A Farmer's Journey To Immortality

Chapter 549: Purple Poison Marshland

A few weeks later.

A region between Rokur and Yidia Kingdoms.

Hour of Snake. (11:00 AM – 12:00 PM)

Aksai moved slowly through the thick, damp ground of the Purple Poison Marshland.

His feet sank slightly with every step, the wet soil making a quiet squelching sound. Around him was a purple hue, a poisonous miasma that floated just above the surface like a ghostly fog.

The trees here were strange—tall and thin, with twisted branches and dark leaves that looked sick yet alive.

Vines hung down like snakes, some pulsing with a faint glow. Strange flowers bloomed on patches of land, their colors too bright to be seen as anything normal. Aksai didn’t go near them.

He pulled a thin, transparent cloth with some Essence Equation symbols over his face, a Spirit artifact mask that filtered the air. Even with his cultivation, he didn’t want to breathe in the miasma for too long.

The poison here wasn’t simple. It didn’t just attack the body—it attacked the Spirit essence, slowly weakening a cultivator’s control over their own power.

Aksai looked ahead. The terrain was uneven. Pools of dark water reflected the sky above, but the reflection looked distorted, as if the water itself didn’t trust the world it lived in.

This place… it was quiet. Too quiet.

Birds didn’t chirp here. Beasts didn’t roar. Even demon beasts stayed away unless they had long adapted to the poison around them. Only the faint bubbling of the marsh and the distant rustle of toxic wind through dying grass could be heard.

Aksai didn’t rush. His eyes scanned everything—every flicker of movement, every unnatural ripple in the water.

This wasn’t just a place where the Lakir Clan once hid; it was a place that didn’t want to be found. A natural fortress full of dangers both seen and unseen.

He paused on a small raised patch of ground and looked out toward the horizon. In the distance, the outlines of collapsed buildings could be seen, half-sunk in the mud.

Moss had overgrown them, and purple flowers bloomed from their rooftops. That must have been part of the Lakir Clan’s old hideout, long abandoned and forgotten by most of the world.

Aksai narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t just passing through this place. He had his reasons. The Lakir Clan might have left behind more than old ruins. He had read in one of Haitin’s books that they once researched poison-based Spirit techniques—ones that had vanished when the clan was almost completely destroyed when it was attacked by a few elders of the Purple River Sect who had followed the clan members here.

Behind him, the wind shifted, and the purple miasma thickened. It clung to his clothes like a living thing.

Aksai activated a wind-element-type small Heretic Dao talisman and tossed it forward. It burst silently, releasing a clear wind that pushed the mist away in a small circle. Just enough to keep moving safely.

He stepped forward again, this time crossing a patch of green mud that looked solid but squelched underfoot. If he weren’t careful, it could suck him under.

He didn’t speak, didn’t hum. In a place like this, silence was safer than sound.

He reached a dead tree with black bark. At its base, a cluster of small, shiny mushrooms glowed with a faint lilac light. Aksai’s eyes lit up.

“Purple Dew Mushrooms,” he whispered.

He leaned down, used a Spirit knife to carefully cut a few, then placed them into a sealed container in his storage ring. Valuable and rare, they were often used in alchemy to counter high-grade poisons.

Suddenly, a rustle to his right. Aksai stood straight. He didn’t move. He waited.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark shape retreat behind a cluster of reeds. Probably a low-grade First Order demon beast. Or maybe another rogue cultivator.

He didn’t chase.

Instead, he continued forward, his Spirit sense stretched as far as it could go—around 350 meters now. It warned him of any approaching danger.

There were stories of groups who came here and never returned. Of disciples killed by their own allies. Of strange beasts mutated by the marsh’s poison.

But who would come to such a place? And why?

Even though it was full of various kinds of dangers, this place was filled with many poisonous Spirit resources.

Most areas within the region were covered in a poisonous purple miasma, and the marshland made it even more difficult to traverse—even for Spirit cultivators at the late stage of the Essence Condensation Realm.

For most mortals, exploring this region was akin to signing their own death sentence. As such, there were practically no mortal settlements in the area.

Even Spirit cultivators were rarely seen here, especially alone. Those who ventured into this region usually came from well-established sects and traveled in groups.

Due to the peculiar conditions of the land, it was essentially a lawless zone. The sects would send their most troublesome or least promising members here for training.

These disciples were tasked with collecting poisonous yet precious Spirit resources, even though the sects knew that not all of them would return. If the environment didn’t kill them, the scheming cultivators from rival sects might.

Because of all this, navigating the region was always dangerous—especially for lone cultivators like Aksai.

It was true that the risk factor to go through this region had considerably decreased due to the fact that Aksai was a late-stage Foundation Building Expert.

However, it was not like other Foundation Building Expert elders from various sects didn’t come here.

***

A few hours were spent traveling in silence.

Aksai’s Spirit sense remained fully expanded, scanning the poisonous swamp around him for any sign of danger.

But the ambush came anyway.

Five masked figures appeared out of nowhere, emerging from the purple mist like shadows given form. They wore loose black robes without any sect symbols, but Aksai didn’t need to see any emblems to know who they were.

As soon as the first wave of Spirit spells shot toward him, Aksai recognized the patterns—heavy earth-type elemental powers, sudden bursts of stone pillars, and that trademark use of molten-core pressure in their Flame Seals.

He smiled.

“Iron Mountain Sect dogs… You’ve really followed me all the way here, huh?”

Instead of drawing his sword or preparing his Spirit spells, Aksai simply summoned a group of demon beasts out of the Enchanted Everwood Farm that he had been raising for the last few weeks at this point.

A second later, the earth trembled.

The five elders paused mid-attack. A strange rumble echoed across the marsh. Ripples spread through the water. Then, with loud stomps that shook the muddy ground, five massive beasts charged out of thin air through a spatial rift.

Red Horn Boars. But not the kind anyone had seen before.

These beasts were massive—easily as large as small houses. Their muscles bulged under hard crimson scales that looked more like forged armor than skin.

Their tusks curved upward like sharp daggers, each one covered in faint Spirit markings. Their eyes glowed with a strange crimson hue, and when they snorted, steam rose from their noses.

Aksai casually jumped onto the back of the largest boar and lay down on it, folding his arms behind his head as if settling into a comfortable bed.

Here is the corrected version of your paragraph with grammar issues removed and the flow slightly improved:

“Go on,” he said lazily to the other boars. “Crush them.”

Aksai had a smile on his face, even though he had just been ambushed. The Iron Mountain Sect was acting exactly as he had predicted—and exactly as he wanted them to.

This wasn’t trying to impress someone. Not really. It was simply a natural response to something he had already foreseen.

It was like playing chess and watching your opponent make the move you had expected. Even if the move was sharp, timely, and well-reasoned, a prepared player would still smile—because no matter how difficult things looked, the game was still within their control.

After all, Aksai had expected to anger the Iron Mountain Sect when he killed their first group of elders so openly. More specifically, in the manner that he did.

He also knew that no matter how carefully he masked his trail, the elders of the Iron Mountain Sect would eventually find him. They knew he was heading toward Emerald Cove, and there were only so many routes he could take.

What gave Aksai even more confidence was the fact that he had already planted moles inside the Iron Mountain Sect. Through his puppets, which had infiltrated the sect, he had begun to uncover their secrets and strategies.

He knew that this group of elders was only the second batch the sect had sent to hunt him down. More were likely on the way.

That’s why Aksai had been working hard to grow stronger—not just individually, but through other means as well. While personal power was important, true strength came from diversity and preparation.

So he had focused on improving both the quality and quantity of his puppets and tamed beasts. The Red Horn Boars were his first batch of demon beasts that had undergone genetic transformation.

At this point, he had a perfect chance to test what he had built—almost like testing something born in a lab. He would be a fool not to make the most of it.

The boars roared in unison and charged at the masked elders.

The swamp erupted into chaos.