Chapter 323 — The Root-Tendril Monster Attacks
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
The lake was exceedingly clear, like a transparent gem set among the mountains; from the surface one could see the lakebed ten zhang and more below. There were no water plants in the lake, and no swimming fish either; it was clean beyond imagining.
Yet on the shore, trees stood in neat rows all around the great lake; on several of them hung pink and white garments, and trousers and skirts as well.
By the water's edge lay a number of embroidered shoes, pink-soled, with peonies stitched upon the toes, so vivid they seemed ready to drip.
From the lake came the laughter of women, the sound of splashing, and a song tender and lovely beyond words, like a holy land of the mortal world. The dragon qilin, bursting in uninvited, was quite startled.
At heart it could not bear to shatter the tranquility of the place, and it bellowed in a loud voice, "Ladies in the lake, get to shore at once! " "Eek! " The girls in the lake saw this enormous creature intrude and cried out one after another.
One girl, plucking up her courage, raised a pale arm and tittered, "Big fellow, come down and play! " Shen Mu looked at the women in the lake, his face ashen, and hurriedly urged, "Long Pang, it really is the old demon of Withered Ridge!
Go, go, go around! " It was not Yu Bochuan and the others he feared, but that root demon of Withered Ridge, the old monster the Heavenly Sage Cult had suppressed there!
"The old demon of Withered Ridge? " The dragon qilin was startled, every scale on its body standing on end with a shh-shh-shh, nearly piercing through Xiong Qi'er's feet.
It hurried around the lake, running for all it was worth, its speed rising in a straight line, far outstripping what it had been before!
And behind them the mountain ridge was rumbling and shaking, its rock bursting and flying, one boulder after another tumbling ceaselessly down the slope; plainly Yu Bochuan and the True Heaven Palace masters were working their divine powers, trying to turn that great mountain into a mountain giant to attack them!
This mountain stood far taller than the other hills, its peak graceful and elegant, and if it became a mountain giant, a single stride would carry it six or seven li, and it would catch them with ease!
Just then that graceful mountain collapsed all at once, its rock shattering, and out of the mountain's body rolled countless pale bones, numberless skeletons both human and beast, heaped into a mountain! So many bones had been buried within that mountain, hollowing it out almost entirely to store them, that Yu Bochuan and the others behind could not help but be stunned.
"What thing ate so many people and strange beasts? " Yu Bochuan had no time to ponder further. He said sternly, "The bones have spirits!
Work the secret art and slay Nai Kui!
" The crowd worked their arts, and the countless bones scuttled swiftly into place, assembling into a white-bone giant tall as a mountain, which strode into the lake. Yu Bochuan and the others soared into the air and alighted upon this white-bone giant. The women in the lake could not dodge in time; several were crushed underfoot. Riding the white-bone giant, Yu Bochuan and his people walked across the lake in pursuit of the dragon qilin racing along the shore. Just then the lake waters suddenly churned, and hundreds of women flew up out of the lake into the sky, each trailing behind her a dark, heavy tentacle, crying out with one voice, shrilly: "Heavenly Sage Cult Master!
" Pa-pa-pa — The great crashes came without pause. The white-bone giant beneath Yu Bochuan's feet was severed, twined round by one dark tentacle after another and squeezed tight; the giant burst apart, and countless bone fragments shot wildly in every direction.