The fifty-mile wall of dark-green Corpse-Rotting Pill Smog was now less than two miles from the northern ridge of Sweet-Water Port.
Down in the canal ditches, three thousand former Azure-Sword Inner Disciples were holding wet towels over their noses, their knees knocking together.
“Foreman Jian! Shouldn’t we fly away on our shovels?!” a young disciple in Debtor Vest #1,402 yelled in panic. “That’s Myriad-Pill Pavilion’s eight-hundred-year poison fog! Even a Rank 4 cultivator will turn into a puddle of green pus if he breathes three mouthfuls of that stuff!”
At the head of the ditch, First Elder Jian Wuchen—wearing a shiny brass “Foreman of the Week” medal pinned proudly to his yellow Debtor Vest—planted his golden-grade fused shovel into the mud and glared at the boy.
“Nobody moves a single foot without Instructor Ye Guhan’s order!” Jian Wuchen barked, though his own white beard was twitching nervously as he stared at the rolling green sky. “Did you forget how Lord Pei pulled three thousand flying swords out of the sky with one magnet tower last week?! A little green fart from Pavilion Master Yao is nothing compared to Lord Pei’s methods!”
Even as Jian Wuchen spoke, a floating blue tooltip popped up right above his head in Pei Xuan’s vision:
