Chapter 125 — Heartbreak
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
In Qili Tong, the battle grew fiercer still. The great shaman on the mountain platform, though hard-pressed, under the urging of his mysterious shamanic power, made the black staff inlaid with bone jade give off ever stronger red rays, shrouding the entire valley of Qili Tong. Beneath the terrifying assault of the enormous fireballs in the sky, he still held on with all his strength.
Several times the red curtain trembled violently, and it seemed it must collapse under the impact of the giant fireballs; yet each time the great shaman danced and gestured, performing bizarre movements, and somehow he held on. But no one stood close enough—otherwise they would have seen that on the great shaman's deeply wrinkled face, blood now flowed from all seven orifices; he had likely reached the end of his strength.
And in the valley, the fighting between the Miao and Li warriors was turning ever more against the Miao.
The Miao warriors, who had once revered the great shaman as a god, now saw with their own eyes that he was being suppressed by that devil-like figure in the sky. Add to that the Dog God's Barking at Heaven, a portent of great misfortune seen but once in a thousand years, and thoughts of despair echoed in every heart. The Li warriors, by contrast, were fired with fighting spirit, their eyes red with slaughter.
Ming Li stood at a distance, his brows tightly knit. The spells cast by that mysterious figure in the sky were exceedingly rare and strange; above all, within the flames there was a thread of uncanny black fire, such as he had never heard of in all his days—and even in the collected scriptures of the Mingwang Sect, there was no record of it.
That such a figure should exist in the southern borderlands—truly the world is vast, and hidden dragons and crouching tigers are everywhere.
Seeing the great shaman gradually failing, Ming Li was about to fly up to his aid when he suddenly heard screams break out in the distance, mostly the voices of women and children. He turned to look, and saw that near the hill where the Miao women and children had been hiding, a band of Li warriors had somehow found them; at once it was like sheep falling to wolves, a storm of blood and gore.
Ming Li's body shook. In these ten years he had seen countless scenes of bloodshed, but he had never killed innocent folk with no power to resist. Somehow, at this moment, the cries of those women and children stabbed into the depths of his heart like a sharp sword...
In his boyhood—that scene of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, that tragedy in Liumiao Village—had those kin and neighbors he had grown up watching also died like this...
Xiaobai, standing to one side, suddenly turned her head. A thick, bloody killing aura was slowly seeping from the man beside her.
His eyes had suddenly turned red.
Among the Miao, a woman screamed as a Li warrior cut her down. Behind her a small child, his face a mask of terror, mouth wide open, ran with great strides, yet could make no sound—because he was the mute boy who had brought Ming Li his food.
The killer, his face splashed with blood, grinned and gave chase. In a few steps he was behind the child, raising his sharp stone axe high, and brought it down with all his force.
The child fell weakly. In the last moment of life, his mouth opened wide in despair.
Bang!
Blood sprayed in every direction, blooming sudden and bright in the night. A body so strong burst apart in an instant, scattering down like rain. Ming Li, bathed in the sea of blood and the reek of gore, his eyes red, drew a deep breath.
He raised his face to the sky and let out a long howl!
The sound was so wretched and shrill, like the despairing cry of a fierce ghost, the struggle of ten years sunk in darkness, rising straight into the blue heaven.
All who heard were shaken to the core!