Death God of Dongting Lake

"There are scattered corpses here. How strange," said Red Bird, the most observant of the group, scanning the bodies strewn across the ground.

"Perfectly normal — they're always fighting each other over territory and mates. Now come on, we're one step closer to the prize! Hahaha, once we get our hands on that Flowing Marsh, we're all going to be rich!!" The ever-oblivious Huang Zhuosi erupted in laughter.

His outburst made everyone's expression go strange at once. Eyes slid — deliberately or otherwise — toward the woman called Ah Li Man.

"Idiot! You just announced exactly what we came here for. The Flowing Marsh is a top-tier Earth Element Spirit Seed — minimum market value: thirty million. You've ruined everything. I ought to skin you alive!!" Team Captain Liang Dachui shot Huang Zhuosi a withering glare.

Huang Zhuosi laughed it off awkwardly, then stole a glance at Ah Li Man. The woman had only looked their way for a moment; she didn't seem especially interested in the Flowing Marsh — a Spirit Grade Earth Seed.

They descended into the valley. Gazing westward from its entrance, the view was, if nothing else, dazzlingly beautiful. The dying sun turned everything to gold, and across the valley floor — blanketing not just half the basin but halfway up the western slopes — the countless writhing things had formed a living golden carpet. From a distance, the earth itself seemed paved with glittering metal.

"Good lord — how many Lizard-Skull Giant Demons *are* there?!" Red Bird stared at the spectacle, not with awe but with the hair standing up on the back of her neck.

If they got trapped in this valley, it would be lambs fed to wolves. Not a single one of them would make it out alive.

"Captain, are you actually sure we're going in?" Huang Zhuosi was already losing his nerve at the sight of so many Lizard-Skull Giant Demons.

Treasure mattered, sure. But it meant nothing if you weren't alive to spend it.

"I... I think the risk is too high as well," the others muttered.

"We've come all this way — relax. Red Bird has a plan, and if she has one, it'll work out." Liang Dachui exhaled slowly. His words were confident; his face was anything but.

Fortunately, the valley was large enough to offer plenty of hiding spots. Otherwise, charging into this Demon-Beast-infested canyon would have been sheer suicide.

Once Ah Li Man entered the valley, she parted ways with the Hunter-mage team without a word.

She did have her own reasons for being here — but she was a Military Commander. She couldn't exactly swoop in and take a Spirit Seed that other people had spent weeks scouting, carefully planned to obtain, and risked their lives to reach.

Ah Li Man followed the trail of unusual corpses and set off in her own direction. The Hunter-mages, seeing she was heading somewhere entirely different from their objective, let her go without a second thought.

Between any woman and the prize, they'd take the prize every time. Get the Spirit Seed, cash it out — with thirty million, what kind of woman couldn't they find?

Not long after the group entered the valley, however, an agile figure slipped in after them, disappearing into the strange Western Sunlit Valley just as the others had.

The figure glanced at the Hunter-mages and the female mage heading in opposite directions, checked over the corpses one more time, and ultimately chose to follow the path the female mage had taken.

This was none other than Zhang Xiaohou — who had left the military base and come alone to the Dongting Lake plains.

He had been shadowing Liang Dachui's team all the way from Biyi City, and not one of those seasoned Hunter-mages had noticed him for a single moment.

In the military, Zhang Xiaohou had specialized in tracking and covert operations, earning him a reputation as something like a special forces operative among Military Mages — a role inseparable from the two elemental affinities he had cultivated.

*Brother Fan, I'll find you soon.*

The state of the scattered corpses had filled him with confidence.

Ah Li Man pressed on, following the trail of bodies. She was growing more certain with every step that she was closing in on the entity they were calling the Death God of Dongting Lake.

The name had come from the Hunters' Alliance. Across a vast stretch of territory around Dongting Lake, Lizard-Skull Giant Demons had been dying in droves — inexplicably, in massive numbers. Once the patterns in their deaths were recognized, the unknown killer had been given a name: the Death God of Dongting Lake.

Ah Li Man was the military investigator sent to look into it. Dongting Lake had always been a volatile, restless zone, and she was not about to overlook a single detail. Her greatest fear was that a new Commander-class creature had emerged here — or something even stronger. Either would be a devastating blow to Biyi City.

"Strange — my legs feel heavier than they should. Even if I've been away from fieldwork for a while, my stamina shouldn't have dropped this quickly." After crossing a stretch of marshland, Ah Li Man found a dry patch of ground to rest on.

She yanked off her boots and examined her legs.

"Damn it — how could I have been so careless?"

The answer was immediately apparent. At some point along the way, her legs had been poisoned by the marsh without her realizing it. Both her feet — once fair as jade — were now blotched a deep, livid purple.

Ah Li Man had only recently been transferred to the Dongting Lake plains. She wasn't fully familiar with the local environment, and she had not adequately prepared against its toxins.

"Something isn't right. I followed every warning my old squadmates ever gave me and took every anti-toxin precaution available. With my own cultivation on top of that, there's no reason this should have taken hold so easily. Could this be a new strain...?" She settled onto a sun-baked rock, frowning deeply. "Whatever Released this — what kind of creature produces a toxin this powerful?"

She had brought every antidote she owned and used them all. The discovery left her shaken: none of them made the slightest difference. The marsh poison crept steadily upward from her feet, entirely unmoved.

Marshland toxins blended Water Element and Earth Element. She had tried both Water Element and Earth Element antidotes. Neither worked.

This was a very serious problem.

Ah Li Man had never feared Demon-Beasts — she could cut down as many as came at her. But poison was an entirely different matter. It was, without question, the most vile thing in the world. She had never been well-versed in toxicology, and this solo expedition had left her without her full arsenal. Faced with a toxin this stubborn, she was at a complete loss.

*The Hunter-mages are long gone by now... should I fire a distress signal?* The military would send someone, yes — but... *If word got back that I was brought down halfway through a mission and had to be hauled back to base in disgrace, I'd never hear the end of it. Those old men have never been happy about me working in the Biyi Military District to begin with.*

Teeth clenched, she abandoned the idea.

She kept trying every remedy she could think of. But the toxin's potency far exceeded anything she had prepared for.

By the time the blue-purple stain had crept past both her knees, she was already regretting the stubborn decision she had made moments ago.

This toxin was profoundly, deeply wrong.

As darkness fell, Ah Li Man's entire body felt impossibly sluggish. Even the act of sending up a distress signal had become nearly beyond her.

Signals required concentration to construct. A standard flare would only serve as a beacon for every Demon-Beast in the area. Ah Li Man slumped against a rock that had gone cold, dizzy and gasping, barely able to stay upright.

The poison continued to climb. Her strength had run out. Somewhere in the deepening dark, the guttural cries of Lizard-Skull Giant Demons drifted toward her, and her eyelids no longer obeyed her.

She wasn't certain this spot was hidden enough. But there was nothing left for her to do except pray — pray that no Lizard-Skull Giant Demon stumbled upon her before she lost consciousness. Otherwise...

**Bzzt — bzzt — bzzt — CRACK!!**

Just as the darkness pulled her under, Ah Li Man dimly registered a blazing arc of electricity slashing past her — a bolt of terrifying precision that punched straight through a Lizard-Skull Giant Demon crawling toward her, killing it on the spot.

Her heart seized.

*Could my luck possibly be any worse?* First, a mysterious toxin capable of overcoming even a High-Level Mage like herself; and now, in the last moments before she blacked out, the Death God of Dongting Lake had appeared in person.

Death by lightning strike — that was by far the most common cause of death among the Lizard-Skull Giant Demons found throughout this region. She was certain. The shadow drawing steadily closer was the very one she had come all this way to find.