Chapter 37 — Strange Eyes
劍問蒼天 · Page 3 of 6
Their cultivation was plainly a cut above the rest of the Devil Sect, and they checked Qi Hao and the others at once — yet inwardly both were crying out in distress.
They had spied on Qi Hao's party the night before and seen the bats attack them; on that basis they had laid this ambush deep in the ancient cavern, striking suddenly to break that seemingly impregnable circle of the "** Mirror" and then destroy the four Qingyun disciples one by one. That plan had indeed gone as intended — but the cultivation of these Qingyun disciples was far beyond expectation, and they were hard to handle.
In this ambush, the Devil Sect's leaders had been the Wild Wolf Daoist, the tall man, and the vampire Jiang the Third. They had judged Zhang Qingyue to be the weakest of the four, and so agreed that the three of them would strike together, meaning to finish Zhang Qingyue quickly and then deal with the other three separately. Yet matters had turned uncanny: Zhang Qingyue was wounded, but Jiang the Third had inexplicably been drained of all essence and blood and died.
Now, though they were just barely holding off Qi Hao and Zeng Shuyan, there was still that beautiful woman with the strange blue sword, and behind them that wretched boy — wounded, yes, but very strange indeed. If those two joined in together, the situation would turn very ugly. After two more exchanges, they saw Lu Xueqi cut down several Devil Sect followers and turn back toward them. The Wild Wolf Daoist was the first to shout, "Run!"
The tall man beside him, thinking as one with him, withdrew his magic treasure at the same instant, and the two of them plunged forward with two swift whistles, transforming into two streaks of uncanny light and fleeing deep into the cavern. Seeing this, the remaining Devil Sect followers gave a cry of alarm and scattered in all directions.
Qi Hao made his decision on the spot and shouted, "After those two!" With that he rose on his sword and gave chase, Zeng Shuyan close behind. Lu Xueqi turned the blue light of Tianxuan, about to pursue, when something seemed to occur to her; she was just turning back when she saw Zhang Qingyue rise into the air on the Xuantie Staff, which shimmered with a dark-blue glow, blood streaming from his shoulder — but the small dark-red fork that had been lodged there had already been pulled out.
Zhang Qingyue flew on ahead. Lu Xueqi watched his figure, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then followed.
This chase deep in the mountain caverns had something of the flavor of that old pursuit of the monkey Xiao Hui through the back hills of Dazhu Peak, when Zhang Qingyue and Tian Lingsu had chased him — winding and strange, now veering left, now right, now shooting straight up into the air, now plunging straight down to the depths, and later splitting into one fork after another. Yet the four of the Canglan Sect paid no mind to any of it; they kept their eyes fixed on those two streaks of light ahead, one yellow and one grey, and pressed on relentlessly.
The cavern was jagged with grotesque rocks and sudden peaks. Zhang Qingyue kept close behind his fellow disciples, wholly absorbed in steering the Xuantie Staff. Some places narrowed until barely a single person could squeeze through, and Zhang Qingyue had no time at all to be afraid or to consider; with a whistle he shot through them all the same. The pursuit, back and forth, resolved itself in the darkness of the cavern into six streaks of light moving at astonishing speed; Zhang Qingyue felt as though the wild wind and the darkness were twined together, rushing at his face unceasingly from ahead.
The chase went on for nearly half an hour more. The Wild Wolf Daoist and his companion, relying on their familiarity with the terrain, twisted and turned this way and that; though they could not shake off those four relentless pursuers behind them, neither were they losing ground.