At this, the White-Feather Demon Emperor suddenly laughed. “If I dared go find him, what would I want with you?”
It said this without the slightest burden. To fear Nie Jun was nothing shameful.
“Your affairs are none of my concern.” Zhang Mingyang turned slightly aside. “If there’s nothing else to say, then This Seat will be going.”
“Tch.”
The White-Feather Demon Emperor shook its head and sighed. “Poor my brother the bull — first hunted, forced to hide east and dodge west, then losing his wife and son, and now even his subordinates have become another’s mouthful of food. If this emperor doesn’t win back some face for the Thousand Demon Den, there’ll truly be no accounting for it once I return.”
As the words fell, the wild-boar demon had already walked up behind the two. It hoisted the disciple up with an idle hand. An extreme-peak demon king ought not to have seized an upper-tier Mixed Origin Grandmaster so easily. Yet the disciple dared not resist, only staring in terror at his uncle-master. To live now, his one hope was for the other to act.
“…”
Zhang Mingyang moved his gaze away, his expression unruffled.
The white crane stared idly at him, and after a long while sighed with feeling. “As I recall, the last generation of Xuanguang Cave wasn’t like this. How is it that by your generation, you leave this emperor without the least bit of interest?”
“Where are their people, then? Could it be they’re busy figuring out how to replace Wutong Mountain?”
Zhang Mingyang gazed at the ground and said softly, “Were they here today, would you still be so at your leisure?”
“I hadn’t expected you could still throw a line back at this emperor. Commendable courage, I’ll grant…”
The White-Feather Demon Emperor, far from angered, actually praised him a word. Just then, it suddenly stepped back half a pace.
The ever-so-obediently-standing Zhang Mingyang — savagery abruptly surged in his eyes, and from within his broad sleeves burst a violent sword intent!
Nine small swords in all welled out in an instant, shooting straight at the white crane!
The White-Feather Demon Emperor reacted in advance, yet was still grazed at the neck by the small swords. Blade met feather. A vast wave of air spread outward in every direction, like ripples across a lake! Peaks and towering trees alike, touched by the ripple, crumbled apart outright — only that stretch of bamboo grove went on swaying gently as before.
“Not bad, not bad!”
The White-Feather Demon Emperor soared into midair, a thin, fine wound now on its long neck, and laughed aloud. “Now this is the Xuanguang Cave this emperor knows so well — shameless and thick-skinned as ever, so fond of the ambush.”
“This thing — is it what you learned off the Xu family? Not the slightest aura-fluctuation to it. Rather interesting.”
“…”
Zhang Mingyang’s long-prepared strike had fallen entirely short of the effect he’d foreseen. Inwardly he was startled by the white crane’s formidable physical body. But he betrayed not the least of it in his expression, his two palms swiftly forming a spell-art.
The Nine-Sword Calamity-Ending Grand Formation unfurled rapidly. Each small sword swelled against the wind, gleaming with a cold, frigid dark light as it chopped toward the white crane!
Whsh! Whsh! Whsh!
The white crane danced within the sword-formation, dodging every flying sword with ease.
“Go!”
The corner of Zhang Mingyang’s eye twitched, the spell-art in his hands growing ever more frantic.
The White-Feather Demon Emperor dodged even as it laughed aloud. “Studied it all this while and it’s still broken and incomplete — how have you the face to use it? Or is this formation shallow and crude to begin with, and it’s only that you Xuanguang Cave cultivators are too weak, and so fell to it?”
Hearing this mockery, the distant Aqing pressed his lips hard. “…”
Chen Zhong shot him a helpless glance. The true Nine-Sword Calamity-Ending Grand Formation was no such shoddy thing. The Spirit-Transformation cultivators who’d died beneath this sword-formation back then were not the least bit weaker than the War Temple’s Ancestor.
Still, this Xuanguang Cave really was sinister enough.
Chen Zhong looked into the distance. Zhang Mingyang’s eyes held vexation, and he seemed to control the flying swords as though he’d lost his reason — but not so. Since it was a sword-formation, and already laid out, what need was there to form spell-arts to control it? The spell-art the man formed while shouting “go, go, go” had nothing whatsoever to do with the sword-formation.
He was taking advantage of the demon emperor not knowing the trade.
Sure enough, as Zhang Mingyang’s final finger struck out, the spiritual qi of heaven and earth ran riot once more. Like giant pythons, vines burst up through the earth, vast in number, in an instant shrouding the White-Feather Demon Emperor within, twisting and writhing ceaselessly. At the same moment, the nine flying swords shot in from all directions. They stabbed in through the gaps between the vines!
“Kreee!”
A shrill crane-cry burst from within that earthbound cage of coiling vines.
“Putting on airs with your Grandfather Zhang?”
Zhang Mingyang sneered, and roared out at the same time, “Did the technique Xuanguang Cave taught you mean for you to stand there in a daze while you’re carried about by the scruff?!”
Thus reminded, the Xuanguang Cave disciple abruptly came back to himself, summoned his path infant, and slapped a backhand palm into the wild-boar demon’s face. Seizing the instant it flinched in pain, he broke straight free.
“Hoo.”
Shen Yi watched the situation reverse in an instant, and those thick vines spread across the whole earth, each one glossy with sheen, an ear-piercing metallic hum issuing from within them. With a demon emperor’s strength, it couldn’t even break free.
So this was a true cultivators’ clash of arts. Had it been himself crossing hands with Zhang Mingyang, this one move alone might well have left him with no recourse at all. To take both of them into his bag today — perhaps it wouldn’t be as easy as he’d thought.
Just then, a white light exploded out from the endless vines. Right after, the vines all snapped apart, and a figure leapt from within. Its whole body had gained a dozen-odd holes, blood gushing like a fountain, staining its frame red, looking wretched in the extreme.
The white crane was no longer to be seen; instead there was a man draped in feather-robes, in his palm a longsword formed from long, slender plumes gathered together. His face shifting through shade and light as he looked downward.
The nine longswords came slaying again. He gnashed his teeth in fury and violently swung out the feather-sword. As he swung, he spewed another mouthful of rank, stinking blood-plasma — plainly he’d used his full strength!
A dull thud sounded. Three flying swords were snapped in two at the middle and crashed straight to the ground. The remaining sword-light swept toward the Zhang Mingyang below. Countless vines whipped back to defend in an instant, coiling before him into a wall a dozen-odd zhang high — then broken through by the sword-light from within. With that single stroke, Zhang Mingyang was chopped flying outright!
A deep gash opened across his belly; though no blood-plasma seeped out, it still left his features contorted.
“Have you any other means?”
The White-Feather Demon Emperor hung suspended in the air, slowly leveling the feather-sword at him, and said coldly, “This emperor’s grown rather bored of the game.”
Under the agonizing pain, Zhang Mingyang shuddered all over and looked up viciously. He’d never imagined the gap in strength between them would be so vast — with every advantage of initiative on his side, he’d still lost by more than a single grade.
He drew a hard, ragged breath. “Enough of the nonsense — say it plainly. What do I use to buy back my life? I’ll do anything.”
“…”
Even the White-Feather Demon Emperor felt a touch of wonder at the man’s gall. Ambush when it was time to ambush, admit defeat outright when he couldn’t win, not the slightest hesitation to it.
“Time to go…”
In the distance, Aqing warily tugged at Shen Yi’s sleeve. The victor was decided; leave any later and there’d be no leaving at all.
Chen Zhong said nothing, but still nodded hard in agreement.
All at once, the two of them saw Shen Yi slowly take a step forward.
This time even Aqing’s face went pale. He could never guess what the man meant to do each time — but he truly hadn’t expected to be able to guess wrong this time too.
At the same moment, some huge object suddenly fell from the sky. Resplendent golden light lit up the heavens. Like streaming radiance plummeting down, vast and heavy, it smashed toward the White-Feather Demon Emperor!
“You cur, you were hiding another trick!”
The feather-robed man’s face changed abruptly. He knew Xuanguang Cave’s people were sinister, but hadn’t imagined this sinister! Begging for mercy and ambushing all at once.
Caught off guard, he spun around — and in his sight was an enormous golden fist.
BOOM!!!
The White-Feather Demon Emperor’s already gravely wounded body was smashed straight down. The earth quaked, dust and smoke billowing up.
A powerfully built figure over two zhang tall slowly came into everyone’s view. Upon the resplendent, gold-cast spine, vivid crimson patterns radiated a fierce, murderous menace!
(End of Chapter 267)