劍問蒼天 - 第259章 弒仙 - 翰墨軒

A bloody red radiance blotted out the sky and drifted over. From the summit of Jietian Peak, the entire canopy of heaven seemed to have turned a flayed crimson; dark red clouds rolled and churned, making one feel suffocated at a glance. Beneath that red cloud, everything was dyed red—the sky was red, the mountains were red, the drifting vapors above the sea of clouds were red, the water droplets falling from the Rainbow Bridge were red; it seemed even the piercing mountain wind, as it swept past, was red as well.

A thick stench of blood came on the wind, spreading across Jietian Peak.

Countless figures were climbing upward from the foot of Jietian Peak, surging in from all sides, packed so densely that scarcely a gap could be seen—human shapes everywhere, and in every pair of eyes flickered a strange red light. Looking at this crazed throng, one saw that by their dress most of them were ordinary folk from the villages at the foot of Cang Lan Mountain—yet how could ordinary folk climb with such agility, like apes and monkeys? The strangeness of it, naturally, lay in that eerie blood-radiance which had stolen their minds.

With no effort at all one could possess an endless army; and even the bewitched common folk, through the Four Spirits Blood Array, could have tenfold their vital potential drawn out. Reckoned thus, there truly seemed to be no way left to counter or defeat the Demon King of the demon cult. A single mad commoner was nothing any disciple of the Cang Lan Sect need fear—but a hundred? A thousand? And here, right now, a full hundred thousand of them were swarming up over the mountains and fields like a colony of crazed ants, enough to chill the heart.

Among that countless mad host, no small number appeared especially active under the light of the blood-radiance in the sky. Their cultivation far surpassed that of the ant-like commoners around them; they could soar and ride their swords—whatever a cultivator of the Dao could do, they could do, and their cultivation was exceedingly high, many of them surpassing the Cang Lan Sect disciples on guard. These, of course, were the righteous cultivators whose minds the Demon King had seized in the earlier battles.

With so many experts fighting alongside, and with an almost inexhaustible tide of the crazed, the demon cult's assault came like a towering wave striking the shore—irresistible. Beneath the blaze of red light, the Cang Lan Sect disciples defending the sea of clouds had scarcely been able to mount any real resistance before they fell back, retreating in succession onto the Rainbow Bridge.

Before long, a ceaseless whirring filled the air; the demon cult army, pouring in from every direction, had occupied the vast, empty Cloud Sea Platform. Gazing out, one saw that this fairyland, once wreathed in drifting vapors, was now a churning mass of heads, with roars and shrieks rising and falling—little short of a hell of vengeful ghosts. As time went on, still more crowded onto it, until it seemed there was no room left to set one's foot.

And high above in the canopy, a great mass of red light—deeper by a hundredfold than the red shadows of the sky, looking like a sphere of blood—slowly flew to hover over the Cloud Sea Platform, and from within it came a burst of wild laughter:

"Hahahaha! You worthless trash of the Cang Lan Sect, you finally know what this old man is made of! Hahahaha... Where's Daoyan? Daoyan, you mangy dog, why haven't you come out yet? Haven't you always been the one to save the world and its people? Isn't the Immortal-Killing Sword Array invincible under heaven? So why have you turned into a turtle shrinking into its shell—afraid to come out? Hahahahaha..."

The laughter was reckless and arrogant, verging upon hysteria—yet the violence in it cast the whole of Jietian Peak atop Cang Lan Mountain into an atmosphere of despair.