Chapter 136 — Soul Summoning
劍問蒼天 · Page 3 of 6
Mingli's heart gave a leap, and a buzzing seemed to sound in his mind. A dread like needles piercing to the bone flashed through him. He held his breath and braced the shaman with greater force, then bent to look: the shaman's face was ashen beyond description, but his mouth was slightly open and he was still breathing—clearly from sheer exhaustion.
Only then did Mingli's heart settle back into place. At the same moment, he realized with a start that in that brief instant his own brow and back had broken out in sweat as well.
Beside him, almost at the same moment, came the sound of Hades letting out a long breath. Clearly, even he had been given a fright. In that moment, these two men who looked down upon the whole world were both trembling with fear over a single movement of a dying old man.
The shaman gasped for a long while before his spirits seemed to recover somewhat. He nodded to Mingli, signaling him to let him sit. Mingli's heart was in turmoil; seeing the shaman's condition, he was truly afraid the old man might die from one careless moment. Yet even with all his worry, there was nothing to be done. He could only follow the shaman's instructions and help him sit—at the very top of Bili's platform.
The shaman drew a deep breath and looked forward. Before him lay a blood array now wholly joined together, its crimson channels spread across the floor, holding countless streams of blood captive within. And that fresh, vivid blood, as though moved by some invisible force, on the smooth ground all began at once to flow in the same direction, not a single thread straying beyond the vein-like brushstrokes.
From this end it flowed to that, then from the linked channels circulated back, forming a complete celestial circuit, ceaseless and unending, turning without rest.
Behind the shaman, Mingli and Hades exchanged a glance. Both men were great masters of the cultivation arts, and in their eyes now there was astonishment.
The shaman pondered a moment, then stretched out a withered hand and picked up the red brush that had fallen beside him. He held it upright before him, the red fine hairs pointing downward. From the brush still clung residual drops of blood, beading into pearls that struggled and lingered a moment upon the hairs before falling silently into the river of blood before him.
The shaman's gaze did not waver, and his heavy breathing suddenly fell still. Within the stone chamber, all at once, there was calm.
His brows slowly drew upward, and into those dull eyes a light gradually kindled. And the blood in the array before him seemed likewise to have been provoked, for its rushing current suddenly quickened.
The hand holding the red brush slowly descended and soon touched the ground, three inches before the outermost river of blood. The slender red hairs met the floor and did not bend; the whole surface suddenly seemed to turn soft as water, and the red brush sank slowly and soundlessly into the ground.
The atmosphere in the stone chamber slowly turned eerie. As the rivers of blood ran faster and faster, a faint whistling began to rise. Thin blood-mist, as the red brush sank deeper, gradually rose from the array, and in a little while merged with the pale white vapor emanating from the cold ice platform, encircling Bili's body.
Hades and Mingli stared fixedly, not blinking, at the scene.
The shaman released the red brush, and a low voice of incantation began to echo through the stone chamber. From between his cracked lips, faint yet ceaseless, came strange sound after strange sound. His hands seemed to follow some inexplicable melody, rising slowly into the air, fingers curled into claws, waving gently.
The whistling in the stone chamber grew louder and louder. On the floor, the blood rivers of the array were now churning, wave surging over wave in a mad torrent, and gusts of ghostly power came howling out from those bloody channels.