Chapter 38 — The Abyss of the Dead

Seeing the two of them in dire straits, Zhang Qingyue charged forward at once. The big man saw him coming, turned his head slightly, and loosed another red beam that hurtled straight at Zhang Qingyue.

Zhang Qingyue had no way to retreat. He had seen what had become of Qi Hao and Zeng Shuyan, yet with the moment upon him there was nothing to be done; he could only grit his teeth, summon up his Black Iron Staff, and go to meet the attack.

In midair the red beam clashed with the Black Iron Staff, which gave off a faint dark blue glow, and scattered in an instant. Zhang Qingyue felt a surge of great force rush at him through the air; his body shook once, but he felt nothing else amiss. He hastened to examine the staff, yet the black, ugly thing was exactly as it had always been, with no red mark upon it.

Ugly as the Black Iron Staff remained, Zhang Qingyue was overjoyed, and quickly stepped forward. But the fiends of the Demonic Sect some distance away were all startled and turned to look; the big man gave a cry of "Eh?" and another red beam shot from his giant eye.

The Black Iron Staff rose to meet it; blue and red light collided in the air, and after a moment the red light dispersed and the staff quivered once, but was otherwise unharmed. Zhang Qingyue's heart eased. Ugly as his staff might be, he thought, the old saying held that a lowly life clings hardest; surely this magic treasure was much the same. His two senior brothers' immortal swords were handsome and noble, but they were not so tough as his own humble thing.

Such jumbled thoughts flashed through his mind, but his feet did not pause; he pressed slowly toward the big man. By now the man's erstwhile ease (which, what with that horrifying giant eye in his face, had only ever looked disgusting) had vanished without a trace. Most of his attention fell upon the one who seemed weakest, Zhang Qingyue; against Qi Hao and Zeng Shuyan he sent red beams to block their advance, while at Zhang Qingyue he loosed them in an unbroken stream, whistling through the air.

With every flash of red light Zhang Qingyue was plainly hard pressed, yet the black, ugly staff simply would not suffer harm, and the murderous reek that clung to the red beams seemed to have no effect on the youth at all. Under the gaze of all present, Zhang Qingyue pressed forward, one step at a time.

In a matter of moments a faint sweat had broken out on the big man's brow. In his heart he could not for the life of him understand it. The Crimson Demon Eye, which he had spent three hundred years of toil and blood to cultivate, worked wonders against the great treasures of the immortal sects — so why was it helpless against this common-looking Black Iron Staff?

Yet how could he know? The Crimson Demon Eye was indeed mighty; loosed against Qi Hao's and the others' immortal swords, its bloodthirsty, murderous breath could truly defile their immortal aura, and using the blades themselves as a conduit, it would slowly drive that murderous breath into their bodies, so that from the very first he stood on undefeatable ground. But Zhang Qingyue's ugly-looking Black Iron Staff was another matter: it had been forged from the Blood-devouring Pearl, the most vicious thing the Demonic Sect had ever possessed, and the nameless black rod of unknown origin from the secluded valley behind Dazhu Peak, fused together with Zhang Qingyue's own vital blood as the medium. If one spoke of murderous breath alone, the Blood-devouring Pearl surpassed that Crimson Demon Eye by untold times, to say nothing of the nameless black rod, whose vicious aura was a match for the Pearl's own.

Those two great instruments of malevolence, fused into one, checked and restrained each other, so that their murderous breath turned inward instead. And with Zhang Qingyue's vital blood bound within, only Zhang Qingyue could wield it. It was for this reason, too, that it had escaped the notice of the elders of the Canglan Sect, and that Zhang Qingyue had come back from the very gate of death.

Yet at this moment, the big man sought to use the Crimson Demon Eye's red beams against the Black Iron Staff, and so of course got nothing for his pains. This was still because Zhang Qingyue was young and knew nothing, carrying a mighty treasure without knowing it. Had it been that old ancestor of the Demonic Sect from a thousand years ago, the Venerable Blackheart, he would have needed only the Blood-devouring Pearl, and a few waves of it would have drained the big man dry, leaving nothing but a Crimson Demon Eye spinning on his shriveled corpse.

But of all those present, not one could have conceived of such fantastic things. The big man was concentrating with all his might upon the foe, yet still could not stop Zhang Qingyue's slow, step-by-step approach — when the youth who had stood silent at the side from the very beginning, his face full of evil, suddenly sneered: "Elder Nian, your Crimson Demon Eye is fine to look at but useless in a fight. You can't even handle a few young pups of Qingyun. And to think you were scolding Wild Dog just now! I say you may as well hand over your position as sect master to me and be done with it."

The big man and the beautiful young woman beside him both changed countenance. The woman frowned first and said: "Fellow Daoist Lin Feng, the enemy is right before us — how can you speak such words at a time like this?"

Lin Feng, his face steeped in evil, cast a sidelong glance toward the Canglan Sect group, and let his eyes linger a while longer on Lu Xueqi. Then he sneered: "If these yellow-haired brats count as a great enemy, on what grounds does our Blood Refining Hall still stand within the Holy Sect of the Immortal Way? What talk is there of restoring the great enterprise that Senior Blackheart founded a thousand years ago?"

The big man surnamed Nian shot a red beam at Zhang Qingyue, checking his advance for the moment, then snarled at Lin Feng: "What can you do but talk big? Why don't you come up here and try for yourself?"

A strange smile spread over Lin Feng's pale face. "Very well. I'll make you concede with all your heart."

With that he drew from his bosom a gold-traced fan and fanned himself with it.

All of the Canglan Sect had heard their exchange and had grown warier of this youth reeking of evil. But after a long while they saw that he did nothing but wave his fan, unhurried, looking quite elegant and not stirring a step, and they were all taken aback.

Could it be that Lin Feng truly was all talk and nothing more?

Elder Nian was beside himself with fury. "Lin Feng, if you haven't the skill, then stand aside! I can deal with these Qingyun pups myself. I don't need your snide remarks from the sidelines — and you might look to your own abilities first!"

Lin Feng's face changed; he gave a cold snort. "I had no wish to join forces with you — a victory shared would be no glory. But since you take me for a liar, I shall have to show you a trick or two."

As he spoke he tossed the gold-traced fan carelessly into the air. The whole fan gave off a faint golden light, and with a swish it opened.

On the gold-traced silk was painted, in the meticulous gongbi style, a mountain, a river, and a great roc — fine in brushwork, lifelike in every detail.

The wind rose, the clouds surged, thunder rolled, lightning flashed.

This was deep beneath the earth, within an ancient cave, where no such prodigies ought to have appeared — yet now all four of the Canglan Sect saw them before their eyes and heard them in their ears. As they stood in shock, there came of a sudden a great crash: the treasure fan trembled in midair, and a moment later the great mountain painted upon it actually moved, drawn forth from the fan itself. It grew as it met the wind, and with a rumbling roar swelled into a hill a hundred zhang tall, all but filling that vast space — and then, like Mount Tai pressing down from above, it bore down upon the four of the Canglan Sect.