Chapter 201 — The Stranger
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 5
Zhou Yixuan said hastily, "Yes, yes, let's go quickly. Every time we run into a place like this, we come to grief, eh!"
He was hurriedly turning around, still talking, when he suddenly came to an astonished halt. Xiao Wan and the Wild Wolf Daoist, following behind, nearly bumped into him. Xiao Wan poked her head out from behind his back and said angrily, "Grandfather, what are you doing now—"
Her voice, too, suddenly stopped.
At this moment—a dark, windy night, beneath the scant starlight, before a haunted house in the wilderness—Zhou Yixuan and the other two stood rooted in astonishment. For there, at the courtyard gate through which they had just come, stood a figure.
The figure was rather tall, and the cloth of his garments looked to be of decent quality, though he was exceedingly filthy from head to toe, his clothes torn in several places. Only with difficulty could one tell that they had originally been a dark green, and by the cut, they seemed to be the Daoist robes of one who had left the household life.
For some reason, the man's face seemed forever sunk in shadow; none of the three could make out his features. But this man had appeared behind them without a sound, almost like a specter, and a chill rose seething from their backs.
For a long while the man stood there like a stone, utterly motionless—which only deepened the terror of Zhou Yixuan and the others, for from this figure they could sense not a trace of living breath.
"Who—who are you, really?" Her voice trembled slightly, but at last it was Xiao Wan who slowly spoke and asked.
The man gave no response, let alone an answer. But after a moment, in the shadow veiling his face, two dim points of dark red suddenly kindled like will-o'-the-wisps, as though a pair of eerie eyes were gazing deeply at those before him.
"Ah!"
Suddenly Zhou Yixuan let out a faint cry, startling Xiao Wan and the Wild Wolf Daoist badly. They turned to look and saw that Zhou Yixuan was not looking at the man's face at all—rather, his gaze was fixed on the man's arm. "That—that's the mark of the Canglan Sect!"
The Hundred Thousand Wild Mountains, the Ancient Cave of Demon Suppression.
The darkness seemed endless, barring the way before Ming Li and Jin Pingyue. They had walked a long time, yet this road seemed never to end. Strangely, though, within this ancient cave there seemed to be only one path, with no forks—which at least spared them the worry of losing their way.
Since passing the black bat, the Ancient Cave of Demon Suppression had at every interval one or several formidable demons standing guard, some of which even made Jin Pingyue's expression change. But Ming Li at this moment displayed a strength the like of which he had never shown before, cutting through them like a blade through bamboo as he charged straight in. Almost no demon could withstand his attack—even that three-eyed spirit monkey, Xiao Hui, was terrifying in its ferocity. The fate of the black bat was likewise visited upon several other formidable monsters.
Jin Pingyue had not lifted a hand the whole way, but watching all along, her face had grown ever uglier. Ming Li's cultivation was so high, his progress so swift, far beyond her imagination. Even at the end, she thought to herself: within the demon cult, could anyone possibly match this man?
That great and ambitious Demon Lord? Or that deeply hidden Ghost Gentleman?
At this moment, Ming Li had just, before Jin Pingyue's very eyes, sent a ferocious two-headed demon leopard flying. The massive beast's body slammed heavily against the hard stone wall, and by the look of it, its end was near.