Chapter 173 — Escape
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 1 of 6
The Immortal Slayer did not stir. In that instant it seemed everyone had held their breath, yet the scene was terribly, dreadfully quiet.
No sound, no thunderous roar—Ming Li watched as Soul-Eater, which had come down with the crushing force of a thousand catties, struck the Immortal Slayer and then suddenly, as though it had sunk into a pile of cotton, went utterly silent.
Shouts of fury rose; figures leaped at the far end of the grove, and one by one the elders of the Canglan Sect emerged, flying over swift as the wind and lightning. But then they saw that the Immortal Slayer in the clearing was gripped in Ming Li's hand, and every face changed at once. Moments later more and more of the Canglan Sect crowded around; in such chaos no one cared any longer for the old prohibitions, and they poured into what had once been the sect's forbidden ground. Among them were Wen Pei of Lesser Zhu Peak and the others of Great Zhu Peak, and when they caught sight of Ming Li their faces changed as well. Wen Pei and the other women of Lesser Zhu Peak then saw Lu Xueling collapsed helplessly to one side, hurried over, and lifted her up.
As though disturbed by the crowd of Canglan disciples, as though something had been stirred, the Immortal Slayer under all those watching eyes—though still held in Ming Li's hand—somehow, in its blade itself, began to change.
Upon the blade, once plain and a little rough, neither stone nor jade, at the lip of that thin crack, because of Ming Li's violent blow just now, the fissure had visibly widened a little more. Yet from within that crack a faint, deep red glow now began to seep out, as though the fresh blood it had swallowed moments ago had come alive and was slowly churning deep within the blade.
Just as a calm sea begins to swell, brewing a storm none can withstand, shrouding heaven and earth!
Silence, silence... Everyone saw the change in the Immortal Slayer, and no one knew what to do. Before the Phantom Moon Cave there was not a sound; all held their breath and waited.
Who could say whose heartbeat was quietly trembling?
Ming Li felt his mouth go dry, and instinctively tried to loose his grip on the Immortal Slayer—but the next moment he had discovered that all the strength in his body seemed to have vanished in an instant. A feeling once familiar yet distant rose again within him, and that feeling was what his enemies had always feared.
The vital blood in his body slowly seethed and surged, and began to show a tendency to flow outward—and its destination was precisely the Immortal Slayer clenched in his hand. He seemed to understand something, and strove with all his might to let the sword go, but there was no strength in his hand, and the Immortal Slayer now seemed a demon awakened, clutching him tight and refusing to let him go. Even Soul-Eater in his right hand was now clinging fast to the blade of the Immortal Slayer.
Within the thin crack on the Immortal Slayer's blade the red light deepened from faint to dense, and at the same time, eerily, like blood flowing through veins, a delicate blood-red hue began to spread from that crack, rushing from either side of the fissure swiftly toward the two ends of the blade. The plain blade was slowly swallowed by crimson.
Everyone was stunned, including those elders who had seen so much of the world. By now all knew something was wrong, yet no one knew what exactly had happened, or what should be done.
And the Immortal Slayer, as though utterly ignoring all their fears, went on with its own transformation. The deep, muted crimson finally dyed the whole blade, and a sword that had once been plain and ancient now stood a strange and uncanny blade of blood-red. Its light, darkly red, flowed slowly round, much like the eye of a reborn demon waking by degrees and gazing upon all around it.
The air in the clearing seemed to congeal—until the man gripping the Immortal Slayer suddenly burst out in a scream of agony that tore at heart and lungs.