter, fight on your own!" Lin Chen's low shout exploded instantly.

The five of them reacted instantly, each diving and rolling in different directions, barely avoiding this round of poisoned sneak attacks.

A chaotic battle broke out instantly!

The mist had become a natural barrier and also the deadliest killing field.

Divine Sense was almost useless here, vision was compressed to the limit, and both sides could only rely on combat instinct, sound, and the figures that occasionally flashed in the mist to judge friend from foe.

The clanging sounds of blades colliding, the muffled thuds of spiritual power erupting, and the painful groans intertwined in the dead-silent Mist Valley.

Lin Chen locked onto an enemy with the strongest aura, who was also at the Early Stage of Foundation Establishment.

The opponent wielded a broad-bladed saber, the saber technique strange and tricky, his figure flickering in and out of the mist like a ghost.

The two exchanged a few rounds quickly, and Lin Chen, relying on a more solid Foundation and keen combat intuition, gradually gained the upper hand.

In the moment they passed each other, he seized a flaw in the opponent, condensed spiritual power in his left palm like a great seal, and struck fiercely at the opponent's right flank!

The Shadow Moon Pavilion Cultivator was terrified and forcibly twisted his body, barely avoiding this fatal strike.

However, the blade he swung back in return also grazed Lin Chen's blocking right arm.

With a "rip," his sleeve was torn.

Lin Chen did not pay attention to such a minor injury and was about to turn and pursue to deliver a thunderous blow to the opponent.

However, a heart-piercing, bone-chilling pain, far exceeding that of a saber wound, suddenly came from the wound on his right arm!

His movements stalled, and he looked down in astonishment.

At the wound on his right arm, not much blood flowed out.

But the flesh cut by the blade did not roll back; instead, it presented a terrifying defect, as if a small piece of flesh had been "erased" out of thin air by an invisible force!

The edges of the wound were impossibly smooth, as if a piece of a three-dimensional body had been wiped away by a two-dimensional brush!

This was not a saber wound!

Lin Chen's pupils shrank abruptly, and a thought that made his scalp tingle flashed through his mind—in that lightning-fast displacement just now, his right arm had inadvertently grazed a spatial rift that was extremely tiny and completely undetectable to both the naked eye and Divine Sense!

This intense pain, stemming from spatial cutting, caused all the muscles in his body to stiffen.

At the very moment his movement stalled, a drop of bright red blood finally struggled to seep out from the edge of that bizarre wound and then, with a "drip," fell onto the slippery moss beneath his feet.

An incredible scene unfolded.

That drop of blood was like a drop of molten iron falling into accumulated snow; where it landed, the thick mist within a half-foot radius, as if encountering a natural enemy, emitted a "hissing" sound and rapidly churned and retreated backward!

A small patch of damp black ground, along with several twisted, never-before-seen black grasses, were clearly exposed.

This astonishing scene was caught by Liu Yuan, who was maneuvering with another enemy not far away, and extreme shock instantly flashed in his eyes.

It was also at this moment that a Mist Demon, slightly smaller in size than the previous one but deeper in color and with a brighter core light spot, seemed to be attracted by a certain special aura emitted from Lin Chen's wound and lunged fiercely from the mist on the side, targeting Lin Chen's face!

Lin Chen, enduring the intense pain in his right arm, faced this sudden attack with cold eyes.

He did not dodge; his left hand reached out as fast as lightning, his five fingers spread open, and the rough stone ring in his palm was aimed exactly at the Mist Demon's bright core.

He did not launch an attack, but instead instantly injected a surge of spiritual power from within his body into the stone ring!

Hum—

The stone ring emitted an almost imperceptible hum, its light flickering slightly.

That ferocious special Mist Demon seemed to be tightly bound by an invisible force, its movements suddenly stiffening in mid-air!

"Collect!"

Liu Yuan was quick-eyed and nimble-handed, seizing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He backhanded a palm-sized spirit-restraining jade bottle, its mouth carved with runes, from his bosom and pointed with a hand seal. A suction force emitted from the bottle's mouth, instantly drawing the immobilized special Mist Demon inside.

"Retreat!" The Shadow Moon Pavilion Cultivator on the opposite side, seeing the sneak attack fail and his side losing another person, decisively let out a sharp whistle.

The remaining few did not linger in battle and quickly fled into the depths of the thick mist, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Lin Chen did not order a pursuit.

He clutched his still-bleeding right arm; that bizarre wound and the blood that kept dripping and dispersing the mist cast a shadow over his heart.

He looked down at the wound that refused to heal, then at the jade bottle in Liu Yuan's hand that was still vibrating slightly while imprisoning the Mist Demon, and finally, his gaze fell upon the stone ring in his palm that was stained with his own blood.

His eyes were heavy, and his voice carried a hint of unquestionable determination: "This mist, this valley, and this wound of mine... I fear it's not as simple as we thought. Retreat first, back to the outer camp."