劍問蒼天 - 第169章 妖獸 - 翰墨軒

And in midair, as the black qi thickened, there came of a sudden a low roar—like the growl of a savage beast, or an uncanny insect breaking free of its cocoon. All could see plainly that on the pitch-black body of the Beast Sovereign, the skin at his left arm burst open; and from among the countless little swellings that pulsed ceaselessly beneath the skin, another thing slowly thrust itself forth—with hand and fingers, it was the very shape of another arm. And this newborn arm was strong in bone, far larger than the arm it came from, so that one could not begin to imagine how it had ever emerged from the original limb.

Yet this was only the beginning. With burst after low burst, every part of the Beast Sovereign's body seemed to split open, and from each new and varied mass of enormous trunk and limb was born. Nor was it long before these newborn limbs too burst apart, and from them grew yet newer and yet more enormous limbs.

The people upon Receiving-Heaven Peak turned pale with horror and looked at one another. Such monstrous sorcery had not merely never been seen—it had never been so much as heard of. Across the countless ages of the Central Plains, in all the thousands of records and texts, no one had ever set down such a soul-shaking and unheard-of art.

Even Zhenren Daoyan in that moment could not keep from drawing a sharp breath of cold air, staring aghast at that Beast Sovereign—formerly the shape of an ordinary youth—who now seemed to swell without cease; and when at last he stopped splitting, there before Zhenren Daoyan, facing the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation, stood a monster ten zhang tall, with a thousand arms and a hundred heads.

********

At the rear mountain of Receiving-Heaven Peak, within the bounds of Phantom Moon Grotto Heaven.

At this moment the purple pillar of qi still rose from the cave dwelling as before, showing not the least sign of waning. Seen from afar, that pillar was as solid as a thing of substance, auspicious vapor steaming upward in solemn dignity.

And now in the heavens above, more than half the sky was already covered with the qi-swords of the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation; even from this far-off place, Ming Li and Lin Jinghong could feel that surging, raging power of the ancient sword that slays immortals.

Suppressing the faint tremor of the Dragon-Slaying Sword in his hand, Lin Jinghong drew his gaze back from the sky. He was shaken in his heart by the might of the ancient sword that slays immortals, and at the same time his mood had shifted somewhat. Just moments ago, he and Ming Li had come to the very brink of a duel to the death—then of a sudden the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation had stirred to life, a spectacle of ten thousand impressions, and it had frozen them both where they stood. The two had, without a word between them, both halted.

And when one thought on it, the man standing before him must surely be in a far more tangled state of mind. Somehow this thought flashed through Lin Jinghong's heart, and he turned to look at Ming Li.

There he was, a man who looked to have weathered all the sorrows of the world, silently gazing up at the sky—at that splendid, soul-shaking pageant of ten thousand forms.

Heaven and earth fell quietly still; somewhere far off, who knew where, the sound of wind came, and what it carried seemed to be the voice of many years gone by—and, deep within the mind, the images that had echoed there a thousand times over these ten years, each time thought of bringing a fresh pang of grief.

"Ding... ding... ling..."

Faint and remote, like the sound of a wind chime swaying softly in the breeze—whose smiling face was it that turned back amid the chiming? That pale green figure of long ago, that gentle form with its warmth; that little lingering warmth, heaven knows whether it warmed even a few of his desolate, cold nights through all these years.