Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 67
Black-Robed Cultists and the Rotting Death Mist
The night draped over the crags of Mount Cang Lei was as thick and suffocating as pitch-black India ink.
Gales shrieked through the razor-sharp cat-ear rock fissures, dragging out hollow, bone-chilling wails. The deeper they pressed into the subterranean rock gorge bordering the headwaters of Bo’an City, the damper the air grew—heavy and rank with the cloying reek of death, like ancient corpses rotting beneath stagnant marshland.
Beneath the gnarled canopy of ancient pines, five figures cloaked in hunter tactical gear clung close to the rugged cliff face, advancing step by cautious step.
Taking point at the tip of the vanguard was Captain Yang Zuo. His broad shoulder, encased in heavy beast-hide armor, braced against the slick stone, his hand white-knuckling a metallic alloy shield inscribed with Earth Element runes. Right on his heels, Liu Biyu held an azure talisman pinched between two fingers, her sharp eyes scanning every patch of pitch-black undergrowth. Qin Kui brought up the rear, his breath clamped tight within his chest. At the very back, Ye Bin kept watch over their escape route across the jagged rock ledges.
Positioned higher than the rest, perched atop a solitary crag jutting out over the precipice, was Lin Feng.
He wore an ash-gray trench coat, its long hems fluttering in the frigid wind. A mask of pure silver concealed the upper half of his face, exposing only his high-bridged nose and thinly pursed lips. Behind the narrow slits of the mask, his fathomless obsidian eyes were as tranquil as an ancient well, quietly sweeping across the entirety of the rocky basin below.
Since stepping out of the Sacred Brook Spirit Tower, the Lightning and Fire mana circulating within his spiritual sea had attained an astonishing level of purity. His Stardust had expanded twofold, sharpening his five senses to a razor’s edge. With merely a stray gust of mountain wind brushing past, he had already caught the pungent stench of sinister maleficence wafting up from the stony depression roughly fifty paces ahead.
At the bottom of the depression, four figures draped in ragged, ash-gray cloaks stood gathered around a grotesque ritual array.
They had driven four ebony stakes—pitch-black and carved with blood-red runes—into the four corners of the subterranean spring. Each stake was bound tightly with the slimy, glistening intestines of mutated beasts, from which viscous black blood dripped steadily into the crystal-clear water channel flowing toward the city’s primary reservoir. One of the figures cradled an ash-gray ceramic urn, his lips muttering an incantation in a foul, guttural tongue that rasped like maggots writhing against one another.
“Bastards... they’re poisoning the water supply of the entire city!”
Crouched behind a moss-covered boulder, Qin Kui’s chest heaved with suppressed rage, his teeth grinding together with an audible crunch. The fury burning through him caused his hand clutching the short magic wand to tremble faintly.
Subconsciously shifting his footing back half a pace to adjust his line of sight, Qin Kui’s boot heel accidentally came down upon a dry pine branch hidden beneath a blanket of decaying needles.
Crack!
The brittle snap rang out sharp and distinct against the dead silence of the night.
In a secluded valley devoid of even the chirp of an insect, that single fracture was no different than a signal flare tearing through the stillness.
Every movement at the bottom of the depression froze instantly. The air turned to solid ice.
“Who’s there?!”
A shrill shriek tore through clenched teeth, grating like fingernails dragging across rusted iron sheeting.
All four gray-cloaked figures snapped their heads around a full hundred and eighty degrees! Their cervical vertebrae twisted backward in an unnatural, horrific contortion, emitting a spine-chilling crunch of popping joints.
Beneath their frayed hoods, the moonlight exposed the grotesque visages of the four fiends.
Their faces were a sickly, bloated white, puffy like corpses bloated from weeks submerged in water, their parchment skin stretched taut over protruding cheekbones. Most horrifying of all were their eye sockets—sunken, hollow, and utterly devoid of eyeballs, filled with nothing but tar-black void. From the inner corners of those gaping cavities, two streams of thick, congealed black blood oozed down their cheeks, dripping from their chins onto their robes and sizzling into plumes of foul, acrid green smoke.
“Black-Robed Cultists... the Nether Church!”
The words choked in Yang Zuo’s throat. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and an icy chill plunged down his spine.
As a battle-hardened hunter seasoned by countless frontier trials, he had never once quailed before the fangs and talons of savage beasts. But the instant his eyes locked onto the gray, single-horned skull insignias embroidered upon the chests of those four figures, his entire body went as taut as a bowstring.
The Nether Church! The notorious, blasphemous syndicate marked for absolute extermination by the Global Magic Association! They specialized in abducting the living for bloody sacrifices, cultivating parasitic Gu-worms fed on the spinal fluid of mages, and unleashing cataclysmic plagues upon thriving metropolises. Wherever the boots of Black-Robed Cultists trod, nothing remained but bleached bones and rivers of blood!
Poisoning the subterranean aquifer... these lunatics intended to drag all of Bo’an City down into a living purgatory on earth!
“Filthy hunter rats... how dare you lay eyes upon the sacred rites of our Divine Order!”
The leader, his nose slashed through by a diagonal, jagged scar, bellowed in a twisted, inhuman screech. Without wasting a single syllable, he violently swept his tattered gray sleeve forward.
Within the pitch-black abyss of his eye sockets, malevolent dark green mana surged forth like a roiling tide. A warped, grotesque magic pattern flared to life beneath his boots:
“Rotting Decay: Corrosive Mist!”
Whoooosh——!
A ribbon of virulent, swamp-thick emerald mist erupted violently from his palm, howling like a banshee as it surged up the rocky incline, hurtling straight toward the Qingfeng Squad’s hiding spot!
As the toxic mist swept across the terrain, a terrifying hiss of rapid corrosion erupted in its wake.
The briar patches clinging to the cliff face withered into charred cinders the moment they made contact, their lush green leaves instantly blackening and dissolving into puddles of foul, putrid slime. Even the granite cliffside—hard as tempered steel—crumbled inward beneath the gnawing emerald bubbles, frothing with thick white foam!
If that venomous miasma so much as grazed human flesh, within mere breaths, an entire body would decompose into a vile heap of liquefying gore!
“Fall back! Fall back now!”
Yang Zuo roared, throwing caution to the wind as he charged to the front to shield his squad. His heavy boots dug deep into the bedrock, the corded muscles across his arms bulging to their absolute limit as he violently pumped rich, ochre-gold Earth mana into the ground:
“Earth Wave: Rising Bulwark!”
Rumble, rumble, rumble——!
The ground convulsed with violent tremors! A thick wall of stone and earth, standing over three meters tall, erupted from the bedrock with an earth-shattering roar, wedging itself tightly across the narrow gorge to sever the entire slope from the incoming tidal wave of poison mist.
Boom——!
The emerald mist slammed head-on into the outer face of the earthen barrier.
A nauseating chorus of sizzling erupted like a boiling cauldron of scalding grease. Before their very eyes, Yang Zuo’s earthen bulwark began turning a slimy, grayish-green hue at terrifying speed. Large chunks of stone and soil decomposed into foul slush, crumbling away in rotting sheets at his feet.
Yang Zuo gritted his teeth so hard they creaked, blue veins throbbing violently across his forehead as he pressed both palms against the inner surface of the wall, frantically channeling mana to reinforce its failing structure:
“The corrosion is too vicious—this wall won’t hold for more than fifteen seconds! Caijie, back me up now!”
“On it!”
Liu Biyu’s reaction was instantaneous. Sweeping her hands through the air, she traced an azure ring of Water magic that shimmered with cerulean light. Pure, crystalline mana condensed into a swirling vortex of cool water in midair:
“Water Shield: Purifying Barrier!”
A translucent, iridescent shell of water unfurled like a colossal clam, enclosing the entire squad behind the earthen bulwark. The fluid membrane swirled continuously, not only deflecting the stray tendrils of corrosive gas slipping through the rock fissures, but also scrubbing and purifying the noxious air forcing its way in, preventing anyone from suffocating on the rancid stench of decay.
However, the deflected poison mist began to billow upward, coalescing into a dense emerald cloud that hung suspended over the gorge. It completely swallowed their line of sight, plunging the squad into disorienting blindness and cutting off all visibility of the enemies below.
“Let me shatter their shadows!”
Qin Kui yelled. Forcing down the panic gnawing at his gut, he raised his silver short wand high. The seven Light Element stars within his Stardust instantly connected, blazing into a dazzling, celestial Star Path:
“Brilliant Light: Blindness!”
Whoosh——!
A blinding orb of radiance, searing like a miniature sun, shot skyward. It cleared the crest of the earthen wall and detonated violently in the center of the rocky basin!
BOOM——!
A harsh, blazing white brilliance erupted, tearing the murky darkness to shreds and incinerating the emerald mist. Under the searing heat and purifying luminescence of Brilliant Light, the Rotting Decay mist shrieked with high-pitched hisses before dissolving away by more than half. Down below, the four Black-Robed Cultists were caught off guard as the blinding glare seared directly into their hollow eye sockets, causing their pasty, bloated flesh to sizzle with acrid white smoke.
“Aaaaargh——! My eyes! You miserable curs!”
The two outer cultists shrieked in agony, raising claw-like hands tipped with blackened nails to shield their faces as they stumbled backward in disarray.
“Well done, Da Huang!” Yang Zuo bellowed in relief.
Yet before Qin Kui could even exhale, the expression on his face froze solid.
At the bottom of the gorge, the scarred leader had not been blinded in the slightest. He stood unflinching amidst the radiant halo, the blinding flash having merely blasted back his frayed hood to expose a hairless, skull-like scalp covered in grotesque, desiccated blood glyphs. The cracked corners of his lips twisted into a smile so sadistic it chilled the marrow:
“Insignificant hunter maggots... did you truly believe that was all we had?”
The leader’s voice was as dry and raspy as grinding stones. He raised his withered left arm. Behind him, the remaining two cultists viciously bit into their right index fingers, splattering rank, blackened blood across their chests while chanting with manic frenzy:
“Flesh and blood offered to the God, withered bones reborn!”
“A sacrifice to the Venerable Lord of the Nether... Come forth, children of the dark!”
Crack... snap... crunch...
Beneath the feet of the three cultists, the bedrock split open into three pitch-black fissures. Viscous, putrid black blood surged from the depths like bubbling springs.
From within that vile morass of blood, three grotesque, nightmarish silhouettes slowly hauled themselves into the world!
They were three colossal beasts, each measuring over two meters in length. Their bodies consisted of nothing but stark white, razor-sharp rib cages enclosing foul, necrotic muscle fibers writhing with pale, squirming maggots. Their heads were the lupine skulls of demon wolves, yet within their hollow, gaping eye sockets burned eerie, flickering wisps of phantom-blue netherfire! A greasy, tar-like venom dripped continuously from their elongated fangs, sizzling against the rocky ground and kicking up choking plumes of acrid smoke.
“C-Corpse-Bone Aberrant Hounds?!”
Qin Kui cried out in absolute horror, his pupils dilated with terror: “They used the carcasses of Servant-class beasts fused with Dark Magic to refine cursed abominations! All three... are peak Servant-class!”
Even a single standard Servant-class beast was enough to push an entry-level hunter squad to its limits. Now, standing before them were three undead horrors that felt no pain, harbored no fear of death, and were drenched from head to toe in lethal, flesh-melting venom!
“Gwaaaargh——!”
The scarred cultist thrust his hand forward, pointing straight toward the earthen barricade:
“Rip them to shreds! Drink every last drop of these hunters’ blood!”
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The three Corpse-Bone Aberrant Hounds kicked off the granite bedrock with their skeletal limbs, leaving deep, spiderweb fissures in the stone. Their deformed shapes moved like streaks of gray lightning, tearing through the air as they split into three flanking vectors and charged up the rocky slope!
Their speed was terrifying—far beyond the normal reaction times of Basic Mages!
“Yang Zuo, look out!” Liu Biyu screamed.
CRASH——!
The largest Corpse-Bone Hound slammed directly into the center of the earthen wall. The devastating kinetic force, combined with the flesh-melting venom coating its jagged skull, pulverized the already rotten Earth barricade in a single strike!
The wall exploded into hundreds of flying fragments of rubble and clods of dirt.
Yang Zuo suffered a brutal backlash as his spell shattered, crimson blood spilling from the corner of his lips. Clenching his jaw, he wrenched his metal shield upward to intercept the beast’s following lunge.
CLANG——! Screeech!
Skeletal talons raked through the steel plating of the shield, carving three deep, smoking gouges into the alloy. The staggering impact sent Yang Zuo skidding backward over five paces, the arm holding the shield rendered completely numb and lifeless!
At that exact moment, the other two Corpse-Bone Aberrant Hounds had already skirted around the rocky flanks of the slope, locking their sights onto Liu Biyu and Qin Kui!
The phantom netherfire in their eye sockets burned with rabid frenzy. Their razor-sharp fangs, dripping with blackened venom, were less than two meters away from the swirling membrane of the Water Shield!
“Brilliant Light... Brilliant Light...”
Qin Kui frantically tried to realign his Star Path, but beneath the suffocating pressure and the rank stench of rotting carrion washing over him, his mental focus fractured violently. The fifth star, which had just begun to coalesce, shattered into glittering dust!
Spell collapse! In close-quarters, life-and-death combat, a spell failure was tantamount to a death sentence!
Watching the colossal skeletal jaws of the beast bear down to rip through Liu Biyu’s protective barrier, a suffocating despair gripped Qin Kui’s chest. Liu Biyu bit her lip until it bled, drawing the hunting dagger strapped to her hip in a desperate bid to fight to the end—even though she knew full well that mundane cold steel could never pierce bone steeped in dark sorcery.
Death stood a mere hairsbreadth away!
At the base of the slope, the lead Black-Robed Cultist broke into a manic, bloodthirsty cackle:
“Die! Become the nourishment for the sacred array of—”
Before his words could finish, every sound between heaven and earth abruptly died.
An invisible pressure—so ponderous, so overwhelmingly violent that it seemed to freeze the very air in place—suddenly crashed down from the heights of the stone valley!
The ambient temperature along the slope spiked unnaturally, yet woven into that blistering heat was an aura of pure, unadulterated destruction: razor-sharp, despotic, and supreme!
Zzzzt... crackle... snap!
Threads of deep violet lightning—fine as spun silk yet blazing with incandescent brilliance—ignited spontaneously in midair, dancing across the jagged crags.
High above on the highest promontory, the ash-gray trench coat stirred.
Lin Feng, who had stood motionless as a bronze statue until now, finally took a step forward.
Behind the silver mask, his eyes held neither fear nor the panic of a youth cornered by ruthless cultists. Within the fathomless depths of his gaze lay only the absolute frigidity of an apex predator looking down upon its prey.
His spiritual sea surged violently!
Inside his Lightning Stardust, the seven deep-violet stars—having been thoroughly cleansed and refined by the springs of the Sacred Brook Spirit Tower—now resembled radiant amethyst crystals. They snapped into alignment at an earth-shattering velocity! With no need for vocal incantations, the Lightning Star Path formed with flawless, fluid precision, as instinctual as if etched into the very marrow of his bones!
“A nest of gutter rats scurrying in the filth...”
A voice, deep, resonant, and chilling as ancient glacial ice, drifted from behind the silver mask, ringing with absolute clarity in everyone’s ears:
“... Dares invoke the name of God before me?”
The instant the words fell, the figure in the ash-gray coat kicked off the cliff edge with the tip of his boot!
BOOM——!
The meter-thick granite slab beneath Lin Feng’s feet fractured into countless shards. Like a hunting falcon diving through the night, his silhouette tore through the darkness, hurtling straight into the kill zone between the three skeletal horrors!
Simultaneously, his right hand swept outward through the air.
Dozens, hundreds of berserk violet-indigo lightning arcs detonated from his fingertips, weaving into an intricate, crackling web of thunder that roared with ear-splitting fury across the night sky of Cang Lei Ridge!
Fan Shen strikes!