Chapter 251 — The Monster
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 5
Just then, Xiao Hui leaped with all its strength and barely evaded a sweep of blood-flame that passed beneath it—so close that even in midair it felt its fur below scorching, and it could not help but give a great roar. Yet this time too it seemed to have dodged. It came down from midair—but the instant its feet touched the ground, searing pain shot up from beneath them, pain that pierced to the very marrow. Xiao Hui looked down. The surface of the rock on the platform beneath its feet had all turned to molten, seething stone, and in that instant its two feet were scorched, hide cracked and flesh split.
The pain was no small matter: Xiao Hui's giant body tottered. And the blood-qi giant in the sky seemed to feel not the slightest pity; another layer of blood-flame came surging down to blanket the heavens. It looked as though Xiao Hui would be smashed to pieces in that flame. The giant ape howled to the sky, and from somewhere far beneath there seemed to come a few answering roars of fury—but plainly they were useless.
The searing blood-flame swooped down headlong, and in Xiao Hui's three eyes all seemed to turn to the red of that flame. At this critical moment, a long cry suddenly came from behind—like the cry of a dragon—and a ray of azure radiance streaked across the sky like a rainbow, carving an arc through the air, swift as thunder, urgent as lightning, arriving just in the nick of time. In an instant it formed an azure shield of light before Xiao Hui. Within the blue glow sharp points glittered, and a taiji symbol emerged, radiant and resplendent. With a thunderous crash, it stopped the blood-flame—which the blood-qi giant had seemed all but invincible—dead in its tracks.
It was Ming Li, arriving in the very nick of time.
Yet though the blow was blocked, Ming Li's body was violently shaken, and his vision actually went black. Not only was the light-shield he had conjured all but dissipated—his body too was nearly smashed down into the blood pool. Fortunately his cultivation ran deep; as he fell he caught the edge of the stone platform, and his whole body rose again, sweeping to the giant ape's side. His gaze swept swiftly over Xiao Hui, and without another word he seized the monkey directly. With a low shout, he actually lifted Xiao Hui's enormous frame off the ground with one hand.
Xiao Hui let out a cry of pain as its body lifted into the air; its bones all gave out a creaking, crackling sound in midair, and moments later its frame rapidly shrank. In the blink of an eye it had returned to its usual size—the small gray-furred monkey once more.
Now the blood-qi giant overhead seemed all the more enraged that someone had suddenly blocked its blood-flame, and its target shifted to Ming Li. It opened its vast maw with a thunderous boom, and a blood-flame fully five zhang long came gushing forth, like a fire dragon descending from the heavens, burning straight toward Ming Li.
Ming Li seized Xiao Hui and set it on his shoulder. "Hold tight!" he called, and at once his body rose again. His speed in advancing and retreating was far nimbler and swifter than Xiao Hui's. Though the blood-qi giant's flames were utterly formidable, he threaded and wove and flitted through the gaps between them, and looked far more at ease.
Xiao Hui, for its part, was not idle either. Now back to its usual size, it clutched a fistful of Ming Li's collar with one hand and, letting Ming Li dart up and down through the air, sat perfectly steady. With the other hand it hurriedly grabbed up its own feet to look at them, its face twisted with pain, chattering *zhizhi-zhizhi* without cease. Then it kept fanning the air with its hand as though with a fan, wafting cool breezes over its two little feet—probably because the soles were scalded and unbearable.