NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45: Mummified Mortal
The other side of the portal was unlike anything Han Xuhan had ever seen.
It was daytime on the other side. A time difference of at least 10 hours from the region outside the portal, judging by the mid-sky sun.
Were they still in the same continent? Where had this portal taken them to? How far?
The questions hounded Han Xuhan ceaselessly.
Around the sun, the sky was coloured stark blue, a thick fog covering the majority of it from their sight. The fog itself was an oddity.
The fog looked very substantial, almost like floating powder. There was a persistent light breeze blowing toward their direction, making the fog close in on them inch by inch like a living creature.
Han Xuhan also noticed the floating balls of light Mu Ran had described, vaguely glowing from within the depths of the fog. With a rough glance, he realized that the balls of light could be categorized into a few grades.
The biggest balls of light looked very clear, quite close to the outer layers of the fog, in other words, close to the two of them. All of these orbs were emitting a bright red glow like miniature suns.
Further within the fog, there were vaguer, smaller orbs, glowing with an emerald light that was still mostly noticeable from where they stood.
These were fewer in number than the red ones.
The smallest, and rarest balls of light were floating far away from them, deep within the fog, emitting an intense violet glare, resembling specks of starlight shining in the unfathomable distance.
The oddest thing weren't these details either.
Han Xuhan and Mu Ran could hear vague sounds of human voices shouting and see silhouettes moving within the fog.
All of the voices sounded hurried. The figures seemed to be running around very fast, faster than normal people at least.
And the one common detail about all of them was that they all had their backs toward Han Xuhan and Mu Ran. All of them were moving further inside the depths of this foggy world.
Han Xuhan found this situation familiar after a quick analysis.
Was this a mysterious world where some sort of ancient treasure was hidden by a powerhouse eons ago as a test?
His experience of cultivation novels said, if there was anything all ancient cultivators had in common, it was making up all sorts of fucked up tests with high mortality rate in order to choose somebody who could inherit their legacy after they perished on the path of pursuing the great dao.
It was tempting, but was it worth risking his life?
Right now, he had his hands full with the cultivation techniques he had been practicing. Risking his life to find a super cool technique invented by an old man thousands of years ago with unknown purposes... Han Xuhan couldn't find the appeal here.
He preferred to rely on his own techniques. Granted, if he was willing to suffer a bit, with some luck, he might bag something awesome.
But such techniques always came with added conditions and requirements most people couldn't meet. Han Xuhan himself was always running low on luck. He wasn't willing to bet his life on this.
"Boss, you said something is wrong with the fog, right?"
Mu Ran nodded in affirmation.
With tentative steps, he went closer to the fog and pulled out a small bottle from his robe. Swiftly pushing the bottle toward the fog, he used his qi to wrap it up and made the bottle move around in the fog by manipulating the qi. After a few seconds, the qi carried the bottle back to him, now filled with the oddly substantial fog.
"Hand me one of the spiritual herbs we bought from the sect's exchange market; one with healing properties."
Han Xuhan searched inside the numerous pockets of his robe and pulled out a pouch of herbs after a moment.
Mu Ran picked one of the leafy herbs from the container and squeezed out a bit of greenish liquid from the stems, which he dropped inside the foggy bottle.
A hissing sound came from inside. As soon as the dark green juice came in contact with that fog, it started to evaporate. Within a few seconds, the green liquid was completely vaporized while the fog inside the bottle slowly changed its colour from white to pale blue.
It didn't take a professional healer to understand what happened inside the bottle. The green liquid had healing properties which had been neutralized and vaporized by the fog. The fog had to be some kind of extremely poisonous gas.
Han Xuhan and Mu Ran exchanged a puzzled glance and looked back at the approaching fog. If the fog was so poisonous, how were the people inside it moving around so vigorously?
Confused, both young men walked around the edge of the foggy area. Behind them was a cliff with no bottom in sight. There was no other side of the cliff, only more fog clouding their sight. So the direction the portal had been pointing them toward was definitely ahead alongside their predecessors inside the fog. They could still return back to the woods since the portal was right behind them at the edge of the cliff. But this was the only clue they had uncovered related to their mission.
Unable to figure out any way to investigate what was happening inside the foggy area, they sat down and decided to chew on some dry food to replenish energy.
Han Xuhan's back was still aching from smacking into the tree. The skin there had turned red.
But surprisingly, the perks of being in the second layer of physique transformation realm were showing slowly.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the cut on the back of his shoulder. It was still bleeding while the medicine that had been applied on it did its best to heal him.
The joints that should have dislocated from their fight were just slightly painful, the skin that should have been torn was already recovering without shedding a drop of blood.
Han Xuhan roughly estimated that his body would recover within a few hours.
While he was resting, Mu Ran continued to survey their surroundings, constantly looking for ways to walk into the fog without getting killed.
There had to be a trick to it, he kept insisting, much to Han Xuhan's suspicion.
Both of them were beginning to grow impatient. Sitting here wasn't exactly safe.
If Shen Kai was really a demonic cultivator, then the chances of him returning with reinforcements weren't low. Then the two would be caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to move in either direction.
Mu Ran had dozed off for a while despite the tense situation, something that struck Xuhan as suspicious. After waking up, he got even more impatient than before, which was apparent from his constant prowling at the edge of the fog.
Suddenly, they heard a loud sound from within the depths of the fog.
Alert, Han Xuhan looked for the source of the sound and noticed a figure rushing toward them from within the fog. Mu Ran immediately backed up and touched the handle of the spear on his back while Xuhan took took out his glaive.
The fog tumbled crazily around the figure as it ran out of the foggy area and rushed past Xuhan and Mu Ran like an unstoppable arrow, heading toward the bottomless cliff without showing any signs of stopping.
Both of them were taken aback at first, but they reacted fast enough to stop the running man in time by clutching his flailing arms.
But the man seemed to have lost his senses. Ignoring them entirely, he screamed incessantly and tried to crawl his way toward the cliff despite the two of their combined effort. Xuhan noted that the man wasn't really very strong physically, almost no different from a mortal who hadn't cultivated...
Soon, Xuhan made the connection in his mind and figured out the possible identity of this man.
"Hey, heyhey- stop screaming. PINE TOWN! You're from Pine town, right?"
That got the crazy man's attention. But his struggle only slowed down a notch. Still twisting under their grip, he heckled out a few broken sentence between his screams.
"Fog! Dead in fog! Everyone! Run from them! Devils! All of them are devils!"
Some parts of his garbled speech could be understood by linking them with clues they already had gathered. The demonic cultivators must have used the kidnapped people as cannon fodder to explore the foggy areas in front of them. The poison must have seeped in his body, slowly killing him from within. He lost the remaining bit of his sanity right before their eyes.
But before they could do anything to remedy the man's situation, he let out one final tragic scream and his body shrivelled up as if it was being mummified. Han Xuhan dropped the man in shock and disgust while Mu Ran jumped away from the corpse and used his spear to knock the it away from the two of them.
Han Xuhan's heart was beating like a drum. This was not the first time he had come into contact with a corpse. Xiao Wang had died right before him.
But the circumstances, shock and the unknown elements of horror involved here were too terrifying!
Mu Ran didn't look very well either. But he seemed to be handling the shock better than Xuhan.
"I'm not going inside the fog, no way in hell am I doing it before we find a safe way to neutralise the fog's poison." Han Xuhan flatly asserted.
Mu Ran didn't refute Xuhan's words this time. But Han Xuhan could see it in his eyes; Mu Ran was absolutely determined to find a way into the fog for some reason.
Right then, they heard a gurgling sound coming from the 'corpse'.