Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array

Blaziken took a deep breath of the surrounding air, drawing the toxins mixed within into its body, only for them to be incinerated by the intense heat burning within.

Feeling no signs of poisoning in its body, Blaziken nodded, indicating that its flames could suppress the toxins.

Confirming this, Ye Chen was immediately delighted. On the Douluo Continent, fire and ice attributes were the natural bane of poison, which was why Dugu Bo relied on the spiritual energy of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well to suppress his serpent venom.

Since Blaziken's flames could suppress the toxins, there would be no issue with hunting poison-type Soul Beasts in the Poison Mist Forest.

Furthermore, when he had purchased Whale Rubber at the apothecary, he had specifically bought plenty of herbs to help with detoxification and healing, as well as a large supply of burn salves, stimulants, and paralysis recovery medicine.

With his knowledge of herbs, he was fully capable of surviving in this Poison Mist Forest.

"Let's go, let's head in and take a look." With that, Ye Chen walked toward the entrance of the Poison Mist Forest.

Blaziken used the Focus Energy skill to sharpen its mental focus, following closely by Ye Chen's side with its sharp gaze scanning the surroundings to prevent any sneak attacks from poison-type Soul Beasts.

Upon entering the Poison Mist Forest, Ye Chen noticed that the environment here was slightly gloomier than other areas, with the air thick with the scent of various poisons and the stench of rotting corpses.

Looking around, everything was pitch black, but fortunately, it was still daytime, so his vision wasn't too severely obstructed and he could still see.

Two hundred meters into the Poison Mist Forest, Ye Chen saw many spider-type Soul Beasts hanging upside down from the large trees.

Some of the spiders had red eyes, others blue, and there were also venomous snakes, scorpions, and gecko-type Soul Beasts slithering on the ground. Everything around them gave off a sense of lurking danger, as if one moment of carelessness would cost them their lives.

As they pressed forward, Ye Chen applied ointment to his entire body. These ointments had insect-repelling and anti-poison properties, said to be developed by families specializing in alchemy and toxicology, and they were quite expensive at the apothecary.

After applying the ointment, Ye Chen channeled his soul power into his eyes and brain, significantly enhancing his vision and mental perception. Aided by the Insight skill, he could easily spot spiderwebs or burrow traps set by poison-type Soul Beasts.

As they traveled, the poison-type Soul Beasts dared not approach easily because Blaziken was by his side.

The flames burning on Blaziken's wrists served perfectly as torches, making the gloomy surroundings clearer to see.

After observing for a while, Ye Chen discovered that the poison-type Soul Beasts living in this forest were not as powerful as he had imagined, with the highest cultivation levels being only a few thousand years.

It seemed that poison-type Soul Beasts with over ten thousand years of cultivation lived in another area where the mist was even thicker.

After walking for about half a day, Ye Chen and Blaziken finally emerged from the Poison Mist Forest and entered the central section of the Sunset Forest Core Zone.

Right in front of him, a mountain peak five hundred meters high came into view.

Because the entire mountain occupied such a vast area, it stood like a barrier before him; to continue forward, he would have to climb over the entire peak.

However, Ye Chen did not do so, because the entire mountain was shrouded in dark green toxic mist, and to cross it, one would have to enter that fog.

"Blaziken, use Flamethrower."

Receiving Ye Chen's instruction, Blaziken exerted force from its dantian, and a raging torrent of fire erupted from its mouth, heading straight for the dark green mist twenty meters ahead.

Whoosh, hiss, crackle—

A series of explosions rang out; as the dark green mist was incinerated by the Flamethrower, it exploded like firecrackers before dissipating into powder.

Because of this, a huge gap was torn into the dark green mist ahead.

Suddenly, the incinerated dark green mist rapidly converged, filling the gap.

Seeing this, Ye Chen's first, second, and third Soul Rings lit up simultaneously. After stacking the power of his fire-attribute skills to the limit, Blaziken unleashed another Flamethrower.

Compared to before, this Flamethrower was more powerful and had a wider range, appearing as a linear stream of fire that suddenly expanded into a fan-shaped blast covering ten meters in front of them.

Blaziken maintained the Flamethrower to incinerate the dark green mist in the ten-meter radius until, twenty seconds later, it had to stop due to excessive soul power consumption.

Watching the dark green mist re-converge to fill the burnt gap, Ye Chen couldn't help but feel puzzled.

Although it shrouded the entire mountain and covered a vast area, the speed at which this dark green mist converged suggested it wasn't naturally formed. Could it have been released by a specific poison-type Soul Beast?

Or perhaps, was this dark green mist formed by the soul skill of a poison-type Soul Master?

Thinking of this, Ye Chen's eyes lit up. According to the original story, Dugu Bo had specifically set up the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array near the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well to claim it for himself.

It was said that this Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array was terrifying; any Soul Master below level 70 or a Soul Beast without sufficient cultivation would surely die upon entering the array.

Could the dark green mist covering the mountain be the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array?

While pondering, Ye Chen had already turned back with Blaziken. If this mist truly was the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array, the commotion Blaziken had caused by burning the fog might have already caught Dugu Bo's attention.

It was better to leave first, then return to linger near the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array once he had considered potential accidents and found countermeasures.

With this in mind, Ye Chen let Blaziken grind for experience in the Poison Mist Forest while he contemplated matters related to the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison Array and Dugu Bo.

Day after day passed, and half a month went by in the blink of an eye.

During these two weeks, Ye Chen and Blaziken had been fighting Soul Beasts in the Poison Mist Forest.

Although the poison-type Soul Beasts here weren't particularly high-level, the experience gained from half a month of combat helped raise his soul power from level 55 to level 56.

With Blaziken supervising, Ye Chen also joined the fray, starting with thousand-year Soul Beasts, then challenging two-thousand-year ones, and finally three-thousand-year ones.

Ultimately, Ye Chen determined that his strength lay between that of an ordinary three-thousand-year Soul Beast and a top-tier one.

Through his repeated battles with Soul Beasts, his combat techniques became more proficient, and skills like Agility, Insight, and Mega Punch became second nature to use.

His current skills were all geared toward melee combat; to enable long-range attacks, Ye Chen decided to practice the morphological manipulation of his soul power.

He realized that if he could compress his soul power into a spherical shape and throw it, he could achieve an explosive attack effect by detonating the compressed energy upon impact.

Regrettably, after half a month of research and experimentation, Ye Chen could only compress his soul power into a palm-sized sphere, but he remained unable to detonate it.