Acute

Theron's horse slowly came to a stop by the river. Unlike what some of his speculations might have concluded, the river looked almost more like a lake—one that had grown so still and stale that it had already begun to atrophy and die off.

There was a faint scent of death in the air, and what should have been rushing currents moved so agonizingly slowly that one would have thought there was no movement at all.

The staleness was causing waves of death in the river, and there was hardly any turnover or recycling.

'Stagnant water…'

When bodies of water lost their movement, bacteria began to grow, the microbes causing mass waves of death and destruction to the ecosystem. In the cultivation world, the result was even worse for everybody, as these microbes were often heavily boosted by Mana in ways that could kill and poison even Gold Mancers.