Chapter 185 — Mad Dog
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 7
quivered, and his eyes lit up—for he saw, behind the dead log, several disordered footprints, and in the soft earth beside those prints, plain to see, a gigantic footprint a full size larger than any man's, with three toes in front—nothing that belonged to humankind.
The Wild Wolf Daoist's expression changed drastically—first great joy, then great alarm. And at that very moment, from afar there seemed to come a long howl, so shrill and bitter it was like a vicious wolf baying at the moon. The Wild Wolf Daoist involuntarily took a step back, but a moment later the muscles of his dog's face twitched faintly, and with a sudden great roar he flung himself bodily toward the howling deep in the dense forest, and from the look of him, he might well have been a mad dog.
A dog gone mad!
Just as the Wild Wolf Daoist charged into the dense forest, upon the dark vault of heaven a white light suddenly blazed up, racing down from the north, scoring across the sky, piercing the void and gone—without pausing for even a moment, flying straight south like a shooting star. And upon the ground, after a time, while that white light still lingered at the horizon, a black shadow appeared not far from the clearing. Looked at closely, it was a figure all in black, face masked, breathing somewhat raggedly, who stopped in the forest and muttered to himself:
"How could his cultivation have advanced so? It's like seeing a ghost." As he rested, he suddenly seemed to sense something, turned his head, and glanced deep into the dense forest. Faint sounds of fighting came from within. The man in black hesitated a moment, then raised his head again to gaze at that white light in the sky, shook his head, and sighed. Then his body flickered, and light as a phantom he slipped into the very direction the Wild Wolf Daoist had charged.
The Wild Wolf Daoist held his fang-treasure in hand, his face tense—and in but a short while, a patch of dark red had spread across his shoulder; he seemed already to have taken a wound. Yet before him stood two enormous beast-demons, tiger-headed and lion-bodied, a full man's height at the shoulder; beside them the Wild Wolf Daoist looked utterly outmatched.
Zhou Yixuan and Xiao Wan were, at this moment, plainly behind those two beast-demons. Here in the dense forest these two beast-demons seemed to have made a lair in this desolate spot, within which branches and leaves were heaped in wild confusion, and a rank stench assailed the nose. But most horrifying of all: the place was strewn everywhere with the remains of the dead—and besides Zhou Yixuan and Xiao Wan, there were seven or eight living people here as well, though all of them either lay unconscious or, if awake, were thin as sticks and wild with terror.
Who knew where these two beast-demons had raided to seize so many people—but from this one could well imagine how terrible that great calamity of the beast-demons had been!
Facing those two enormous beast-demons, the Wild Wolf Daoist's breath came short and fast, every nerve drawn taut in vigilance. He had only just charged to this spot and caught sight of Zhou Yixuan and little Wan indeed being here when, before he could even shout, he had already come under attack from the two beast-demons. In the exchange that followed, these two beast-demons proved far from ordinary, possessed of boundless strength, and had actually torn open the Wild Wolf Daoist's shoulder. Even so, the Wild Wolf Daoist was, after all, a cultivator and no common mortal; in his panic he brought out his magic treasure and likewise wounded one of the beast-demons, whose foreleg now ran slick with blood, clearly faring none too well either.