Chapter 172 — Bloodthirst
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 6
Lin Jinghong, forced back in midair, could not block it in time; frantic, he was just about to roar when he saw, before the Immortal Slayer, deep in the black qi, a radiance bright as autumn water bloom forth like frost and snow. A clear, ringing note chimed and echoed far away, and there in the thick of the black qi, blooming like a flower, a sword thrust straight out.
Celestial Dipper!
That white light, like snow, like frost, swept across the air; wherever it passed the black qi fell away in ruin, and it stabbed straight toward the deepest dark ahead, barring the way. Lu Xueling stood revealed before the Immortal Slayer, her face expressionless, yet on that clear, lovely face her color was so white that not a trace of blood seemed left in it.
Deep in the black qi, two points of light like will-o'-the-wisps stared straight at Lu Xueling, and the ghostly wailing was grim and cold, a fury that could not be held back.
Like something ahead, panting and roaring like a wild beast—so strange to her now.
The black qi surged, leaping suddenly from the ground to a height of several zhang in the air, and within it those two savage ghost-fires vanished in an instant. The corner of Lu Xueling's mouth twitched faintly; her face was still pale and blank, only the light in her eyes shifting without cease, as though a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers had all been crossed in a moment, and a thousand thoughts had rushed into her heart in the space of a breath.
Yet the Celestial Dipper in her hand would not be abandoned—and the ancient sword behind her had suddenly become like an abyss ten thousand fathoms deep, so that she could not retreat a single inch!
An ancient sword—or a silent, ancient sect that had raised her?
She raised her sword toward the sky and thrust it out, serene and distant; the sword-light was like snow, but it carried a thread of desolation.
The black qi grew dense and grim; the ghost-wail rose sharp. In midair, in the very direction the Celestial Dipper had stabbed, a dark shadow flashed into being—Ming Li emerged from the depths of the black qi. But before him Soul-Eater flew up, and in an instant the black qi that had blanketed heaven and earth came pouring down; the whole length of Soul-Eater, dark as midnight, shrieked without end, and the strange blood-red threads at the tip of the staff had all flared to life.
A pale hand reached out from midair and seized Soul-Eater. Down it came from the heavens; the wind and smoke turned wild in an instant, and countless strands of black qi gathered into a pillar at the head of Soul-Eater and came smashing down out of the sky.
Toward Lu Xueling—and toward the silent ancient sword behind her.
But in the end, she still did not draw back...
The sword-light, like snow, scattered full into the face of the black qi. Before it even touched, the loose stones and sand and dust all around had been swept up by its vast force, whirling and dancing like a storm. Lu Xueling stood at the center of that vortex, and her face gradually blurred.
The Celestial Dipper and Soul-Eater—those two treasures dancing and blazing in midair—both seemed to tremble faintly, as though that struggle from so many years ago had come before their eyes once more.
Only time is ever brief, passing like a thought; and at last the tremendous roar echoed out before the Phantom Moon Cave upon Qingyun.
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The wind and smoke drifted quietly away; the dust settled. A few small pebbles still turned forlornly on the ground, rolling of their own accord gently into the distance, until at last they rolled deep into the grass and were seen no more.
Lu Xueling still stood where she had been, her body not shifted half an inch from its place. Behind her, the Immortal Slayer seemed still to give off its plain, antique light, gazing at the woman's retreating figure.