Chapter 147 — Consecration of the Immortal Estate

All at once the strange creature changed its course, darting to and fro above the trench, and within the time it takes to steep a cup of tea it had hunted every fish in those waters to extinction. Not yet sated, and as though it had sensed the watchers spying from nearby, its ribbon-smooth body flashed and was suddenly before the purple-light canopy where the company stood, and that body, bristling all over with barbs, came coiling toward them. Though the creature had no head and showed no face, they all felt a savage, sharp-edged killing intent; the spikes upon its body were each some three inches long, glinting with a weird blood-red luster, packed so dense and close that the sight was truly horrifying.

"Well come! Truly, iron shoes worn through in searching, and found at last without effort. Fellow Daoists, this is none other than the Blood Demon Kelp—but do not take its life, or once its spiritual essence is gone the golden elixir refined from it will lose much of its potency." Zhou Lang recognized the thing at a glance and shouted at once. It was indeed the Blood Demon Kelp they had sought so long and hard.

Xuanwu Cong knew the creature too, and chuckled aloud; all of them nodded to one another in signal. By now the Blood Demon Kelp had struck the purple light several hundred times, each blow ringing with a heavy thud, the purple canopy trembling in ripples, every stroke carrying the force of a thousand catties.

"Good heavens, the thing is savage as they come!" The Water Ape was seeing the Blood Demon Kelp for the first time; watching it drain the blood and essence of the fish, he knew it was no ordinary brute. "By the look of you, you are a tyrant of the waters as well. Let old ape have a try at you!" He lunged forward and burst straight through the purple canopy into the seawater. With a shake of his water fork, several dozen streaks of white light congealed the surrounding currents into thick ropes of water that bound the Blood Demon Kelp from every direction. This trick of shaping water into ropes beneath the sea was a feat to make men gasp.

"Brother Ape, do not be rash!" Seeing the Water Ape suddenly dart out beyond the canopy, Hong Cheng the Ancestor was thrown into no small alarm. Two thousand zhang down on the seafloor the pressure was immense; without a treasure to shield the body, to rush out so recklessly—even one of Xuanwu Cong's attainment would find movement difficult, let alone one who must also do battle with the ferocious, matchless Blood Demon Kelp. As for the sharp barbs upon the kelp, Hong Cheng the Ancestor's eye could tell their keenness was perhaps no less than a cultivator's flying sword; strong though the Water Ape's flesh might be, it likely could not withstand those barbs' hooking and tearing.

"Fellow Daoist, there is no need for alarm. The primordial Water Ape is a tyrant among our water-kind; your brother surely has his reasons for acting so." Xuanwu Cong hastily checked Hong Cheng the Ancestor, who was about to spring out.

Hong Cheng the Ancestor fixed his gaze and let go of much of his worry—the Water Ape and the Blood Demon Kelp were locked in fierce combat.

The Blood Demon Kelp had been beating at the purple canopy with all its strength, hoping to shatter it and drain the blood and essence of those within. It sensed dimly that the vital essence of these dozen-odd people was so abundant that millions of sea fish could not compare, and so it would not let them go; yet it could do nothing against the purple canopy. Now that the Water Ape had come out, it was just what the creature wanted: it lunged at once, body coiling to wrap the ape and drain him. At such a sight even Zhou Xuan secretly clenched his fists for the Water Ape, and wondered why this demonic thing could move so swiftly under such crushing pressure on the seafloor.

Just as the Blood Demon Kelp came near the Water Ape, its body suddenly drew taut—thick ropes had appeared in the water and bound it tight from head to tail. It could still move, but only sluggishly; seeing its prey so close at hand yet armed with such tricks, it flew into a rage. Its ribbon body contracted into a ball, and with the fierce barbs upon it the thing looked rather like a hedgehog curled up—only a hedgehog grown monstrous, blood-red all over, and uncanny to behold.

The Water Ape's long white hairs stood on end, his feet planted firm. His water fork flickered again and again, tracing talismans in the water; each talisman completed, the seawater congealed into a rope visible to the naked eye, which wound about the huddled Blood Demon Kelp and bound it fast. The Water Ape himself looked far from comfortable: his eyes glared wide with fury, his strokes of the fork were terribly slow, as though he met with enormous resistance, and his whole body trembled faintly, until even the rock beneath his feet split apart into little cracks some three inches long.

Suddenly the tightly bound Blood Demon Kelp gave a violent snap and uncoiled; several dozen thick water-cables all burst asunder, dissolving back into the seawater they came from. The dark currents surged and churned, knocking the purple canopy clear of the cliff so that it floated aloft in the water. None had foreseen the Blood Demon Kelp's sudden outburst. The Water Ape's trick of shaping water into ropes was a crude and shallow art, yet extraordinarily effective in water—against creatures of immense strength such as sea lions, walruses, and great whales, no matter how mighty, it had always held them fast. That the Blood Demon Kelp should shatter it so was beyond all expectation; caught off guard, the whole company lost their footing and cried out that this was ill.

Seeing his water-ropes fail, the Water Ape grew anxious. A thousand zhang down, it was no easy matter to work refined Daoist arts; this shaping of water into cables was the Water Ape's own specialty, and he had reckoned the Blood Demon Kelp for a mere beast, its intelligence unopened and ignorant of spells, easy to take in hand. His first notion had been to temper himself—to do battle with such a monster of the waters would surely train his flesh the faster and advance the evolution of his Water Ape body. How was he to know the creature's strength was so vast that it snapped his cables with ease?

From the moment the Water Ape first bound the Blood Demon Kelp in water-ropes, he had felt the other's strength, savage to the uttermost, and knew it boded ill; yet he was like a man riding a tiger, unable to dismount. Seeing the crisis, he kept his head. With a great shout like a thunderclap out of a clear sky, he set the seawater shaking, so that even the mountain beneath his feet quaked; and the fish, shrimp, and shellfish hiding in the crevices to escape the turmoil were so startled that they abandoned concealment, poked out their heads, and fled desperately in every direction.

As the Water Ape roared, his throat worked up and down as though he had swallowed something, and then came a crackling like dry soybeans tossed in a pan. His already tall frame shot up a whole head in an instant, the fine long white hairs over his body lengthened, his whole form swelled, and the surging water around him grew fiercer still.

He raised his water fork, and at once a hundred whirlpools, great and small, appeared before him, meeting the onrushing Blood Demon Kelp head-on. With a thunderous boom the rock beneath the Water Ape's feet could not bear the enormous force and split asunder, plunging down into the pitch-black ten-thousand-zhang trench below. That rock, some thirty zhang across, was a spur jutting from the peak; now it crashed down with a din that eclipsed even the Water Ape's great shout.

"Woe is me! A moment's carelessness, and this monkey has raised such a commotion—now there is no keeping it from Perfected One Extreme Yin!" Xuanwu Cong cursed inwardly.