Soul-Lost Mountain (2)
It didn’t look particularly special at first glance. I’d expected the place to be thick with swirling clouds of poison, but the air was clear.
“That’s exactly what makes it more dangerous,” So-hye said, her voice cool and measured. “If the poison were obvious, the creatures it feeds on would never come near.”
“Fair point. Have you been here before, So-hye? You seem to know the layout pretty well.”
“Only through stories. But now that I’m here, it’s easier to read than I expected. We’ve already found dozens of shed skins.”
“Shed skins? Snake skins? I didn’t even notice them.”
“Yes. There’s one right by your foot, Great Hero. No, not that side—the other direction.”
“Oh. So this is what they look like? Wow, I never would have guessed.”
“It’s hard to recognize if you’ve never seen one. They’re quite different from ordinary snake molts.”
She was right. The thing looked less like a reptile’s discarded skin and more like a dried, curled leaf.
“It hasn’t shown itself, though. Maybe it isn’t aggressive toward people?”
“The Seven-Colored Five-Mystic Snake lives by eating the seven types of venomous creatures native to this mountain. It doesn’t bother with humans.”
“Really? So the only real threat is the poison itself?”
“Yes.”
“This is all new to me, so it’s actually pretty interesting. What about those seven venomous creatures? Are they dangerous?”
“To ordinary people, yes—herbal gatherers, woodcutters, that sort. That’s why no one comes this way. It’s Soul-Lost Mountain, after all.”
“So it’s basically a forbidden zone for humans.”
“Exactly. This area is actually one of the milder parts. The truly terrible places are in Yunnan.”
“Ah. Yunnan. Meng Huo!”
“Pardon? Oh… yes, that Yunnan.”
“Is it really that bad? If even the Tang family calls a place severe, it must be nightmarish.”
“I’ve never been myself, but from everything the elders have said… yes, it’s horrific.”
“I figured. Those kinds of stories don’t appear out of nowhere. How much farther do we need to go?”
“I’m looking for a likely den by following the shed skins and the terrain.”
“No rush. Take your time. Looks like once we find it, catching the thing and heading back shouldn’t take long.”
“Yes. The capture is dangerous, but the task itself isn’t especially difficult.”
So-hye kept moving through the trackless mountain, eyes constantly scanning the ground and surroundings. She climbed, descended, crossed ridges, circled valleys, and repeated the pattern with quiet focus. I followed, gazing around like a tourist on a leisurely hike.
That was when I suddenly felt it—a presence.
An unfamiliar aura. Definitely not human. Human qi didn’t feel like this.
“So-hye.”
“Yes, Great Hero.”
“How large does the Seven-Colored Five-Mystic Snake grow? The skins we’ve seen don’t seem that big.”
“Even the largest are no longer than eight feet, and their girth doesn’t exceed this.”
She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, then gave me a puzzled look, clearly wondering why I was asking.
“Then, have you ever heard any stories about other beasts on this mountain? Something like… a spirit creature?”
“A spirit creature…? No, I’ve never heard anything like that… Wait—surely you don’t mean—?”
“Yeah. I sense something. Over that way.”
When I pointed, So-hye frowned and concentrated, but after a moment she simply tilted her head, sensing nothing.
“Judging by the direction, it feels like it’s underground. Maybe a cave?”
I took the lead, striding forward and following the trace. The presence led us into a valley filled with knife-edged rocks and crystal-clear streams. No path was visible, yet the sensation grew stronger.
“Is there a way to lure it out?”
“Lure it?”
“If my guess is right, this is a spirit beast. And the way its aura feels similar to yours, I’d bet it’s a venomous one. Among those seven poisonous creatures, is there any that could evolve into a spirit beast?”
“Hmm… perhaps the poison-carrying frog known as the Wuyangwa? Or the lizard called the Bloodscale Stone Reptile.”
“Frog, lizard, or snake… If you released your own poison qi, would they mistake it for food and come running?”
“I’ve never heard of that working.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to find it the old-fashioned way.”
We kept searching the valley. It could have grown tedious, but the clear presence kept my motivation high. After roughly an hour, we stumbled across something unmistakably suspicious.
“What is that? A pile of bones?”
Close up, they were indeed bones—animal bones. Skulls, long leg bones, ribs, shattered fragments. A whole mound of them.
“Great Hero…”
So-hye pointed, and my eyes landed on a human skull lying among them. Completely stripped of flesh, perfectly round—the kind of thing you only saw on an X-ray. Drag marks scored the ground beside the pile. Following them, we discovered a cave entrance wide enough for a person to walk through comfortably.
“This is definitely snake territory.”
Even a novice like me could tell these were the trails left by a large serpent.
“Great Hero… just the thickness of its body would be wider than my waist.”
“What? Your waist is tiny. That would make this thing massive.”
So-hye shot me a quick glance, then let out a soft, amused huff.
“Anyway, it’s a man-eater. That makes it a dangerous pest. We can exterminate it with a clear conscience.”
“I trust your judgment, Great Hero, but… you’re really going inside the cave?”
“For now.”
“Hmm…”
“What? If you’re scared, you can wait out here.”
“What could possibly scare me when I’m with you? I’m only worried that if we go in and get trapped…”
“Then I’ll just split the mountain open and walk out.”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t worry. Let’s go.”
I strode forward without hesitation and entered the cave. The floor was polished smooth from years of the serpent’s belly sliding across it. How many decades must it have lived here to wear the stone down like this?
The cave was surprisingly spacious. If we’d had to crawl, I might have reconsidered, but the passage was wide enough to walk upright. The snake had carved its own road over time, so there was no fear of getting lost. We simply followed the trail deeper.
The only real issue was the growing darkness.
“We should have brought torches,” So-hye murmured.
“Why bother? There’s something much better.”
I drew the Dark Shadow Sword and channeled qi into it. Soft light bloomed, pushing back the gloom. So-hye stared, dumbfounded.
“How is the qi producing light like that?”
“It’s not the qi. It’s the sword’s material. Your Seven Extremes Blade works the same way. Once you can wield qi properly, you’ll be able to do it too.”
“I see… But a glowing hidden weapon stops being very hidden, doesn’t it?”
“True. Then I’ll simply shape the qi so it doesn’t emit light.”
“What? How would that even work?”
“I’ll explain properly once you’ve learned to handle qi. For now, focus on being able to use it at all.”
I smiled. So-hye’s face settled into a slightly sulky pout. She really had become more expressive since yesterday. The power of alcohol, perhaps?
We continued deeper. Between the clear trail on the floor and the strong presence ahead, even the twisting tunnels weren’t hard to navigate. After several winding turns, the aura was right in front of us. I raised a hand, signaling So-hye to stop.
I walked forward openly, letting my footsteps echo. There was no point trying to hide completely—not with the glowing sword and my scent giving me away. Besides, I didn’t need to.
Around the final bend, light suddenly spilled from the chamber ahead. In the center of a wide cavern, a massive serpent had coiled itself into a thick spiral.
Shaaaaaaa!
The creature reared up with a furious hiss and lunged, jaws wide. Unfortunately for it, I held the Dark Shadow Sword. And I was hardly weak enough to lose to a mere spirit beast.
The blade drew a clean arc. A circle of light bloomed in the dark cavern. In a single strike the serpent’s head was severed, dropping to the ground with a heavy thud.
Immediately, an overwhelming wave of poison erupted from the severed neck.
“So-hye! Hold your breath! This stuff is potent!”
I wrapped my body in true qi and approached the head. The poison prickled against my skin like electricity. If it felt this strong to me, ordinary martial artists would suffer lasting damage even from a distance.
I sliced the head open again. Blood sprayed, splitting the skull. At the back, the source of the toxic qi glowed—the inner core. For the beast to have accumulated this much poison, it must have lived for centuries.
I wrapped my hand in qi, picked up the core, and reinforced the barrier. Only then did the prickling stop completely.
I scanned the cavern once more. Nothing but the dead serpent. There had to be a reason it lived so long, yet I couldn’t find anything unusual. A shame.
“So-hye! Can you come in now?”
“Yes, Great Hero!”
She entered with cloth wrapped over her nose and mouth. Her face looked pale—whether from the poison or the sword’s glow, I couldn’t tell.
“Are you all right? I’ve sealed the source of the poison.”
“This much… is manageable.”
“Good. Still, we should leave quickly. I have the inner core. Do we need anything else?”
“Its blood. If we take the blood, we won’t need to hunt a smaller Seven-Colored Five-Mystic Snake.”
“Then collect it quickly.”
“Yes, Great Hero!”
She looked almost excited as she pulled a jade bottle from her pack and began draining the serpent’s blood. After a long while she finally straightened, face satisfied. “It’s done.”
“Still feeling okay? If so, can you help me figure out why this thing lived so long?”
“I’m fine. I’ll take a look.”
So-hye examined the cavern, but like me she found nothing unusual. She was starting to look strained. Her complexion really had worsened. The lingering poison in the air must be affecting her.
“Then let’s leave immediately. This isn’t a place you should linger.”