Chapter 173 — The Flight
劍問蒼天 · Page 1 of 6
The Slaying Immortals sword did not stir. For that instant it seemed everyone had held their breath, yet the scene was dreadfully quiet.
No sound, no thunderous roar—the Soul-Devouring Demonic Rod, which had looked to come crashing down with the weight of a thousand mountains, struck the Slaying Immortals sword and then, all at once, became as though it had sunk into a heap of cotton, silent and still.
A furious shout rang out; figures leapt at the forest's edge, and the elders of Canglan Gate appeared one after another, flying over swift as the wind and lightning—but they saw only that the Slaying Immortals sword in the field was now gripped in Ming Li's hand, and every face changed at once. Moments later more and more of Canglan Gate's people gathered; in such confusion no one cared for the old prohibitions, and they all rushed into what had once been Canglan Gate's forbidden ground. Among them were Wen Pei of Little Zhu Peak and the folk of Great Zhu Peak; seeing Ming Li there, their faces changed as well. Wen Pei and the other women of Little Zhu Peak then caught sight of Lu Xueling slumped helplessly to one side, and hurried over to lift her up.
As though disturbed by the crowd of Canglan disciples, as though something had been touched, that Slaying Immortals sword beneath ten thousand watching eyes—though still in Ming Li's grasp—somehow changed in the blade itself.
Upon that blade, plain and ancient, a little crude, neither stone nor jade, at the mouth of that thin split seam, the crack had plainly widened a measure more beneath Ming Li's violent blow of moments before. Yet now from within that seam a faint, dim red radiance began to seep, as though the blood it had just devoured had come alive, slowly surging and swelling deep within the blade.
Just as a sea, calm before, begins to heave, brewing a storm none can withstand, shrouding heaven and earth!
Silence, silence... Everyone had seen the Slaying Immortals sword change, yet no one knew what to do. Before the Phantom Moon Cave it was utterly still; all held their breath and waited.
And whose heartbeat, one wonders, was quietly fluttering?
Ming Li felt his throat go dry, and instinctively tried to loosen his grip on the Slaying Immortals—but the next moment he found that all the strength in his body seemed to have vanished in an instant, and a feeling once familiar yet long distant rose again within him, a feeling that had once been the terror of his enemies.
The vital blood in his body slowly seethed and surged, and even began to flow outward, and its destination was the Slaying Immortals sword clenched in his hand. He seemed to understand something, and strove with all his might to let the sword go, but his hand had no strength, and the Slaying Immortals sword now seemed like a demon awakened, gripping him fast and refusing to let him go. Even the Soul-Devouring Demonic Rod in his right hand was now clinging tight to the blade of the Slaying Immortals sword.
Within that thin seam on the blade of the Slaying Immortals sword, the red light deepened from faint to dense; and at the same time, weird as blood flowing through veins, from that seam the fine threads of blood-color began to spread, racing from both sides of the seam toward the two ends of the blade. The plain ancient blade was slowly covered over by blood-red.
Everyone was struck dumb, even those elders who had seen so much. By now all knew something was wrong, yet no one knew what on earth had happened, or what ought to be done.
And that Slaying Immortals sword, as though utterly heedless of people's many fears, went on with its own molting; the dim blood-color at last dyed the whole blade red, and a sword once plain and ancient was now become a strange and uncanny blood-red blade. Its light, a dim red, slowly wheeled and turned, much like the eye of a demon reborn, slowly waking, gazing upon all around it.