After nightfall, Hundred-Blight Marsh became a dead zone utterly forbidden to living creatures.
Occasional flashes of lightning lit the miasma-ridden marsh in flickers of light and darkness. A black cloud covering several miles floated above the swamp, so dense that even lightning struggled to penetrate it. From a distance, it looked like a black mountain floating above the earth.
Holding the Firefighting Token in his palm, Lü Yan stopped before the black cloud, his gaze grave:
"How are you faring, Master Kuya?"
Beside him, Kuya wore a coarse monk's robe, now riddled with several corroded holes. Several patches of dark bruising had appeared on his left arm and were spreading toward his torso. Even a layer of his flesh had been eaten away.
The Ascetic Sect belonged to the Buddhist Sect. Although its members were not immovable vajras like those of the Meditation Sect, their arduous training from childhood gave them unparalleled resistance and endurance. They could survive harsh environments ordinary people could not endure, unmoved by lightning and unkillable by fire. Their resistance to poison, in particular, verged on immunity.
But when the two had pursued Gu Xuanzun and the others earlier, Monk Kuya had closed in to pin them down with Lü Yan's support. They had already cornered Gu Xuanzun when the black-robed figure, who had been concealing his whereabouts, suddenly appeared and struck Kuya with a palm. His arms had been corroded into this state.
Poison Arts this ferocious would be difficult for a fragile Daoist Sect practitioner like Lü Yan to withstand. Moreover, the man had been faster than them even while carrying two deadweights. His strength certainly could not be underestimated. The two could only stop before the poison mist and wait for reinforcements, lest they rashly pursue him too far and be killed by