Chapter 249 - 215: Hunting the Tier 2 Middle Stage Jade Water Spirit Snake
Chapter 249: Chapter 215: Hunting the Tier 2 Middle Stage Jade Water Spirit Snake
All Xu Wei could feel was the scenery rushing past on both sides. The Gang Wind whipped against his face, and despite his Protective Spiritual Light, it nearly blew him off his feet. He could only grip the feather tightly.
Meanwhile, Lu Zhao stood ahead, clad in a Profound Daoist Robe with his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was as sharp as lightning, piercing the clouds to settle on the unknown Barbaric Land to the northwest.
’Jade Water Spirit Snake...’ Lu Zhao silently repeated the preliminary assessment he’d made based on records from the Ancient Texts and the Puppet Bead’s interface.
This snake was an extremely difficult Tier Two serpentine Demon Beast. Its venom was potent enough to corrode metal and rot bone, its scales were tough, and it was cunning and vicious by nature, often making its lair in the Poisonous Forest of the Black Water Marsh.
「Three days later.」
At the edge of a swampy woodland shrouded in gray-green mist, Xu Wei pointed ahead. "Senior, we’re almost there! That swampy woodland ahead, that’s the Black Water Marsh!" Xu Wei’s voice was tinged with nervousness as he pointed to an ominous-looking area below.
Lu Zhao focused his gaze downward and saw that the terrain below was low-lying, forming a vast marsh with murky, black water.
Scattered along the edge and in the middle of the marsh were a few "islands," but they were not sandbars. They were vast tracts of strange, withered, and scorched forestland.
A dense, gray-green mist moved like a living creature, slowly flowing and churning over the swampy forest and shrouding most of the area. It severely hindered both sight and Divine Sense.
A faint, sickly sweet smell drifted on the wind.
This was the very Poisonous Forest that the elder with the surname Han had described!
"Lower our altitude. Circle the marsh and look for the place where the scales were found," Lu Zhao ordered in a low voice. Simultaneously, he fully activated the Breath Concealment and Shapeshifting Skill, suppressing his aura to the absolute limit, as if merging with the wind.
He also signaled for Xu Wei to conceal his aura as much as possible.
The Golden Feather Bird partially folded its wings, descending in a spiral to fly slowly around the perimeter of the area shrouded by the Poisonous Miasma. Lu Zhao’s powerful Divine Sense extended like invisible tentacles, cautiously probing the churning toxic mist below.
The poisonous mist was just as strange as he’d expected. Not only was it highly toxic, but it also had a significant corrosive and obstructive effect on Divine Sense.
Lu Zhao felt his Divine Sense sink into the mist as if into a viscous mire. The power consumption increased dramatically, his detection range was compressed to a hundred zhang, and the information that returned was vague and unclear, filled with the aura of decay, death, and chilling cold.
"Senior, over there!" Xu Wei, who had sharp eyes, pointed to a relatively dry, black mudflat at the edge of the marsh.
A few chalky-white beast bones lay scattered at the edge of the mudflat. The trunks of several nearby dead trees also bore the remnants of dark-green corrosive marks.
The Golden Feather Bird landed silently on a patch of hard ground, far from the mudflat.
Lu Zhao leaped off the bird’s back and walked to the edge of the mudflat in a few steps. Without needing Xu Wei to point again, his gaze instantly locked onto a few scale fragments embedded in the black sludge. They shimmered with an eerie green glow and were identical to the ones the elder with the surname Han had brought back.
Lu Zhao crouched down. He didn’t touch it directly, but instead coated his fingers in Magical Power and telekinetically lifted a larger scale fragment.
The sensation was even clearer as he held it: cold and slick, with a sharp edge. He closed his eyes, and his Divine Sense followed the residual aura on the scale like the keenest of hounds, tracing it back to its source.
A moment later, he opened his eyes. His gaze was as sharp as a knife, aimed deep into the Poisonous Forest, toward the area where the mist was thickest—so dense it had almost congealed into a dark, inky green.
"The lair... is in there," Lu Zhao murmured, his tone certain.
"You stay here and conceal your aura," Lu Zhao instructed Xu Wei. "Regardless of what happens in there, do not approach without my command, and you are not to leave without permission."
"Yes, Senior!" A shiver went down Xu Wei’s spine. He quickly complied, activating his Breath Concealment Technique and hiding behind a large boulder, his gaze fixed nervously on the Poisonous Forest.
Lu Zhao said no more. He took a deep breath, his aura retracting until he seemed to become one with the inanimate rock around him. He didn’t barge directly into the poisonous mist but instead circled the perimeter of the Poisonous Forest, carefully observing the terrain.
This Poisonous Forest grew up from the Black Water Marsh. The trees were sparse but exceptionally tall, though they had long since died, their branches twisted like Ghost Claws.
The ground was a slick mixture of black sludge and rotting leaves, dotted with puddles of various sizes that had dark-green foam floating on their surfaces. The most troublesome part was the ubiquitous Poisonous Miasma, which not only hindered sight and Divine Sense but also constantly eroded his Protective Spiritual Light.
Lu Zhao quickly ran through the scenarios in his head. ’Charging into the Poisonous Forest to fight that Green-Scaled Poison Snake on its home turf would be unwise. I have to lure it out!’
His gaze swept over the beast bones on the mudflat, and an idea took shape in his mind.
’Tier Two Middle Stage... Stronger than I expected,’ was Lu Zhao’s initial assessment.
However, Lu Zhao’s eyes held no fear. Instead, they blazed with a fierce fighting spirit.
After all, a higher tier also meant its materials were more valuable! Snake Scales, Snake Sinew, Snake Bone... and especially its highly venomous Snake Gall and Poison Gland—all were top-tier materials for crafting Puppets, Magical Artifacts, and Pills.
’Besides, with the Nine Bends Lock River Formation working in tandem with the newly Refined Puppet, the Red Feather Fire Sun Bird, plus Li Xuerou and the Tier Two Strong Demon Ape—two powerful Tier Two Corpse Puppets—I might actually be able to kill it. I just have to be careful not to let it escape!’
Next, Lu Zhao set up the Nine Bends Lock River Formation, leaving the Array primed but inactive.
Then he slapped his Storage Bag, and a Puppet appeared by his side. Its entire body was covered in feathers as red as fire, its wingtips seemed to drip with a molten, golden-red luster, and its hooked beak glinted with a cold, metallic light—it was the Red Feather Fire Sun Bird.
"Go!" With a slight stir of his will, a Divine Sense Thread connected precisely to the Red Feather Fire Sun Bird’s core.
The Red Feather Fire Sun Bird gave a powerful flap of its wings and shot to the edge of the Poisonous Forest.
It did not go deep, but instead moved swiftly around the outer edge, deliberately using its sharp talons to gouge deep, fiery scorch marks on the dead tree trunks and black mud.