Golden light slammed into a Mithril Centipede’s shell, showering sparks and leaving only a shallow white scar.
Sh*t! They‘re tough! A muted shock coursed through Jared, and immediately changed tactics, flooding the blade with marked aura that hissed like imprisoned thunder.
“So hard!” Flaxseed gasped, then added enviously, “Wish my own gear were built the same.”
Jared shot a glare that needed no words. Corin, oblivious, raised his sword and cut. Black light sliced through the Mithril Centipede’s shell as though it were silk.
The severed halves fell apart cleanly, emerald venom splashing outward, only to sizzle harmlessly against the marked aura shield coiling around the group.
“Aim for their bellies! That’s where the shell is soft!” Corin’s warning rained down from above.
Riding a streak of silver light, skimmed the air, his longsword splitting into a hundred gleaming sword shadows that hammered the exposed underbellies of every writhing Mithril Centipede below.
On the ground, Flaxseed uncorked a vial and shook out several dozen mustard-colored pills. They burst like fireworks upon hitting the ground. Yellow smoke billowed outward, swirling around clawed legs and plated torsos.
Where the smoke touched, metal flesh turned liquid. The Mithril Centipedes screeched, the sound sharp enough to scrape bone.
“Corpsify Pills, nothing shrivels venomous parasites faster!” Flaxseed crowed, pride sparkling in his narrowed eyes.
Jared hadn’t expected the eccentric alchemist to carry such lethal toys. Admiration flickered across his face, chased quickly by resolve.
Not to be outdone, Jared drew his power inward. Tendrils of marked aura gathered at his fingertips, weaving into dozens of sinuous black threads that lashed toward the honeycomb caves lining the cliff face.
The moment those threads vanished inside, a chorus of hisses echoed, rose, then faded to an eerie hush. Nothing crawled back out.
“That’s it? All settled?” Flaxseed blinked, half awed, half incredulous.
“I sealed their nest with marked aura,” Jared replied, withdrawing the black threads. “There won’t be new pests for a while.”
With the immediate threat smothered, the three quickened their pace. The narrow gorge opened like a curtain pulled aside, revealing a hidden world beyond.
Acres upon acres of valley floor stretched before them, choked with grotesque, toxic flora. Colorful miasma, turquoise, crimson, violet, boiled across the ground, and at the very heart of that poisonous sea loomed a black palace, obsidian walls gleaming like wet stone.
Corin pointed, voice low yet urgent. “That is the core of Venom Valley, the Venom Palace. Toxius, the leader of Venom Valley, should be inside.”
Just then, a voice, thin as a blade of ice, slithered from the thickets of poison weed. “Three reckless fools with a death wish, daring to trespass in my valley?!”
Dozens of black-robed cultivators parted the toxic undergrowth and stepped into view. Every face was carved with menace, and each clutched a gourd brimming with phosphorescent venom.
Leading them was a one-eyed elder with markings etching his skin like a living snakeskin tattoo.
Corin whispered, “That’s Sarpa, chief law-keeper of Venom Valley. He’s mastered the Ecdysis Technique to the seventh level, steel and arrows can’t break his hide…”
Sarpa’s single eye swept the trio, pausing on Jared. Greed shimmered there. “Such dense marked aura. Perfect feed for my miliesnake.”
He unclipped a black burlap sack from his belt. As unknotted the mouth, rotten musk blasted across the valley. From the sack poured a serpent as thick as a barrel, its skin coal-dark, its body sprouting a forest of barbed legs.
“That’s King Millesnake,” Corin murmured. “Its strength is at Earthly Immortal Realm Level Five!”
The monster’s bifurcated tongue tasted the air. Blood-red eyes fixed on Jared, drawn by the intoxicating swirl of his marked aura.
Jared tightened his grip on the Dragonslayer Sword, spiritual energy and marked aura roaring through his veins. “Make it quick! We cannot let them alert Toxius!”
The last syllable had barely left his tongue when Sarpa barked, “Take them alive! I want them to feel Venom Valley gnaw their hearts!”
The black-robed cultivators upended their gourds. Jets of emerald poison erupted, converging overhead into a single glistening web that dropped toward the three like a falling sky.
Flaxseed was ready. Ten golden charms shot from his sleeves, unfurling into the air. Charm locked together, forming a radiant Array of Eight Trigrams. Poison splashed across the formation with a furious hiss but failed to seep through.
“Break!” Corin shouted, voice cutting through chaos like lightning. He flashed forward, pure lightning in human form. Light streaked once, twice, three times from his longsword.
Those three cultivators clutched shattered throats before they even understood they had been struck. They hit the ground, still trying to comprehend how death had arrived faster than sight.
