"Who the hell is talking about me this much," I cursed as I scratched my ears to the point I felt it was going to bleed.
"What's wrong?" asked Mei Ling.
"Nothing, let's keep going, the Valley's entrance is near, it's going to be the hardest point for us to cross."
"How come?" she asked.
"Because I have a feeling that someone will be there waiting, in case we foolishly enter," I explained.
She nodded and put her guard up, surveying the scenery.
Ahead of us was the entrance to the Mist Valley, and right next to it was a man who clearly seemed to have lost his life recently.
The man was wearing the same robes of the cultivators from before, and he appeared to have his face melted off.
"I guess my theory was right, look there," I said as I pointed ahead.
In front of the two of us, and just beyond the corpse where my hand pointed was the entrance to the Mist Valley.
The sight was more than eerie and close to foreboding, right before the 'entrance, the skies were clear and vibrant, and the surrounding though looked half naked of fauna it still had some occasional flowers and herbs that gave it a serene atmosphere, yet just beyond the archway that separated the cliff valley and the Poison Mist Valley, it was as if two worlds had come together refusing to fuse.
The air became heavy with a greenish tint to it, the mist. The mist curls and moves as if it had a life of its own, coiling around the archway entrance like a sinister serpent.
The entrance in question was a massive archway of black stone and spiraling veins. It was adorned with half-revealed green runes that even I couldn't make head or tail of. It was a writing that I'd never seen before.
Even the overgrown veins that twisted around the archway looked as if they too were alive, as you could visibly see them shudder as if they had their own heartbeat.
And this was just the entrance.
The mist hung low, thick in the air. It obscured the view of the distance ahead besides a few peaks of mountains in the far away distance. The mist had a pungent stench to it that you could smell from a distance away. It was sickly sweet as if was beckoning one to enter. Hoping they'll come forward, only to be entrapped in the embrace of the mist.
As we got closer, I got on my knees and checked up on the dead man's corpse.
He didn't have any clear wounds on his body besides two small holes at the nap of his neck.
Bitten by a snake probably.
I took a sniff of the air and coughed in my sleeves.
"The mist is full of poison, nasty ones too. Eat this," I said as I handed her a pill.
The two of us swallowed the same pill each and we both had sudden dizziness and nausea affecting us.
"What's this pill?" asked Mei Ling.
"It's poison," I said.
"I don't think that fighting Poison with Poison is the right way, I feel like crap," she said.
"All medicine is poison, only in different dosages, the pill you ate has a poison that thrives on consuming other poisons, it will massively reduce the impact of the poisons in the mist valley without us using our Qi to suppress it and reveal our location at the same time, the side effects are the dizziness and nausea, and death if not treated in time." I said.
"How long?" she asked.
"One day, we must eat this pill in a day's time," I said as I handed her another pill.
"Lets head inside, keep a close eye on anything around you, there are creatures that are far deadlier than the mist itself here."
She nodded and headed inside, while I stripped the corpse of its robes and holding bag. Anything there could be of use.
The two of us walked under the archway and we were officially inside the Poison Mist Valley.
You could barely see anything inside, the thick and greenish mist was doing a great job of hiding the details of the terrain.
All I could see were the faint outlines of twisted trees, and I could feel the jagged rocks as you took every step, navigating through this area is going to be difficult.
Some of the cliffs could be seen in the distance since they were high and mighty big. But they were irrelevant, going up the cliffs was basically telling the world where we were, and staying inside the poisonous mist is our safest bet.
The silence was eerie, especially since I know we were completely surrounded by beasts and demonic creatures alike. They knew we were here, but none wanted to make the first move. They kept low, and kept watching.
"Grab this," I said to Mei Ling as I handed her a rope.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Insurance, keep it around your hand and tug on it in case of a problem. Visibility will grow worse and worse, and we need to stay close. Don't use Divine Sense, it will reveal us to everything us here.
As the two of us continued walking, I felt something land on my shoulder, it wasn't anything heavy or to be wary of, not a creature, but it was wet.
I took a closer look and wiped my hand on it, realizing that it was nothing but the condensation of the mist itself on the tree leaves, gathered and pooled into a droplet of pure poison.
This poison was pervasive and incredibly potent. My finger felt numb upon contact and if it wasn't for the effect of the poison pill I consumed earlier, I had a feeling that I would have immediately lost consciousness upon contact with this condensed poison drop.
"Poison condensation, keep close of me and away from the trees," I said.
We continued heading north.
"Do you know the way, or are you just moving upon instinct? Because I feel that we've been going in circles," she said.
"Don't worry, the terrain is somehow designed to make you feel like we're going in circles, but we aren't, I've tagged every tree we moved past and we have yet to come across the same tree twice," I explained as we continued heading forward.
Soon the weather turned grimmer and darker.
Nighttime was about to come upon us, and in a valley as dark, deep, and dangerous as this, this was not going to be a fun time.
"Let's hurry up, we need to find shelter, once the beasts come out to hunt, we'll be the first prey for them," I spoke.
The two of us hurried as fast as possible in the limited visibility provided by the mist valley.
In about an hour of trudging the difficult path we arrived at a small rupture in the cliff wall. It looked like a small cave that we could use.
Mei Ling was about to enter when I pulled on the rope stopping her. And thankfully I did.
Something came out of the cave, growling at us. It looked feline but it had pretty damn huge ears. And its fur was a mix of white and green, making it really hard to pinpoint its location.
"Slowly back away," I mentioned.
"We can take it on," she said.
"That's a cub, its mother must be near, let's change locations, we don't want to fight this," I said.
"How do you know it's a cub?" she asked.
"While it growled, its teeth were too white for a grown adult, it was a newborn that hadn't hunted for long. And in case it's in danger its mother will come to help it, or she may even be here already, we don't want to take this fight. Best case scenario we survive but the fight will bring unwanted attention, let's just leave," I said.
The two of us moved away and looked for another place to stay the night. But sadly finding another cave wasn't going to be easy.
I thought about digging for the night, but the ground itself seemed too saturated with the toxic mist that staying inside it will probably fuck us up.
"Let's go up a tree," I said.
"Isn't that dangerous, it has too many leaves, we'll get the poison dripping on us all night, and what if there are snakes there," she asked, valid questions.
"I have a solution for that," I said.
I picked a relatively tall-looking tree and the two of us climbed up on it while we had the occasional poison dripping on us.
Once we arrived halfway up the tree I climbed on one of its massive branches, I pulled a spare set of robes from my holding bag and placed it under us. I then grabbed another set of robes and hung it above us, then began mixing some ink and wrote a couple of inscriptions on both robes.
Inscription of hardening, to make the robes as hard as steel. This made both he robe under me and above me like a sheet of steel protecting us from he drips. Then I added an inscription to stop the robes from being saturated by the mist, by simply adding a spatial inscription that would stop the poison from sticking to the robes.
Finally, I wrote a confusion and warding inscription on the bottom robe.
"Sit next to me," I asked Mei Ling.
"We should be safe for the night unless one of the cultivators decides to climb up this specific tree. For now, let's rest, tomorrow we'll continue moving," I explained as I looked in the misty distance.
It's going to be a long night.
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