Chapter 161 — The Ambush
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 6
Ming Li frowned, not quite understanding the meaning of Wan Jiangu's words. But Ghost Mister, standing behind, let out a low sigh, as if lamenting that after all these years his old friend's proud, unyielding spirit had still not changed. Yet even as he sighed, a strange light flickered in his eyes, fixed tightly upon Wan Jiangu.
Ming Li said coldly, "Stand aside."
Wan Jiangu looked at him—this young man, so cold and arrogant before him, that expression and bearing suddenly seemed so familiar. He burst out laughing, a trace of bitterness in his face, but it was swiftly overtaken by a surge of heroic spirit, and he laughed aloud: "Good, good, good! A young man indeed—the men of this world ought to hold nothing in their eyes! But if you wish to pass, you will have to do it with your own true skill."
With a long cry Ming Li spoke no further, leaping forward. Wan Jiangu's pupils contracted; he suddenly retreated, his body flying to the edge of the dense forest, where his right hand seized a pine tree thick as a man's embrace. With a great shout, the ground shook in an instant, and amid a rumbling roar he tore the enormous pine up by the roots, holding it across the air like a giant arm.
Wan Jiangu now gripped the giant tree and stood proudly in midair—no trace remained of the wretched, stooping figure he had once been. He looked vigorous and high-spirited, his face flushed with excitement, brows and eyes both lifted—it was exactly the look of the man who had once been invincible in his day.
"Come!" Wan Jiangu shouted, like a thunderclap. "You have the Blood-devouring Bead—let us see how you fare against this great tree of Qingyun!"
His body swayed, and in an instant the giant tree whirled into motion with a *wuwu* sound, turning swift beyond measure in the blink of an eye. Tree shadows filled the sky, rushing down to blot out earth and heaven, the wind so fierce that no other sound could be heard at all.
Ming Li's expression changed drastically, and he tumbled amid the tree shadows. That storm of the giant tree was like a surging, churning tidal wave, like an endless tide—one wave pressing down upon the last, each crest higher than the one before, chasing across the blue sky until even the thin mist over the mountain seemed to tremble.
The wind swept past the treetops and became a gale, turning to a vortex in midair that swallowed all things in the world. Ming Li stood at the very center of that vortex, tree shadows all around him, the fierce wind cutting his face like a blade, as though a single careless moment would see him sliced to fragments by that keen edge.
Wan Jiangu laughed wildly without cease, as if he had returned to the years when he roamed the world at will; his face grew all the more excited, wholly fixed upon Ming Li. In the midst of the storm, Ming Li suddenly clenched his teeth. Seeing the tree shadows bearing down before him like a mountain, this time he did not dodge; he raised his right hand, and the Soul-devourer flew out flickering with a dim red glow, and with a *pu* sound in the midst of those countless tree shadows it struck the tree trunk unerringly. In an instant the demonic power danced madly, threads of red light rising from the Blood-devouring Bead and winding along the trunk; wherever they passed, the wood burst asunder and splinters flew.
In moments a third of the giant tree's trunk had been devoured by that demonic power, yet Wan Jiangu's expression showed no alarm—only laughter. With a long laugh he brought his left hand down in a sweeping cut through the air; the trunk, brushed by that formless fierce wind, was sliced clean through as if it were bean curd. The forward part of the trunk, shrouded in red radiance, seemed to give a groan and turned to powder, scattering on the wind.