Chapter 204 — The Broken Sword

In the Central Plains, outside He Yin City, at an abandoned mortuary.

This mysterious figure had shattered Zhou Yixuan's spell with a single move, cowing the entire scene with a depth of cultivation so absolute it defied estimation. He had even seen through Zhou Yixuan's last-ditch escape art, and in both word and manner this man had not denied even once his mysterious connection to Canglan Gate. Add to that an attainment in the Taiji Xuanqing Dao so inconceivably high, and the origins of this stranger were simply beyond imagining.

Yet as the man's dark silhouette drew closer, a strange, savage aura rolling off him and closing over them, Zhou Yixuan, Xiao Wan, and the Wild Wolf Daoist had no spare thought left for such questions. After breaking Zhou Yixuan's art, the body the man kept hidden in shadow seemed suddenly to be struck by some stimulus, and began to breathe in slow, ragged drafts, his breathing growing steadily heavier.

Zhou Yixuan frowned hard, staring at that figure, and in his eyes there was unexpectedly little fear—rather more of puzzlement. With the height of cultivation this stranger had just displayed, there was no possible way he would be gasping for breath after only a few exchanges. Clearly, the man harbored some hidden malady, or some bizarre affliction, that even one of his profound attainment could not keep in check.

Even so, by outward appearance the stranger showed no sign of weakening—quite the contrary. As the savage aura surged ever higher and the pure, gentle breath of the Taiji Xuanqing Dao sank away, the killing intent and oppressive force that closed over them was worse than before, not less. By now, anyone facing those eyes, flickering with a fierce dark crimson from behind the black qi, would have understood what this stranger meant to do next.

Zhou Yixuan clenched his teeth as though he had made up his mind, and with a sudden yank tried to pull the Wild Wolf Daoist and Xiao Wan behind him. The Wild Wolf Daoist was hauled over, but where Xiao Wan should have been, his hand closed on empty air.

Startled, Zhou Yixuan had not yet turned his head when a figure flashed past, and Xiao Wan was already standing before him, facing the mysterious man. Zhou Yixuan gaped, and heard her cry out urgently:

"Grandpa, go, quickly—I'll hold him off."

Zhou Yixuan snapped angrily, "What do you know? This man's cultivation is no trifling matter—hurry—"

Before the words "come back" could leave his mouth, Xiao Wan had already acted. Facing the mysterious man, the girl who looked so delicate and pure flung both hands up, a book with a black, wordless cover flickering faintly between her fingers, and a moment later the seven mysterious "blood-jade bone shards" Ghost Gentleman had once given her appeared in her hand.

A dark aura, formless yet somehow substantial, burst abruptly out of nothing and descended upon the ruined courtyard. Zhou Yixuan halted in astonishment, and even the mysterious man advancing toward them gave a soft "Eh?" and stopped.

Utterly unlike the savage aura upon the stranger, yet equally steeped in a weird, dark presence, a dense ghostly qi came surging in from every direction. This place had been a mortuary to begin with, its yin energy heavy from the start; now that Xiao Wan had loosed her strange ghost-path art, the air filled at once with wailing ghosts and mournful cold winds—like ten thousand specters howling, enough to send a chill straight through the heart.

The seven blood-jade bone shards drifted slowly up from Xiao Wan's palm, as though guided by an unseen hand, and arranged themselves in a triangle in the air before her. On each shard, the places that looked like bloodstains began slowly to glow a dark red, like seven eyes gradually opening, fixed upon the mysterious figure.

Amid the yin winds that filled the courtyard, the stranger's robes flapped and whistled, yet he seemed wholly untouched by these ghostly spirits and phantoms. The eyes hidden behind the black qi narrowed slightly, and he said suddenly, voice cold: "The art of the ghost path!"

Xiao Wan's brows drew faintly together; her lovely face had gone slightly pale—whether from inexperience at working such a strange art for the first time, or from the natural revulsion and dread a girl feels toward ghosts and spirits, one could not say. But in any case, this ghost-path spell, drawn forth by her for the first time, catalyzed by the ghost-path treasure the blood-jade bone shards, had already taken shape: a layer of deep black qi gathered about her, and as her arms turned, it coalesced into a huge black skull utterly at odds with her own image, a sight grotesque beyond words.

The seven blood-jade shards rose in turn, slowly, and set themselves into the two eye sockets of the skull wrought of black qi. In an instant the skull seemed to come to life: red light blazed from both eyes, its jaw gaped, and a great yin wind rose howling, rolling out like thunder into the distance. A bolt of black qi shot from its mouth with lightning speed, straight at the mysterious man.

The sound of it tearing the air was like the shriek of a whistling arrow, and in a blink it reached the stranger's breast. He turned his body—seemingly slow, yet in that hair's-breadth instant he slipped aside from the fierce ghost-qi arrow, which tore on past, its keening echo still ringing in their ears.

But before he could draw breath, the black skull's mouth spat out another bolt, and another, black and vicious, shrieking through the air at the mysterious figure, each from a slightly different angle—above and below, left and right—leaving him not the least room to turn.

Behind Xiao Wan, Zhou Yixuan and the Wild Wolf Daoist both changed countenance—though not alike. The Wild Wolf Daoist was startled and delighted, having never imagined Xiao Wan's arts could be so formidable; Zhou Yixuan's expression was far more complicated, with little joy in it and much more worry and doubt.

It was at that moment that Zhou Yixuan's face twitched, and he stepped back, turning to look toward another part of the courtyard—not where Xiao Wan and the stranger fought, but rather a place no one had noticed, the ruined house of the mortuary they had just searched.

Deep shadows lay there; yet compared with the ghastly ghost-qi now filling the courtyard, it seemed almost the calmer spot. A moment before, Zhou Yixuan and the Wild Wolf Daoist had peered inside from the doorway: it had long since fallen to ruin, empty of everything but broken tiles and rubble—and several old coffins, battered and decayed, that made for uncomfortable viewing.

And yet it was precisely this that suddenly drew Zhou Yixuan's attention, so that for a moment he did not even notice Xiao Wan locked in fierce combat.

In that ruined house, what was it that had appeared?

Zhou Yixuan stared at it without blinking.

In the courtyard, Xiao Wan's ghost-path art was fearsome in its display, and for a time it wholly overawed the mysterious figure. The black skull she had summoned ceaselessly loosed its vicious ghost-arrows, one after another tearing through the air; not one struck the stranger, but they forced him to dodge without pause, and it seemed that even a man of his unfathomable cultivation was unwilling to meet this bleak and uncanny ghost-path power head-on.

Yet after half a moment, though the black skull shrouding Xiao Wan held firm and the red light in its eyes burned as bright as before, the mysterious man had changed. He seemed to have seen through something; with a cold laugh he suddenly rose and flew straight at Xiao Wan through the rain of ghost-arrows.