Chapter 113 — The White Fox

Ming Li passed the white fox's side, and the white fox turned with him. Its vast body kept pace alongside Ming Li, and somehow there seemed to be a strange light in its eyes.

"Young man, why would you help a demon beast?"

Ming Li did not look back, did not change expression, and the white fox, following behind him, could not even see his face. Only after a moment did it hear the man, walking alone in the darkness, murmur softly to himself: "In truth, in this world, who isn't like that..."

"Ten years ago, when I with my own hands set the two of them down into the magma; ten years ago, beneath the Immortal-Slaying Formation, when I watched helplessly as she fell from midair..."

The white fox halted. At the end of the Mystic Fire Crucible there was a most formidable binding upon demon beasts, and it could go no farther. Little Grey, too, seemed to sense something now; it jumped down from Ming Li's shoulder and stopped at the white fox's side.

And Ming Li did not halt.

The white fox watched in silence as the darkness of the deepest, gloomiest corner gently descended and swallowed the man's figure.

Suddenly it sighed!

After a moment it turned its great fox head and drew near Little Grey. Facing a demon beast a hundred times its own size, Little Grey showed no sign of fear; it gave two squeaks, its three eyes all fixed on the white fox.

"Is he a heartbroken man as well?" the white fox said faintly.

Little Grey blinked, squeaked, and scratched at its head with a paw.

The white fox smiled faintly, and in that smile there was much of vicissitude and desolation.

"Your cultivation is not enough; your spirit has only just awakened. How could you know the love of humans in this world?"

It murmured softly, its voice growing lower and fainter, and one could just make out: "It is because the world of men has such infatuated men that we, after a thousand years, still cling to it so deeply..."

At the entrance to the Burning Cloud Valley.

The atmosphere grew ever more grim; the whole place was silent. The fish-man clan glared furiously at Shangguan Lue and the others of the Burning Cloud Valley, while on the Burning Cloud Valley side, everyone was stricken with alarm.

Many disciples had already begun furtively glancing around. A cold wind blew past, branches and leaves swayed lightly, and somewhere in the night came a low, faint sound of ghostly weeping that chilled the heart to hear.

Shangguan Lue's brows were tightly knit, his expression grave. That the unknown murderer's cultivation was profound was one thing—with his own cultivation he would never fear that. But that a person of such cultivation should be so ruthless, and so plainly intent on provoking conflict between the Burning Cloud Valley and the fish-man savages, was truly cause for worry.

Could it be that the Burning Cloud Valley's grand plan, a hundred years in the plotting, had finally leaked out?

At that thought, even Shangguan Lue, for all his profound cultivation and firm mind, could not help but feel a stir of disquiet.

But he was no ordinary man after all. After a moment he had steadied himself, knowing that the mysterious killer was even now lurking in the shadows, watching like a tiger, and that he must not lose his head. And in all these hundreds of years, this was truly the first time anyone had been so brazen as to run wild in the Burning Cloud Valley. If this were not properly punished, he feared that in future every Tom, Dick, and Harry would dare come here to make trouble!

Shangguan Lue composed himself a little, then moved his head slightly to one side. Li Xun understood and stepped forward. Shangguan Lue said coldly, "Pass the order down: every disciple is to be mobilized, sealing off every exit from the valley. In addition, release all the 'Red-Eyed Eagles' to circle overhead. We absolutely cannot let this killer escape."

Li Xun nodded, hesitated a moment, and said in a low voice, "Martial Uncle, what about the Valley Master..."

Shangguan Lue shook his head and said, "Since the Valley Master told you tonight to pass on the order for me to handle this matter, he must still be unable to spare the time. You know how he is..." Halfway through, Shangguan Lue suddenly stopped and glanced up at Li Xun. "Later on, I will naturally go and explain it to him myself."

Li Xun lowered his head and said, "Yes, disciple will go at once." With that he turned and left.

As his tall, imposing figure walked away, the Burning Cloud Valley disciples around him made way one after another. And Yan Fei, who had stood by his side from the very beginning and had heard every word of the exchange between him and Shangguan Lue, watched Li Xun's retreating figure, a strange light seeming to flicker faintly in her bright eyes.

Li Xun's figure quickly vanished into the darkness deep within the Burning Cloud Valley. Over there the fish-men stirred restlessly, and several of them began squeaking and shrieking at once. The tall, hulking fish-man at their head exchanged a few words with the other monsters, then turned back, his face full of fury, and went on and on with "squeak squeak squeak squeak."

Shangguan Lue frowned, and beside him Sun Tu had already translated: "They demand that we hand over the killer of their clan chief at once, or else they will slaughter us all."

Shangguan Lue gave a cold snort and looked at the fish-men with icy eyes. The fish-men were clearly somewhat afraid of him, and for a moment all of them looked taken aback; but once their savage nature got the better of them, more fish-men actually began to roar in fury.

Shangguan Lue knew well that these savage fish-men could not be judged by ordinary reason, and that with great matters imminent in the Burning Cloud Valley, this was no time to fall out with these southern barbarian tribes. Moreover, that peerless figure hidden in the Ten Thousand Savage Mountains was one whom not only he, but even the Valley Master Yun Yifeng, whose cultivation reached the heavens, regarded with a measure of fear.

He was just pondering how to temporarily placate these wild alien tribes when he slowly began, "Gentlemen, for today's affair I, Shangguan Lue, will certainly give you an explanation. But for the time being, I must ask you to bear with being here..."

Before the words were out of his mouth, suddenly, without the slightest warning, the ground beneath their feet trembled violently.

The quake was so fierce and so sudden that many Burning Cloud Valley disciples and fish-men were caught off guard, losing their footing and stumbling to the side.

Shangguan Lue, with his profound cultivation, was naturally not like those ordinary disciples; he steadied himself almost instantly. In his astonishment, his gaze happened to drift sideways, and he saw that Yan Fei, standing beside him, had also lost her balance—though she had regained her footing only a little more slowly than he.

"Ah! The sky—the sky has changed color!"

No one knew who shouted first, but in an instant everyone was looking up at the sky. The pitch-black night sky had suddenly turned red, and countless clouds like burning flames were racing and swirling around some single point, with the faint sound of wind and thunder amid it all—a spectacle of ten thousand phenomena, utterly magnificent.

Shangguan Lue was stunned, his expression changing drastically. Almost instinctively he turned to look—and sure enough, the place those countless flame-hued clouds were swirling around was precisely where the mysterious Mystic Fire Altar stood.

Alarm and fury mingled in Shangguan Lue. Heedless of everything else, he stamped his foot hard, and his body turned to grey light and flew with incomparable speed toward the Mystic Fire Altar. But in the instant his body left the ground, some faint doubt flashed through his mind like lightning—how on earth had Yan Fei's power advanced so rapidly?