MTLNOVEL Chapter 378: Two Month's Of Tough Journey
The march into the Southern Marshes continued, each passing day stretching into a weary blur of mud, mist, and the restless croaks of unseen creatures.
Two months slipped by, yet it felt far longer to those trudging through the swamp. The disciples' robes were no longer clean, most of them permanently stained by muck and blood, the hems torn where leeches and biting roots had clung to them.
Even the air seemed heavier the further they went, as if the swamp itself sought to grind them down with every step.
During this time, they encountered danger again and again. Beast tides became an all-too-frequent occurrence. Sometimes they surged forward in great waves, the swamp's predators crashing through mud and reeds in numbers too vast to count.
Other times the attacks came irregularly, beasts erupting from beneath the water's surface or descending from above in screeching flocks of bird beasts or swarms of blood thirsty insects.
What unsettled the group most was that some of these tides seemed disturbingly coordinated. Crocodilian beasts would drive prey toward lurking serpents, which in turn funneled them straight into the gaping maws of massive toad-like monsters. The attacks unfolded like strategies executed on a battlefield, too organized to be chance.
But then, on other days, the tides seemed nothing more than chaotic bursts of violence — frogs the size of oxen leaping into camp, swarms of winged insects blotting out the torches, or eel-like beasts writhing up from stagnant pools with no rhyme or reason.
The elders tried to discern a pattern, but every attempt ended in frustration. They held nightly councils around glowing formations, muttering in clipped tones about possibilities.
"Are these simply beasts fleeing from something deeper in the swamp?" one elder would ask, voice grim.
"Or are they being guided… nudged forward by some unknown hand?" another countered.
No one had answers. The swamp remained tight-lipped, its secrets buried beneath its endless mire.
A few elders went ahead as scouts, pushing deeper into the inner ring's outer edges. They returned after several days, their robes caked in filth and their faces lined with unease. Their reports were mixed: the beasts deeper in seemed as numerous as ever, yet there were no signs of a single overwhelming tide gathering.
That, in its own way, was almost worse. If the tides weren't building to a single cataclysm, then what were they?
Why this constant, erratic pressure?
Why did some tides act like they were driven by intelligence?
Whispers began to circulate among the disciples, mutters about an ancient beast king hidden at the marsh's heart, or a sealed treasure that stirred all living things to madness. The elders dismissed such talk, but the unease lingered nonetheless.
Han Yu, meanwhile, lived through these weeks with his own gnawing frustrations.
He had been searching tirelessly for a suitable place to anchor his Undying Life Charm, scanning the swamp whenever he could steal a quiet moment away from the group. Yet, the deeper they went, the fewer such places he found.
The outer marshes had at least offered hollowed tree stumps, secluded pools, and naturally hidden burrows. But here, closer to the inner ring, the swamp's energy grew wild and unstable.
The ambient qi was turbulent, as if constantly stirred by unseen tides. Anchoring the charm in such places would be dangerous — too great a chance of interference, too high a risk of corruption to the materials themselves.
And even if he did find a halfway decent site, he was rarely in any condition to act on it. The constant battles left him drained to the bone. Every week brought another fight, sometimes two or three. The larger tides took everything he had, forcing him to wield his halberd until his arms shook, or drive his qi into the destructive precision of the Bolt God Fist just to survive.
He remembered one such battle in particular — a monstrous serpent of the Core Condensation realm that had burst from beneath the mud, scattering disciples like reeds in a flood.
Han Yu had lunged forward at the last moment, his halberd piercing deep into its side, but it had not been enough. The beast had whipped its tail, snapping bones and crushing a disciple's shield like it was paper.
Only by unleashing all of his qi and unleashing the Bolt God Fist into its skull had Han Yu prevented another death. The memory lingered with him — the crack of bone, the flare of energy, the serpent's head erupting into gore.
Such battles left him exhausted, sometimes too tired to even cultivate properly afterward. Every use of the Bolt God Fist pushed him to the limit, using up most of his spirit qi.
More than once, he simply collapsed into sleep as soon as the fighting was over, his body refusing to move another inch.
He was not alone in this.
The other disciples bore the same burdens. Faces grew gaunter, eyes hardened, and calluses formed where once there had been only soft scholar's hands. Yet through the fire of constant battle, they were tempered.
Those who endured grew sharper, quicker, more resilient. The swamp was a forge, and they were the weapons being hammered into shape.
Not everyone could endure. Around twenty disciples had already been forced out of the mission, their injuries too severe to continue.
Broken bones, poisoned blood, wounds that would take months to heal — they were escorted back under the guard of an elder, leaving behind the grim silence of comrades who knew they might never see them again.
Still, for those who remained, there was growth. Han Yu saw it in Wu Shuan's movements, his sword sharper with each passing week. He saw it in Fatty Kui, whose clumsy fist swings were slowly giving way to solid strikes, his stamina no longer collapsing after a few blows. Even the quieter disciples fought with new fire in their eyes, their fear transmuted into resolve.
As for Han Yu himself, though his body felt like it carried an extra weight every day, his foundation was hardening. The constant strain on his qi forced him to circulate and refine it more efficiently.