Chapter 207 — The Chase

Only at this moment did Jin Pingyue's face betray utter exhaustion, as though she had just come through a great battle and was drained to the bone. Yet even so, facing these disciples of the righteous path, she still wore a smile that could stir the heart; in the darkness she looked, if anything, all the more pitiable and lovely.

"Naturally it is I. And you, young master of Fenxia Valley—what, have we met but a few times, and already you cannot put me from your mind?"

Li Xun flushed red and took a step back. "Who cannot put you from their mind?" he snapped. "You demoness—you were the death of my junior sister Yan Fei, and today I mean to collect that blood debt."

With that, Li Xun waved his hand, and his figure flashed like lightning as he swept toward Jin Pingyue. Behind him Zeng Shuyan frowned, opened his mouth as if to speak, and said nothing. The Fenxia Valley disciples at his side hesitated a moment, then, with shouts and cries, surged forward in a crowd, and for a time the commotion was immense.

Jin Pingyue gave a cold little laugh, and a glint of mockery flashed in her eyes. Yet with so many enemies rushing at her at once, and worn out as she was, she was in no mind to stand and fight. Across her soft, alluring face there suddenly passed a flash of hardness, as though she had made up her mind; at the same moment she gave a low cry, and along the edge of her right hand violet light bloomed, and killing intent rose thick and heavy.

Li Xun had crossed blades with Jin Pingyue several times and knew well the danger of this demon sect sorceress, so he kept his guard up at once—and then he noticed the whish of wind behind him, and that a number of his junior brothers had come swarming up. His alarm was no small thing. He shouted at once for them to stop, and the others, startled, checked their steps one after another. But in that instant of slight confusion, the violet glow ahead, where Jin Pingyue stood, suddenly surged high, sweeping in like a mass of violet flame. Li Xun gave a great shout, planted himself before the others, and brought out the immortal sword in his hand, blocking the violet radiance.

Yet this spell, which had seemed so immeasurably powerful, once Li Xun had blocked it, made him frown and freeze in astonishment: the force he had expected shattered like a sheet of thin paper at a touch. The art that had looked so formidable dissolved in an instant, and behind the violet light Jin Pingyue's figure had, at some unknowable moment, vanished once more into the darkness.

Li Xun's face went livid. "Crafty demoness—she has tricked us again. After her, quickly!"

With that he gave chase first, and the Fenxia Valley disciples behind him, naturally taking his lead, hurried after. Zeng Shuyan's mouth was half open, as though he wished to say something, but watching the shadows flicker to and fro, he shook his head helplessly, sighed, cast a careful glance about him, and slowly followed.

Li Xun seemed to harbor a bitter hatred for Jin Pingyue, and pursued her the whole way without slackening for an instant. In truth, given Jin Pingyue's cultivation and skill, at any ordinary time or place, had she plotted against Li Xun first, slipping away so utterly unseen would not have been so very hard for her. But now she was thoroughly out of luck. For one thing, this ancient cave seemed to have only the one passage, leaving nowhere to hide; for another, not long before, she had just fought a bout of spells with that mysterious woman who had appeared out of nowhere—the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, Xiao Bai. She had not been injured, and had barely managed to slip free while Xiao Bai was entangled with Ming Li, but that strange sorcery of Xiao Bai's had drained a great deal of her power.

One had to understand that Xiao Bai was the ancestral matriarch of the fox-spirit clan, her cultivation surely spanning more than a thousand years; her attainments were lofty and her demon arts mighty, and she ranked among the first in all the world. Jin Pingyue, clever as she was, had still come off the worse at Xiao Bai's hands. In itself that was nothing—it was no disgrace, and Jin Pingyue had taken no injury, for Xiao Bai had had no mind to hurt her—but who would have thought that in such a weakened state she should run into Li Xun and his company?

All along the chase Li Xun gave her not a moment to breathe. Fenxia Valley was numbered among the three great sects of the righteous path, and Li Xun was the most favored disciple of Yun Yifeng, the valley master; his cultivation was not to be made light of. However Jin Pingyue used cunning, however she raced at full strength, she could not shake the ears and eyes of Li Xun behind her. As time wore on, she began to feel a tightness in her chest, and even her breathing grew gradually uneven.

Panic mounted in Jin Pingyue's heart. Ever since she had entered this Zhenmo Ancient Cave, strange things had come one upon another: first that mysterious woman Xiao Bai, then Ming Li and the mysterious woman vanishing at the same time, and just a short while ago the strange shrieks and roars and the searing waves of heat from deep within the cave—all seemed to show that someone had already come to blows down there. Yet after turning it over many times, Jin Pingyue was still unwilling to plunge rashly deeper. After all, unlike Ming Li, she had no wish to risk all and go in. Her ties with the Mingwang Sect might be deep at present, but they did not run so deep that she would sell her life for them.

But with pursuers dogging her heels, Jin Pingyue fled flashing through the dark, and how far she had flown into the depths of the Zhenmo Ancient Cave she could not tell. This ancient cavern was truly frighteningly deep, quite impossible to guess from the outside; from the feel of it the ground did not slope sharply downward, yet where it led, she had no notion.

In the darkness the wind at her ears was sharp as a blade. At some unknown point that gusting sinister wind had died away, but Li Xun's voice clung behind her always, never fading.

Just then, in the darkness ahead, a blurry figure suddenly flickered past. Jin Pingyue's eyes were keen as could be; in an instant she recognized her—the very woman who had just given her such trouble, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, Xiao Bai.

And Xiao Bai, standing silently in the dark, seemed to have sensed something too. A soft white radiance kindled upon her, and she slowly turned around.

"You again!" Xiao Bai frowned and said coolly to Jin Pingyue.

Her way blocked, Jin Pingyue had no choice but to stop. She had just learned firsthand what Xiao Bai's arts could do, and truly dared not act rashly; but now there was a blocker ahead and pursuers behind, and for the moment even her expression changed.

Xiao Bai's face seemed heavy with some private burden. She glanced at Jin Pingyue and showed no sign of stepping aside, as though unwilling to let her pass. She was just about to speak when suddenly she started again, turned to look back the way she had come, and then gave a sudden cold laugh. "How strange—there are a great many people coming here today!"

Even as she spoke, Li Xun's figure came whipping out of the darkness with a whistling of wind. When he saw clearly that yet another incomparably beautiful stranger had appeared on the scene, Li Xun plainly grew wary; he did not strike at once at Jin Pingyue standing before him, but checked his steps.

Xiao Bai glanced at Li Xun, and suddenly her gaze turned cold, as though she had recognized him. A moment later came a great rush of wind, and shadows flickered unceasingly in the darkness behind Li Xun—the other Fenxia Valley disciples had arrived, their cultivation inferior to his and their speed far slower.

Xiao Bai's eyes traveled over the faces and garb and ornaments of these Fenxia Valley disciples, and suddenly she gave a cold laugh. "Fenxia Valley, are you?"