"Stop."
The four of them climbed out one after another.
As soon as all four had gotten out, the scene before them changed completely. The smooth main road disappeared, replaced by a primeval forest stretching beyond the horizon.
Ancient trees towered overhead, their twisted branches resembling dragons. Thick vines hung from the canopy like the dangling tentacles of giant beasts.
The air was heavy with damp earth and the fresh scent of plants, but a careful sniff revealed a faint, elusive stench—the mingled smell of Spirit Beasts, poison, and decay.
They had reached Sunset Forest.
Liu Erlong stood at the front. Her dark red hunting outfit stood out against the dappled light and shadow among the trees. She took a deep breath, a sharp glint flashing in her eyes.
"Stay close, and don't fall behind," she said, stepping into the shadowy forest first.
Yu Tiancheng followed close behind, with Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling bringing up the rear. The dense shadows soon swallowed their figures. Their footsteps echoed through the forest, fading into the distance.
The forest was even darker inside than it had looked from the outside.
A thick layer of leaves, accumulated over countless years, covered the ground. Their footsteps sank into it with a soft rustling sound.
Now and then, something rustled in the bushes on either side, as if something were watching them from the shadows.
Liu Erlong led the way, releasing the faintest trace of her Soul Saint aura to form an invisible barrier.
Several low-level Spirit Beasts that had been itching to attack sensed the pressure and promptly retreated.
"Miss Dugu," Liu Erlong asked without looking back, "which way?"
Dugu Yan took a jade pendant shaped like a green scale from her robes and channeled Soul Power into it. The pendant glowed faintly, pointing toward the northeastern part of the forest.
"Over there," she said quietly. "Grandpa left a mark on the pendant to guide us."
"Let's go."
They kept their formation as they headed northeast into the forest.
About fifteen minutes later, the terrain changed abruptly. A vast marsh stretched across their path.
Bubbles of various sizes rose to the surface of the dark green sludge, bursting with soft pops and releasing a pungent, rotten stench.
The trees along the marsh's edge were an unhealthy gray-black, with sparse leaves.
"Let's go around," Liu Erlong decided at once, starting to turn—
"Auntie, wait," Yu Tiancheng said suddenly.
He crouched, picked up a fist-sized stone by his feet, and hefted it in his hand. Then he hurled it toward the center of the marsh.
The stone traced an arc through the air. The instant it struck the sludge—
Splash!
A dark green python as thick as a barrel burst out of the mud! Its jaws gaped wide, revealing two venomous fangs gleaming with a sinister light. Its foul breath hit them head-on!
"A Thousand Year Marsh Poisonous Python!" Liu Erlong's gaze sharpened, and Soul Power surged through her—
But Yu Tiancheng was faster.
He raised his right hand, silver light flowing across his fingertips.
This time, he didn't use Time Stasis over a wide area—it would have cost too much at his current level. Instead, he concentrated his Time-Space Power precisely around the python's head.
"Time Distortion!"
The python's lunge faltered. It didn't stop entirely; instead, its movements became terribly uncoordinated, as if its head and body were being pulled in different directions by two opposing forces. It twisted in agony, its attack falling apart in an instant.
Taking advantage of the opening, Yu Tiancheng swept out his left hand. The Time Dragon Spear appeared, and a solid Space Blade shot from it, aimed straight at the python's vulnerable spot seven inches below its head!
Thwack!
The Space Blade struck true, but the thousand-year Spirit Beast's defenses were far tougher than expected.
It cut only halfway through the scales. The python shrieked in pain and thrashed even more violently.
Seeing this, Liu Erlong snorted and flicked a finger.
A spark flew from her fingertip, swelling as it sailed through the air into a blazing fireball. It struck the python's wound with pinpoint accuracy!
Boom!
The fireball exploded. The intense heat charred the flesh around the wound in an instant. The python let out one final cry and crashed to the ground, splashing mud everywhere.
The whole thing had taken no more than five or six breaths.
Liu Erlong looked at Yu Tiancheng, approval flashing in her eyes. "Nice teamwork. That Time Distortion was precise. It saved me quite a bit of effort."
She knew that Yu Tiancheng could have easily dealt with the python by forcing a wide-area Time Stasis, but doing so would have consumed a great deal of Soul Power.
For now, precisely controlling a small area was the smarter choice.
Yu Tiancheng recalled the Time Dragon Spear and drew a slightly labored breath. That precise use of Time Distortion had taken a toll on his Spiritual Power.
"There should be more than one python in this marsh," he said, looking into its depths. "Going around would take too long. Let's cross straight through."
As he spoke, he raised his hand again, silver light gathering in his palm.
This time, instead of trying to lay out a continuous path, he formed more than a dozen Space Nodes on the surface of the marsh, each about the size of a washbasin and spaced two or three meters apart.
These techniques were all part of the Laws of Spacetime he had learned from the Time Dragon Spear.
"Step on the nodes and cross. Move quickly," Yu Tiancheng said, leaping onto the first one.
Liu Erlong followed close behind, with Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling quickly joining them. The four of them hopped rapidly from one Space Node to the next, each landing swift and precise.
Behind them, several disturbed pythons poked their heads out of the sludge, but the four had already crossed the center of the marsh and reached the other side.
"Let's go."
Liu Erlong took the lead, and the four continued onward.
Beyond the marsh, the terrain began to rise. They crossed a sparsely vegetated ridge, and when they reached the summit, the sight before them left everyone stunned—
A strange valley lay ahead, encircled by mountains.
The valley was sharply divided in two. One side shimmered with heat, its ground a deep red and the air heavy with the smell of sulfur. The other was bitterly cold, its ground covered in pale blue ice crystals, the chill almost visible to the naked eye.
The two opposing energies converged in the center of the valley, swirling into a gigantic Taiji symbol that turned slowly.
The powers of ice and fire had reached an uncanny balance here. This was the legendary natural wonder known as the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
At the edge of the spring where ice and fire met, an elderly figure sat cross-legged.
He wore a loose, dark green robe. His white hair hung over his shoulders like dry grass, and deep wrinkles carved his face like marks from a blade and chisel.
Most striking were his eyes: the whites were a strange shade of green, and his pupils were terrifying vertical slits—cold, sharp, and devoid of feeling, like a venomous snake's.
He sat perfectly still, releasing no Soul Power pressure, yet the air throughout the valley seemed frozen. Even the wind had fallen silent.
Dugu Bo.
A Titled Douluo, the Poison Douluo.
He slowly lifted his head, his slit pupils fixing on the four who had entered the valley.
His gaze paused on Liu Erlong for a moment, swept over Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling, then settled on Yu Tiancheng.
That stare felt tangible, like the scrape of a cold blade against the skin.
"Boy."
His hoarse voice sounded like an old bellows being worked, or a snake hissing as it slithered through the grass.
"Are you the one who... boasted that he could cure this old man's poison?"
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