Chapter 185 — Mad Dog
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 5 of 7
It was only that these two beast-demons looked savage in the extreme; at the sight of blood they did not draw back but fixed their stare all the harder upon the Wild Wolf Daoist, restrained for the moment only by fear of the treasure in his hand, and so the two sides stood locked in a standoff. Yet the Wild Wolf Daoist was secretly crying bitter misery in his heart; from that last clash he knew well enough that against one such beast-demon he might perhaps win through at grievous cost, but against the two together he was certain to die.
He might have turned and fled, and yet somehow his gaze, as though by no will of his own, fell upon that pair of frightened, anxious eyes behind the beast-demons, and he found he could not move his feet to save himself alone.
Are there some things, truly, that cannot be escaped?
With a roar the savage beast-demons at last could hold back no longer and came lunging forward. Two dark shapes swept up a reeking wind through the shadows, and amid it came little Wan's cry of alarm.
The Wild Wolf Daoist's throat went dry, his legs trembled faintly, and by instinct he turned to run; and yet, and yet, his body—his body lunged forward instead, straight at that savage beast-demon, as though
a mad dog!
The outcome was decided in an instant: four claws from the two beast-demons tore almost as one into the Wild Wolf Daoist's body, while his fang-treasure plunged into the chest of the beast-demon he had wounded before.
Beast-demon and Wild Wolf Daoist alike let out screams of agony, and little Wan's cry of alarm had broken into sobbing wails.
Blood sprayed; the Wild Wolf Daoist felt as though his whole body would burst apart, as though he had been torn in two, and he staggered backward, catching in his panic the sight of four bloody gashes upon his body, the blood welling out like a spring.
Ahead, the beast-demon bawled a few times, its legs gave way, and it toppled to the ground. The other beast-demon gave a mournful cry and, forgetting altogether to hunt down the Wild Wolf Daoist, kept nudging and shoving its companion with its head and paws where it lay gravely wounded and dying. But the beast-demon's wound was where the fang had driven straight into its heart, and after a few last struggles it let its head fall and died there.
"Pa"—a soft sound—and the Wild Wolf Daoist too at last could hold out no longer, dropping to his knees on the ground, his upper body all but soaked through with blood, a sheet of crimson, gasping great breaths, his dog-face ashen.
The sound roused the one beast-demon left; seeing its companion dead, it seemed driven near to frenzy, howled at the sky, its fangs blood-red, and came lunging forward once more.
Just as the Wild Wolf Daoist was about to perish beneath the beast's claws, all at once the ground blurred, a streak of yellow light flashed past, a few talisman papers fluttered aloft, and the Wild Wolf Daoist was gone without a trace; the beast-demon's lunge caught empty air.
The beast-demon was startled for a moment, but scarcely had a short while passed when a cry of "Aiya!" rang out, and Zhou Yixuan, together with the blood-drenched Wild Wolf Daoist, came tumbling down out of the sky, a few talismans still clutched in his hand.
This was, of course, Zhou Yixuan working those hereditary immortal arts he was always boasting of. The beast-demons had fallen upon the two of them, grandfather and grandchild, without warning, and within moments the pair had been subdued; beneath the beast-demons' gaping bloody maws, what chance had they to work any tricks? It was only thanks to the Wild Wolf Daoist charging in hot-headed to the rescue that a brief opening had come. He had meant to slip away in it, never thinking the Wild Wolf Daoist's life would hang by a thread instead, and with no other choice Zhou Yixuan had to save the man first.