Chapter 397: Foul Waters!
Jiang Chen shifted his attention to the Five-Colored Stone.
Its surface swirled with five distinct hues: cyan, red, yellow, white, and blue—each corresponding to one of the Five Elements Spirit Roots and its respective spiritual power. It carried a surprising, dense weight in his palm.
He channeled a sliver of wood spiritual power into the rock. Instantly, it flared with a brilliant cyan luminescence. Intrigued, Jiang Chen cut the wood energy and fed it fire spiritual power instead. The cyan faded, replaced by a searing crimson glow as the stone physically radiated heat. When he pushed all five elemental energies into it simultaneously, the surface became a mesmerizing, fluid kaleidoscope of all five colors.
A testing stone for Spirit Roots and elemental affinities, Jiang Chen deduced.
While practically useless to him right now, he stowed it away safely. It was still a genuine treasure from the secret realm, after all.
Over the next few days, aside from his daily routine, Jiang Chen holed up in his personal space. He kept a hawk-like vigil on the secret realm’s entrance, mapping out its interior. Through relentless exploration, the layout of the Seal Bone Tomb slowly unraveled before him.
He mapped the death traps. He charted the safe zones. He pinpointed the natural treasures and marked the barren wastelands.
His daily haul grew exponentially, bringing in a steady stream of new loot. But the overhead was steep: he burned through dozens of Bone Pattern Puppets daily, sometimes losing over a hundred in a single sweep. Their deaths were as bizarre as they were sudden. Some simply melted into puddles the moment they crossed into a new zone. Others vanished into thin air mid-stride.
The Seal Bone Tomb—a secret realm that only opened once every five centuries—was a meat grinder. Fortunately, the outer regions were littered with an endless supply of Bone Pattern Puppets. For now, his cannon fodder was practically infinite.
……
A few days later, just as Jiang Chen prepared to dive back into his personal space, a faint vibration buzzed from his Jade Green Gourd.
“Senior Brother Long?”
“Pack your gear. We’re moving out!” Long Ao’s voice echoed.
“Moving out? Where?”
“To Mystic Heart City, obviously!”
Jiang Chen blinked. “Right… I completely forgot about that. Haha!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Get your ass to Fire Peak, now!”
Jiang Chen rubbed his nose in embarrassment. Ever since his chat with Chen Tian, his mind had been entirely consumed by the Seal Bone Tomb. The expedition to Mystic Heart City had completely slipped his mind. With the gathering time imminent, he hastily threw his gear together. He left Da Huang, Gege, the pearl chickens, and the pond’s fish and turtles in the capable hands of the Fortress.
Summoning Shattered Moon Flowing Frost, he shot into the sky, tearing through the clouds toward Fire Peak at breakneck speed. The flight was smooth, and he arrived in record time.
Fire Peak was swarming with people. The sheer density of the crowd rivaled the grand spectacle of the formal disciple competition. It made sense; the seven major immortal peaks had deployed a full third of their core disciples for this mission, alongside an even larger legion of formal disciples. The immortal sect was clearly treating the Canglan Sea crisis with the utmost gravity, likely using the disaster as a brutal crucible to forge their disciples.
Departure methods were split into two camps: hitching a ride on the sect’s massive flying broadswords, or relying on personal flight treasures.
Jiang Chen’s squad consisted of familiar faces: Qin Hao, Chen Tian, Long Ao, and the resident alcoholic, Han Xin. Joining them was a senior alchemist from the Earth Fire Zone named Xuan Zang. Recommended by Qiu Su, Xuan Zang was a man in his early thirties at the Foundation Establishment Perfection realm. Three jagged, conspicuous scars marred his forehead. He kept his eyes perpetually narrowed into slits and carried a heavy, taciturn silence, clearly not one for idle chatter.
“Since everyone is accounted for, let’s move,” Qin Hao announced.
The group nodded in unison. Qin Hao summoned a brilliant streak of sword light that enveloped the squad, launching them into the heavens at a speed that blurred the world around them.
“The water Spirit Qi is growing suffocating,” someone muttered.
“Ever since the dragon vein was severed, the ambient water energy has been mutating by the day.”
“Fellow Daoist Xuan, this must be rather uncomfortable for you, isn’t it?”
As they neared the Canglan Sea, the atmospheric water Spirit Qi thickened into a heavy, oppressive dampness. Han Xin possessed an earth Spirit Root. Qin Hao was metal. Long Ao held dual water and wood roots, while Chen Tian boasted a triple affinity for metal, water, and wood. Jiang Chen, publicly at least, was a water-wood dual cultivator. For them, the saturated environment was a minor nuisance at worst.
Xuan Zang, however, was a pure fire Spirit Root cultivator. The closer they drew to the ocean, the more the oppressive moisture warred against his very nature. His spiritual power grew sluggish, his Spirit Root felt stifled, and even his physical body began to show signs of strain.
Unfazed by their concerned glances, Xuan Zang replied in a deadpan tone, “It’s fine. I just need to pop a few more pills.”
To the utter disbelief of Jiang Chen and the others, the alchemist produced a massive handful of assorted elixirs. Vitality Pills, Body Strengthening Pills, Fire Ascension Pills—he shoved the entire multicolored handful into his mouth, chewed them like roasted peanuts, and swallowed them dry.
Jiang Chen stared, dumbfounded. Even the usually stoic Qin Hao faltered, his eyes widening at the sheer absurdity of the act. None of them had ever seen a cultivator treat potent alchemical pills like a casual snack.
Noticing their stares, Xuan Zang held out another handful of pills. “Want some?”
“No, no, we’re good!” Jiang Chen and the others waved their hands frantically.
Suddenly, Qiu Su’s recommendation made perfect sense. If nothing else, the man possessed an unshakable, almost terrifying confidence in his own concoctions.
As they pressed on, the suffocating water Spirit Qi was joined by a rancid, stomach-churning stench of rotting fish and decay. Qin Hao decelerated the sword light, allowing the group to peer at the world below.
The once-breathtaking azure expanse of the Canglan Sea was gone. In its place churned a toxic, ink-green nightmare that resembled a festering swamp more than an ocean. Massive, violent whirlpools tore open the surface at random, generating enough sheer force to instantly shred anything unfortunate enough to be caught in their pull.
“Is this… is this still the Canglan Sea?” Jiang Chen asked, his voice laced with disbelief.
“The Canglan Sea’s entire ecosystem was anchored by that undersea dragon vein,” Qin Hao explained, his tone grim. “With the Yellow Springs Alliance severing it, the ambient water Spirit Qi has completely destabilized. It’s mutated the ocean into these foul waters.”
Dragon veins acted as conduits for pure, balancing energy. Without that anchor, the Canglan Sea had devolved into a chaotic breeding ground for mutated water demons and abyssal sea monsters. The danger level had skyrocketed to apocalyptic proportions; no mortal or merchant vessel would ever dare sail these waters again.
Long Ao’s expression darkened. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t Mystic Heart City bear the brunt of the fallout?”
“It’s not just Mystic Heart City,” Chen Tian added grimly. “Every Cultivation sect and mortal family scattered across these islands must be fighting for their lives.”
Jiang Chen’s thoughts drifted to the Linghe Sect. Though he had only crossed paths with Ji Mingxuan once, the man had left a favorable impression. I hope he made it out alive, Jiang Chen thought pragmatically.
Moments later, Mystic Heart City breached the horizon, sitting like a besieged fortress amidst the toxic waves. From their aerial vantage point, a massive, jagged fissure was clearly visible tearing through the city’s heart. It started from the Subdue Flood Dragon Tower in the Flood Dragon Nest District and violently cleaved its way straight through to the Scale Claw District, leaving a trail of shattered buildings and pulverized streets in its wake.
“Mystic Heart City is finished,” Long Ao sighed, shaking his head at the devastation.
Qin Hao swept the ruins with his Divine Sense. “There are still survivors down there.”
Without hesitation, he angled the sword light into a steep dive.
But just as they closed in on the city limits, the ink-green waters below erupted. Massive black tentacles, hundreds of feet long, exploded from the toxic depths. Riding a gale of putrid wind, the monstrous appendages lashed upward, hurtling straight toward the descending squad with terrifying speed!