Chapter 203 — The Mysterious Figure
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 6
The words had scarcely fallen when his hand was already raised. Zhou Yixuan saw the blue light flare in his palm and went pale; before he could even speak, he suddenly swept both hands up before his chest—and between the index and middle fingers of each hand there appeared a yellow paper talisman, covered in crooked, twisting, strange sigils that fluttered faintly in the wind.
The blue light in the mysterious figure's palm was growing brighter and brighter, aimed at Zhou Yixuan and the others. Zhou Yixuan did not hesitate. Suddenly he began to murmur an incantation, and instead of retreating he stepped forward—and as he stepped, with each word of the spell, the two yellow talismans burst into flame of their own accord. Two small fires blazed up in the darkness of the night, seeming especially bright.
This strange act seemed to give the mysterious man opposite pause, or perhaps to stir some memory in him, for his movement faltered slightly, and he could be heard to utter a faint, startled "Eh?"
As the talismans burned and Zhou Yixuan's white beard streamed in the wind, he suddenly gave a great shout and flung out both hands. The two balls of fire drifted from his fingers and hung suspended in midair—and then, with a great "hong," the two small flames swelled in the wind into a roaring blaze several chi across, planting itself between Zhou Yixuan and the mysterious man.
"Hou a—!" A roar split the air, and out of the blazing fire leaped a huge white-browed tiger, full of martial vigor, its great maw opened wide as it loosed roar after earth-shaking roar, then sprang with a thunderous bound at the black-shadowed man.
The mysterious man gave a cold humph and did not give an inch. Blue light flashed from his right hand and slashed straight down—however fierce the tiger's charge, that palm struck it squarely on the forehead, and the blue light in an instant ate its way in. The white tiger seemed to struggle still, claws and fangs bared, but a moment later, after one last resentful roar, blue light suddenly shone out from every part of its body. Then it shuddered once, and that vast frame dissolved into nothing, becoming a few wisps of dying flame that flickered twice in the air and vanished.
Yet the white-browed tiger was not the end. Almost at the same moment the tiger vanished, from that great mass of flame there came into being a red-maned lion, which with a lion's roar lunged once more at the mysterious man. But the man was clearly of exceedingly high cultivation; he scarcely even gave it a proper look, and brought down the same palm strike—and the lion's fate was the same as the white-browed tiger's.
Yet the strange art Zhou Yixuan had employed this time was truly uncanny. Though the beasts conjured forth could not withstand a single blow from the enemy, from that roaring blaze came beast after beast of wondrous form—and after the great tiger and the lion, they came ever more numerous and ever faster: wild boars, leopards, river horses, giant elephants, spirit deer, mountain cats, and more, emerging endlessly, each of monstrous size beyond the ordinary and fierce in the extreme.
But the mysterious figure they faced now seemed truly to possess godlike, unfathomable skill. Faced with this endless, bewildering parade of monsters, he did not even draw a heavy breath, but merely waved his arm as though casually, and wherever his palm edge passed, the fiercest and most savage of beasts dissolved into nothing.
In the midst of the fierce fighting, the mysterious man suddenly gave a cold humph, as though sensing something. In an instant he changed his downward strike into a sweeping arc, and blue light blazed forth—a bright column like a wheel, crushing straight across, mighty and majestic, mowing down all before it. The roaring blaze met that blue pillar of light, held for a moment or two, and was at last pierced clean through and run right past.