Chapter 169 — The Demonic Beast
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 6
Under ten thousand pairs of eyes, that giant body—every inch of skin and bone—seemed to tremble faintly; and looking closely, it was countless tiny glittering swords, lodged in every place. From head to tail, from top to bottom, there was not one whole spot left.
The people on the Heaven-Reaching Peak drew in a breath of cold air; somehow a prickling sensation crept up their backs.
Yet that demonic spirit seemed not yet dead; its giant head, bristling with Slaying Immortals qi-swords of every color, slowly turned, looked over its own riddled body, and then slowly lowered its head. Its voice, somehow, was no longer shrill and ferocious; now it was very low, as though with some reluctance, and more than a little pain.
The great maw opened and closed; two streaks of red light flashed across its eyes, like flame, struggling to burn—and at last they broke and scattered.
The next moment, in midair, a great sound suddenly burst from the giant body of the demonic spirit, resounding through heaven and earth; countless qi-swords flew back up, and even the Slaying Immortals formation in the vault of heaven fell into disarray.
Then that giant demonic spirit, once so overbearing, seemed suddenly to become utterly frail; a fierce wind blew past, and its unbreakable bony frame crumbled away like sand and gravel, white bone turned to sand, flesh and blood to stone, scattered on the wind.
The people gazed silently at the horizon; on the very verge of victory, no one cheered. It was as though some strange feeling had settled over every heart.
In the sky, that once-giant body was on the point of scattering entirely on the wind when a cry of alarm suddenly rose from below; then the crowd cried out—within the beast's trunk, though flesh, blood, and bone had all dissolved, a mass of black qi still gathered and would not scatter, slowly turning in the air. After a moment the demonic spirit's body was wholly destroyed, and that mass of black qi slowly dispersed, revealing what lay within.
It was—astoundingly—the form of a youth, none other than the Beast Sovereign who had so suddenly vanished. But the Beast Sovereign now looked nothing like his former elegant ease; he was utterly bedraggled, his one-time gorgeous silken robes now, somehow, riddled with holes, and under the fierce wind of the sky they crumbled away into flying ash.
In a moment he stood stark naked, yet upon his face there seemed no trace of alarm or disappointment; on the contrary, his eyes fixed upon that vast, magnificent sword formation ahead, and he suddenly smiled, stretched his limbs, and standing there whole in midair, clapped his hands and said, "Remarkable, remarkable!"
Dao Yan Zhenren's expression changed; plainly he too had not expected the Beast Sovereign to be so hard to vanquish, to withstand such a display as that—and a glance showed the man merely paler of face, more worn with fatigue, and otherwise unharmed, not a single wound anywhere on his body.
Below, a sudden clamor arose: many of the female disciples of Canglan Mountain had only now come to their senses, their faces flushed crimson, not daring to look at the sky. Yet up in the heavens the Beast Sovereign, naked as he was, cared nothing—as though it had been so since the beginning of the world—and went about as if nothing were amiss, his gaze fixed only upon the ancient sword Slaying Immortals in Dao Yan Zhenren's hand.
Dao Yan Zhenren gave a cold laugh and said, "If you submit now, and agree to destroy your own cultivation and begin anew in the Illusory Moon Cavern of the Qingyun back mountain, to cultivate toward goodness, I may spare your life. Otherwise, beneath the Slaying Immortals sword, no life of such a savage as you shall be kept!"