Chapter 169 — The Beast Lord

Under the gaze of ten thousand eyes, that gigantic body—every inch of flesh, every bone—seemed to tremble faintly; and looking closely, one saw that countless tiny swords were glittering, buried in every part of it. From head to tail, from top to bottom, not one place was left whole.

On Sky-Reaching Peak the people drew in a breath of cold air, and for some reason a tingling, prickling sensation crept up their backs.

Yet the malevolent spirit seemed not yet dead. Its enormous head, bristling with Slaying Immortal sword qi of every color, slowly turned; it looked at its own body, riddled with a thousand wounds, then slowly lowered its head. Its voice, somehow, was no longer shrill and vicious, but now very low, as though with some reluctance in it, and more than a little pain.

Its great jaws opened and closed; two streaks of red light swept across its eyes, like flames, burning with all their strength, but in the end they guttered out and scattered.

The next moment, in midair, a tremendous report suddenly burst from the malevolent spirit's gigantic body, resounding through heaven and earth; countless sword qi flew back up, and even the Slaying Immortal formation in the vault of heaven fell into disarray.

Afterward, that gigantic malevolent spirit, once so overbearing, seemed all at once utterly fragile; the wild wind swept past, and its indestructible skeletal frame crumbled away like sand and gravel, white bone turning to dust, flesh and blood to stone, scattered on the wind.

The people gazed silently at the sky; now that victory was in sight, no one cheered. It was as though some strange feeling had settled over every heart.

In the sky, that once-gigantic body was on the verge of scattering entirely on the wind when a cry of alarm suddenly rose from below, and the crowd broke into shouts; for within the monster's trunk, though flesh and bone had all dissolved, a mass of black qi still clung together and would not disperse, slowly revolving in the air. A moment later the malevolent spirit's body was at last wholly destroyed, and that mass of black qi slowly spread apart, revealing what lay within.

There, astonishingly, was the form of a youth—none other than the Beast Lord, who had vanished without a trace. But the Beast Lord now looked nothing like his former elegant, composed self; he was in a sorry state, and in particular the splendid set of silk garments he had worn, now riddled with holes for some unknown reason, were torn away by the fierce wind from the sky and crumbled to flying ash.

In a moment he stood there stark naked—yet on his face there seemed no trace of fear or dismay; on the contrary, his eyes fixed on the vast, majestic sword formation before him, and all at once he smiled, stretched out his limbs, and standing there in midair, clapped his hands and said: "Remarkable, remarkable!"

Dao Yan Zhenren's expression changed; plainly he too had not expected the Beast Lord to be so hard to overcome, to still hold out against such a display as that—and at a glance, the man was merely a little paler, a little more worn; otherwise he was none the worse, and looking him over, he did not have so much as a single wound.

Below, a sudden clamor arose: many of the female disciples of Canglan Mountain had only now come to their senses, faces flushed crimson, not daring to look at the sky again. Yet in the heavens, the Beast Lord, naked as he was, did not care in the least, as though it had been so since the beginning of heaven and earth; he acted as if nothing were amiss, only gazing intently at the ancient sword Slaying Immortal in Dao Yan Zhenren's hand.

Dao Yan Zhenren gave a cold laugh and said: "If you submit now, and swear to destroy your own cultivation and begin anew in the Phantom Moon Grotto Heaven behind Qingyun, cultivating toward goodness, I may spare your life. Otherwise, beneath the Slaying Immortal sword, no life shall be left to the likes of you, so vicious a creature!"

With that, he raised the ancient sword Slaying Immortal and gave it a light wave; at once the sky-filling sword light quivered as one, majestic and terrible. But just then, a flicker of pain passed across Dao Yan Zhenren's face—gone in an instant, yet it had already fallen into the Beast Lord's eyes.

The Beast Lord stood poised in the empty air, strange light bright in his eyes, yet a faint smile at the corner of his mouth, and said lightly: "A divine sword so vicious and overbearing as this, and on top of it the spiritual qi of these green mountains below—that you can hold out this long without showing signs of failing, truly you are beyond ordinary men."

Dao Yan Zhenren frowned and said in a low voice: "What do you mean by that?"

The Beast Lord smiled and did not answer, only shook his head and said: "The vicious spirit of an ancient sword must surely be born of the malevolent qi of heaven and earth; it shares my own origin. How could I not know? You force the sword to fight me—the outcome is uncertain, but most likely the sword qi will seize its chance against you. Such a thing harms others and yourself; you are no common man, so why should I spell it out? Heh heh." Here the Beast Lord gave two cold laughs and went on: "I advise you to cast the sword aside at once, or when the sword spirit turns on you in days to come, your fate will be a thousand, ten thousand times worse than mine."

Dao Yan Zhenren gazed at the Beast Lord for a long while, then suddenly shook his head and laughed aloud, his eyes full of contempt, and said: "Demons and heretics—what would they know of the benevolent heart of my Daoist path! And besides, the true arts of my Daoist school and its supreme divine sword—how could your reckless words ever comprehend them?"

With a clear, piercing cry he shook his arms, and sword-qi quivered across the heavens. "Vile demon," he said sternly, "prepare to die!"

The Beast Sovereign gave a cold laugh, firelike light flickering in his eyes. "Good!" he cried fiercely. "Today I shall show you the power of the sorcery of the Southern Borderlands!"

The words had barely fallen when black qi arose. From within his skin black breath suddenly flashed, and in moments his formerly pale flesh had turned as black as ink; beneath the skin it began to writhe, countless tiny swellings trembling without pause as though each had a life of its own.

In some distant, unknown place, across the empty wastes that stretched in every direction, a deep, deep "thump-thump" suddenly sounded—like the beating of a human heart, utterly uncanny. And gazing toward the horizon, beyond the blazing radiance of the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation, the sky abruptly darkened; black clouds came surging in from every quarter and swiftly gathered about the Beast Sovereign's side.

Daoist Zhenren Daoyan's face was grave; every part of him on guard, he stared at that bizarre transformation ahead.

Amid the wreathing black qi, the low, strange sound—as though borne up from the darkest depths of the underworld—grew ever faster and ever denser, so that one could not help feeling one's own heartbeat quicken in answer, faster and faster, until it seemed it must burst. A few disciples of the orthodox path, of lesser cultivation, could no longer withstand it; they could only collapse to the ground and struggle to hold out by circulating their power.

And in midair, as the black qi thickened, there came of a sudden a low roar—like the growl of a savage beast, or an uncanny insect breaking free of its cocoon. All could see plainly that on the pitch-black body of the Beast Sovereign, the skin at his left arm burst open; and from among the countless little swellings that pulsed ceaselessly beneath the skin, another thing slowly thrust itself forth—with hand and fingers, it was the very shape of another arm. And this newborn arm was strong in bone, far larger than the arm it came from, so that one could not begin to imagine how it had ever emerged from the original limb.