Chapter 254 — Parting by Death
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 6
It was the lingering instinct's yearning for life!
That instant seemed frozen fast: the icy killing intent and the madness in his heart, the dim, flickering glow of Soul-Devourer—amid the crowd, at the crowd's far end, who was it that gazed from afar, in the hidden workings of fate?
The blood-red light quietly receded from Ming Li's eyes, and in its place there suddenly rose the glimmer of tears. His hand loosened; he released the cowering youth. Then of a sudden he gave a great roar, and Soul-Devourer flashed out like the wind, piercing into stone, driving deep into the hard rock wall beside him.
Ming Li gripped Soul-Devourer tight, pressed himself close against the stone wall, and buried his head deep in the shadows.
The tide of humanity poured roaring past behind him like a surging flood; countless bodies jostled him, crushed against him, battered and trampled him—yet he bore it all without moving, as though he had turned to lifeless rock, waiting in silence.
The boy was caught up by the torrent and swept helplessly forward—yet there amid that surging sea of people he kept turning his head again and again, and in his young eyes there was a strange light. Squeezing through the gaps between bodies, he searched desperately for that lone, resolute figure—but the figure soon vanished into the human sea, and he saw it no more.
How long passed, he could not say. In the midst of the frenzy, the dreadful tide of fugitives finally swept past. Through the drifting dust, a figure slowly straightened up from the stone wall. He had barely taken a step when his legs suddenly gave way, and he nearly fell.
Ming Li drew a deep breath and clenched his jaw, and at last he steadied himself. His garments—especially across the back—were now torn to shreds, as though countless wild beasts had trampled and run over him. Even for one of his cultivation, his face was ghastly pale.
But he showed no intention of stopping to rest; on the contrary, the anxiety on his face only deepened. The fleeing crowd ahead of him had vanished, and he drove his legs forward, stumbling, toward the end of the passage.
Bi Li...
Somehow, the way ahead seemed to have grown dark.
Panting, he ran on through the passage. The stone walls around him were ever more badly damaged, collapsed rubble lying everywhere, and to Ming Li's eyes it did nothing but sharpen the anguish in his heart.
At last he saw from afar the entrance to the Cold Ice Stone Chamber—then started, his face turning a shade paler. From this distance he clearly remembered a newly fitted stone door at that entrance, yet now there was only a heap of shattered rubble strewn across the ground. Could it be...
Ming Li did not dare think further. He could only stride forward, throwing every ounce of strength into his flight.
Then, all at once—at the very moment his body surged forward—with no warning whatsoever, the rumbling strangeness deep beneath Fox Qi Mountain and the violent quaking of the earth came to an instant standstill.
One moment the world around him had been a frenzy of clamor; the next, an eerie dead silence. The contrast was so violent that it was almost impossible to accept.
Ming Li's body checked in midair, then pressed on. In this sudden stillness, within the long passage, only a single lone figure remained, racing toward the depths of the mountain's belly.
And behind him, the deep darkness welled up, rolling on, soundless and unstirring.
He burst through to the chamber entrance, seized the hard doorframe with both hands, his knuckles white with the force of his grip, and looked within.
The world was frozen, silent; no sound or sight remained. In his eyes there was now only the Cold Ice Stone Chamber—and the empty Cold Ice Stone Platform within it.
An utterly empty platform!