劍問蒼天 - 第103章 魚怪 - 翰墨軒

Ming Li's expression changed. With a soft cry, the azure light beneath his feet blazed brighter, and he plunged down from the heights.

The keen azure light descended from the sky, trailing a fierce wind, skimming over the green grass and the ponds. The invisible wind pressed the sea of grass and the pond water aside, raising ripples across the surface.

Soon Ming Li caught sight of the mustering place of the Hades King Sect's forces. Many people were still gathered there, and it seemed at least most of them were safe and sound. Half his worry eased.

By then the Hades King Sect disciples had spotted Ming Li descending from the sky, and rose to their feet one after another.

Ming Li landed and stood upon the ground, but his first reaction was to knit his brows even tighter. The smell of blood here was overpoweringly thick—clearly, the scent he had caught high in the air had come from this very place.

The Hades King Sect disciples around him stood with heads bowed and hands at their sides. In these years Ming Li had not killed wantonly, but his cultivation of the demon path had greatly changed his temper, and a coldness often radiated from him unbidden. Within the Hades King Sect, apart from the sect master himself, the one the ordinary disciples feared and revered most was this rising man.

At that moment one man stepped out from the crowd—a young man with sword-shaped brows and starry eyes, quite handsome. It was Yan Hui.

He came forward, bowed to Ming Li, and said, "Vice Sect Master, you have returned."

Ming Li nodded. "What has happened here?"

Yan Hui hesitated, at a loss for words, and signaled with his eyes. Ming Li understood and walked forward. Yan Hui glanced around and said loudly, "The Vice Sect Master has returned! Everyone hold your posts—there is no need for alarm."

At once the company answered in unison, and then dispersed.

Yan Hui quickened his pace to catch up with Ming Li, and said in a low voice, "Follow me, sir."

With that, he strode off toward a secluded spot to the right. The two walked a while and came to a place where the grass grew thick, the wild growth standing half a man's height, and though there was no one about, the smell of blood in the air grew ever heavier.

Ming Li looked at Yan Hui, whose own face had gone slightly pale. In a low voice he said, "See for yourself." And stepping to the edge of that thicket, he reached out and parted the grass.

Ming Li walked slowly forward and peered into the grass, and in an instant his expression changed utterly. From the outside the thicket looked no different from the ground around it, but its heart had been dyed a brilliant crimson with human blood, and the stench of it struck the nostrils and turned the stomach. There beneath the dense growth lay thirteen human skeletons, their deaths too horrible to look upon; almost every body had been hacked into several pieces.

For all that Ming Li had dwelt these years among the Demonic Cult and grown used to seas of blood and storms of carnage, such cruelty as this he had never seen.

He closed his eyes and steadied himself, and his face returned to calm; then he went slowly forward and examined the remains one by one.

Yan Hui followed behind him and said softly, "These disciples were posted here last night as sentries. This place lies farthest from where our main force is camped; it was the farthest outpost we set, and these men were seasoned and capable. Yet in a single night, without a sound, every one of them was slaughtered."

Ming Li's face was grim, his gaze growing colder by degrees. Slowly he said, "Who did this? Have you any notion?"

Yan Hui did not answer at once, but said, "Deputy Sect Leader, come over here and look."

Ming Li glanced at him, and saw Yan Hui stepping over those hideous corpses and walking deeper into the grass. Farther in there lay another body, but this one was comparatively whole, save that the left hand was gone, no one knew where.