Black Nightmare Marsh truly lived up to its name.
The Sacred Alliance trial camp had only just entered its boundaries when Black Nightmare Evil Qi—a mixture of rot, fetid stench, and a chilling sensation that seemed to reach into the mind—surged toward them like an invisible tide.
The sky was an eternal gray-black, with dense clouds hanging low and blocking out most of the sunlight. The land was carved up by ink-green swamps and pitch-black mud pools, dotted with twisted, grotesque dead trees and poisonous mushrooms that gave off a faint glow. Sickly green bubbles occasionally rose from the puddles, bursting to release an even denser foul stench.
More troublesome still, the omnipresent Black Nightmare Evil Qi significantly suppressed and corroded Divine Sense. For ordinary Heavenly Immortal cultivators, extending their Divine Sense merely a few miles from their bodies would leave it sluggish and stinging; even True Immortal cultivators fared little better, their perception becoming blurred beyond a hundred miles. This made scouting exceedingly difficult and ambushes all too likely.
"What a deadly land." Yue Jian stood in the air, gazing solemnly at the swamp kingdom stretching countless miles ahead. Even his Mysterious Immortal Late Stage Divine Sense was greatly weakened here, making it difficult to discern what lay in the depths of the marsh.
"This place is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The fierce beasts hold every advantage of the terrain," Di Jun said in a deep voice. Faint Solar Golden Flame automatically rose around him, burning and purifying the evil qi that tried to approach with soft hissing sounds.
Meanwhile, Lin Yan, the camp's scout, had already ventured deep into Black Nightmare Marsh. Though its evil qi could suppress and corrode Divine Sense, it could not block the Deduction Sand Table's detection. While the evil qi