Chapter 130 — The Sinister Forest
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 6
Xiaobai, sitting to one side, spoke suddenly. "Great Shaman, what was the name of that shamaness in the old days? I truly admire her!"
The Great Shaman's face shifted. He sighed, slowly straightened his back, and a look of reverence rose upon his features. Slowly he said:
"That lady's name was Linglong!"
Daylight never reached this place. Tall black trees tangled one upon another, the bones of men and beasts lay strewn everywhere through the forest, and phosphorescent light flickered among the stark white skeletons—all this was what Jin Pingyue now faced.
Ever since she had tracked the demon shaman into the mysterious, sinister world of the Hundred Thousand Savage Mountains, crossed two ranges of perilous peaks, and entered a vast dark forest, this was the scene that had spread before her.
It was her third day in the dark forest.
Ahead, the darkness seemed without end, still as though congealed. Across Jin Pingyue's alluring face crept a faint anxiety. She took a step, and something gave a soft sound beneath her foot. Looking down, she saw a bleached human skull roll away across the ground—how many years had its owner lain dead here?
Jin Pingyue sighed and nudged the skull aside with her toe.
Though she had steeled herself before entering the Hundred Thousand Savage Mountains, Jin Pingyue had still not expected such strangeness and peril. Everywhere was deadly miasma, and one careless step could mean death. Along the way she had indeed met many monsters such as she had never heard of—though "monsters" was hardly the right word, for most seemed to have mutated from fierce beasts: tigers and leopards fused into one body, boars and bears joined together, and the like. Yet they did not resemble the fish-folk she had seen before, those somewhat cleverer alien races.
Fierce as these creatures were, they were so only by ordinary standards. To Jin Pingyue, born of the Enchanting Soul Sect of the demon cult, they were not hard to deal with, and she had made her way fairly easily. It was the poison and miasma everywhere that kept her on edge each day, never daring to relax for an instant.
The demon shaman she tracked from afar had evidently never imagined anyone would follow him into the Hundred Thousand Savage Mountains, and so to this point Jin Pingyue had not lost him. But the vicious dragon at his side was a true headache. However she concealed herself, the moment she drew near the demon shaman, that preternaturally keen dragon would grow wary, and after several such attempts Jin Pingyue no longer dared approach him at all.
Now, relying on the secret tracking arts of the Enchanting Soul Sect, she trailed the demon shaman from a distance. Since they had entered the dark forest one after the other, in three days the demon shaman had never once rested, pressing on through the trees at the same unvarying pace.
Jin Pingyue's cultivation ran deep, and three days without rest was still bearable for her, though she could not help feeling somewhat weary. But the demon shaman ahead seemed scarcely human, walking on at that same unchanging speed.
The phosphorescence flickering in the dark forest was like ghost-light wavering in the gloom, or like silent eyes in the unseen dark, watching this woman who had trespassed here.
Suddenly a roar burst from the darkness, and a monster with a pig's head and a bear's body charged out from the side, lunging at Jin Pingyue. Her brow furrowed; she sprang into the air, and her pale hand swept down in midair—a brilliant purple gleam flashed once and again in the darkness.
The Purple Edge!
The monster hurtled past where Jin Pingyue had stood and ran on several more paces. Then it gave a strange, long howl, and at the same moment its whole body gave a soft, muffled report—"bang"—and blood sprayed everywhere. The creature split in two from the middle and fell to the ground, twitched twice, and lay still.