Poison God's Heritage

"As you have just said, it is indeed but the start, so tell me what are the odds for our competitors?" the commentator asked.

Xiao Du replied, "They don't look too good. Running is the only option after all, anyone who thinks otherwise is in for a very rude and mortal awakening," he said.

"How so? Could you please explain?" the commentator grinned.

"Because to try and hide anywhere on this island is putting a target on your back. The entire island is a living organism, that can sense, feel, know, and locate a person anywhere and everywhere. If one tries to hide, they'll be sitting ducks for the monsters of the island," Xiao Du said.

"IT IS INDEED AS SPOKEN! The whole island knows at every second where everyone is, and if anyone tries to outsmart it by hiding, they'll just end up in the stomach of one of the creatures. Granted, not everyone will be foolish enough not to realize this simple truth, but those who do not realize it will soon come to understand how deadly this island truly is!"

***

"So what are we going to do?" Law asked as he was following behind me.

"What do you think? Just keep running," I said as I lunged past a large boulder and Law did the same afterward.

Just as we went past it by moments, the boulder was shattered to thousands of pieces as one of the slime cultivators crashed through it.

About ten or so cultivators were chasing after us. Others would have probably tried and fight them off, but I wasn't sure that fighting them was the best option. We don't know how many of them the island can throw at us, or how many of them can it make at the same time. Fighting them will most likely cause us to lose our stamina and exhaust us more than simply running away.

"They're catching up," Law said.

And he was right, the more they followed after us, it seems that the more they assimilated with the memories of their bodies. Some even began throwing sword waves, and although weak, the strength of these sword waves began increasing bit by bit as if they were learning.

"We should probably go up!" Law said.

"I wouldn't if I were you," I replied to him as I pointed up.

A cultivator had already thought of doing that, but more than a hundred slime cultivators had flown up toward him.

"Flying is making yourself look like a beacon for the eyes of these things, you'll just get killed faster. Well, I would, I don't know about your luck though," I said.

"I have a feeling that I should keep following you," he said.

"Then good, that means I could probably siphon a bit of your luck, come we're moving right," I said.

Law followed after me instantly as several other slime cultivators had been waiting in ambush for us if we had kept moving up forward.

"How did you see them?" he asked.

"I didn't. But I figured out how this thing works," I said.

"Then tell me, I could be of assistance," Law said.

"The whole island is like a living organism, the slime matter isn't an infinite resource. For it to create these slime cultivators, it needs to output a surge of the said slime, it's like cutting a piece of itself. And in the area up ahead, the presence of the slime in the ground was very thin, so it must have produced them and they were nowhere to be seen so it was probably an ambush," I said.

"How did you even figure out that the slime density was thin?" Law asked.

"Because I've been focusing my Divine Sense on the ground since the moment we started running away, to the left now!" I shouted, and immediately the both of us turned avoiding another ambush from two more cultivators that were still forming.

"Can't we use your ship thing?" Law asked.

"We could, but that's going to be bothersome, we'll be moving targets, also it's not really something I want right now, it'll actually make what I'm trying to do a bit harder," I explained.

"Which is?" he asked.

I sighed, "You ask a lot of questions, just watch," I said as I continued running.

What Law didn't see was that on one of my arms was a piece of the slime that was a part of this island. I was actually introducing various poisons to it. However, most of my poisons proved completely harmless to the slime with the exception of one poison which was something that I used a lot back in the Vast Expanse.

It was something I enjoyed smoking a lot and this poison didn't really harm the slime but made it lose functionality almost immediately after intake.

"Good, close your nose, and don't breathe in," I said.

Law took a deep breath and gave me the thumbs up.

I opened my mouth wide and then spat out a gout of powerful poison that spread all around us.

The poison in question wasn't something lethal, but a very dense concentration of the Joyful Weed poison.

The smoke spread out like a cloud around us and caused every tree, bit of grass, animal, and even slime cultivator to stop and instantly turn to melted incoherent slime.

The slime tried its best to regain its former form but failed constantly at recreating its shape inside the cloud of the joyful weed poison.

Basically, I got the slime high.

I threw a cleansing pill to Law, which he consumed instantly.

He then let go of his breath.

"Oh, what's this, Joyful Weed?" he asked.

"You know your stuff," I said.

"My master used to smoke this a lot, he really enjoyed it," he said, "But what just happened?" he asked.

"The slime underneath the island is also a living being, it seems that it never tried drugs before (Don't do drugs!). The Joyful Weed causes one's senses to numb and in high dosages, it can cause a disharmony in one's brain signals. The slime being a creature that heavily relies on mental commands was easily affected by it.

We should be safe as long as we don't leave this area, or before the slime gains the ability to resist the poison," I said.

"Why did you have to curse us like that!" Law said. "Don't you know that whenever someone says stuff like that the worst always happens."

"I didn't curse us," I said, "If it was you who said that last line then we would definitely be fighting against a more powerful slime. Also, I'm constantly analyzing the slime so if it gains resistance against the Joyful Weed, I have a lot more psychedelic substances I can use.

By the time I go through all of my poisons, the day should already be up upon us," I said as I pulled a chair from my holding bag and sat down.

"For now, let's just rest up, the slime underneath us in the ground has already began retreating from this area, it probably is thinking that we're not worth the effort," I said.

Law nodded and sat down to meditate while I kept fueling the cloud with more poison every now and then to not let it dissipate.

***

"Well, that was very interesting," The commentator said.

"I guess that is to be expected, we have seen a bit more of Du Shen's ability, which is a plus," Eccentric Long said.

"Not really, if you remember what he said, that he has more psychedelic poisons, it means that he only showed us a fraction of the poisons he is harboring. That in itself is an amazing feat. Regardless, what I find interesting is that he managed to analyze the Dark Being and noticed how it functions. Even I would have taken a few days to realize it is weak to psychedelic and hallucinogens.

Quite the sharp mind he has," Xiao Du said.

"It is as Du Shen said, the Dark Being is also a living organism, and it is also easily affected by what other living creatures could suffer from. The fact that hallucinogenic poisons are potent enough to cause it confusion is something that isn't well known. But props to him to have figured that out by himself, as for the rest of the competitors…"

The commentator couldn't help but sigh as he saw the miserable state of the other participants.