Chapter 218 — Ambush

But he had taken only half a step when he suddenly drew it back, and at the same time a cold gleam flashed in his right hand: the Ninefold Frost Ice Spike had already appeared in his grip.

Old men, it seemed, were always especially cautious.

At last he took his first step toward that corner.

Outside the room, a gust of chilling wind passed, moaning aloud and setting one's hair on end.

Shangguan Lue was on full guard; not the slightest change in this little room could escape his ears and eyes. But all around was darkness, and beyond the silence there was only silence—not a whisper of sound.

He gave a cold laugh, then suddenly raised his voice: "This old man has long known you are inside this coffin. Old friend, if you do not come out now, do not blame me for beating you together with the coffin and giving you a taste of misery." There was no answer; all around remained silent.

Shangguan Lue snorted in anger. "Playing ghosts and spirits!" With that he hesitated no longer, stepped forward, and at once the silvery-white cold light of the Ninefold Frost Ice Spike surged high, and the air around them turned cold on the instant.

But just as Shangguan Lue was poised to strike, a faint blue light suddenly flew out soundlessly from another corner of the little room, wrapped all about in yin energy, and sped toward Shangguan Lue's back.

Shangguan Lue had been on guard against everything around him, but this sinister魅 formation laid by the demon sorcerer—the yin魅 array—had its own yin force wholly withdrawn, and its entire body could absorb the surrounding yin energy to wrap itself in it. Shangguan Lue's cultivation ran deep, and he could sense every stir of the qi channels in this place—a remarkable divine power, to be sure—but at this moment it became precisely his weakness; the demon sorcerer had seized on this point and launched a sneak attack.

Shangguan Lue sensed nothing amiss around him until that yin魅 came within three feet of his back, when the wind suddenly sharpened and the yin force surged; only then did he start in alarm. In that flash of lightning, his deep cultivation showed itself beyond all doubt: he made a decisive great stride forward, barely opening a little distance in that sliver of a moment, and at the same time the Ninefold Frost Ice Spike darted from his hand to behind him in an instant, a burst of cold light exploding, silvery-white radiance lighting the whole little room—only in this eerie atmosphere the radiance, lovely as it was, now looked deathly pale, truly enough to make one's scalp crawl.

The silver radiance poured from the Ninefold Frost Ice Spike and in a blink became a small shield of light behind Shangguan Lue, and at the most dangerous juncture it flung that yin魅 aside.

But before Shangguan Lue could catch his breath, the great stride he had just taken had fully triggered the sinister魅 formation the demon sorcerer had laid earlier; in an instant blue light flashed from several corners of the little room, and several yin魅 laced with grim ghost qi shot forth. Stranger still, the yin魅 he had just deflected traced a half-circle in midair and, as though drawn by some hand, came soundlessly at Shangguan Lue's back once more.

Caught off guard, Shangguan Lue was thrown into a flurry for a moment, but he was no ordinary man after all. The Ninefold Frost Ice Spike flickered with light, and wherever its icy points turned, in no time the little room seemed to be veiled, from roof to floor, in a thin layer of frost.

And beneath that piercing cold, the yin魅 driven by the strange sorcery seemed to meet great resistance as well; several of the blue-glowing yin魅 slowed one after another, and on those ironlike-yet-not-iron objects a thick layer of ice had formed in that brief space. Their speed was still great, but that brief slackening gave Shangguan Lue room to recover, and at once, amid the pale silver light, came a ringing clang-clang-clang-clang as several yin魅 were struck down to the floor by the Ninefold Frost Ice Spike. As they fell, most likely overcome by the cold of the spike, the yin魅 could be seen beneath the ice to have shattered into several pieces.

Shangguan Lue turned peril into safety at the extreme of danger and broke the demon sorcerer's sinister魅 formation. He could not help laughing aloud, and shouted toward the coffin: "Now you are at your wit's end, are you not? Come out and surrender—" Before the word "capture" could leave his mouth, Shangguan Lue's face suddenly changed, his features contorted, and he let out a roar of extreme agony, his whole body flipping backward; with a thunderous crash he smashed a great hole in the wall and flew out through it. In the space where his body had been, one could plainly see faint pale-blue light flickering at his back: the first yin魅, at some unknown moment, had slipped entirely past his senses and dealt him a grievous wound.

These few heart-stopping moments of fierce combat in the little room—the demon sorcerer and the mysterious, unknown fat man beneath him saw it all clearly through the coffin's seams, especially that last sudden turn, when even one as seasoned as Shangguan Lue had still fallen to a hidden blow.

In the darkness, a trace of admiration actually showed in the mysterious fat man's eyes, and all at once he spoke: "To be able to launch such ghostly things as yin魅 and then take command of them again—such cultivation is rare indeed." It was the first time the demon sorcerer had heard this man speak, and he was startled; but from his tone and the look in his eyes, there seemed for the moment to be no hostility, and in any case his own heart was in turmoil. He gave a bitter laugh, shook his head, and said, "You are wrong." The fat man seemed rather surprised; he paused, then said, "How am I wrong?" The demon sorcerer sighed. "Those sinister魅 formations earlier were indeed laid by me, but that last yin魅 was controlled by another master—it had nothing to do with me." He said resentfully, "If I truly had such cultivation, I would not be trapped here." The fat man frowned and said no more. The demon sorcerer glanced at him; in the space of a few words he had roughly taken the measure of this fat man. The fellow seemed to be in much the same plight as himself, likewise trapped inside this strange coffin, but unlike the demon sorcerer, the fat man clearly had a still more powerful and uncanny force upon him, binding his whole body's qi channels.

The demon sorcerer could not help being secretly alarmed. The restrictions laid upon this coffin he now lay in were so powerful that even with his high cultivation they were still enough to bind him motionless; yet for this fat man, it seemed some people thought even that insufficient, for they had also laid a fearsome, uncanny sorcery upon his person to hold him fast.

Then if this fat man had no restrictions, would not his cultivation be terrifyingly high?

And thinking deeper still—what sort of dreadful figure could subdue such a fat man?

The demon sorcerer's mind was instantly in chaos. The land of the Central Plains, with its hidden dragons and crouching tigers, had far exceeded his expectations.

Just then, from outside the little room came Shangguan Lue's furious roar: "If there is another master here, show yourself and meet me face to face! What sort of hero strikes from behind?" Inside the little room, the demon sorcerer and the fat man exchanged a glance; plainly Shangguan Lue's eyes were keen as torches, and he had seen at once that the one who had struck him down from hiding was not the demon sorcerer but someone else.