Chapter 161 — The Ambush

A flicker crossed Ming Li's face, but he gave a snort at once, and an air of arrogance surfaced upon his features, as though this once-famed Wan Jian Gu were nothing before him. He simply lifted his foot and strode forward. Wan Jian Gu straightened, his hands clasped behind his back, and did not retreat either.

As the two drew nearer and nearer, Wan Jian Gu suddenly knit his brows and shot up from the ground. Almost at the same instant, the earth beneath where he had stood gave a muffled thud and split apart in an instant. The Soul-Devouring, glinting with a cold, dark blue-black mystic light, burst from the soil at his feet and hurtled after him.

Wan Jian Gu, turning in midair, suddenly gave a great shout that shook the air about him—and reached out bare-handed, from midair, to seize the oncoming Soul-Devouring. In an instant the Blood-Devouring Bead at its tip blazed crimson; thread upon thread, strand upon strand of dark red blood-lines all lit up, mingled among the black light, and without a moment's hesitation it drove straight on.

Black qi rolled and crimson light flickered darkly. In an instant all around seemed to dim—but Wan Jian Gu came charging down, and all that grim, malevolent aura seemed to have no effect on him. Ming Li's expression changed. Such cultivation in a man—he could say it was the first time he had ever witnessed it.

It looked as though Wan Jian Gu would seize this most vicious of things in the world in his hand—but in that very instant, amid the black qi and red light, upon the surface of the Blood-Devouring Bead at the tip of the Soul-Devouring, there suddenly surfaced from deep within the bead a strange figure, growing from small to large, from dark to bright, bursting forth in an instant from the black qi and mystic light, resplendent in gold—it was the Buddhist true word "卐," and a force profound and pure, yet tinged with something uncanny, flung Wan Jian Gu's palm back.

Wan Jian Gu and Ming Li both recoiled. The Soul-Devouring flew back into Ming Li's hand in midair. Wan Jian Gu hung motionless in the air, his face faintly pale, staring at Ming Li. Word by word he said: "The Great Brahma Prajna!"

Ming Li's face was blank, but his heart was shaken. This man's cultivation was truly unfathomable. In all these ten-odd years, this was the first time he had seen anyone withstand the demonic power of the Soul-Devouring with bare hands.

Shaken as he was, he did not know that Wan Jian Gu before him was no less astonished. Wan Jian Gu had himself been a man of dazzling brilliance in his day, his cultivation far above his fellow disciples; save for the Daoist Yan Zhenren, he had held no one in his eyes. Though misfortune had dogged him since, and his fate had been bitter, facing this junior today, that inborn arrogance of his remained as it ever was.

Yet this exchange with Ming Li had startled him badly. The demonic power of the Blood-Devouring Bead was uncanny and vicious; though he showed no hurt, it had already set the very essence of his blood surging. And then the Buddhist true art Ming Li had used, the Great Brahma Prajna, was fused seamlessly with the true arts of Daoism and the demon cult—so merged that even one of his cultivation could find no way through, and was forced back. His heart could not but quake.

A cold wind whistled through the clearing, and the thin mist drifted gently, already beginning to show signs of dispersing.

Wan Jiangu watched Ming Li for a long while, then nodded and said, "Truly, every generation brings forth new talent. I never thought that in my remaining years I would meet a man such as you—it seems heaven has not been unkind to me."

Ming Li frowned, not quite understanding the meaning of Wan Jiangu's words. But Ghost Mister, standing behind, let out a low sigh, as if lamenting that after all these years his old friend's proud, unyielding spirit had still not changed. Yet even as he sighed, a strange light flickered in his eyes, fixed tightly upon Wan Jiangu.

Ming Li said coldly, "Stand aside."

Wan Jiangu looked at him—this young man, so cold and arrogant before him, that expression and bearing suddenly seemed so familiar. He burst out laughing, a trace of bitterness in his face, but it was swiftly overtaken by a surge of heroic spirit, and he laughed aloud: "Good, good, good! A young man indeed—the men of this world ought to hold nothing in their eyes! But if you wish to pass, you will have to do it with your own true skill."

With a long cry Ming Li spoke no further, leaping forward. Wan Jiangu's pupils contracted; he suddenly retreated, his body flying to the edge of the dense forest, where his right hand seized a pine tree thick as a man's embrace. With a great shout, the ground shook in an instant, and amid a rumbling roar he tore the enormous pine up by the roots, holding it across the air like a giant arm.

Wan Jiangu now gripped the giant tree and stood proudly in midair—no trace remained of the wretched, stooping figure he had once been. He looked vigorous and high-spirited, his face flushed with excitement, brows and eyes both lifted—it was exactly the look of the man who had once been invincible in his day.

"Come!" Wan Jiangu shouted, like a thunderclap. "You have the Blood-devouring Bead—let us see how you fare against this great tree of Qingyun!"

His body swayed, and in an instant the giant tree whirled into motion with a *wuwu* sound, turning swift beyond measure in the blink of an eye. Tree shadows filled the sky, rushing down to blot out earth and heaven, the wind so fierce that no other sound could be heard at all.

Ming Li's expression changed drastically, and he tumbled amid the tree shadows. That storm of the giant tree was like a surging, churning tidal wave, like an endless tide—one wave pressing down upon the last, each crest higher than the one before, chasing across the blue sky until even the thin mist over the mountain seemed to tremble.

The wind swept past the treetops and became a gale, turning to a vortex in midair that swallowed all things in the world. Ming Li stood at the very center of that vortex, tree shadows all around him, the fierce wind cutting his face like a blade, as though a single careless moment would see him sliced to fragments by that keen edge.

Wan Jiangu laughed wildly without cease, as if he had returned to the years when he roamed the world at will; his face grew all the more excited, wholly fixed upon Ming Li. In the midst of the storm, Ming Li suddenly clenched his teeth. Seeing the tree shadows bearing down before him like a mountain, this time he did not dodge; he raised his right hand, and the Soul-devourer flew out flickering with a dim red glow, and with a *pu* sound in the midst of those countless tree shadows it struck the tree trunk unerringly. In an instant the demonic power danced madly, threads of red light rising from the Blood-devouring Bead and winding along the trunk; wherever they passed, the wood burst asunder and splinters flew.

In moments a third of the giant tree's trunk had been devoured by that demonic power, yet Wan Jiangu's expression showed no alarm—only laughter. With a long laugh he brought his left hand down in a sweeping cut through the air; the trunk, brushed by that formless fierce wind, was sliced clean through as if it were bean curd. The forward part of the trunk, shrouded in red radiance, seemed to give a groan and turned to powder, scattering on the wind.

But Wan Jiangu lifted what remained of the trunk, raising it like a pillar of heaven, majestic and utterly overbearing. In the blink of an eye the tree shadows filling the sky vanished, the storm ceased, the fierce wind halted, and every thing in the world seemed to hold its breath, all gazing at that figure soaring in midair!

He came down from the sky, and with a great shout brought the tree crashing down.