The sound of water deep within the poison mist grew closer and closer, and the boundary between temperatures became increasingly distinct.
Lan Tian maintained a low posture as he advanced, stepping over damp gravel and moss without making almost any sound.
The Rasengan had already condensed. The fist-sized golden orb slowly spun in his right palm, its hum deliberately kept low. In this remote, unvisited place, it was nearly inaudible, illuminating only the green mist a few steps ahead of him.
He was still roughly a hundred paces away from the source of the water.
But as he sidestepped around an enormous bluish-gray boulder, something beneath his foot gave an unsettling crack.
Looking down, he saw a white bone half-buried in the soil. Its surface was coated in deep green deposits, likely having been steeped in poison mist for many years.
The sound of the bone breaking was not loud in the open valley floor, but it was enough to alert certain things.
Almost at the same instant, a sharp whistle of wind came from the dense fog to his left.
Lan Tian's body reacted faster than his mind. He rolled to the right, sprang up the instant his feet touched the ground, and adjusted his center of gravity to steady himself.
A dark shadow smashed into the spot where he had been standing. Chips of stone burst from the rock wall through the poison mist, the fragments striking nearby rocks with a series of sharp cracks.
After missing its strike, the shadow quickly withdrew into the thick fog. All that remained was a long, fresh mark in the ground and several thick, dark-purple tentacles rapidly waving at the edge of the mist.
Lan Tian narrowed his eyes, following the tentacles' movements as he swiftly judged the creature's size and