Chapter 82 — Ten
劍問蒼天 · Page 7 of 10
To her horror, Zhang Qingyue seemed to hear nothing at all and let Facheng seize the Black Iron Staff. Facheng was overjoyed—but a moment later his expression changed drastically, for a ferocious malevolence came surging off the staff like a tide, and the plain, honest Zhang Qingyue before him suddenly wore a hideous grin, the grin of a malevolent ghost.
"Aah!" Facheng screamed in agony as Zhang Qingyue struck him full in the chest with the Black Iron Staff; spewing blood, he was sent flying backward.
Zhang Qingyue threw back his head and howled at the sky, his eyes blood-red, then hurled himself into the fray and fought his way to Bili's side. The Black Iron Staff blazed crimson, as though it too were exulting, and together with its master it laughed wildly as it lunged toward death and blood.
Lu Xueqi and the others fell back one after another; whatever else, facing Zhang Qingyue they still could not bring themselves to strike with full force. But Zhang Qingyue now seemed utterly lost to madness, his eyes burning with boundless hatred, every move aimed at taking life, and within moments he had driven them all back.
Bili was overjoyed; she seized Zhang Qingyue and said, "Let's go!"
The two of them shot into the air and flew out of the hall.
And at that moment in the sky above, qi-swords filled the heavens like mountains and seas, and the Shixian Sword Formation had already begun its assault on the demonic sect. This time Daoist Daoyan seemed to have cast all caution aside: not only did the rain of swords come screaming down, but the enormous seven-colored master sword in the sky was itself driven by invisible incantatory force, rumbling downward with the momentum to split heaven and shatter earth.
The power of that formation's master sword was no trifling thing; in a single strike, flesh and blood flew across a span of several zhang, and nearly ten men were annihilated before they could even cry out. Even the residual force of it was enough—Yuyang Zi, unable to dodge in time, had his left arm sheared clean off and fled shrieking through the air as a bolt of piercing light.
At the same time, high in the sky, Daoist Daoyan was utterly spent; he swayed and nearly fell from the water qilin, barely managing to hold himself upright. Looking down, he saw that in that brief space the demonic sect had for the most part fled, though a few still remained on Jietian Peak—and the last of them was Zhang Qingyue, with Bili urgently pulling him away in flight.
Hovering in midair, Daoyan had already seen Zhang Qingyue fall into the demonic path; in the exchange just now with Facheng, Lu Xueqi and the others, his strikes had been ruthless and without mercy, and his manner was now deranged—plainly beyond all reasoning.
Yet this man carried within him the true arts of both the Canglan Sect and the Fanyin Temple, and in his hand was an evil relic such as the world had never seen. If the tiger were loosed back to the mountains, the slaughter he might wreak in days to come would surely far exceed that of any common demonic cultivator.
Daoyan sighed softly in his heart, but in that instant his mind was made up. Even if the world should speak ill of him hereafter, he could never leave this peerless calamity alive.
Thereupon Daoist Daoyan gathered his last reserves of spiritual power; in an instant every colored qi-sword in the sky blazed with light, and the formation's seven-colored master sword in particular abruptly swelled by half again, then came roaring down with a crash that shook heaven and earth, plunging straight at Zhang Qingyue like an ancient god in a fury!
"Ah!" It was not only the demonic sect who paled; on the righteous side, every soul in the Fanyin Temple and the Canglan Sect turned ashen. Tian Buhui and Su Wan went white, and Tian Lingsu gave a shriek and fainted away.
Beside them, Lu Xueqi clutched the Tianya Divine Sword tightly, her face bloodless, and even the Tianya in her hand trembled faintly.