劍問蒼天 - 第151章 煉獄 - 翰墨軒

Mount Huqi, the seat of the Demonic Cult's Hall of the Underworld King, lay shrouded in a killing chill. A sect that had once been mighty had in an instant lost more than half its people—a blow grievous beyond measure to any powerful house under heaven. So many hot-blooded disciples had marched out burning with fighting spirit, and when the ranks came home again, only one man returned: the Underworld King himself, drenched in blood.

A shadow that would not disperse showed on every face and in every heart on Mount Huqi. No one knew who the cruel and vicious beast demons would choose as their next quarry.

After the Underworld King returned, he shut himself away to recuperate, and none dared question him. But the wait was not long. News came back piece by piece, and the matter gradually grew clear. In that great war in the southwest, the three great factions of the Demonic Cult had joined forces against the beast demons—an unprecedented thing. As for why the three factions had formed a secret alliance, or what other schemes they harbored, likely no one but the Underworld King knew.

And the outcome of that great war could be called the most bitter defeat the Demonic Cult had suffered in a thousand years. The Hall of the Underworld King had lost more than half its people; the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect had first been gravely weakened by internal strife, and afterward, when the beast demons broke into Viper Valley, the surviving masters and disciples had been all but wiped out. As for the ever-lurking Sect of Lost Souls, for reasons unknown it too had thrown the full strength of its sect into the war, and its fate had been annihilation before the endless horde of beast demons.

At this moment, the gravely weakened Hall of the Underworld King was seized with terror from top to bottom, yet even so its situation was far better than that of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect and the Sect of Lost Souls. Most of the Hall's masters had remained on Mount Huqi, so its core strength was in fact intact; whereas after this one battle, no one even knew whether anyone from the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect or the Sect of Lost Souls had escaped alive.

One day, after many days of recuperation, amid the anxious speculation of his disciples, the Underworld King appeared once more before the disciples of the Hall. Of the crushing defeat just suffered, he said not a word; instead he issued a series of orders, blunt and direct, and soon the whole belly of Mount Huqi was in turmoil.

Everyone began packing their belongings, bundling their things, preparing dry rations and clean water, for the last of the Underworld King's orders made one thing clear: with beast demons running rampant through the Central Plains and the Holy Cult gravely wounded, he had decided, for the sake of the Cult's future, that the entire Hall of the Underworld King would march northwest together into that vast wilderness ten thousand li across, to the place said to be the birthplace of the Holy Cult—the Savage Hall.

Amid the bustle and confusion, the Underworld King, his face expressionless, walked with his hands clasped behind his back deep into the mountain's belly, toward the Cold Ice Stone Chamber. The journey would be ten thousand li, and the savage lands were desolate and scorching; in Bi Li's present condition, a long journey there was unwise. His original intent had been to entrust Bi Li to Xiao Bai's care—with the thousand-year cultivation of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, and the layered traps of Mount Huqi, nothing could have gone wrong. But now matters had changed. Since his return, Xiao Bai had somehow vanished from this place; he had asked several people, and all of them knew nothing of where she had gone.

At the thought, the Underworld King's brows drew slightly together, and he found that he had unknowingly arrived outside the Cold Ice Stone Chamber where his daughter lay. He sighed, opened the door, and went in.