Ch. 1723 - Crossing The Poison Sea Alone, No Path Above Or Below

“What do you think?” Xu Zimo asked in return.

Ouyang Xiu immediately fell silent.

“Then what do we do?” he asked after a moment.

“Press forward and deal with it,” Xu Zimo said with a smile.

“You don’t seem afraid at all,” Ouyang Xiu said bitterly.

“I even feel like you’re here sightseeing...”

“There’s nothing to fear... yet,” Xu Zimo shook his head.

He walked straight ahead.

At that moment, sounds of fighting came from not far ahead.

“Let’s take a look,” Ouyang Xiu said.

The two moved closer and saw a group of people surrounding a green tiger.

The tiger was very strange.

Why was it strange? Because it wasn’t a real tiger at all, but one formed entirely from a pool of green liquid.

When the liquid lost its shape, any attack that landed on it seemed to melt away like water, completely swallowed without effect.

That was what made it so bizarre.

Although the tiger was being besieged, it clearly held the upper hand the entire time.

Xu Zimo recognized this group.

They were the people Ouyang Xiu had mentioned earlier, led by Hong Ruhai, who was ranked within the top hundred of the Supreme Ranking.

At this moment, Hong Ruhai was wielding an enormous spiked mace.

The rest of the group relied entirely on him to hold the front line. Otherwise, they would have already been devoured by the tiger.

When they saw Xu Zimo and Ouyang Xiu, it was as if they had seen saviors.

They shouted, “Fellow Daoists, save us please!”

“Are we saving them?” Ouyang Xiu asked Xu Zimo.

“Are you close with them?” Xu Zimo asked back.

Ouyang Xiu gave an awkward smile and shrugged.

“Nah... Not really.”

Seeing that Xu Zimo and Ouyang Xiu had no intention of helping, Hong Ruhai grew anxious.

With a ruthless thought, he suddenly rushed toward Xu Zimo.

He intended to divert the disaster, luring the tiger toward Xu Zimo and Ouyang Xiu.

“Damn it, these bastards…!” Ouyang Xiu roared in anger.

But at that moment, the tiger had already pounced.

It seemed to have no consciousness.

As long as it encountered living beings, it wanted to slaughter them.

“Get lost,” Xu Zimo said softly.

Like a thunderclap, his voice exploded through the sky.

The deafening sound blasted the tiger straight away.

The tiger crashed into the wall beside them, instantly dissolving into a pool of green liquid.

The green liquid seemed to sense Xu Zimo’s strength and no longer fought, fleeing toward the distance instead.

Xu Zimo flung Shadow Tyrant from his back.

In an instant, it pierced the green liquid, pinning it firmly to the ground.

No matter how the liquid struggled, transformed, or roared, it was completely useless.

Seeing this, Hong Ruhai and the others wiped cold sweat from their foreheads.

“Thank you, senior, for saving our lives.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Xu Zimo grabbed him by the neck.

“You’re quite bold, using me as a shield, aren’t you?” Xu Zimo said flatly.

He did not waste words.

With a twist of his hand, Hong Ruhai’s neck snapped, and his corpse was tossed aside.

Nearby, Ouyang Xiu was completely stunned.

He had originally thought Xu Zimo was just an ordinary rogue cultivator and wanted a traveling companion.

Who would have thought this was a true powerhouse?

“Boss, wait for me!” Ouyang Xiu shouted toward Xu Zimo’s retreating back, hurrying to follow.

He had already been feeling despair after getting lost in the maze.

Now it seemed heaven had not abandoned Ouyang Xiu after all.

Boss, take me with you.

At this moment, Xu Zimo had stopped in front of the pool of green liquid.

Suppressed by Shadow Tyrant, the liquid could not break free.

Xu Zimo crouched down and examined it carefully.

“It’s poison, and it’s poison with sentience. Truly remarkable,” he said.

Even Xu Zimo could not help but marvel.

Even poison refinement could create something with awareness.

This was a milestone on the path of creating life.

These ancient powerhouses, regardless of their character, at least had an attitude worthy of respect.

Unlike people today, who all talked about defying the heavens, during the era when the Ancient Gods sought the Dao, they did not oppose the Heavenly Dao.

Instead, they tried to create life themselves.

They sought transcendence on their own.

Perhaps it was precisely because this path failed, because even the Ancient Gods failed, that everyone eventually abandoned it and embarked on the path of defying the heavens.

For a moment, Xu Zimo’s thoughts wandered far.

In the end, he began experimenting with the poison.

He discovered that it was not afraid of fire, nor of water.

It seemed to have no particular weakness.

Its only flaw was its lack of intelligence.

He stored the poison away, thinking it might be useful for research later.

After sheathing Shadow Tyrant, he looked at Ouyang Xiu.

“Let’s go. We’ll keep going inside.”

“This should be the true inheritance site of the Poison God, right?” Ouyang Xiu said.

“Although the Poison God left many inheritance sites, none of them contained poisonous beings with intelligence like this.”

Xu Zimo did not reply.

He continued forward through the maze, without paying attention to direction.

After walking for half a day, the two finally emerged from the maze.

Ahead of them appeared a vast sea.

Of course, Xu Zimo and Ouyang Xiu were not the only ones to make it out.

Some people with better luck had arrived before them.

At this moment, all of them were gathered at the shore.

It seemed the sea had blocked their path.

More and more people continued to emerge from the maze.

“Why is everyone just standing around at the shore?” someone shouted.

“Let’s just wade through the water, or fly across it.”

Hearing this, someone snorted.

“Then you try.”

Xu Zimo stepped up to the shore as well.

He quickly noticed that this sea was different.

Because it wasn’t water.

It was poison.

It was hard to imagine how much poison it took to gather into a sea of this scale.

Many people sucked in sharp breaths at the sight.

“You’ve got to be kidding. How is anyone supposed to cross this?” someone said.

Others were unwilling to give up.

They said calmly, “We don’t touch the water. Can’t we just fly across?”

As he spoke, that person stepped into the air.

At that moment, the previously calm sea suddenly began bubbling.

The liquid behaved just like the green substance Xu Zimo had seen earlier.

It began to transform into living forms.

Some of the sea turned into towering giants.

Others transformed into long dragons coiling through the heavens.

Some took the shape of hawks, streaking through the air.

In an instant, heaven and earth were filled with creatures formed from the poisonous sea.

The man who thought he was clever and tried to fly across was immediately surrounded.

What awaited him next were desperate screams.

“Ahh!”

Many people felt chills run down their spines.

“This is too terrifying,” someone said.

“How are we supposed to cross this?”

“Boss, do you have any ideas?” Ouyang Xiu asked Xu Zimo.

“Just cross it alone,” Xu Zimo replied calmly.

As his words fell, he ignored everyone’s stunned gazes and stepped directly onto the surface of the poisonous sea.

“No way!”

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