Chapter 203 — The Mysterious Figure

The Wild Wolf Daoist started and retreated a few steps by instinct. He had just meant to ask Zhou Yixuan what was wrong when he saw the man's palm suddenly clench, and the beast-fang treasure gave out a harsh "kaka" sound, like bones grinding. The Wild Wolf Daoist recoiled in horror, and saw the yellow light surge wildly and then at once scatter. Amid the "kaka" sounds, like the final moan of a savage beast in its death throes, there came a "hong"—and the Wild Wolf Daoist's beast-fang treasure was crushed to powder by that man's bare hand. The shards flew outward like blades, and in an instant the "duo duo" of their impact rang out without cease, every one of them striking the spot where the Wild Wolf Daoist had just been standing.

The Wild Wolf Daoist was both heartsore and terrified, and for a moment could not speak. The eerie figure's face was still shrouded in a cloud of mysterious shadow even now, and the three of them could not make out his features. They only heard his voice, low and hoarse, as he slowly raised his head to look at the sky—yet the dark aura and shadow on his face did not recede, indescribably strange. Having destroyed the beast-fang, he seemed to feel some sort of release, and began slowly to laugh coldly. Hearing it, set against this eerie mortuary and the howling yin-wind that filled the air, Zhou Yixuan and the other two all felt their hair stand on end.

Zhou Yixuan was stewing in unease when his gaze suddenly fixed on the strange man's arm. On the hand that had crushed the beast-fang, a faint layer of blue light had at some point arisen—and that blue light was utterly different from the aura that pervaded the man's body: pure and gentle, it was the very height of the purest, most refined true Daoist arts.

Zhou Yixuan raised his head in astonishment and took a step forward, forgetting his caution for the moment and ignoring Xiao Wan's and the Wild Wolf Daoist's surprised attempts to hold him back. "Who exactly are you, sir? You wear the Canglan Sect's robe, and you cultivate the Taiji Mystic Pure Dao at no lower than the Shangqing stage—which master of the Canglan Sect are you, to be doing such absurd things at such a time?"

The blue light flashed and was gone. The man slowly turned his gaze toward Zhou Yixuan, and through that layer of blurred, eerie black aura on his face, Zhou Yixuan felt a chill run through his whole body. The man said coldly, in that hoarse voice: "You know a great deal."

Zhou Yixuan gave a humph, his expression grave, and kept studying the man, the bewilderment on his face growing deeper and deeper. "You are indeed of the Canglan Sect, sir, and certainly no ordinary disciple. But who are you, and for what reason do you play these tricks here?"

The man gave a cold laugh and did not answer. Zhou Yixuan suddenly sensed something and looked back—it was Xiao Wan, gently tugging at his sleeve. She whispered: "Grandfather, this man reeks of ghostly aura—I can feel it. There isn't a single wandering spirit left anywhere around this mortuary; I fear he's scared them all away. If not for that, I would have known something was wrong here long ago. How could a man like this be of the Canglan Sect?"

Zhou Yixuan's face shifted through uncertain expressions, his look complex, his thoughts clearly somewhat tangled. Facing this mysterious figure who was yet so inextricably linked to the Canglan Sect, he seemed, oddly enough, not to show the usual fear, and even appeared somewhat lost in thought.

The eerie figure's attention was now slowly gathering on Zhou Yixuan. He looked him up and down a few times, then suddenly gave a cold laugh and said in a chilling voice: "Whoever you are, whoever dares defy me—dies."

The words had scarcely fallen when his hand was already raised. Zhou Yixuan saw the blue light flare in his palm and went pale; before he could even speak, he suddenly swept both hands up before his chest—and between the index and middle fingers of each hand there appeared a yellow paper talisman, covered in crooked, twisting, strange sigils that fluttered faintly in the wind.

The blue light in the mysterious figure's palm was growing brighter and brighter, aimed at Zhou Yixuan and the others. Zhou Yixuan did not hesitate. Suddenly he began to murmur an incantation, and instead of retreating he stepped forward—and as he stepped, with each word of the spell, the two yellow talismans burst into flame of their own accord. Two small fires blazed up in the darkness of the night, seeming especially bright.

This strange act seemed to give the mysterious man opposite pause, or perhaps to stir some memory in him, for his movement faltered slightly, and he could be heard to utter a faint, startled "Eh?"

As the talismans burned and Zhou Yixuan's white beard streamed in the wind, he suddenly gave a great shout and flung out both hands. The two balls of fire drifted from his fingers and hung suspended in midair—and then, with a great "hong," the two small flames swelled in the wind into a roaring blaze several chi across, planting itself between Zhou Yixuan and the mysterious man.

"Hou a—!" A roar split the air, and out of the blazing fire leaped a huge white-browed tiger, full of martial vigor, its great maw opened wide as it loosed roar after earth-shaking roar, then sprang with a thunderous bound at the black-shadowed man.

The mysterious man gave a cold humph and did not give an inch. Blue light flashed from his right hand and slashed straight down—however fierce the tiger's charge, that palm struck it squarely on the forehead, and the blue light in an instant ate its way in. The white tiger seemed to struggle still, claws and fangs bared, but a moment later, after one last resentful roar, blue light suddenly shone out from every part of its body. Then it shuddered once, and that vast frame dissolved into nothing, becoming a few wisps of dying flame that flickered twice in the air and vanished.

Yet the white-browed tiger was not the end. Almost at the same moment the tiger vanished, from that great mass of flame there came into being a red-maned lion, which with a lion's roar lunged once more at the mysterious man. But the man was clearly of exceedingly high cultivation; he scarcely even gave it a proper look, and brought down the same palm strike—and the lion's fate was the same as the white-browed tiger's.

Yet the strange art Zhou Yixuan had employed this time was truly uncanny. Though the beasts conjured forth could not withstand a single blow from the enemy, from that roaring blaze came beast after beast of wondrous form—and after the great tiger and the lion, they came ever more numerous and ever faster: wild boars, leopards, river horses, giant elephants, spirit deer, mountain cats, and more, emerging endlessly, each of monstrous size beyond the ordinary and fierce in the extreme.

But the mysterious figure they faced now seemed truly to possess godlike, unfathomable skill. Faced with this endless, bewildering parade of monsters, he did not even draw a heavy breath, but merely waved his arm as though casually, and wherever his palm edge passed, the fiercest and most savage of beasts dissolved into nothing.

In the midst of the fierce fighting, the mysterious man suddenly gave a cold humph, as though sensing something. In an instant he changed his downward strike into a sweeping arc, and blue light blazed forth—a bright column like a wheel, crushing straight across, mighty and majestic, mowing down all before it. The roaring blaze met that blue pillar of light, held for a moment or two, and was at last pierced clean through and run right past.

In midair, it seemed as though ten thousand beasts roared out in fury all at once, but the next instant the sound was cut off utterly, the flames vanished, and in the wavering firelight only two yellow paper talismans, nearly burned through, drifted slowly down from the air.