Chapter 614 — The Withered Bones of Chiming
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Inside the All-Heaven Stars Slaughter Array, when Qi Jiuyi and Zhe Huali heard Shen Mu's voice come through, both spat blood at the same moment — not because Shen Mu had angered them into it, but because the array had abruptly changed, transforming into a dazzling river of stars. The starlight drew upon one another, ray linked to ray; the chains of starlight were woven from countless intricate runes of divine art, and when the slaughter array roused, in the blink of an eye it had grievously wounded them both. And seen from where they stood, the little jade box at the heart of the star river had become an enormous square coffer, four-square and upright, hanging in the center of the river of stars, rising and sinking through that sea of stars, while the rays of aureate light grew immense, coiling around the host of stars.
This slaughter array was not a thing they could withstand or fend off. "Three hundred and fifty thousand years — is that number true or false?
" The two men vomited blood in great gouts, each employing his arts to hold out for dear life, and ground out through their teeth: "Never mind it — a dead horse doctored as a live one! " Their minds raced at full power, calculating the trajectories of stars and starlight, dodging the chains of light; their bodies moved at furious speed, and sure enough the array gradually fell still. All around, the stars resumed their ordinary size, becoming grains of star-sand that turned slowly.
Cold sweat rolled down the brows of Qi Jiuyi and Zhe Huali; they exchanged a glance and were about to rush into the center of the array and take the little box, when they saw that Shen Mu had already arrived there and stood before it.
Qi Jiuyi was seized with alarm.
He was just about to step forward when his qi and blood surged violently, and his heart clenched. He had been wounded a moment before — a chain of starlight had grazed his shoulder and split it in a long gash — yet the wound would not close of itself; instead the blood kept flowing, and beads of blood were rising into the air, drifting toward the dried corpse upon the iron throne.
He looked hastily at Zhe Huali. Zhe Huali was wounded as well. Like him, he could not master his qi and blood; his blood was flying toward the corpse.
The first drop fell into the corpse's mouth. All around fell suddenly, utterly silent — silent to the point of eeriness. "Ugh—" From the corpse's mouth came a long, drawn-out hiss, then a crackling, creaking sound, and the two men felt their flesh creep; they hurried to seal their own wounds, but still they felt their essence qi draining away.
"Something is amiss!
" Zhe Huali decided on the instant, leaping backward and charging out of the hall. Qi Jiuyi hesitated, looked at Shen Mu in the array, then suddenly gritted his teeth and withdrew from the shrine as well. In the instant he burst out, Qi Jiuyi swept his sleeve, and at once a Cangwu tree wreathed in golden flame sealed the hall's door.
Zhe Huali whirled back, raised his demon blade high, and brought it down; his blade-light split apart and screened the Cangwu tree. The two flew down the mountain one after the other like a pair of raging dragons in wild flight, leaving a trail of afterimages behind them.
Shen Mu's hair stood on end as well; he snatched up the little box and bolted out of the array.
The qi and blood that had flown from Zhe Huali and Qi Jiuyi had gone straight to the corpse and fallen into the mouths of its other two heads; from those mouths too came the crackling sound, and the three heads were slowly turning to look his way.
In their sockets the shriveled eyes were slowly filling with blood, slowly bulging.