The air grew hotter and heavier as the terrain dipped into the Sunken Bog, where boiling mud geysers erupted in rhythmic, sulfurous bursts along the sunken ravines.
Thick, yellow vapor hissed through fissures in the cracked clay crust, obscuring the path and forcing the group to step only where petrified ironwood roots broke through the steaming mire.
Senior Brother Bai walked three paces behind Ye Chen, flanked by his two surviving junior officers who supported the recovering Officer Shen between them, their bronze shields held low to guard against sudden gas vents.
"The skiff’s keel left a gouge through the duckweed along this eastern channel," Bai said, wiping acidic condensation from his eyes with the back of a leather gauntlet. "Su Rou is heading toward the lower drainage basin, bu
