Chapter 71 — The Kui Ox
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
With that he called to the others, about to turn aside and make a wide detour around the beach. But they had taken only a few steps when a long cry, like the chant of a dragon, came rumbling up from the deep sea.
In an instant the wind, the rain, and the thunder in the heavens all howled together; a bolt of lightning rent the sky, and with a deafening clap of thunder overhead, the huge waves in the sea, tall as small hills, suddenly seemed to be torn apart and parted to either side!
Countless spray flew up; amid the driving wind and rain, from the depths of the darkness, as though treading on the sound of thunder, an enormous figure burst forth from the deep sea, and after blending almost wholly into the color of the night, came down with a heavy crash.
All of Liubo Mountain seemed to quake at once!
Zhang Qingyue and the others held their breath. This was a monstrous beast of gigantic size, somewhat larger even than the Spirit Lord Water Qilin on the Heaven-Reaching Peak of Canglan Mountain; in shape it resembled an ox, its body blue-green, yet it bore no horns on its head.
But what was most incredible was this: beneath that enormous body there was only a single stout leg, growing from the very center of its belly. At a glance it looked like the one-legged act of a street performer, and beneath that ferocious exterior there lingered a touch of the comical and even the endearing.
Now the black-clad figures on the beach silently withdrew into the darkness, but along the beach, every few yards, strange objects had been planted upside down in the sand, each glowing with a faint red light, forming a great circle directly in front of the beast—a circle vivid even through the storm in the dead of night.
Among the Canglan Sect, the disciples exchanged glances, unable to guess what trick the demon cult was playing. From the look of it, they seemed to be preparing to deal with this strange giant beast, yet the trap was far too obvious—that ring of red light could be seen by anyone in the night. What they did not know was what manner of creature this beast might be.
And indeed, ever since the beast had emerged from the dark deep, it seemed to sense something; it had stood all along at the edge of the surging tide without coming ashore, only thrusting its huge head into the air again and again, sniffing.
Du Biyan suddenly started. "Bad news!" he blurted. "This fellow may have poor eyesight!"
The others understood at once. The red points on the beach were indeed quite conspicuous, yet the beast seemed blind to what lay before it. Could it be that, having lived all its days in the deep sea, it had no use for eyes and they had degenerated?
Somehow, the Canglan Sect disciples began to feel a little worried for the beast.
After a brief, breathless interval—lightning still flashing, thunder still rolling, the wind and rain still sighing, with not the least sign of abating—the beast seemed to have discovered nothing. It shook its head of its own accord, and without any visible effort, amid another peal of thunder, its enormous body rose into the air and leaped forward.
That one stout leg came down squarely on the beach of Liubo Mountain, pressing a deep footprint into the ring of red lights.
In the night, in the darkness, at almost that very instant, a mysterious chanting of incantations arose.
The sound was like the moaning of ghosts, deep and distant, drifting through the night sky and the storm. At the same time, with that mysterious chant, the points that had but faintly glowed red suddenly blazed all at once, and the black-clad figures who had just vanished returned in the same moment to the strange objects planted in the ground.
The beast suddenly raised its head, and a moment later let out a tremendous roar!
Bellow—!
The enormous sound seemed almost to take physical form, a wave of noise; countless sheets of wind and rain were sent flying outward, blasted aside by that roar like thunder fallen to earth!