Chapter 857

Chapter 857: Chapter 857 Bog Encounters of the Third Kind

Yang walked back over to the group and gave Xiang a slight nod. It wasn’t really an apology, but it was somewhat an acknowledgment of what had happened. Xiang appeared to accept it. Yang’s eyes flashed slightly before she breathed in deeply and didn’t say anything. Kat thought that was a pretty big step for Yang, and made the decision not to punish her a more appealing one certainly.

Yang had returned in a new outfit. It looked much like her old ruined one but this one was more of a light green with dark blue highlights. It looked quite nice in Kat’s untrained opinion and in Lily’s, it hid too much of Yang’s figure. Something the water had shown was quite nice what with her outfit clinging to her.

Thing is, Xiang had to frown a moment later and was unable to hide the slight wince at the thought that had crossed his mind. Kat couldn’t help raising her own eyebrow in a question that was soon answered by Xiang. “While I’m glad you have clean clothes... the path through the bog... is... well... those sticks.”

Yang’s head snapped to the side as she quickly saw what Xiang was talking about. Her hands clenched and relaxed a few times as her eyes burned with golden light. Kat’s respect for the angry cultivator went up several notches when instead of lashing out she breathed in carefully once again and ignored the creaking of her teeth to nod. Very slowly.

Yang turned around, this time not stomping... though she did unleash a half-power kick at a bush nearby setting it on fire with her gold coated foot. Yang continued to walk away before ducking behind a bush that hid her lower half. Xiang looked away, but Kat continued to watch, until she saw Yang changing clothes and Kat turned away as well.

It didn’t take long for Yang to change and return. Kat and Xiang had just waited in silence. Once Yang was back the cultivators made a silent agreement and stepped forward into the bog together. It was hard to miss the fact that Yang’s eye flared again, or that as the pair started to pick up speed there were the occasional bubbles from where Yang would glare heatedly at the water.

Kat and Lily flew along above them at a must reduced pace, and Kat wondered how true it was this was faster then taking the bypass. Without the ability to fly Yang and Xiang had their speed halved at least. Following the sticks quickly revealed areas where the water wasn’t quite as deep but even ankle height water was a massive drain on their top speed as the waves cascading from their movements.

.....

Air resistance was one thing, one thing that they were normally able to disregard for the most part. That same ability didn’t seem to extend to water. They also weren’t fast enough, nor knew a technique, that would let them just run on the top of the water. So it was slow going as they moved. In the end, Kat made it her job to take a more active role it looking for threats. Not that they’d seen any so far.

The bugs weren’t very brave but there was ten of thousands of the little buggers and those were just the ones Kat could see running away from the wake the cultivators were leaving. They looked, mostly, like normal mosquitoes though how comparable they were to the bugs on Earth wasn’t something Kat was interested in testing. There were a few other bugs as well, but nothing stood out as truly spectacular unless you count that one beetle that had pincers larger then the rest of its body. Not the best adaption, especially not when it was taken out by the passing wave. A silent prayer for the evolutionary endpoint it was.

Best

The fish were similar in attitude. Or at least, that’s what it seemed. The water wasn’t exactly clear and there was some plants that were more like massive collections of interconnected roots with a bit of green stuck to their tops. It made it hard to really see anything other than the ripples from fleeing fish. Presumably anyway. The best place to see fish was actually the occasional one small fish that would leap from the wake back into the water after it got caught up.

The rest of the vegetation wasn’t anything impressive either. There were a few mangroves situated on little mud hills and had their own little bush gardens. As well as the root clumps mentioned earlier. There was the occasional flower floating along the rive but Kat didn’t recognise the types.

It was all fairly mundane for the first few hours of travel. As they got deeper though... the landscape started to change. Those clumps of roots slowly disappeared and in their place were these clouds of purple algae. Seemed innocuous but Xiang was giving them a wide berth, indicating their potential deadliness. At least, that was Kat assumption. The mangroves slowly changed their colours. The bark got darker and the leaves started to turn into a bright fluorescent pink.

That wasn’t too bad but the water was also darkening like the bark. It wasn’t fast, and the cultivators didn’t really notice it happening but hour by hour it was clear they were travelling towards the centre of the swamp. Oh sure they weren’t close yet, it’d take perhaps a full day of travel for that... but for someone on watch it was very visible and somewhat disconcerting. The image of frogs boiling alive slowly came to mind. Not one Kat enjoyed.

The first signs of real danger was when Kat spotted a particularly large fin off to the side. Kat kept an eye on the thing but it didn’t seem to want to approach. That was fine of course, Kat didn’t particularly want to go down and fight in the bog if she didn’t have to. The problem. Was that it had friends.

Twenty minutes later Kat noticed that there was three more of the things approaching. Two from the back and one from the front left. The fact they were clearly gaining on Xiang and Yang seemed to imply they were now being chased... and the creatures were faster. “We’ve got incoming!” Yelled Kat.

Xiang glanced up at Kat and frowned while Yang just huffed and hefted her club swinging it around a few times and trying to get the feel of using it while running through water. “Where?” yelled Xiang.

Kat “Two from behind and one from the front!” returned Kat.

Xiang frowned again, “Can you just blast the ones in the back with demonic energy? Get rid of them? That might scare off the one in front. I’m not too worried about them but I don’t want to waste time fighting them off,”

“Bah, we could’ve taken them,” grumbled Yang but she didn’t say anything against the plan or stop running so Kat just gave verbal confirmation she was going to attack and let herself drift behind.

It took only a few seconds for the fins to catch up and Kat waited for them to be directly below her before letting a torrent of fire explode from her feet. The water instantly frosted over but the fins started thrashing, breaking it just as fast, letting Kat get a good look at the things.

They looked like some unholy chimera of an crocodile, a lion fish and a puffer fish. The things had one large fin that was connected by a fine membrane looking more like separate stalks because the lining was clear. They had a massive tail and jaws like an alligator... but the weirdest part were their cheeks. They were swelled up like balloons and Kat suspected they were used to spit poison at things.

They didn’t stand a chance against the demonic energy. Just a few seconds later and they were completely unmoving. In fact the only thing moving in the nearby area was the demonic fire which continued to expand, freezing the water as it went and clearly dealing a good portion of death. Kat flapped in place, shocked. Her ideas regarding just how strong her demonic fire was had been a little skewed.

Sure it took out most things, but in Kat’s mind it usually took some time. These fish had no such chance. They were killed without any recourse. Their bodies frozen solid in less then ten seconds. They had no way to resist the damage done to them and no fancy techniques to live longer. Just a quick application of demonic fire and then they were gone.

*Huh. Well. Guess that’s done...*

[Indeed. That was quite effective. You should probably open with demonic fire more often]

Kat winced but nodded along with Lily’s suggestion before turning and starting to fly after the two cultivators. She also took a long towards roughly where the third specimen was only to find the large fin hightailing it out of there. Apparently hearing the death throws of it’s brethren was enough for it to run.