劍問蒼天 - 第150章 瘋狂 - 翰墨軒

How much time passed, no one could say, before the heavy stone door opened once more and Mingli slowly emerged from the ice-cold stone chamber, looking somewhat more haggard than before. He had taken only a few steps from the chamber when he suddenly stopped. In the passage not far outside the chamber, the white figure of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox still waited patiently.

Xiaobai looked at him and sighed. "Seeing Bili like that must be very hard for you," she said. "It truly is a burden you bear."

Mingli shook his head woodenly. "I'm fine," he said.

Xiaobai walked to his side and patted his shoulder. "Don't lose heart," she said softly. "There is always hope."

Mingli's body gave a jolt; he turned to look at her, his mouth slightly open. But seeing his expression, Xiaobai had already forestalled him with a bitter smile. "Don't ask me," she said. "I don't know what to do either."

Mingli's face darkened at once. He turned away silently and was about to step forward when suddenly there was a buzz in his head, and he felt the world spin around him. In an instant his whole body turned ice-cold, and a frigid breath surged up violently through the meridians within him. Mingli was profoundly alarmed; the icy breath running riot in his body was the strange power of the Blood-Devouring Bead, with which he was all too familiar. But in the past—especially after he had cultivated the true methods of the three volumes of the Heavenly Book and his cultivation had advanced greatly—this icy breath had gradually been brought under his control and no longer stirred. He could not understand why today it should suddenly erupt like this.

Within moments, beneath Xiaobai's astonished gaze, the blood drained entirely from Mingli's face, which looked as though it had been coated in frost. Moreover, within a radius of three feet around his body, he was gradually enveloped in a bizarre dark green glow emanating from his flesh, within which there lurked a faint, ferocious taste of blood-devouring.

Xiaobai's expression changed. She reached out at once to steady Mingli, but the moment her hand touched that dark green radiance, she felt a devouring demonic force rush at her from the strange light. Frowning deeply, Xiaobai retreated three steps in succession before she evaded the force. Meanwhile Little Grey, who had been lying on Mingli's shoulder, had already sensed that something was wrong and leaped clear of him early, landing behind Xiaobai, his three eyes wide as he stared blankly at his master.

Pain spread across Mingli's face. His sleeve suddenly stirred, an icy breath flashed, and the Soul-Devouring Demon Staff slid out—yet it did not fall to the ground, but floated before him, slowly rotating, as though gazing with a strange, cold eye upon the man who had possessed it for so many years.

The flickering dark green radiance pulsed erratically, and the air was thick with an uncanny atmosphere. Xiaobai's face was pale, her brows tightly knit. But this blood-devouring demonic force was emanating from within Mingli's own body; even if she wished to help him and dispel this sudden demonic power, its root lay within Mingli himself—how could she strike at it? For a moment, Xiaobai too was at a loss.

Just as Mingli's face grew paler and paler, until he seemed scarcely able to breathe, a warm, pure-yang red light suddenly shot from his chest, at once holding back much of the yin-cold demonic force. Mingli's expression shifted; he forced himself to sit, and in an instant golden and azure light flickered across his face together. As the two great true methods of the Orthodox path within him were urged forth at once, the pure-yang fire of the "Mystic Fire Mirror" blazed ever stronger, gradually suppressing this yin-cold breath. But by the time Mingli had fully recovered, half an hour had passed.

By now Mingli was drenched all over, and when he opened his eyes, what he saw was Xiaobai's anxious gaze.