Chapter 80 — The Eighth Chapter
劍問蒼天 · Page 3 of 7
The demonic cultivators brought out every bizarre and outlandish treasure they possessed; by contrast, most of the Canglan elders wielded immortal swords. But in the hands of elders who had cultivated the Supreme Mystery of the Great Ultimate Purity to the Shangqing realm, those sword-gleams swept boundless and transformed without limit; had the demonic masters not been so many, they might well not have fallen into disadvantage at all.
Still, though Tian Buhui and the others could yet hold, the situation among the ordinary Qingyun disciples below was desperate. The demonic cult had made careful arrangements for this great assault, and the Nether King in particular had laid detailed plans, counting on the fact that because Zhang Qingyue carried a strange treasure and the Fanyin Temple's un-transmitted dharma, the Canglan masters would surely gather at the Jade Balance Hall. So in dealing with the Qingyun disciples, following Daoist Cangyan's report, they had concealed masters in ambush and struck suddenly, and the effect was indeed remarkable: the Qingyun disciples fell into confusion, with countless dead and wounded.
Only, the Nether King had not reckoned with one thing—the Canglan Sect's guardian spirit beast, the Water Qilin.
Since the passing of Patriarch Qingye a thousand years before, the Water Qilin had kept to the Emerald Pool, free and at ease, and had never truly shown its might. Even in the great battle at the foot of Mount Canglan a hundred years ago, the Water Qilin had not come down the mountain to fight, and so the Canglan Sect of this generation, Daoist Cangyan included, knew not what the Water Qilin's power truly was.
But roused by the strife between the demonic cult and the Qingyun disciples, the Water Qilin, as the mountain's guardian spirit beast, naturally flew into a fury and struck. This sudden turn nearly changed the whole course of the battle.
The Water Qilin stood in the now churning Emerald Pool, the whole of the pool's waters swirling urgently around the great beast. A dozen columns of water, each as thick as a man's embrace, were raised from around the Water Qilin by this thousand-year spirit beast through its spiritual power, and among them, faintly, were mingled countless resentful spirits and ghosts of those the Qilin had devoured in ages past, striking out on every side against the demonic cultists.
At first the demonic cultists paid the strange beast no mind and swarmed to attack it, only to be shattered at a touch of those water columns. The Water Qilin's might was astonishing; in moments seven or eight were crushed to death by the columns, and seven or eight more perished, trapped by the resentful spirits in the water. The demonic cultivators were stricken with terror and scattered in flight, while the Qingyun disciples took heart.
In a short while this turn roused the four great sect masters of the demonic cult still upon the Jade Balance Hall. First they sent down several masters, and at last even the Fairy Sanmiao and the Poison God came down in turn; only then was the situation steadied and the Water Qilin gradually hemmed in.
The Fairy Sanmiao and the Poison God were each masters of one of the four great sects, persons of no small consequence, and their cultivation far surpassed that of the other demonic masters. Once the two entered the fray, the Fairy Sanmiao wielded a strange, soft white thread, well-nigh invisible to the eye; she danced it fine and delicate, as though weaving an unseen net. Several times the Water Qilin drove its water columns to charge, fierce beyond compare, yet they were blocked by that soft, invisible net and dissolved into nothing.
As for the Poison God, after watching the Water Qilin and the Fairy Sanmiao trade blows a while, he nodded, drew from his bosom a small knife half a foot long, its clear light flowing, and gripped it in his right hand, while in his left he held a jade bottle. He pulled out the stopper—who could say what was within?