Chapter 37 — Strange Eyes

Then the big man stepped forward and addressed the Canglan Sect group: "I advise you few to surrender quietly. Otherwise, when we make our move, you'll have your bones shattered and your sinews snapped, and suffer no small agony!"

Qi Hao gave a cold humph. Before he could speak, Lu Xueqi's voice came coolly from behind him: "Fiends and clowns — and still you strut and boast. Today is the day you die."

Qi Hao and Zeng Shuyan chorused, "Well said, Junior Sister Lu! Exactly so!"

The big man's expression changed, his face turning cold as frost. "Then you've brought death on yourselves!"

He did not seem to move at all; he merely glared at the four of them. Zhang Qingyue was watching him warily when he saw that of the big man's two perfectly ordinary eyes, the right one suddenly swelled to twice its size and turned a crimson red. That huge eye, bulging from his face, was both horrifying and absurd.

He was still wondering at it when a red beam shot suddenly from the big man's crimson giant eye, hurtling straight at them. The Canglan Sect group, having seen his strange appearance, had already been on their guard; Qi Hao at once summoned the Frost Ice Sword, and with two sharp cracks raised two walls of ice before them.

To their surprise, the red beam seemed to carry a malevolent force. A moment later it struck the ice wall and in an instant bored a small hole clean through it, passing on without a sound but with the momentum of a blade splitting bamboo.

Qi Hao was aghast. With no time to react further, he thrust the Frost Ice Sword before them all. The red beam struck the sword, flickered twice, and vanished without trace within the white light of the blade. But Qi Hao's body shuddered, and he glimpsed that on his Frost Ice Sword, which had been pure white, a small patch was now stained a faint, dark red.

The Frost Ice Sword trembled faintly, as though it had been tainted by something evil. Qi Hao's heart ached to see it — in truth, what cultivator did not treasure his own magic treasure above all things? But there was no time to think. The red beam had barely vanished when another shot from the big man's crimson eye in the distance, hurtling toward them; striking the two ice walls, it punched two holes through them as silently as before, its force undiminished, and sped at the four of them.

Qi Hao knitted his brows. The Frost Ice Sword flashed white and rose to meet it in midair, and in an instant dissolved the red light into nothing — but another red mark now marred the blade.

In the distance, the big man said not a word; from his crimson giant eye red beams shot like arrows, ceaselessly and at incredible speed, arriving in an instant. Qi Hao blocked them one after another, but he could see the dark red marks growing ever more numerous, and the white light of the Frost Ice Sword gradually dimming.

The other three saw that things were going badly. Zeng Shuyan was the first to charge out, summoning his magic treasure, the immortal sword Xuanyuan, and was about to attack from the flank when the big man merely turned his head slightly and another red beam shot from the crimson eye straight at him. Zeng Shuyan had no time to dodge; he could only raise the Xuanyuan Sword in midair to block that uncanny red light.

In the air, the Xuanyuan Sword gave off a pale purple radiance and at once dissolved the red beam — but a red mark appeared on the blade as well, like a burr clinging to the bone, and the Xuanyuan Sword immediately gave a low, shuddering hum.

Zeng Shuyan felt a sudden baleful aura surge from the blade, as though it meant to invade his body; fortunately, at that distance its power was weak, and the Xuanyuan Sword itself raised an auspicious aura that offset the malevolence.

But that was as far as he could go. He watched the big man in the distance standing idly where he was, head tilting slightly, the crimson giant eye shooting red beams without cease, pinning both Qi Hao and Zeng Shuyan where they stood, unable to advance a single inch; and as the red marks slowly multiplied, the two of them felt the baleful aura from their immortal swords growing heavier and heavier, seeping slowly through the blades into their bodies.