Chapter 12 — The Mutation
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 7
How could Zhang Qingyue know that this bead, seemingly so plain and unremarkable, was in truth the most baleful object under heaven, renowned throughout the world: the Blood-devouring Bead. Its origins were unknown, but it possessed an uncanny property—it fed on the vital blood of living things. Should any living creature draw near, within a quarter of an hour the Blood-devouring Bead would drain it of blood and essence and leave nothing but an empty husk. It was a demonic thing of the most terrifying kind. More than a thousand years ago the bead had fallen into the hands of the Black-hearted Elder, an elder of the Demonic Sect, who, seeing its power to drain essence and blood, forged it into a magical artifact. For a time it swept all before it, and there was no telling how many men of the righteous path it killed; its fame spread far and wide, and it became one of the Four Treasures of the Demonic Sect. After the Black-hearted Elder's death the bead vanished, and from that day its whereabouts were unknown.
By chance, thirty years ago, the Divine Monk Puzhao of the Brahma Sound Temple had come upon this baleful bead in the Great Western Marsh. At that time, for ten li in every direction, bleached bones lay piled and no living thing remained; it was a scene of utter desolation, resentment rising to the heavens. Puzhao's heart was moved to great compassion, and he took it up by the power of the Buddhist dharma. Thereafter, every night, he worked upon it the secret demon-subduing rites of the Buddha, quelling its evil power, without a single night's interruption for thirty years, and he strung it together with the supreme treasure of the Buddhist faith, the Emerald Prayer Beads, so that their pure, clean aura might withstand the bead's blood-devouring malevolence. At last he pressed that baleful spirit down, bound it tight within the bead, so that beneath layer upon layer of Buddha-power it could never again see the light of day.
But who could have foreseen that in the battle at Willow Temple Village, Puzhao would be struck again and again by the mysterious man in black and left all but spent, his lamp of life guttering? Though the man in black had also fled wounded, Puzhao knew he had not suffered any mortal hurt, and he guessed that the man was determined to have the Blood-devouring Bead. Having swallowed a Three-day Death Pill, he had only three days of life left to him by force of will. In that hour he took a desperate gamble: he gave the Blood-devouring Bead to Zhang Qingyue and charged him never to show it before others, and at the first opportunity to cast it into some deep valley or off some cliff. It might yet harm a few innocents, but that was far better than letting it fall into the hands of that demon.
What Puzhao had never imagined was that Zhang Qingyue, mindful of his kindness, would keep this most baleful of objects as a memento. Deprived of Puzhao's suppression by the Buddhist dharma, and with no Emerald Prayer Beads to hold back its power with their pure aura, the malevolent spirit began little by little to erode the seals. Yet the demon-subduing rites of the Brahma Sound Temple were no common thing; though masterless, those layered seals had kept faithful watch and held that baleful spirit in check for fully three years. But as time wore on they could not hold forever; their strength waned by degrees, and on this very day the Blood-devouring Bead stood on the verge of breaking free of its bonds to bring calamity upon the world.