Chapter 111 — The Strange Beast
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 5
When the eighth carving of a vicious god lit as well, the desolate howl echoing through the hall had turned shrill and harsh, filling the whole space. At some unknowable moment, a wind had begun to whirl ceaselessly above this tightly sealed hall.
Ming Li snatched Grey up and held it close against his side. Almost at that very instant came a thunderous roar; all the carvings blazed with light, and in a flash the red glow seemed to take on substance, surging up from the carvings of the vicious gods, each keeping its carved shape as it became a flat plane of condensed red light and rose into the air.
One after another the vicious gods became red light condensed in the air, and Ming Li at last made out the crooked, unstraight carving that ran around the outer edge of those images.
It was a giant flame totem, wrapping all the vicious gods within it. As the wild wind grew fiercer, this uncanny ring of light slowly rose, and in a moment it had climbed above Ming Li's head and halted over him and Grey.
Ming Li looked up, and cold sweat had gathered unnoticed in his palms.
Each vicious god, hideous of countenance, now seemed to come to life, laughing up at the heavens within the giant blood-red flame-shaped ring. By this time the darkness in the hall had long since been driven out entirely, and every corner was lit by that dazzling ring of light.
The red ring began slowly to turn, its speed gradually increasing, and with it the wind in the hall grew ever more urgent. Ming Li stood at the center of this tempest; his garments snapped and flapped, and his face grew slowly pale.
Yet still he made no move.
The uncanny atmosphere in the air grew heavier and heavier, and amid the urgent, keening wind there seemed to creep mysterious and savage snarls, like the malevolent ghosts of the Nine Hells come into the world of men.
At last the red ring rose to the dome, spinning faster and faster beneath the plain stone slabs, red light scattering down like rain, like a rain of blood drifting down through hell.
"Boom!"
After spinning so fast the eye could scarcely follow, the red ring suddenly halted—stopped dead without the slightest warning. The next moment, above that mass of blood-red flame, the immense stone slabs seemed to be summoned away, withdrawing to all sides from the flame totem at their center.
Within the blood-red light, two blazing eyes kindled.
"Roar..."
A low growl came down from the red light above, and in that instant the whole hall seemed to tremble, and all the deities cried out together!
A colossal body bearing an inconceivable heat, its whole frame like burning flame, came plunging down from above—a gigantic beast.
Ming Li's pupils shrank in an instant. He drove his feet against the ground, the Soul-Devourer blazing blue, and his whole body drifted backward, evading that thunderous downward pounce.
The giant beast, wreathed in roaring flame, gave a furious roar, slowly turned its head, and fixed its eyes on Ming Li.
For some reason, Ming Li suddenly felt his mouth go dry.
Like those strange carvings of vicious gods, he had never seen—nor ever read of in any book—the flame beast before him. Its vast body stood several zhang tall, its four legs thick and sturdy, tipped with exceedingly sharp claws that left deep gouges in the hard crimson rock at the slightest movement.
Upon its enormous head was a bloody maw full of jagged teeth, and within its great eyes one could scarcely see eyes at all—only two burning flames. Moreover, the surface of this beast's immense body was covered everywhere in roaring, blazing fire, as though flame were a part of its very flesh. Before it had even drawn near, the searing blast of its heat was already more than one could bear.