Chapter 40 — Reunion
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
Lu Xueling's face was white as paper. She watched the hideous, leering faces the yin spirits conjured beyond the ring, watched them open their vast, insubstantial maws. Her whole body felt as though it had sunk into an ice cellar.
Just then, she suddenly heard it — beside her, the unconscious Zhang Qingyue mumbled something indistinct.
Lu Xueling whipped her head around. No words could describe what she felt then. All this while she had fought these yin spirits alone; suddenly hearing a companion's voice, a joy she had never known welled up in her heart.
But before she could make out Zhang Qingyue's face, catastrophe struck. The hard ground on which they sat suddenly split open beneath Zhang Qingyue, without a sound, into a great pit — and he dropped straight down.
Lu Xueling froze. The pit was pitch black, its depths impossible to gauge — save that deep within it, a pair of enormous, horrifying blood-red eyes blinked, and blinked again!
The next instant, without a moment's hesitation, the ring of light from the divine sword Tianxuan dissolved. Amid the howling of the spirits that filled the sky, Lu Xueling pulled Tianxuan free, and without another word flung herself down into that deep, dark pit!
A moment later, every yin spirit in the air followed her in, their piercing shrieks echoing through the cavern.
Dull impacts sounded within the pit; then, amid the spirits' surging howls, a sharp and piercing long bellow suddenly broke out.
"Awoo—"
The cry was anguished, and rather resembled the furious roar of a wounded wild boar. A moment later a huge shape leapt first from the pit, and after it countless yin spirits burst forth, filling the sky in flight.
In that fitful ghost-light, Lu Xueling climbed out of the pit supporting Zhang Qingyue with her left hand. A streak of bright red blood ran from the corner of her mouth, and her entire left side was soaked crimson — clearly she too had been wounded.
Zhang Qingyue could only stand now by leaning on Lu Xueling, but his eyes were open, and the black iron staff had kindled again — faint, yet still shedding its dark cyan glow.
These two young ones, man and woman, in this dark world, propped each other up and leaned on each other.
Lu Xueling looked at the yin spirits wheeling through the air in fury yet still not daring to swoop down, and a strange joy suddenly rose in her heart. Though danger was not yet past, it was truly good to have someone standing at her side.
Then their eyes fell on that vast shadow ahead. Against the white light the spirits gave off, and after catching a stench of decay so overpowering it turned the stomach, they saw the demon beast's form.
It was a monstrous beast fully two men tall, with a pig's head and a dog's body, long sharp tusks, and hide all of dusky red-black, its bristles standing erect like steel needles. Its great eyes showed blood-red in the dark — somewhat resembling, in fact, the crimson demon eyes of Old Master Chi of the demon cult.
Just now the beast lay panting hoarsely in the distance. Beneath its filthy black pelt, the flesh of its left forepaw was torn open — plainly Lu Xueling's work. And it glared straight at these two humans who had wounded it, its eyes shooting forth a hatred to the bone, as though it would swallow them whole and think it far too good for them!
The yin spirits flew through the sky, some passing close by the beast, yet none attacked it. Plainly the two parties had always kept to their own waters.
Lu Xueling felt aches and weariness over her whole body, and came near to wishing she could simply collapse and sleep, and think of nothing more. But after several struggles she still forced herself upright and said softly to Zhang Qingyue, "There are too many demon beasts and yin spirits here. Who knows what else may come out before long. We retreat first."