Chapter 75
Sun Hu waited for the others to creep closer to the thorn, fingers tingling with pressure, heart thumping in his chest. There was little spiritual energy here, but with his Foundation, he could keep the chains alive long enough to make some trouble while the others handled that thorn.
Normally, once he unearthed the real culprit during an investigation, he would either gather a team of soldiers from the Emperor’s Own or alert the Skyguard if the suspect was too powerful for them to handle, rather than making a move on his own.
But it was fair to say time was short in supply in Jiangzhen’s situation. The formation or whatever it was that kept belching out this foul energy to the city was making more people sick with each passing second. He didn’t know what this culmination would bring in the end. A terrible explosion? A sudden earthquake that would bring the whole city down with it? Or perhaps, Sun Hu rather thought, the honest folk of the city would be sacrificed for some unknown bastard’s cultivation.
Things like that happened in the past, and it was usually the mortal cities that got the brunt of them.
Sun Hu shook the thoughts off and felt the spiritual energy stir within his Foundation. Toward the right side, Brother Lei, Young Miss Luli, and Brother Lou were making a cut through the shelves. There was an opening before them near the staircase, a direct path that they could use to reach the thorn.
His job was to make sure they weren’t expected from that side.
The rattling of the chains filled into his mind. He grasped them with both hands, took a breath in, and counted the seconds. One. Two. Three. Then he sent them spinning toward the thorn, the chains carving a smooth path through the fog and aiming for the Governor’s head.
Might as well make it count, was Sun Hu’s thinking. If he could get the man with this simple attack, then it was all the better. If not, he would at least force him to respond, and that would confuse the others, which in turn would give Brother Lei the chance he needed.
Metal clanked against something hard. Sun Hu scowled at the sight. The Governor was sitting there, legs crossed and rotten face serene as a well, while the man sitting next to him hauled himself up to meet with the chains. They tore large chunks out of his arms before sending him reeling back, spattering yellow blood all across the ground.
His face remained indifferent even as his flesh squirmed around where the chains tore at him.
The others were stirring. Eyes opened and blanked at the odd sight where a pair of chains was curving around them to make another attempt on the Governor’s life. Sun Hu caught a familiar figure there, watching the chains with eyes narrowed. Jin Longwei, his face barely visible under those thick sinews that pulsed strangely.
But it wasn’t him who’d decided to try and stop the chains. It was a larger man, with arms long and skin a sickly pale color. Sun Hu had a hard time recognizing him as Mao Hu, as the man’s facial lines were completely eroded under loose, wrinkled skin. He placed himself before the chains’ path, trying to secure the Governor’s back.
Others moved in and stood near him, nearly a dozen men circling the main bastard in a rotten carapace.
Our Governor needs to stay focused, then? That’s good news.
Sun Hu smiled and spread his chains into a dozen long streaks. He sent some hurtling mindlessly about their fleshy circle, and a pair of others flying high into the ceiling to make a straight dive toward the Governor. Another pair was digging into the ground.
Let’s see how you deal with this.
The marbled floor exploded as the chains dug deep, scattering bits of rock and gravel across the entrance. Rotten fog wavered unevenly around the circle of men, who looked like a bunch of fools gotten lost in a circus’s crowd. Unaware. Senseless.
They look like they don’t know what to do.
It’d been just a couple of days since he last saw them. Perhaps, Sun Hu thought, they couldn’t get used to whatever change had happened in their bodies in such a short time. He knew that for some Death Cultivators, it took years to complete a similar transformation.
Chains clashed against their line. Bits of rotten flesh squelched down to the ground and melted the marble like acid poured over paper. Trouble was, the resulting fog that wafted from those holes was being sucked by those bastards. It patched the wounds around their bodies or even regenerated arms and legs that were torn off in a shower of yellowish blood.
Still, this was working. Through the corner of his vision, Sun Hu followed Brother Lei and the others as they cut down the distance. Every bit of those fools’ attention was on his chains alone. They weren’t aware of the real danger.
Good, we’re nearly there.
His Foundation used what spiritual energy was left in his body. There was nothing here that could replace the emptied nodes, so Sun Hu breathed a sigh of relief when Brother Lei took off from the ground in a mighty jump, mace hauled up high in both hands. There was nothing between him and the thorn.
They succeeded.
………….
Lei forced the mana-spiritual energy blend toward his fingers, arms aching, body shaking with the sudden force that sent a shiver down his back. The Maiden’s Flame constantly supplied purified waves of mana to the Dao Seed, the tiny sprout working overtime to mix them with spiritual energy before sending it around his body.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as he brought down the mace. Behind the thorn, he could see a circle of men trying to protect the Governor from a barrage of chains that came from everywhere. He even saw Dai Aiguo throw himself over to the man when one of Sun Hu’s chains dived high from the sky.
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What are you doing?
He thought they’d face a strong resistance. These bastards had the numbers. They had the rotten mana that surrounded the Library. They had every advantage Lei could think of, but they weren’t using any of them.
Why?
What was the point of undergoing that terrible transformation if it would leave them desperate in a situation like this?
Lei shook the thoughts off and focused on the mace. Its head inched slowly down toward the thorn. Green light reflected over its surface. No matter what was going on here, the moment he shattered this piece of metal, he could cleanse the city from rot. Then they would deal with those bastards one by one.
The heavy weapon crushed hard into the thorn.
It screamed. Not in sound but in a resonance that vibrated through the air, rattling his teeth and making the walls shiver. Lei barely managed to keep his grip on the mace as the thorn cracked and a dark, oily mist began to seep out from within.
Beyond the mist, the Governor’s men reacted with a guttural roar. The ones holding the line against Sun Hu’s chains grew frenzied. They’d already lost what was human in them, but now they seemed like a group of beasts flailing desperately without a thought in their minds.
Zhu Luli and Fatty Lou sprang forward from behind Lei, coming at the approaching beasts from the sides while the mace tore yet another part from the thorn. The fog was getting thicker. Bits of it tried to ooze into Lei’s skin, only to pause when the Maiden’s Flame welcomed them.
Tongues of flame darted about and coiled around the dark spheres that found their way inside Lei’s body. They resembled the rotten mana, but felt different in a way that Lei couldn’t quite understand. They were heavy, though, and were trying to press him down.
One more.
Lei wrenched the mace free from the thorn, slipped slowly down to the ground, breath hissing in his throat. Through the cracks that opened on the thorn, he could see something pulsing deep inside. Looked like a head-sized, round sphere that absorbed all the light around it. Staring at it filled Lei’s mind with invisible fear.
But there was nothing to fear. The Governor was still in a state of deep meditation, the men-turned-beasts around him struggling against Zhu Luli and Fatty Lou. The ethereal chains leashed at them whenever they gave an opening.
Lei took one more breath, then he was off, raising the mace over his head to take a sweep at that black sphere. Dark mist splashed across his face. He snapped his mouth shut and eyes closed, letting his senses guide him.
A deep crunch sounded when the mace found purchase. The impact sent jolts of pain up Lei’s arms, fingers shaking madly as he forced more energy into the weapon. The sphere resisted him. Its round surface was as hard as steel, ringing with a cry that dinned painfully loud in Lei’s ears.
“Manners,” came a voice, thumping in his mind. “They’re rather important, don’t you think?”
The air shifted. Fog coiled around Lei’s arms and pushed him back… back until his feet touched the solid ground. When he pried his eyes open, he was standing before a man clad in robes as dark as the night. His face had yellowish spots oozing with pus, arms coated with the same-colored scales, and black mist cascading down his wide shoulders.
“You…” Lei muttered, disoriented as he swept a gaze around him. Beyond the thorn, Zhu Luli and Fatty Lou were still fighting against those beasts, the ethereal chains aiding them from left and right. And before the thorn… was him, with mace clutched tight in both hands, trying to crush the sphere.
“Its normal to get confused in your first spiritual journey,” the man said and clasped his hands behind his back. A smile bloomed on his lips as he stepped over to Lei and glanced at the chaos around the thorn. “Quite the sight, I must admit. I would’ve been lying if I said I was expecting an intrusion to our little ritual.”
The Governor…
Lei swallowed. There was a strange, almost surreal feeling about how everything looked around him. His feet and arms seemed just the same, but moving them was like trying to blow a breath through a clogged pipe. His body refused his commands. Or rather, there was a gap between his thoughts and his physical being.
Meanwhile, the man had no trouble moving. He was smiling as one might smile watching a good play. A sick show of strength that chilled Lei to his bones.
“What are you trying to do here?” Lei forced the words out of his throat. “Isn’t this your city? Why are you killing the people?!”
“The people?” the Governor frowned as if confused, then he let out a throaty chuckle. “Oh, you mean them! The honest folk of Jiangzhen, right? I wouldn’t worry about them if I were in your place.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lei hissed. He was trying to reach to his body, to the Maiden’s Flame, hoping it would take him out from whatever this place was, but there was nothing there.
“It means, young man, that you're under the impression this city was ever yours, theirs, or anyone else's. But you see…” He spread his arms wide, as though embracing the chaos around them. “Jiangzhen is mine. Always has been. The people? They're merely a start to what is inevitable.”
“What kind of monster are you?!” Lei spat.
The Governor tilted his head. “Monster? That’s such an unimaginative word. I prefer visionary. What you see as destruction, I see as evolution. Or do you think we shall confine ourselves with the boundaries of cultivation? The so-called Immortal Path many a Sage just couldn’t stop blabbering about? No… This is the future we must strive for. It’s started already, and no one can stop it.”
A faint tingle around his scalp. Lei frowned at the sensation. Then something crawled from the nape of his neck and poured into his eyes. It filled his body with warmth as he gazed at the Governor.
[Duàn Xiaowen - Level 27 Mana Cultivator]
“What?” Lei muttered shakily. “You have a level?”
The Governor turned toward him. His eyes widened slightly as he scowled in confusion. He searched Lei’s face with a gaze that weighed upon his soul. He stepped back, hesitant, raising one clawed hand over his face—
A pair of fiery tongues slithered out from Lei’s eyes. They streaked across with unimaginable speed and coiled around the Governor’s body. He tried to claw at them, but the flame hissed at his touch and splattered over his arms, up his neck, and started burning him from within.
“Break!” the Governor roared suddenly.
The air blurred and twisted around Lei as the man wailed before him. The rotten fog wavered. The thorn turned upside down and then Lei was standing all crooked and looking down at his own body from above.
He barely saw through the corner of his vision the Governor pull something black from his robe, then… the world broke. Cracks ran through his vision like a mirror shattered by a fist. Everything was mixed in a dizzying mess that didn’t make any sense.
“I told you to break!” the Governor’s voice was sharp and furious. “You are my spiritual world, and you will listen!”
Parts of the world melted and started dripping in big droplets. Pieces of it scattered. Lei felt a sudden pull at his core, as if something was reaching him from a place that he couldn’t see. He doubled over, breath wheezing through his lips, eyes burning with flames. It hurt. It hurt too much.
Then he froze. His vision shifted. It was dark for a moment, then bright light spilled into his eyes and showed him a familiar sight. His fingers were curled round the mace’s handle, dark mist still oozing from the black sphere nestled deep in the thorn. Beyond that, Fatty Lou and Zhu Luli were facing off with the beast, protected by ethereal chains.
But there was someone else there. A man who stood behind it all, tall and mighty, yellow eyes peering straight into Lei’s face. The Governor’s face was twisted with cold fury. Clasped in his hand was a double-edged, rusted sword that sent chills down Lei’s spine.
Lei shook himself off and breathed in deep. He hauled the mace for one last time and brought it down upon the black sphere with all his worth.