Chapter 169 — The Demonic Beast
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 5 of 6
Yet this was only the beginning. With burst after low burst, every part of the Beast Sovereign's body seemed to split open, and from each new trunk and limb of every kind emerged. And before long, upon these newborn limbs, more burst open—and yet newer, yet vaster limbs were born.
The people on the Heaven-Reaching Peak turned pale with dread, looking at one another. Such utterly uncanny sorcery—not only unseen, but unheard of; in the tens of thousands of years of the Central Plains, in countless tomes, none had ever recorded such a heart-stopping, soul-shaking art.
Even Dao Yan Zhenren could not help drawing a breath of cold air, staring aghast at that Beast Sovereign ahead, once the shape of an ordinary youth, now seeming to swell without cease—until at last he stopped splitting and stood towering before Dao Yan Zhenren, facing the Slaying Immortals formation: a monster ten zhang tall, with a thousand arms and a hundred heads.
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The back mountain of the Heaven-Reaching Peak, the domain of the Illusory Moon Cavern.
The purple pillar of qi that rose from the cavern mansion was as it had been, with no sign of waning; seen from afar, the pillar was like something solid, auspicious qi steaming upward, solemn and august.
And now in the heavens, more than half the sky was filled with the qi-swords of the Slaying Immortals formation; even from this far-off place, Ming Li and Lin Jinghong could feel the surging, roaring power of the ancient sword Slaying Immortals above.
Suppressing the faint trembling of the Dragon-Slaying Sword in his hand, Lin Jinghong withdrew his gaze from the sky. His heart was shaken by the might of the ancient sword Slaying Immortals, and at the same time his mood had shifted a little. Just now, he and Ming Li had been on the very verge of a fight to the death, when the Slaying Immortals formation had suddenly stirred, ten thousand phenomena in motion, and overawed them both. The two had stopped as if by unspoken agreement.
And come to think of it, the man standing before him must be in an even more tangled state of mind? Somehow the thought flashed through Lin Jinghong's mind, and he turned to look at Ming Li.
That man, who seemed to have weathered all the vicissitudes of the world, stood silently gazing up at the sky—at that splendid, heart-shaking pageant of ten thousand phenomena.
Heaven and earth quietly fell still; somewhere far off came the sound of the wind, yet what it carried to him seemed the sound of years ago, and in the depths of his mind, the scene that had echoed ten thousand times over ten years, each remembrance a fresh wound.
"Ding… ding… ling…"
Faint and far, like the sound of a wind chime swaying gently in a breeze—whose smiling face turned back amid that chiming? That once-pale-green figure and that warm, gentle form, that little remnant of warmth—heaven knew how many of his desolate, cold nights it had warmed over the years.
The deepest chill rose cold from his heart, flooding his breast, chilling his heart, cooling his body, from his fingertips to the depths of his soul; it was as though he could feel no pain at all—and then he realized that time itself had turned to a blade, cutting him without cease.
Yet no blood showed!
"Bili…"
He murmured it softly; his body, somehow, began to tremble faintly. In his eyes flickered the reflection of that brilliant, splendid ten thousand-fold sword radiance in the sky, scarce like any scene of the mortal world. Those countless sword-lights, coursing and galloping, each so free and unrestrained, each vivid before his eyes—reminding him of the past.
That green figure seemed to stand beside him now, as she had ten years ago, facing everyone, never retreating, never regretting!
"Hua…"
Ming Li howled at the sky, eyes wide, both hands clenched into fists that gave out a low "ge ge" sound.