Chapter 112 — The Heavenly Fox

Suddenly the woman's voice rose sharp and high, as if she had thought of something, and a distinct note of excitement had entered it.

"No—however high your cultivation, apart from old ghost Shangguan, only... only the Mystic Fire Mirror in all the world can open the third level of this altar. You—you carry the Mystic Fire Mirror?"

As her words ended, as if echoing her excited voice, all the ice around Ming Li suddenly blazed with blue light at once.

Ming Li frowned, but before he could react, those faint eyes in the darkness had already fallen upon the corner of the Mystic Fire Mirror showing from his robe.

The ancient flame totem seemed to burn slowly.

"The Mystic Fire Mirror!"

With a sharp, drawn-out cry, the woman's voice rose to a pitch, mingled with countless shades of pain, astonishment, grief, despair, and a thread of desolation.

"Why—why is the Mystic Fire Mirror on your person? Where is Little Six? Where is Little Six..."

She cried out shrilly, as if she had lost her reason. There upon the mysterious third level of the Mystic Fire Altar, deep in the darkness, blue light suddenly burst forth; countless shadows whirled beneath the pale blue radiance, restless in the space between darkness and light.

A figure, as if flying out from the abyss of darkness, or as if walking forth from the desolation of primordia, a shadow vast as a demon or monster, danced within that space.

Ming Li was struck dumb. However fierce and terrible a thing he might see, he had steeled his heart for it. Yet when he made out the figure before him, he was struck dumb all the same.

Distant memories surged up in an instant, filling his mind, so that he did not even hear Little Grey shrieking loudly at his shoulder toward what lay ahead.

Behind that figure, as in a nightmare, nine shadows seemed to dance.

Slowly, slowly, he forced out in a choked voice: "The Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox!"

...