Chapter 114 — Breakout

Her voice broke off abruptly. She lay flat on the ground, utterly still. In that moment all seemed to fall silent around her, yet in her mind it was like a raging, billowing sea, and a glimmer of light flickered amid those waves, now visible, now gone. She strained with all her might to seize it, to remember it.

Slowly she raised her head and cautiously looked toward the statue of the Heaven-Bane Ming King on her right, again and again. A thought was shouting loudly in her heart: "No—no, something is missing from this idol…"

She stared and stared, not daring even to breathe. At last her gaze came to rest on the statue's empty right hand.

She sprang to her feet, unable to contain her joy any longer, and cried out loud, "The Heaven-Splitting Axe! That's it—where has the Heaven-Splitting Axe gone?"

According to demon-sect legend, the Holy Mother of the Dark Void was the deity who nurtured the countless living things of the world, while the Heaven-Bane Ming King was the fierce god who split heaven from earth and held sway over punishment—quite different from the ancient tradition of the giant deity Pangu who created the world. Legend held that the Heaven-Bane Ming King bore in his hand a "Great Axe that Splits Heaven," and so later generations, when carving his image, invariably gave it the same great axe. Yet the statue before her had an empty right hand. Bili knew well that within the demon sect, the Heaven-Bane Ming King was one of the two great honored deities—no one would ever have deliberately shown him disrespect. And the Blood-Refining Hall, which had built this Blood-Drip Cave, was itself a faction of the demon sect. There had to be a reason behind it.

Zhang Qingyue had returned to the stone chamber and sat on the platform in silence, just then thinking fondly of the old friends on Great Zhu Peak, when he saw Bili rush in, her face alight with joy. Seeing him sitting there, she cried out, "If you want to live, come here quickly!"

"What?" Startled, Zhang Qingyue saw Bili dash like a gust of wind into the treasure chamber on the right. He hesitated a moment, but in the end the longing for life won out and he followed her in. He had no sooner stepped into the chamber than he heard Bili give a cheer of triumph. He saw her laboriously pick up a huge axe cast of iron from a pile of scrap metal. From the way she strained, it must have been exceedingly heavy.

Zhang Qingyue ran over and helped her support the great axe. Sure enough, it was extremely heavy in his hand—even the two of them together could scarcely manage it. Astonished, he asked, "What are you doing?"

Bili did not waste words on him. She said flatly, "If you want to live, help me carry this iron axe over to the idols."

Zhang Qingyue drew a sharp breath and exclaimed in alarm, "You—what are you going to do?"

Bili could not be bothered to explain further; she dragged the axe along and set off, but before she had taken many steps her strength gave out and she was gasping for breath. Zhang Qingyue shook his head and sighed, yet in the end he still went over. The two of them together, expending every ounce of effort, finally hauled the axe into the stone chamber where the statue stood. Then Zhang Qingyue rolled his eyes and, with the greatest reluctance, heard Bili say that this heavy brute of a thing still had to be fitted into the evil god's hands.

Zhang Qingyue had harbored grave misgivings from the start, and now that he heard they were to do service for the demon cult's evil deity, his spirits sank at once. Yet he could not overcome Bili; watching her, drenched in sweat, straining away all alone, his heart softened, and he thought that before they died, he might as well grant her one wish. So he stepped forward and threw all his strength into helping her.

The axe had looked enormous from the first, and now that they actually had to move it, its weight was beyond all imagining. And with the two of them long since out of food, when they somehow miraculously accomplished this seemingly impossible task and fitted the axe into the right hand of the Heaven-Slaying Ming King, Zhang Qingyue dropped flat onto the ground, gulping for air, and said, "You—huff—you—if you can't find a way out—huff—we could have lived three days, and now we've only got three hours left."

Bili was panting hard as well, but she could not hide the excitement in her eyes. After a brief rest she walked over to the statue and observed it carefully for a while. With the great axe added, the Ming King's image was indeed imposing, its aura bearing down on all who beheld it. She bowed respectfully to the statue of the Heaven-Slaying Ming King and said, "Lord Ming King, forgive your disciple's impertinence."

With that, she reached out and grasped the great axe, testing it with a shake—up and down, this way and that, but there was no response at all. Naturally—she had put the axe there herself; if there had been any reaction, it would have shown earlier. Zhang Qingyue sat on the ground watching her strange antics and shook his head vigorously.

Bili frowned deeply and murmured, "What's wrong? The mechanism should be right here..."

As she spoke, her anxiety grew and her grip tightened. She gave the great axe a push—and unexpectedly the right hand of the Heaven-Slaying Ming King's statue shifted with it by a fraction. Suddenly, within the stone chamber, there seemed to sound the heavy clatter of some mechanism.

Zhang Qingyue leapt to his feet, and Bili's face lit up with joy. The two exchanged a glance; Zhang Qingyue ran over, and together with Bili he seized the great axe and heaved. The axe, joined to the Ming King's right hand, rose from its lowered position until it was held aloft in midair. A moment later, a deafening roar filled the stone chamber.

The two were greatly startled; the roaring din in their ears was nearly unbearable, and they hastily pressed their hands over them. Another moment passed, and the roar still thundered at their ears, but on the stone wall behind the statue, the massive, unyielding rock was slowly sliding apart to either side, revealing a passage—stone steps climbing level by level, upward and onward, until they vanished into the darkness ahead.

Then the stone chamber where the statue stood began to shake violently, and stones rained down from above. The two scarcely exchanged a word; as if their minds were linked, they ran for the stone steps at the same instant and plunged into the darkness.

In truth, eight hundred years earlier, when the Blood-Refining Hall of the demon cult built the Blood-Dripping Cave, they had already considered the possibility that one day they might weaken and enemies breach their gates. So they had secretly built this passage deep within the mountain belly, here in the stone chamber: should enemies break in, they would flee by this route, and moments later the Blood-Dripping Cave would collapse, burying the enemy and the countless secrets of the Blood-Refining Hall together.

Zhang Qingyue and Bili ran for their lives. Behind them the roar went on without cease, stones flying through the air; a single misstep, they feared, would mean death on the spot. They truly summoned the last shred of strength in their bodies and ran on. Before they had gone far, all before them was pitch black. In that narrow, dark secret passage they lost count of how many times they stumbled and how many times they crashed into the walls. All around them the roar of collapse thundered, stones hurtled through the air, and it seemed as though all of Kongsang Mountain were in a fury, quaking without end. Yet at last, borne up by their thirst to survive, they saw a faint glimmer of light ahead.