Void Cultivation-Chapter 246- Green Gas
Yet even so, the pressure alone made Grey’s breathing turn ragged. He could instinctively tell, once the remaining four eyes opened, the horror of this place would rise to an entirely different level.
Grey sucked in a sharp breath, forcing himself to remain calm.
All around him, the blood-red mist writhed and clung to his body, slipping through his pores and trying to invade his bloodstream. The moment the mist entered him, it attempted to corrode him from the inside, gnawing away at his flesh and vitality.
Fortunately, his body did not stand alone.
The purple crystal within him pulsed faintly, working in perfect harmony with his body. Each strand of red mist that entered was swiftly suppressed, crushed, and erased before it could cause lasting damage.
Only then did Grey notice something else.
His entire body was drenched in blood.
And the creatures he had been fighting all this time... were not what he had believed them to be.
What he thought were monsters were, in truth, grotesque red tentacles, twisted and pulsating, that continuously emerged from the blood-red ground itself.
Everywhere he looked, the same scene repeated.
The only exception was the cluster of temples he had come from.
That area was enveloped in a faint golden light that spread outward like a barrier, forcibly repelling the blood-red mist and preventing the tentacles from invading. It stood out starkly against the surrounding hellscape.
The buildings Grey had previously seen were no longer intact. They were nothing more than scattered fragments strewn across the ground, reduced to broken ruins after countless years of corrosion.
As for the temples themselves, their outer surfaces were now coated in layers of dried blood.
Only one remained unchanged.
The temple containing the headless corpse, and the door embedded within its chest, stood exactly as it had before, untouched by the corruption that plagued everything else.
Grey’s expression was drained of color and his heart sank into shock.
This...
This was the true terror of this place.
Grey staggered backward in shock.
The red tentacles immediately seized this opportunity to attack. They lashed toward him from all directions, tearing through the air, yet before they could reach him, they were forcibly suppressed by the phantom hovering nearby.
As for the Soul Devouring Bird, it continued to circle above, its beak opening and closing as it relentlessly sucked in and absorbed the red mist filling the air.
It was as though, to it, there was no distinction between the white fog and the blood-red mist, both were nothing more than nourishment.
After nearly suffering serious injuries due to his momentary carelessness, Grey quickly forced his scattered thoughts back together. His breathing steadied, and the shock in his eyes faded, replaced by sharp vigilance.
Yet one thing still troubled him deeply.
He could not comprehend the sudden change in his perception. Why had those words caused him to see the true appearance of this place? What exactly had been triggered within him?
However, there was no time to dwell on it now.
"I have to leave the range of these red tentacles," Grey muttered resolutely.
The moment the words left his mouth, he unleashed all the power within his Spirit Perforations.
Spirit power surged violently through his body, flooding his meridians and sinking deep into his core. A powerful strength rose from within him, allowing him to barely contend against the countless red tentacles surrounding him on all sides.
The single ball of Spirit Fire burning within Grey’s body emitted a brilliant light, and this only caused the red tentacles to grow even more frenzied. They attacked with increased ferocity, thrashing wildly as though driven mad.
It was as if Grey’s Spirit Fire was a blazing torch in absolute darkness.
And they wanted nothing more than to extinguish it.
These red tentacles possessed considerable strength. Whenever they lashed out, the air itself seemed to tear apart, and even the red mist was shredded into turbulent streams. Yet paradoxically, as the mist was torn apart, even more red mist continuously leaked from the tentacles’ bodies, flooding the surroundings once again.
If Grey attempted to block their attacks directly, the tentacles would release dense clouds of red mist that aggressively tried to invade his body. At the same time, they would thrash even more violently, creating chaos in every direction.
This forced Grey to be extremely cautious with every move he made.
He carefully adjusted his attacks, ensuring that the Soul Devouring Bird continuously absorbed the red mist that appeared around him, preventing it from accumulating.
After a short while, Grey realized something unsettling.
He was locked in a stalemate. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
No matter how hard he fought, he could not break free from the encirclement of the red tentacles. Their strength was far greater than he had initially expected. At his current level, his attacks could only leave shallow marks and cuts on their surfaces.
Even though he was at the initial stage of Foundation Establishment, his offensive power felt almost insignificant against them.
What made the situation worse was that when the tentacles first appeared, their strength had been comparable to cultivators possessing two balls of Spirit Fire. This forced Grey to keep his full attention on them at all times, leaving him no room to relax.
This can’t continue, Grey thought grimly.
I can fight for now, but once the time limit of my Special Brilliance form expires, my battle prowess will plummet. When that happens, all the fatigue I’ve been suppressing will erupt at once.
As he desperately searched for a way out of this predicament, the ground beneath him suddenly rumbled.
The entire area shook violently. Steam began to rise from the crimson earth, and mixed within it was a strange green gas that slowly spread outward, climbing toward the blood-red sky.
Before Grey could fully react, the ground trembled again, far more violently this time.
A massive crack tore open beneath his feet.
From the depths of the earth, thick and dense green gas erupted, surging upward like a living tide and blotting out the sky above.
The moment this green gas appeared, the red tentacles visibly trembled. An expression of fear seemed to ripple through them as they hastily retreated from the crack. However, before they could escape, more cracks split open across the ground, and even more green gas seeped out.
When the green gas came into contact with the red mist, it instantly engulfed it. The red mist vanished without resistance, and the green gas grew even denser, its color deepening further.
The red tentacles were no exception.
The moment they were enveloped by the green gas, their bodies rapidly withered, drying up as though all vitality had been stripped away. They desperately tried to burrow back into the ground, but it was already too late.
The green gas spread aggressively, as though it possessed a will of its own.
It engulfed everything, the red mist, the tentacles, and the entire surrounding area. What unfolded before Grey’s eyes resembled a silent war between two opposing wills: one belonging to the mysterious green gas of unknown origin, and the other to the blood-red mist born from the tentacles.
Strangely, despite being completely engulfed, Grey himself was unaffected.
He only felt a faint irritation across his skin, nothing more.
The green gas seemed to deliberately avoid him, flowing past his body as it continued to spread into the distance, eventually covering the entire crimson field that had once been filled with red mist and writhing tentacles.
From afar, the scene was eerily surreal.
After the green gas stopped erupting from the cracks, it slowly began to recede. The fissures in the ground shrank, sealing themselves shut as though they had never existed.
Grey, who had finally regained his vision, watched everything with a deeply pensive expression.
"The captain told me to reach the altar..." he muttered quietly. "But the source of light I thought was the altar was fake. I was heading toward that giant in the distance instead."
He had attempted to fly several times earlier, but each attempt had ended the same way.
Before he could rise even ten feet off the ground, the red mist in the air would envelop his body, making flight nearly impossible. His body would suddenly feel as heavy as a mountain, as though gravity itself had intensified.
Worse still, he would feel countless unseen gazes locking onto him from every direction.
That sensation alone was enough to send a chill down his spine and force him back to the ground.
Grey was not someone who liked remaining passive. However, he understood that this place was entirely unfamiliar to him, and every rule seemed stacked against him.
Trying to fly when the environment itself clearly forbade it would only attract unnecessary danger.
So he endured.
"If the altar isn’t on the ground..." Grey murmured, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the now-closed crack. "And it’s not in the sky either... then could it be underground?"
In the end, he chose not to act recklessly.
Instead, he decided to wait and observe, watching closely to see if anything else would emerge from beneath the earth. With the red tentacles thoroughly suppressed by the green gas, Grey finally allowed himself a brief moment to recover and gather his thoughts.
