Chapter 120

Chapter 120: There’s Poison Back There

Xu Qing watched as the captain’s figure fell into the deep pit formed by the fish skull’s eye socket. At the same time, the captain’s words seemed to fall as well, not into the deep pit but into Xu Qing’s mind.

Landing in his thoughts like a boulder, stirring up huge waves that continued to crash and tumble.

Before today, Xu Qing had assumed that all forbidden areas were like the jungle next to the scavenger camp. The deeper one entered, the stranger and more dangerous it became.

Even the Phoenix Forbidden on the other side of South Phoenix had been nothing more than a larger forbidden area to him. At most, it would have stronger mutated beasts and more eerie existences.

But now he found that although his own understanding wasn’t necessarily wrong, it was nothing more than a tiny corner of the truth.

This world was extremely massive, and the human race was just one of many. There were countless alien races and dangerous forbidden areas everywhere.

And there were even forbidden lands above the forbidden areas.

The existence of a forbidden land completely surpassed forbidden areas, even able to give birth to new intelligent races.

And there was also… god’s domain, which even the captain was unclear about.

“Indeed, there are many powerful and unknown existences in this world” Xu Qing thought of the blade-wielding stone statue in the jungle’s temple complex, the giant pulling the dragon carriage at the bottom of the sea, and the true body of Sea Lizard Island.

Then he looked back behind him at the sea corpse cultivator battling Ding Xiaohai. A profound light flickered through his eyes.

The sea corpse race, born in the outer periphery of Corpse Forbidden, was very strong.

If it were a human or merfolk cultivator similarly in the peak of Qi Condensation, Xu Qing wouldn’t have wasted so much time killing them.

“What about Foundation Establishment sea corpse cultivators…?” Xu Qing immediately became vigilant. Down below, he was certain that there would be more sea corpse cultivators, and there would definitely be those in Foundation Establishment among them.

Although the sky-sealing array suppressed all enemies’ cultivation to the Qi Condensation Realm, Xu Qing wouldn’t let his guard down, especially considering how strange and powerful the sea corpse race was.

Moreover, the sky-sealing array itself seemed to show signs of destabilizing.

Xu Qing fell silent. The more he understood about the mysteries of this world, the more he couldn’t help but feel his own weakness. His desire to enter Foundation Establishment as soon as possible grew even stronger.

A sharp light flashed through his eyes as he jumped down into the deep pit of the fish skull’s eye socket.

This pit was like a tunnel, wide and extremely deep, even seeming bottomless at a glance.

When Xu Qing jumped in, he saw the figure of the captain sinking rapidly, already nothing more than a small dot in the distance. His eyes narrowed, and rather than control his speed, he simply allowed gravity to pull him down naturally as he scanned his surroundings.

The dirt all around him was pitch black, and the deeper he fell, the more humid it became. There were many vines weaving their way through the soil, and he could occasionally see some small flowers blooming. Their dark petals seemed to exude a gloomy aura.

Soon, the humidity became stronger and stronger, and Xu Qing heard a crashing sound from where the captain was down below. It wasn’t the sound of fighting, but more like falling into water.

Xu Qing immediately circulated his cultivation base and stabbed the black skewer into the dirt. With a loud scraping sound, the black skewer instantly drew a long scar into the sides of the pit.

Xu Qing gradually decelerated, and after a while, he saw water at the bottom of the pit.

This water was pitch black, and it was impossible to see what was down there. However, it was clear that the journey to the underside of the merfolk race was far from over, and next, he would have to head underwater.

After pondering for a moment, Xu Qing sprinkled some poison powder into the water and waited for a while to confirm that there were no problems.

Then he put all of his water-vulnerable belongings into the storage bag before jumping into the water. He used the Sea Transforming Scripture to form a barrier around himself so that he wouldn’t touch the water as he sank down.

Soon after entering the water, Xu Qing suddenly looked down and instantly became alert.

He couldn’t see the figure of the captain.

It seemed that there was some unknown danger hidden in this dark passage that had caused the captain to disappear.

Xu Qing immediately took out packets of various poison powders and mixed them in a leather bag, which he sent out beyond his protective barrier.

The leather bag was quickly soaked through and poison spread in all directions as Xu Qing continued sinking down rapidly.

Wherever he passed, the black seawater turned even darker as poison spread through it.

Maybe it was because Xu Qing’s poison was extremely lethal, but he didn’t encounter any danger on the way down. By the time he neared the exit, there wasn’t much poison left in the leather bag.

Xu Qing immediately grabbed the leather bag and flung it toward the exit of this underwater passage. As soon as it reached the exit, the bag suddenly dissolved, releasing all the remaining poison at once and suffusing the exit of the passage with poison.

If there was no enemy lying there for an ambush, then nothing would happen. But if there was indeed someone waiting, the poison in the water would definitely make them feel regret.

A moment later, miserable screams rang out. Six merfolk who had been lying in wait retreated rapidly from the poisonous water, their bodies already turning greenish-black. As they rotted away, Xu Qing’s eyes flashed coldly, and he immediately rushed over to the exit of the underwater passage.

As soon as he arrived, he felt spell fluctuations breaking out everywhere, as well as muffled booms and shouts, clear signs of a chaotic battle.

At the same time, a gorgeous underwater world appeared in Xu Qing’s eyes.

Compared to the world on land, everything here was upside-down. However, if a person flipped their own body upside-down and stepped on the dirt of the underside of the island, they would clearly see countless colorful corals all over the place.

It was like a whole world made of corals, and these corals twisted into luxurious buildings all over, with many sea anemones hanging off them.

The mouths of the sea anemones were red, and there were grayish-white petals like sharp teeth surrounding them. But most striking were the barbed tentacles stretching out into the sea and swaying gently.

These tentacles varied widely in length. Some were dozens of meters long, while some were only one or two. Colorful light radiated off of them, making the underwater world look utterly beautiful.

Down in the depths, there were countless translucent eggs. Any one of these eggs was already as big as a seven- or eight-year-old child, and there were young merfolk children curled up inside.

This was the underwater world of the merfolk race built on the underside of their islands, and it was also the true foundation and headquarters of their race. As Xu Qing took in his surroundings, he also noticed the crazed fighting all around him.

There was a large number of Seven Blood Pupils disciples here, unhesitatingly breaking open the corals and robbing all the valuable items. There were also mermaid cultivators charging toward them in fury.

Because this was in the sea, blood didn’t fall and sink to the ground. Instead, it seeped into the seawater, creating a red mist of blood as the fluctuations of spells and sounds of battle echoed out. Xu Qing hadn’t finished observing his surroundings when his body suddenly jerked backward, slamming into a merfolk cultivator who had wanted to launch a sneak attack.

With a bang, the merfolk cultivator’s body shattered into a blood mist. But at that moment, a nearby sea anemone suddenly opened its mouth and bit toward Xu Qing.

The tentacles also shot toward him, but as soon as they approached, they inexplicably withered and died. The sea anemone itself was no different, withering away and turning pitch-black before it could even close its mouth.

Xu Qing ignored the sea anemone and continued surveying his surroundings as he walked forward.

There weren’t only merfolk cultivators fighting the Seven Blood Pupils disciples down here. Xu Qing also saw members of the sea corpse race. At a glance, the scattered sea corpse cultivators numbered around a hundred.

Each one was vicious and powerful, and there were seven or eight who gave off fluctuations infinitely close to the level of Foundation Establishment. For those cultivators, it would often take more than five Seven Blood Pupils disciples joining together to suppress them.

Xu Qing suddenly waved his right hand and the black skewer shot out. There was a figure rushing toward Xu Qing from the left there, and his face warped into a mask of horror as the black skewer penetrated his brows in an instant and returned to Xu Qing’s hand.

Xu Qing didn’t slow down.

As he sped forward, he seldom took the initiative to attack. After all, the purpose of his trip this time wasn’t to kill. Once he arrived in this underwater world, he had immediately estimated the direction of the Spiritual Breath Lamp’s resonating fluctuations.

He wanted to leave this battlefield and take a look at that place to verify his guess.

But just as Xu Qing was moving through the battlefield, he suddenly felt an intense sense of crisis.

Xu Qing immediately stopped in his steps and raised his head to look into the distance.

There, dozens of strange merfolk suddenly appeared on the edge of the battlefield.

These merfolk were all dressed in white robes, and the fluctuations on their bodies were very bizarre; neither heterogeneity nor spiritual energy, but rather an unfathomable sort of fluctuation. When Xu Qing felt it, it seemed familiar… like the power of divinity contained in his magic boat.

His pupils immediately contracted.

Furthermore, next to each of these strange merfolk, there were strange and ferocious beasts!

Some of these strange beasts seemed almost humanoid, but their bodies were abnormally slender and several meters high, like stalks of bamboo. Atop the oddly-proportioned bodies were enormous heads, and their green skin gave off a peculiar feeling.

Others were just like giants, but with two heads instead of one. Both heads were savage and bit at each other as the giant walked forward.

There were also enormous eyeballs covered in boils, and growing from each eyeball’s pupil was an extremely long tongue that gave off a savage and grotesque aura.

There were also some small sharks whose bodies were already rotting away. There were countless rotten weapons stabbed into their bodies as the rushed forward.

“Divine priests!” Xu Qing recalled Huang Yan’s jade slip. In it, there was a brief description of a special kind of cultivator among the merfolk.

There were very few of these cultivators, and they called themselves divine priests. Their spells weren’t backed by spiritual power, but the power of the god the merfolk worshiped, so they called the spells divine arts.

And those strange beasts were manifestations of their divine arts!

Their appearance instantly disrupted the battlefield, causing some chaos among the Seven Blood Pupils disciples. However, the disciples here were all fierce people from the foot of the mountain. Although the divine priests had come to reinforce the merfolk, there was no shortage of greedy gazes being cast on the divine priests themselves.

After all, divine priests had quite the status in the merfolk race, and they were also far wealthier than ordinary merfolk cultivators.

Xu Qing didn’t join the battle. He withdrew his gaze from the divine priests and was about to move on, but his expression suddenly turned strange.

Not far away, he saw a corpse in a sorry state quickly crawling around on the battlefield.

The corpse was covered with blood and countless ghastly wounds all over its body. Overall, it was a grisly sight.

It would quickly crawl in short bursts before stopping abruptly. When it passed the dead body of a merfolk or Seven Blood Pupils disciple, it would rummage through their belongings with great familiarity, take any valuables it could find, then continue crawling.

If a powerful enemy came, it would immediately pretend to be lifeless, but if someone with average cultivation showed up, the corpse would suddenly launch a sneak attack. After killing its target, the corpse would quickly run away to another location and resume playing dead…

Although the other party’s disguise was good, Xu Qing still recognized him.

“Senior Brother Zhang San…”

But just as Xu Qing noticed Zhang San, a fluctuation appeared behind him. Xu Qing jumped forward and immediately turned around, readying his right hand to fling the black skewer. But at that moment, a voice rang out hastily.

“Vice captain Xu, it’s me!”

It was the captain.

But… right now, the captain was a little different from when Xu Qing had last seen him.

His body was greenish-black, revealing obvious signs of being poisoned. His lips had also turned dark, and he was shoveling detoxification pills into his mouth as he approached.

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