Chapter 94 — Strange Blooms
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 7
Who could know the suffering of his fall...
A gentle, balanced breath of pure yang rose faintly within his body.
At the spot on his rain-soaked sleeve over his right arm, a round point of faint light suddenly kindled. This pure yang energy, utterly harmonious, flowed out from the "Profound Fire Mirror" bound to his right arm and entered his body, gradually holding back the malevolent force of the Blood-Devouring Bead.
After a long while, the blood-red light in his eyes slowly faded and his features calmed. In turn, the radiance of the artifacts given off by the Soul Devourer and the Profound Fire Mirror also gradually weakened until it vanished.
Ming Li rose slowly, as though he had been through a great battle, his expression weary. Over these ten years he had practiced the demonic heavenly scriptures day and night, and the innate malevolence of the Blood-Devouring Bead had steeped him day and night as well. How many times had he come as close as today to being controlled by the bead's demonic aura? But for one thing, he still had within him the Taiji Profound Clarity Way and the Great Brahma Prajna, both supreme true methods of righteous cultivation, which barely let him hold out.
But most crucial of all, whenever his mind was on the very brink of scattering, the Profound Fire Mirror, that other mysterious artifact he carried, would always give off a wondrous, pure, and balanced energy of firm yang, pulling him back from the path of total immersion in slaughter and the demonic way.
Yet even he did not know how much longer he could withstand this inborn demonic thing, the Blood-Devouring Bead. And for him, whenever he thought of the past, thought of Bili, that torment was truly unbearable pain. Had his temperament not been so unyielding, he would long since have gone mad.
And of these things, even one as shrewd as the Nether King had never noticed. He had no idea that his most capable subordinate lived day and night on the edge of madness.
He slowly rose to his feet and opened his mouth—only then did he realize his voice had gone hoarse. "Xiao Hui, let's go."
Xiao Hui blinked, obediently leapt back, and in two or three bounds was on his shoulder.
Ming Li gently stroked Xiao Hui's fur. His lips moved, but in the end he said nothing. He drew a deep breath, set his feet in motion, and walked toward the depths of the forest ahead.
Within the inner marsh of the Dead Marsh, shrouded in the endless rain, there seemed nothing left in heaven and earth to hear but the wind and the rain. The ancient, dense forest lay utterly still; rain beat upon the leaves and branches, and drops slid away.
In the sky, another thunderclap!
The rain had fallen for the better part of an hour, and still showed no sign of stopping.
Lin Jinghong wiped a hand across his face, brushing away the droplets, but in a moment more rain came pelting down. He gave a faint, bitter smile and gave up the effort.
He was alone in the ancient forest; before him, behind him, to either side, there was no one but himself. To be alone in this wild, perilous, and unfamiliar place gave rise to a strange, indefinable dread.
The Canglan Sect had entered the inner marsh together with a band of outstanding young masters from the righteous sects, the Brahma Sound Temple and the Burning Cloud Valley. But while crossing that wall of miasma, first came a sudden and unexpected thing: they ran into a strange eye of the storm in the middle, which threw them all into disarray. Before they could steady themselves, a monstrous beast of unimaginable size suddenly appeared within the miasma and passed right through their midst.
Because the miasma obscured their sight, none of them could make out the creature's appearance, and it seemed merely to be passing by without harming them. But its body was simply too vast. Though all of them were highly cultivated, in the sudden crisis each fled in panic, and caught as they were in the miasma storm, they were scattered just like that.