Chapter 80 — The Eighth Chapter

The brilliant light from the direction of the Illusion Moon Cave grew ever more radiant and dazzling, and with it came a faint, low, unearthly wail.

The withered old man standing before the Ancestral Hall gazed at that dazzling radiance, lost in a silent daze, until Lin Jinghong, still astonished, asked him, "Senior, is that the ancient sword that is the Canglan Sect's supreme treasure—the Immortal-Slayer?"

The old man nodded silently, then suddenly turned away, as if he wished to pay no more heed to anything, and said in a low voice, "Once the Immortal-Slayer is drawn, and here upon Mount Canglan besides, with Daoist Daoyan's cultivation and attainments, none in the world can withstand it. Go now!" As he spoke, half his body had already sunk into the shadows of the hall.

Lin Jinghong felt a sudden reluctance to leave and called out, "Senior!"

The old man paused, as if something else had occurred to him, and said abruptly, "If you are so inclined one day, find a chance to seek out Daoyan privately and tell him that the servant in the Ancestral Hall, having been stifled for over a hundred years, now wishes you to come and talk with him from time to time—and see whether he agrees."

Lin Jinghong was taken aback and asked in wonder, "What?"

But the old man did not answer him; his body vanished wholly into the darkness.

Lin Jinghong stood dazed for a moment, then turned to look, and saw that in that brief space the pillar of light had grown brighter still, almost too bright to look upon. At the same time, he remembered that Zhang Qingyue was still outside, and at once ran out.

At a run, he soon returned to the place where he had been. Lin Jinghong looked toward the field and his body gave a shudder; he drew in a sharp breath. There at the three-way crossroads stood two figures still—Zhang Qingyue was there, but the other was Xueqi of Little Bamboo Peak. What shocked him most, however, was that the open ground all around was unmistakably stained with blood, and even the branches and leaves of the nearby trees were splashed with it, as though this were a scene from hell.

And the man in black who had but now faced Zhang Qingyue lay dead upon the ground, he knew not since when, his whole corpse withered and pale, as if every drop of blood in his body had been drained away.

A sense of foreboding rose in Lin Jinghong's heart. He ran at once toward Zhang Qingyue and cried loudly, "Xiaofan, are you all right?"

From the moment Lin Jinghong appeared until now, Zhang Qingyue had not once turned to look at him, but had kept facing Xueqi directly. Yet of these two, whose relations had always been delicate, Xueqi now had the Divine Sword Tianya drawn in her hand, on full guard against Zhang Qingyue.

Lin Jinghong had always regarded Zhang Qingyue as a brother. Seeing now that Xueqi seemed about to do him harm, he flew into a rage. "Sister Xueqi, what are you doing?"

With that he placed himself in front of Zhang Qingyue, facing Xueqi.

Xueqi's expression had been complex enough already—something like shock and anger, something like bitter grief, and in her eyes a measure of sorrow besides. Now, seeing Lin Jinghong suddenly thrust himself between them, she could not help crying out, "You—"

At almost the same instant, a bloodstained hand was laid upon Lin Jinghong's shoulder, staining a patch of his white robe red. The rank smell of fresh blood drifted from that hand and crept into Lin Jinghong's nostrils.

Startled, Lin Jinghong whipped around and said in alarm, "Xiaofan, are you all right?"

What met his eyes was a gaze shot through with a faint dark-red glow and flickering with traces of pain. Zhang Qingyue's face was wooden; his lips moved, and at last the red light dimmed. He said in a low voice, "I'm fine."

Only then did Lin Jinghong breathe easy. He said, "Good. The sect master will likely be coming out any moment now—we must be ready to follow him and fight our way back!"

Zhang Qingyue nodded and said nothing, only gripping the dark iron staff in his hand more tightly.

Beside them, Xueqi watched him, and after a long while slowly put away the Tianya without a word. Lin Jinghong looked at her with some puzzlement, meaning to ask what on earth had happened here, but just then, from the direction of the Illusion Moon Cave, the low, unearthly wail that had been echoing all along suddenly swelled, then soared abruptly, shaking heaven and earth, and that pillar of radiance became incomparably brilliant.

Within the halo of light, a figure slowly rose. Daoist Daoyan was bathed in the dazzling radiance, and from the palm of his right hand to his shoulder it was wrapped in a searing white blaze, so bright that one could not make out at all what he held.

And his body, which but moments ago had been so gravely wounded that he could not ride the air, now showed no harm whatever, as if the very drawing of the ancient Immortal-Slayer had wholly restored his vital essence.

Daoist Daoyan's dark green Daoist robe flapped and streamed within the pillar of light, and even his face was reflected to a peculiar pallor by the dazzling white glow at his hand. Yet he seemed not to notice Lin Jinghong, Zhang Qingyue, and the others below him at all, and flew straight on toward the Jade Balance Hall at the front of the mountain.

Lin Jinghong and the others stared, dumbstruck. The ancient sword Immortal-Slayer had not even been unleashed, and already its momentum was so great—who could say how mighty it would be once wielded?

The three stood dazed a moment, then came to their senses and gave chase toward the front mountain.

Not long after they had gone, a slender figure slowly stepped out from deep in the woods, gazing after Zhang Qingyue's receding back, her face a mask of the most tangled feeling, silent and saying nothing.

It was Bili.

From the time Daoist Daoyan had departed until now, the great battle between righteous and demonic cults centered on the Jade Balance Hall at the front of Mount Canglan had been savagely fierce.

To look back over a hundred years: at the very foot of Mount Canglan, the three great powers of the righteous path—the Canglan Sect, the Fanyin Temple, and the Fenxia Valley—had joined to deal with the demonic cult and won a decisive victory at a single stroke. But now the Fenxia Valley had no one here, and the masters of the Fanyin Temple, including the abbot, the divine monk Pucheng, had instead been wounded by demonic cultists posing as Fenxia Valley disciples. Now, apart from Pukong, Facheng, and a few others, it was almost the Canglan Sect alone that held the line.

Yet the Canglan Sect, a great and famed house for nearly two thousand years, had today at last let the world see the depth of its foundations. To say nothing of the seats of Tian Buhui, Shang Zhengliang, Zeng Shuchang, and the rest—more than a dozen white-haired elders of the other seven branches also came forth together, and with Pukong and Facheng of the Fanyin Temple besides, the demonic masters, for all their furious assault and all the advantage they held, could never break them.

Nearly scores of the foremost cultivators of the age were locked in fierce combat here, and even the Jade Balance Hall, its structure reinforced by immortal arts and Daoist methods, could not withstand the battering of countless magic treasures hurtling and careening through the air; the vast roof came crashing down with a great roar, and dust filled the air.

The crowd was greatly alarmed and rose into the air one after another, fighting from the ground straight up into the sky; with more room, they could better bring their arts to bear.

Radiance blazed across the heavens; scores of combat groups flickered in the sky, sharp gleams flashing, now and again shrieking past like meteors! The summit of Mount Canglan seemed drowned in the countless brilliant lights of magic treasures.