NOVEL NEXT Chapter 80: Blighted Beast [Interlude]
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"You told me to prepare you a weapon fit to slay gods. It may be a millennium late, but I dare say I have delivered."
"We shall see. In the meantime… Would you like a wager, Botulvorn?"
"Hmm… Why not? The Dead have little else for entertainment. I do enjoy a gamble, though I hope the stakes are worth the games, Hierophant."
Four years ago…
"We are not far now…"
Yunjin nodded in affirmation to Feng's statement. The girl was soaked in muck, having just waddled through the putrid mire of the Bog. The stagnant waters came up to her neck, yet it was avoidable: this was already the shallowest path the pretty lady could find.
Feng fed her more of his blood. Her eyes brightened a little with each sip, vitality returned to her frame by measures they ill-understood.
It was not simply qi; her body was still mortal, and while cultivated blood would undoubtedly improve a mortal's constitution to some extent, it would not bolster it to such levels. The toxin-bearing maggots of her body were almost stilled to complete silence, and the myriad diseases which should have infected her by now were absent.
Regardless, Feng was glad she was healthy — or as healthy as she could be under such dire circumstances. Once they were free, they could find a more permanent solution to address her sickness. The pretty lady would find a way. Feng was certain of it.
"The air is getting cleaner," Yunjin noted, a smile gracing her face. "I think… we are less than a kilometre from the edge now."
"Is there a chance we might encounter someone else?" Feng asked worryingly. "If one of the locals recognises you, or worse, a disciple…"
Yunjin shook her head. "We are far from the main pathways into the Blighted Bog. No one ventures off the charted routes if they can help it. It isn't impossible, but the chances are slim."
"I can personally confirm there is no living human for miles around, save you two."
Feng nodded. "Pretty Lady says the same. No one is around."
Yunjin chuckled. "That Fairy of yours… She is incredible. I've never thought someone could map the Bog with such unerring accuracy. To be able to guide even a crippled mortal like me out of the heart of the Blighted Bog… It beggars belief."
"She's not really a Fairy, I think…"
Yunjin smiled. "But she is pretty, yes? Beyond mortal means?"
"Yes, but…" Feng grimaced. "Her prettiness is… scary. Hard to look at. Like staring at the sun, but way worse."
"I can still hear you, you know. How rude."
"Ah," Feng rubbed his head sheepishly. "Sorry. I didn't mean it in a bad way."
The pair continued their journey. The monsters have grown less frequent. Even the buzzing black clouds of swarm flies had become a rare occurrence. The muck was less filthy, the air sweeter, and the skies no longer fogged by a putrid brown mist.
They were almost free.
And that was, inevitably, when everything went wrong.
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"... hot springs of my Sect are famous for their relaxing and rejuvenation properties. I know a secret place; the waters there are the best, and no one knows about it. I'll take you there once we get home."
The young scions kept their voices low as they spoke. Half of their banter was made to distract them from the fetid conditions of the swamp, but the other half was borne out of genuine curiosity and camaraderie for each other.
It was said that hardships were the catalysts for strong bonds, and the hardships those two endured over the past weeks triumphed even the worst of mortal nightmares.
Needless to say, their bonds were wrought strong indeed.
Yunjin chuckled at Feng's enthusiasm. There was a longing in her voice as she replied. "A soak in pristine, hot water… I think I would kill for that. I haven't felt clean and warm in a long time."
"We can stop by a town for some supplies first once we leave the swamp," the Young Master assured her. "It will give us time to wash and rest up for a while before we keep moving."
"What of your Sect delegations?" Yunjin asked worryingly. "I imagine they must be growing quite frantic by now. You have been missing for weeks. They would undoubtedly be accusing the Decaying Greyroots Sect of kidnapping."
Feng shrugged. "Pretty Lady told me to write a letter and leave it in my assigned guest room before I left for the Blighted Bog. She said once my Father sees it, he'll understand."
"Truly?" Yunjin raised an eyebrow. "That is… incredibly fortuitous. A conflict between Sects is the last thing this Province needs. If you say this venture was her idea, then I have no doubt about the perseverance of your status within your Sect."
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"What about you?" Feng hesitantly asked. "Would Patriarch Ru realise you have escaped?"
Yunjin looked down. "Perhaps, but… I believe he thought that even if I somehow escaped from my prison, the dangers of the Bog would soon devour me anyway. Make no mistake: he left me there in the cage not to ascend, but to die quietly and out of his sight."
Her fists clenched. "To him, I was nothing more than a sore to be rid of. Otherwise, he would not have fed me that many worms. It was a certain death sentence."
"And yet, she is still here, against all odds."
Feng felt it best not to relay the pretty lady's thoughts.
"Don't think of him any more. He can't hurt you once we leave the region," Feng adamantly said before cheering up. "Once we rest in town for a day or two, we can get a wagon to bring us the rest of the way to the Phoenix Mountain. No need to walk. I think we had quite enough of that."
Yunjin laughed. "The walking is not a chore. It is the sucking mud and water that bothers me most. Give me dry land to tread on, and I'll happily walk the whole way."
"Well, I would like a wagon. My feet are killing me," Feng grinned. "I will still need to send a letter to my Father before we leave, but don't worry, I'm sure he will understand and— hm?"
Feng stopped walking. His posture was instantly alert.
Yunjin similarly became watchful. "What? Why have we stopped?"
The Young Master frowned. "Did you… feel something move?"
"What do you mean? I don't— Wait, there is something… Is the ground… shaking?"
The stagnant waters around them shook and rippled in place — mere vibrations at first, before slowly rising in intensity, forming thick waves that lapped at higher ground.
The tremors rose in strength, creating great shivers in the viscous soil. Yunjin gave a cry of alarm. Feng immediately activated his movement technique, scooping the Young Miss in his arms before dashing away.
Mere heartbeats after, the mire beneath them exploded.
A fountain of filth gushed from a sinkhole in the mud, raining gunk and slime-covered debris over the land. The crater sucked in the polluted waters of the Bog, forming a churning whirlpool that bubbled and foamed with sickly pus.
It was as if an abscess of the living swamp had just burst beneath their feet, spewing its fecund contagion everywhere. The air — which could almost be described as clean and breathable mere moments ago — soon grew thick with virulent moisture that burned the lungs.
But the worst was yet to come. From the cracked cyst of that decaying land, something large and dead squirmed back to unnatural life.
An enormous figure of sickly white erupted from the slimy bowels of the earth. The sagging shadow of its bleached body blocked out the sun as a writhing weight of corpulent flesh forced itself free. Its massive, segmented body was coiled tight into grotesque loops — each bulging with sickly fluids — while the pulsating veins beneath thrived with toxic fecundity as countless parasites swam and bred.
The creature's skin was slick and sickeningly shiny, a pale, translucent yellow-green that was pocket-marked in dripping sores and festering wounds that oozed foul-smelling pus and excrement.
Rot pervaded the surrounding growth, turning its nascent naturality back into a decaying wasteland reminiscent of the innermost pit of the Blighted Bog. Deafening clouds of flies swarmed about the creature's massive form, their unnatural hums almost forming the shape of a chorus that sang as if in honour of the monster's triumphant emergence.
At the front of the maggot's bloated body was a head with no real eyes — only deep, gaping holes from which thick, viscous slime oozed, pooling at the base of the creature's form. Its mouth was a grotesque, circular orifice lined with rows of human-shaped teeth, mottled green and wet with pestilence.
The creature's mandibles twitch in anticipation as it lets out a low, rumbling chuckle — an exhalation of anticipation, wrought with the final breath of a thousand rotting lungs.
"I breathe… Again."
It could talk.
It did not matter that Feng was a cultivator only in the Foundation Realm, nor that Yunjin was a mortal without spiritual senses. As the air crackled with the malevolent thunderhead of decay, both of them knew what it was. What it represented.
The fledgling senses of the Young Master told him he was facing a Spirit Beast within the Seventh Step of the Nascent Realm. The studies of the Young Miss told her the creature was a Plague Leech, an abominable creature that should only be found within the heart of the Blighted Bog.
Neither of those descriptions fitted the monster before them, for the depths of their souls recognised that thrumming, impossible madness pulsating before them.
A Shred of Undead Divinity, imbued into a Spirit Beast.
An Avatar.
The eyeless head of the Avatar turned towards them. Its mouth furled open, revealing a thousand grins bearing hole-rotted teeth. The creature's mouth moved. A gurgling, amused growl reverberated from its gullet.
"Going… so soon? We have yet… to properly greet each other…"
Its enormous head turned to meet Feng. Though it held no eyes, the Young Master felt the malevolent weight of its eldritch gaze land on his frame.
"Thou lack courtesy. Uncouth Dragon. Allow this humble Spawn… to teach you the importance of manners."
The Decaying Greyroots Sect, Part 1
Positioned atop the peaks of the Purple Bloom Mountains, far above the oozing wetlands and insect-infested bog that fill the valley below, the Decaying Greyroots Sect reigns presently as the strongest Sect in all the Northern Outer Provinces — if only by the strength of their Patriarch.
As one of the Sects of the Four Mountain Sect Group, the monastery already holds considerable prestige and power — for a Sect in the Outer Provinces, anyway — but that is further boosted by the mercantile aspects it has cultivated.
The cult is famous for its niche within the alchemical market, particularly in its trade of high-quality ingredients, medicine, Spirit Wine, and a wide variety of potent poisons — most renowned of which is its Nine Deaths' Embrace extract, an exceedingly malicious neurotoxin that paralyses its victim while causing rapid failure and cell death within nine of the body's most vital organs.
What makes the toxin so dangerous, however, is its limited ability to mutate its cellular structure using qi, allowing it to adapt against the more powerful immuno-responses of cultivated bodies.
A paradoxical line-up of commodities for sale, perhaps. Yet their excellence cannot be denied, with demands for their product coming from even the many Inner Sects of the North Border Gates. Their cultivators are also well-known to be skilled in calligraphy, and their services are sometimes sought for the purposes of crafting beautifully written letters for courtship… or subtle assassination, depending on the type of ink used.
— Excerpt from A Citizen's Guide to the Flesh-Grafted Empire