“Are you mad? That place will eat us alive!” Flaxseed’s voice cracked. Jared shook his head. “Waiting here kills us for sure. Better to gamble.”
He hauled Flaxseed straight into the roiling swamp. Underfoot the tar-dark sludge gurgled like something alive. Each step met a suctioning tug, as though icy fingers clutched their ankles.
Jared kept one hand locked around Flaxseed’s arm, with the other swept Dragonslayer Sword in ruthless arcs, severing venom-soaked vines that lunged from the murk. Golden arcs of sword energy ripped pale soars through the gloom.
“Watch your footing!” barked, yanking Flaxseed left. The spot they’d occupied collapsed, razor-bones spearing from the muck-fatal, had they hesitated a heartbeat.
Flaxseed’s breath rasped, his reopened chest wound spilled blood that hissed on the mud. Thumb-sized black insects swarmed, devouring red droplets and even the mud beneath.
“This place is cursed,” whimpered, wiping sludge from his face. “Seraphina and killers won’t dare follow… Will they?”
A shrill curse slashed the fog behind them.
“Useless trash! Two wounded fugitives and you still fail? After them, now!” Seraphina’s voice, cold as forged steel, rang across the bog.
Jared glanced back. At the swamp’s rim, dozens of silhouettes gathered, scarlet robes blazing against the dim light. His stomach dropped-they were willing to brave Bone-rot Swamp.
“Deeper, then…” muttered. He fished the last two detoxification pills from his pouch, pressing one into Flaxseed‘s hand. “Under your tongue, it’ll blunt the fumes.”
Jared needed none, his blood had long since learned to laugh at poison.
They slogged on, each stride heavier than the last. The stench thickened into a choking miasma that even the pill could not fully soften.
Needles of pain stabbed Jared’s consciousness field, his mind-stilling mantra stuttered. Of Wandering immortal Realm Level Six, only eight-tenths of his power answered the call.
Ahead, pale-violet bubbles seethed, releasing an even deadlier vapor.
Flaxseed inhaled, coughed violently, and crumpled, skin turning bruise-purple.
“Mr. Flaxseed!” Jared caught him, the alchemist‘s lips were already weeping sores.
Panic surged, then a glint caught Jared’s eye, something bright buried in the mire.
Perched on a shard of black stone, rising just above the muck, bloomed a lotus, snow-white, immaculate, its petals glowing through the fetid vapor.
A halo of soft, milky light clung to the lotus, pushing the rank poison back and making the flesh-eating beetles skitter away in terror.
Is that… A Purifying Lotus?
A line from an ancient scroll blazed across Jared’s memory, this legendary bloom could cleanse every toxin under heaven and smash the walls that trapped a cultivator’s breakthrough.
Without a second thought, Jared hoisted Flaxseed onto his back, slogged through the reeking muck, and plucked the glowing lotus with near-reverent care.
Warmth like polished jade spread through his palms, and the surrounding toxic energy recoiled as though it had met the one force it could not endure.
He split the lotus in two-pressing one half past Flaxseed’s lips, chewing the other himself, and swallowing the bitter petals whole.
A ribbon of icy clarity slid down his throat, burst inside the elixir field, and the once-sluggish spiritual energy flared to life like sparks in dry tinder.
The stabbing ache in his consciousness field vanished; every pore in his body opened greedily, drinking in the lotus’s pristine energy until his skin sang with power. To his amazement, the long-standing barrier at Wandering immortal Realm Level Six began to crack.
Thunder rumbled overhead.
