劍問蒼天 - 第172章 噬血 - 翰墨軒

Canglan Mountain, the Heaven-Reaching Peak.

Before the Phantom Moon Cave, Ming Li, Lu Xueling, and Lin Jinghong stood facing one another. The atmosphere, already delicate enough, seemed in an instant to have frozen solid; all three of them, in that same moment, fixed every shred of their attention upon the ancient sword thrust point-down into the ground at the center of the clearing.

The Immortal Slayer!

That ancient sword whose fame shook the world, the blade of legend that had dragged countless bygone events in its wake and decided the fates of who knew how many lives—now it stood there so quietly, planted in the earth, looking plain and unremarkable, as though it had already melted into the rivers and hills of this land.

Only the name upon that blade was so piercing to the eye, so overweeningly proud—silent, and yet utterly ungovernable, glaring sternly at all who stood around it, so that those nearest it could scarcely draw breath.

How long passed, none could say. As though they had just woken from an unbelievable shock, the three of them let out a long breath at the same time—and yet almost in that very instant, the air among them had quietly changed. Lin Jinghong's body moved by instinct; he wanted to step forward, but after a glance at the other two beside him, he frowned and slowly settled back onto his feet.

Lu Xueling's face was first struck blank with astonishment; then a light seemed to flash, very bright, through her eyes. Facing this ancient sword that held such supreme standing within Qingyun—indeed, within all the world—she too frowned faintly. Then, almost without meaning to, she glanced at Ming Li beside her, studied the look on his face, and quietly drew a little distance away from him.

Ming Li said nothing, his face seemingly without expression, but in his eyes something burned like leaping flame.

That sword—the ancient sword that for ten years had appeared in his nightmares day and night—was here, plainly before his eyes. The plain, antique blade seemed to shimmer with a faint, unadorned light in the mountain breeze, and that light was mirrored in his eyes as though it had pierced straight into his chest.

And that one—that gentle, powerless figure in green, falling softly through the air...

"Ah...!"

It was as though a roar of fury burst from his very chest, tearing at heart and lungs, and he charged at the Immortal Slayer. A dark blue-green radiance flared up; Soul-Eater shrieked forward before him, as though it felt its master's turmoil.

But in a flash a jade-green sword-glow cut in from the side. Lin Jinghong, Dragon Slayer in hand, had already barred his way, and the swelling green radiance of his blade caught the shrieking dark blue-black qi and held it fast.

With a muffled thud, the two treasures clashed in midair and rebounded. Lin Jinghong was about to shout him down when, all at once, though he stood in broad daylight, the world around him—together with that uncanny treasure of Ming Li's—abruptly went dim. A roaring of ghosts rose on every side, his body felt bound fast by countless invisible threads, and even before his eyes, against his will, visions of the nine-fold underworld and all its horrors rose up.

And Ming Li, before him—at some unknown moment his eyes had gone blood-red again, his killing intent surging, his figure more spectral than ever.

Lin Jinghong's eyes flew wide and he bellowed. Within the thicket of black qi the green light surged violently, and he burst up through it into the open air. Almost at that same instant Ming Li's figure had already reached the spot where Lin Jinghong had stood; the black qi exploded outward like demonic wings, then gathered again like ghostly hands, swallowing Ming Li's form, and came rolling in from every direction like a furious tide, surging toward the Immortal Slayer.