“Clang!”
It was a clear, ringing sound in the darkness!
Lu Xueqi’s face was cold as frost. She stood before Zhang Xiaofan and drew her sword with fierce resolve.
Tianya left its sheath!
Blue light flared at once, a pure and brilliant pillar of radiance that illuminated this dark world.
In that instant, the ghostly glows of all the yin spirits paled before the blue light. Even so, these yin spirits seemed to know no fear, and still rushed in from every direction.
Lu Xueqi gave a soft cry. A trace of pain crossed her pale face, but it was immediately replaced by an even stronger expression.
Under its master’s urging, the Tianya Divine Sword blossomed with blue light, rays blazing in all directions as it swept horizontally toward the yin spirits charging from the front.
The moment the blue light touched those yin spirits, a sizzling sound like oil spattering in a pan rang out. The dozens of yin spirits at the forefront were instantly reduced to nothing, their souls scattered and destroyed.
The sound echoed through the vast, dark place, making one’s hair stand on end.
Yet mighty though the Tianya Divine Sword was, it could not deter the rest of the yin spirits. Just as Lu Xueqi made her move, several yin spirits had already pounced from behind onto Zhang Xiaofan, who lay unconscious on the ground.
Lu Xueqi caught sight of it from the corner of her eye and turned back at once. The Tianya Divine Sword swept flat over Zhang Xiaofan’s body, dispersing those few yin spirits.
But there were far too many yin spirits all around, too many to kill. Lu Xueqi had already been injured earlier, and after only a few exchanges, fragrant sweat drenched her body and her breathing grew heavy. She felt as if ghostly faces were flying and wailing all around her, baring fangs and brandishing claws. Tianya’s blue light gradually weakened. Lu Xueqi clenched her teeth, but her legs still gave way, and she fell seated beside Zhang Xiaofan.
Amid the howling of the yin spirits filling the sky, faintly triumphant ghost-cries could be heard. Pale ghostly light flared, and yin energy wove thickly like cloth. Lu Xueqi turned her head and glanced at Zhang Xiaofan.
Though the youth was unconscious, there was a look of pain on his face. Had he thought of some sorrowful matter?
Lu Xueqi murmured softly, “I never imagined that today, I would die together with you!”
She straightened her body. By now, there was not the slightest trace of color on her face, yet she still refused to give up. The fingers of her right hand bent and extended, forming an orchid hand seal. Following her gesture, the Tianya Divine Sword paused slightly in midair, then suddenly plunged downward. With a clang, it stabbed into the ground before Lu Xueqi. Blue light rose again, and a ring of radiance appeared on the ground with the Tianya Divine Sword at its center, enclosing both Lu Xueqi and Zhang Xiaofan within it.
The surrounding yin spirits saw delectable flesh and blood right before their eyes. How could they care about anything else? One after another, they charged forward. But a moment later, the ring of light on the ground suddenly swelled upward. Blue radiance surged, auspicious energy steaming forth. The blue light seemed to possess spirit, sweeping in an arc over the heads of the two and immediately blocking the yin spirits outside.
Yet anyone with discerning eyes would have seen that the radiance of this light ring was far too weak, and the auspicious energy within it was feeble and spent. It was merely Lu Xueqi’s last struggle before death.
Seeing that the delicacy at their mouths had once again been blocked, the yin spirits filling the sky became greatly enraged. Their ghostly cries grew louder and louder, and countless yin spirits hurled themselves against the fragile ring of light. With each impact, Lu Xueqi’s body trembled, her face grew a shade paler, and the luster of the Tianya Divine Sword dimmed a little more. The ring of light, which had originally stood as tall as two people, was forced down within a short time until it was less than the height of a single person.
Lu Xueqi’s face was white as paper. She watched as the human faces formed by those yin spirits outside the ring revealed hideous, terrifying grins, watched as they opened their illusory great mouths. Her entire body seemed to have fallen into an icehouse.
At that moment, she suddenly heard Zhang Xiaofan, unconscious beside her, mumble something indistinctly.
Lu Xueqi abruptly turned her head. No words could describe her feelings at that instant. All this time she had fought these yin spirits alone; suddenly hearing the voice of a companion, an unprecedented joy surged into her heart.
But before she could clearly see Zhang Xiaofan’s condition, a sudden change occurred. The ground where the two of them sat had originally been hard and solid, but now, beneath Zhang Xiaofan, a great hole silently split open. Zhang Xiaofan immediately fell through.
Lu Xueqi froze for a moment. The hole was pitch-black, so dark that she could not tell how deep it was. Only in its depths, a pair of enormous, terrifying, blood-red eyes flashed, on and off!
The next instant, without the slightest hesitation, the ring of light emitted by the Tianya Divine Sword vanished. Amid the howling of the yin spirits filling the sky, Lu Xueqi reached out and pulled Tianya from the ground. Without another word, she threw herself down into that deep, dark hole!
A moment later, all the yin spirits in midair followed them in, shrieking piercingly until the cries reverberated through the cavern.
Dull thuds echoed in the cave. A moment later, amid the rolling howls of the yin spirits, a long, sharp, ear-piercing roar suddenly rang out.
“Awooo…”
The cry was filled with pain, sounding somewhat like the furious bellow of an injured wild boar. A moment later, a huge figure was the first to leap out of the hole, followed by countless yin spirits that darted out and flew wildly through the sky.
Amid the bursts of ghostly light, Lu Xueqi leapt back up to the ground with her left hand supporting Zhang Xiaofan. A streak of crimson blood flowed from the corner of her mouth, and a large portion of the left side of her body was stained red. It seemed she had also been wounded.
As for Zhang Xiaofan, he could only stand by leaning on Lu Xueqi at this moment. But his eyes were open, and the fire poker had lit up once more. Though the glow was faint, it still emitted a dark cyan radiance.
This young man and woman supported each other in this dark world, relying on one another.
Lu Xueqi looked at the yin spirits flying angrily through the sky but still not daring to rush down, and an indescribable joy suddenly rose in her heart. Though they had not yet escaped danger, having someone standing beside her truly felt good.
Then the two of them turned their gazes toward the enormous shadow ahead. Against the white light given off by the yin spirits, after smelling an overwhelmingly strong stench of rot, they saw the appearance of that demon beast.
It was a huge demon beast as tall as two people, with the head of a pig and the body of a dog. Its fangs were long and sharp, its whole body was reddish-black, and its brown bristles stood upright one by one like steel needles. Its pair of giant eyes glowed blood-red in the darkness, looking somewhat like the Crimson Demon Eyes of the demonic cult fiend Nian Laoda.
At this moment, the demon beast lay in the distance, panting heavily. Beneath its filthy black fur, the flesh around its left foreclaw was torn open, seemingly wounded by Lu Xueqi. It, too, glared straight at the two humans who had injured it, its eyes shooting out bone-deep hatred, as if it longed to swallow them whole.
The yin spirits flew through the sky, some passing beside the demon beast, yet they did not attack it. Clearly, they had always kept out of one another’s affairs.
Lu Xueqi felt pain and fatigue throughout her body, and almost wished she could simply collapse and sleep, thinking of nothing more. But after struggling several times, she still forced herself to hold on and said quietly to Zhang Xiaofan, “There are too many demon beasts and yin spirits here. Who knows what else may appear in a while. Let’s retreat first.”
How could Zhang Xiaofan object? He nodded in agreement. The two retreated backward, but unfortunately, with every step they took, the yin spirits in the sky followed one step, and that demon beast seemed unwilling to give up as well, actually following after them too. In this way, they moved and stopped by turns. The yin spirits were wary of Zhang Xiaofan’s fire poker, while the pig-headed demon beast also seemed somewhat apprehensive of the two of them, yet it refused to let the matter end there.
Zhang Xiaofan and Lu Xueqi had already been injured. Here beneath the dark, damp Abyss of Dead Spirits, after repeated fierce battles, they were long since exhausted. At this moment, if the yin spirits and that demon beast had not been pressing them so bitterly, the two of them might have fainted together the moment they relaxed their minds.
Yet now they faced a matter of life and death, and from somewhere within their bodies came courage and strength. Incredibly, they managed to hold on until now.
This Abyss of Dead Spirits, unknown to the righteous path, was in fact an astonishingly vast chasm. The two of them retreated here for a long while, yet they were still only walking across open ground, without the slightest sign of a sheer cliff. They had no idea how, when they fell down back then, they could have landed in such a distant place.
But now the two of them had no time to think about that problem. Before them and all around them were demon beasts and yin spirits eyeing them like prey; life and death truly hung by a thread. Just as Zhang and Lu were at their wits’ end, Zhang Xiaofan suddenly felt pain in his back. He had actually bumped into something hard.
All this time, the two of them had not dared to lower their guard in the slightest against the demon beast, so they had only been walking backward. At this sudden collision, Zhang Xiaofan was startled and hurriedly turned around, only to discover unexpectedly that it was a large tree. Its trunk was thick; judging by its size, even three people might not be able to encircle it with their arms.
Only then did Zhang Xiaofan relax. To Lu Xueqi, who was still watching behind them, he said, “It’s nothing, just a tree…”
Before he finished speaking, Zhang Xiaofan suddenly felt pain in his throat. His neck had been caught by something like a rope, and his whole body was wrenched upward by an enormous force.
Lu Xueqi was greatly shocked. She turned back in alarm and cried out, “Tree demon!”
The large tree growing alone on this open ground now had all its previously motionless branches moving like human arms. The one wrapped around Zhang Xiaofan was one of its thick branches. In the darkness, the tree demon’s swaying form looked like a fiend from the Nine Netherworlds.
Zhang Xiaofan felt the branch around his neck tighten more and more, gradually choking off his breath. Lu Xueqi had just wanted to rescue him when a world-shaking roar came from the distance. The pig-headed demon beast seized the opportunity and leapt forward, its enormous claws flashing with ghostly green light as they came smashing down at her head, likely bearing deadly poison as well.
Lu Xueqi had no choice but to turn back and parry. But with her movements obstructed by it, she tried several times to go rescue Zhang Xiaofan and failed, while she herself repeatedly fell into peril.
Zhang Xiaofan was captured by the tree demon, his throat in terrible pain. He saw the tree demon emit an ugly huffing sound, likely out of delight. The branch wound around his neck pulled him backward toward the tree trunk, while several more branches came over and wrapped around his body. Apart from his two hands, which could still move, he could no longer struggle at all.
Zhang Xiaofan was frantic. Looking toward Lu Xueqi, he found that she could not even look after herself. When he turned back, his soul nearly fled in fright. On the trunk of the tree demon, a great mouth was slowly splitting open, and from within it poured a pungent, fishy stench. The branches were dragging him toward that great mouth. This was likely the tree demon’s mouth.
Zhang Xiaofan shuddered all over. Never in his life had he imagined that one day he would become fertilizer for a tree. Such a way to die was truly difficult to accept.
But now the arrow was already on the string. He was indeed moving inch by inch toward that great mouth. The fishy stink grew stronger and stronger, and in the blink of an eye, cold sweat streamed down Zhang Xiaofan’s forehead.
Seeing that he had reached the edge of the great mouth, Zhang Xiaofan somehow found a burst of strength from nowhere. He struggled fiercely and braced his feet against the tree trunk, refusing to move forward. Unfortunately, the tree demon’s strength was extraordinarily great. After the branches tugged a few times, Zhang Xiaofan’s strength instantly ran out, and he was delivered to the mouth’s edge.
The thick fishy stench rushed against his face. Who knew how many living beings this tree demon had harmed? At this life-and-death instant, Zhang Xiaofan made a last desperate struggle. He raised his hand with all his might and, gripping the only weapon at hand—the fire poker—thrust it toward the area beside the tree demon’s great mouth.
On the fire poker, especially upon the round bead at its front end, a faint cyan glow rose.
The originally crude and blunt fire poker, swung by Zhang Xiaofan against the tree demon’s body, actually became like a divine weapon, a sharp blade. It cut through as easily as slicing melons and vegetables, driving straight into the tree demon’s incomparably hard trunk. In that instant, all the tree demon’s branches and twigs dancing wildly through the air suddenly froze motionless.
Zhang Xiaofan himself was stunned. At the same time, a sudden fear arose in his heart.
A familiar, icy sensation flowed through his entire body. Then it brought with it a brand-new breath. Threads of warm current flowed from the fire poker into Zhang Xiaofan’s body, just like what had happened not long ago in the Ten Thousand Bats Ancient Cave when Zhang Xiaofan fought the bloodsucking ghost Jiang Laosan.
Zhang Xiaofan hung in midair, completely frozen.
He stared blankly at everything happening before his eyes. The tree demon, which had been so overbearing, arrogant, and vicious, had merely been pierced by an ugly-looking fire poker, yet its enormous body, utterly disproportionate to the fire poker, rapidly withered. All its branches, twigs, and even its trunk seemed to have had all their moisture drained away. They shriveled and curled, leaves falling like a rainstorm. After letting out the final great roar of its life, the entire great tree collapsed with a crash, and then vanished into nothing.
Zhang Xiaofan fell to the ground, staring in a daze. He did not even need to circulate his qi to know that the warm currents absorbed by the fire poker were greatly beneficial to his body. His originally injured meridians, nourished by this new warm breath, had mostly improved.
He looked at the fire poker in his hand. Amid the gentle rotation of the dark cyan light, it seemed like a person who had eaten his fill; the fire poker gave off a satisfied glow. Especially upon the body of the poker, the blood-red threads that had originally been rather faint now looked as if they had drunk their fill of fresh blood. They brightened, reddened, carrying a trace of ferocity.
Clang. The somewhat terrifying-looking fire poker slipped from Zhang Xiaofan’s hand and fell to the ground, bouncing twice before lying still.
Once it left Zhang Xiaofan’s palm, this wondrous black staff seemed to lose its parasitic host. All its light immediately vanished, and it became an ordinary black staff, plain and ugly.
Zhang Xiaofan breathed deeply, his mind in turmoil. Only one voice echoed through his head: What is this? What is this?
Just then, Lu Xueqi suddenly cried out in pain from the distance. Zhang Xiaofan instantly snapped awake and turned to look. He saw Lu Xueqi besieged by countless yin spirits and that pig-headed demon beast. Her whole body seemed to have been struck heavily, and she flew backward. A large portion of her clothing had turned red; with one look, it was clear she had been seriously wounded.
Zhang Xiaofan jolted all over. How could he still care about all those confusing things? He grabbed the fire poker into his hand and flew toward Lu Xueqi.
In midair, the fire poker in his hand seemed to carry a faint smile as it once again lit up with a dark cyan radiance, illuminating his face.
Wherever Zhang Xiaofan passed, countless yin spirits avoided him one after another, scattering and fleeing in every direction. In the blink of an eye, Zhang Xiaofan caught up to Lu Xueqi. Ahead, the pig-headed demon beast showed no fear of the fire poker and roared as it pounced over.
In his urgency, worried about Lu Xueqi’s injuries, Zhang Xiaofan refused to retreat. He let out a roar as well and used the Daoist art that his Shiniang, Su Ru, had taught him before he descended the mountain. The fire poker suddenly left his hand, like an arrow loosed from the string, and rushed toward the pig-headed demon beast.
Seeing this small black staff come charging at it, the pig-headed demon beast swung its huge foreclaw, intending to swat the annoying thing aside and then rush up to swallow these two annoying yet delicious humans into its belly for a fine meal.
Unexpectedly, the moment its palm swung out, it felt a chill in its palm. A moment later, its heart also felt a chill. The pig-headed demon beast froze for a moment and lowered its head to look. It actually saw a small hole in its palm, and at its chest, over its heart, another small hole had appeared. Its entire body had been pierced straight through by this seemingly unremarkable fire poker.
“Awooo!”
The pig-headed demon beast let out a heart-rending, lung-tearing roar. Its huge body swayed, then fell heavily to the ground like a mountain being pushed over, raising clouds of dust. Then it struggled a few times on the ground, black blood flowing from the corner of its mouth, and at last it no longer moved.
By then, Zhang Xiaofan had caught Lu Xueqi, only to find her whole body icy cold. She could no longer hold on and had fainted. The fire poker, having killed yet another living creature, flashed with dark cyan light and flew back gleaming, landing in Zhang Xiaofan’s hand.
At this moment, Zhang Xiaofan felt full of spirit and strength. The injuries inside his body had actually mostly healed. He then checked Lu Xueqi’s breathing, only to find it rapid. Lowering his head, he saw that the skin around the wound on her left shoulder had turned black. Clearly, she had been poisoned by a deadly toxin.
Zhang Xiaofan was burning with anxiety, but considering that although the two demon beasts were dead, there were still countless yin spirits around them, he had no choice but to turn and look. Unexpectedly, when he did, he saw that the yin spirits had, at some unknown time, gradually withdrawn into the distance and disappeared into the darkness. Zhang Xiaofan was greatly astonished, but this was exactly what he could have wished for, so how could he think too much about it? He hurriedly turned back to tend to Lu Xueqi.
In truth, Zhang Xiaofan did not know that all of this was thanks to the “Blood-devouring Bead” on his fire poker. Eight hundred years ago, Blackheart Elder had brought glory to the Blood Refining Hall branch of the demonic cult, his name shaking the world, and in the underground labyrinth of the Ten Thousand Bats Ancient Cave, he established the fundamental foundation of the Blood Refining Hall.
Blackheart Elder himself had been a cruel and vicious man. When he refined this Blood-devouring Bead back then, countless living beings had died or been wounded. Among them, who knew how many wronged souls that had been killed gathered beneath this Abyss of Dead Spirits, unable to be reborn.
Back then, they had all been harmed by the Blood-devouring Bead. Although today, the Blood-devouring Bead had merged with the nameless vicious staff and changed greatly in form, its baleful and murderous aura restrained within.
But once Zhang Xiaofan cast a spell, the savage aura of the Blood-devouring Bead was immediately revealed. These yin spirits were so frightened that each one could not flee fast enough, almost believing that the murderous god Blackheart Elder of old had risen from the dead.
Zhang Xiaofan slowly laid Lu Xueqi on the ground. After hesitating for a moment, he looked at the wound that had turned black and sighed.
The seemingly eternal darkness returned once more to calm, a deathly stillness.
Zhang Xiaofan felt slightly dizzy, but seeing that there was no longer any black qi on Lu Xueqi’s face after he had bandaged the wound, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He kept watch beside this unconscious woman, sitting quietly.
The fire poker emitted a faint cyan glow, enveloping them.
All around was silence!
Silence!
There was not even the sound of insects. Beneath this Abyss of Dead Spirits, it seemed that apart from yin spirits and demon beasts, there truly was not a single living thing.
Yet at that moment, Zhang Xiaofan suddenly heard a burst of footsteps ring out.
Those footsteps in the darkness were soft and harmonious, but to Zhang Xiaofan’s ears, they were like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. He abruptly stood up and turned to look toward the source of the footsteps, gripping the fire poker tightly at the same time.
In the distance, within the darkness, a point of light moved closer. Then, in the light, a woman appeared. She wore clothes of water-green, with fine brows and elegant eyes, skin like jade that outshone frost and snow. In this darkness, she seemed to possess a bewitching radiance, an uncanny beauty that could stir the soul.
Zhang Xiaofan suddenly opened his mouth wide and stared, unable to speak. This woman was actually the green-clad young girl he had met at Shanhai Garden in Heyang City when he descended the mountain.
Note One: “Records of Gods and Demons, Demon Beast Chapter” — Red-eyed Pig Demon: Pig head and dog body, enormous in size, with black fur, hard spines, and red eyes. Able to see in darkness. Fond of eating carrion and dwelling in dark, damp places.
Note Two: “Records of Gods and Demons, Spirit Monsters Chapter” — Tree Demon: An ancient tree of a thousand years. It is said to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth; it is also said to absorb the power of resentful spirits and demons in filthy, yin-laden places, thus becoming a monster. Shaped like a great tree, it devours living creatures. There are also rumors that it can move on its own.