Black miasma, green smoke and demons as far as the eye can see!

Again hours passed without anything changing, the demons they encountered grew stronger and stronger, but thanks to Zhen yan they weren't really a problem. Ying yue trotted ahead, his mind working.

Without Zhen yan, no one would have been able to advance this far. And if they could actually remove the contamination from the source, it would be thanks to the great demon that the Fubai senlin would regain its former glory. As a demon hunter, he disliked the thought that it was a Yao. Wouldn't it be more likely that it was a heroic cultivator who fought his way through the miasma, defied all odds and thus became a hero?

At least that's what all the stories he had heard as a child and all the books he had read never mentioned that a demon could do anything other than want to destroy everything. His black and white world was turned upside down. The colors blurred, mingled and took on color. Warm colors that ran into images.

Black and white turned into delicate pink cherry blossoms, purple plum blossoms swaying in the wind and petals raining to the ground in storms. Ying yue slowed his pace as what looked like walls appeared before them. Though the black miasma had lifted from his vision, Ying yue saw only through a thin veil of mist.

Like broken teeth or ribs sticking out of a half-decomposed carcass, the fragments of what must have been impressive walls once dug into the ground. He headed towards them when a hissing and smacking sound stopped him.

He darted behind one of the crumbled walls, Zhen yan close behind him, peering out. A huge, worm-like monster with long, tangled black hair that it dragged behind it through the dirt and six pairs of unnaturally long limbs that ended in curved, hand-shaped claws, with which the massive black body heaved itself over the ground, reared up between the broken ruins. The upper body vaguely resembled a human shape, but the face was swollen and distorted, the eyes twitched on stalks, their white pupils searching the surroundings as it dragged itself further and further through the streets, tearing down more of the buildings.

Bones were crushed under its massive body, skin burst open and the six hands stuffed everything of organic origin into themselves at random. Ying yue lifted his collar and covered his mouth and nose. The monster was disgusting and exuded a putrid, sweet-sour odor. Although Ying yue would have preferred to avoid the thing, he couldn't let it make its way down the mountain at some point. It had to be destroyed.

He shuddered at the thought that one of the creatures they had encountered since passing the treeline would reach the camp. He turned to Zhenyan.

»What is it?« he whispered. Zhenyan peered around the corner and shrugged. »It seems to have mutated from everything it has consumed. Do you know the selection ritual?« he asked quietly. Ying yue thought for a moment. There were many versions of the selection ritual, but the one Zhen yan meant must be several centuries old if it had been stuck on its mountain for so long.

Ying yue bowed her head. Long ago, there was a people, deep in the mountains, who determined their leader by what kind of demonic animal companion he created. To do that, they searched the forest for poisonous animals, insects and plants for a long time, locked everything together in a clay pot for several months and what was left combined all the best properties.

The demonic companion was bound by its own blood, which served as nourishment. If one considered the Fubei senlin to be a clay pot and the thing was what had survived thousands of smaller and larger fights and had incorporated the properties of the losers, it had to be far superior to an ordinary mutant Yao. Nevertheless, it still had no complete human form, gurgling and hissing, it dragged itself further and further, crushing everything under itself and devouring it.

Ying yue frowned again. »Although the black miasma makes the demons incredibly strong, it also drives them mad, causes them to mutate randomly, thus preventing anything with a mind from being born and escaping,« he said softly. Zhen yan nodded. »Right, the miasma makes the demons age rapidly over a short period of time, but in return it boils the little brain matter they have into mush.«

»But that also means that a great demon could never be born here, right?« Fubei senlin is very different from Yinhu Lake,« Ying yue interjected. Zhen yan thought for a moment: »It is possible that the black miasma itself will one day take on a solid form,« he said softly. »After all, it has a kind of intelligence and aspiration. It does not wander aimlessly, and knows who to stay away from,« he pointed out.

Ying yue clutched his sword and took a deep breath. For now, the monsters were still near the source, but as soon as the miasma lost control of them, they would immediately go to the next source of power, which at the moment were the countless protective spells around the camp at the foot of the mountain.

Should they be injured and not make it back in time, there would be a bloodbath. All clans and freelance cultivators had joined the mission at Fubai Senlin, the casualties would be enormous. Weakened by the days of fighting and the miasma that was wearing them down internally, they would not be able to stand against such enemies even together.

He was about to pull out Xiaodan and leap forward when Zhen yan gently slid his blade back into its sheath and motioned for him to stop. Ying yue peeked around the corner. The huge, half-human, half-worm-like thing had caused countless dilapidated houses to collapse; one of the larger, more imposing houses was shaking, cracking, and finally collapsing.

Behind it, another monster emerged. A gigantic lump of rotten flesh, from which the most monstrous creatures tried to burrow in and out, it had short, mutilated limbs growing out of its body and instead of a face, only an enormous, sickle-shaped mouth with razor-sharp teeth. It roared, the roar sounded like the hysterical screeching of an infant missing the warmth of its mother, crying out for survival.

Ying yue shuddered, his hairs stood on end and he had to suppress a gag reflex. Normally demons were not so disfigured that here seemed to be a bunch of miscarriages that stuffed other miscarriages into themselves to become even more unspeakable, ugly and monstrous. Its long forked tongue shot out and with a lashing sound, it slapped the worm-like thing. Ying yue froze as another sound was added to the hissing, gargling and screeching.

It sounded like a dry, slimy rattle. A rattling sound like someone was choking on something extremely disgusting. Ying yue and Zhen yan took cover and went around the corner of the wall behind which they were standing.

Ying yue had expected to see another huge monster, but what he saw now almost took his breath away even more. He had seen undead before, in various stages of decomposition, from fresh to skeletal, and none of them had been particularly attractive. But they all had one thing in common: they had been human. Since only humans carried Yang energy within them, and this continued to drive them even after their death until it was exhausted.

Some sooner, some later, but he had never seen undead Yao before. The mutated creatures dragged themselves across the streets in a variety of ways. Some ran, jumped or limped, others crawled or threw themselves forward.

There were also those that pushed forward, writhing like a snake, and much more. Some had legs, others more than two, tentacles, or other unidentifiable limbs. A crouched, huddled thing let its tongue snap out, held on to something of a person in front and let itself be dragged along until that person stumbled, fell or wrenched itself free. Then it sought out the next person.

Zhen yan pulled him back. He leaned in and whispered in Ying yue's ear: »It would be better if we didn't draw attention to ourselves. Who knows what awaits us just before the source? Let's save our strength for that!« Ying yue felt a shiver running down his spine, this time not from disgust, but because Zhen yan's heat brushed his skin and the scent of spring blossoms rose to his nose again. He nodded, Zhen yan was right.

He took a last look at the three fronts that were about to tear each other apart. With a bit of luck, they would have weakened and decimated themselves to such an extent that they wouldn't be able to make it down the mountain any faster than they could.

This time Zhen yan was leading the way. The eerie silence that had fallen over the clearing had vanished. There was hissing, gurgling and rattling everywhere. The air trembled with smacking sounds, the bursting of skin, the tearing of flesh and the cracking of bones. Ying yue had kept his breathing as shallow as possible, his head was spinning, he wasn't getting enough oxygen, but he didn't want to breathe what was in the air under any circumstances.

This was hell and he was only getting through it largely unscathed thanks to Zhen yan. He didn't want to think about how often he would have been crushed and torn apart. How many of these creatures would have bitten into him and gnawed the flesh from his bones.

In fact, he had narrowed the distance to Zhen yan more and more, until his chest was continuously beating against the arm of the great demon. Finally, Zhen yan wrapped his hand around Ying yue's and pulled him next to him. Almost as a matter of course, he walked hand in hand with him through the increasingly dense branches of the forest.

Zhen yan's hand was cool, yet Ying yue felt a heat where they touched. Like an electric impulse, he pushed through his skin and jerked his arm up. Nevertheless, he didn't let go.