Chapter 476 - The Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit (1/2)
Chapter 476 The Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit
Standing at the edge of Flying-cloud Stone, with strengths that matched even the gods of war, Xiao Ning and Gu Feng did their best to defend the rapidly-falling Flying-cloud Stone, protecting it from any more attacks from the soldiers of the Immortals’ League.
Fortunately, the flying conveyance was able to reach ground safely with Gui Xian at the helm. They were gliding at an altitude barely 300 meters above when Xiao Ning shouted, “Bail out!”
Everyone leaped off at his call and Xiao Ning and Gu Feng immediately pooled their powers together to conjure a magical bubble that swallowed up everyone to cushion their fall into a forest. Still, the soldiers of the League pursued them. As the Flying-cloud Stones of the Hit Squad hovered around to land, Gu Feng looked up at them and cursed bitterly. “Let me fight them! Enough running like rats!”
“Brother Gu Feng, no!” Xiao Ning stopped him. “Don’t forget they have Energy Cannons!” As if in a cue, a volley of energy whizzed by, dangerously close to them, before ending with a loud explosion not far away, reducing part of the forest into charred, smoldering snags.
“Run!”
The party of twenty-plus people ran deeper into the wildernesses of the Changyin Mountain Range where no sunlight could reach and in this dusk, the lumbering peaks looked no less ominous as the party plunged themselves into its shadows, with no sense of direction at all.
Having lost track of them, the Immortals’ League Hit Squad could do nothing than conduct carpet-bombings of the entire area, hoping vainly that any of their cluster bombs could hit and kill their targets. But instead, the explosions and tremors did nothing more than to awaken the unknown horrors that have been slumbering peacefully for eons underneath the underground bowels of the mountains.
An hour scarcely passed before darkness came and the entire mountain range was flooded by the pale gossamer illumination of the moon. Deep inside the thick of the wilderness, the shadows of the branches and thickets slanted and stretched sinisterly like talons and claws reaching out for them in the dark. Up overhead them on the jagged cliffs, howls and hoots of predators echoed across the valley, shrouding the forest in an eerily haunting ambiance.
“Cough! Cough!” Xiao Chen bolted awake, gasping for air before being hit with another fit of coughs. Even under the airy moonlight, he looked horribly pale. Ziyun’er held him up. “My Lord! Are you all right!”
“I, I… I’m fine…” Xiao Chen waved her off, his white lips struggling to speak. Gui Xian and Yi Tong looked at him in unison with deep frowns creasing at their foreheads. Their eyes met briefly but they said nothing.
“I’ll take care of him,” Huangfu Xin’er said curtly, taking him over into her arms. Holding his right arm, her eyes traveled to the bloody wound of his missing arm and felt a painful jolt in her heart.
But Xiao Chen turned his head to look at her, his face putting up a smile. Wanting to touch her cheek, a pang of pain came instead from his left arm which reminded him that he no longer had his left arm.
“The Headquarters of the Immortals’ League must have mobilized their forces in the Northern Continent. If my guess is right, their forces must now be surrounding this region,” None-flower Dust uttered suddenly.
Yang Qing and his men watched in morose silence. The seven swordsmen only followed Xiao Chen in order to escape Mount Wuyue together. They could have left after breaking free from the beleaguerment of the soldiers of the League trying to arrest them but honor demanded that they stay and fight together instead of leaving Xiao Chen on his own.
“We’ll fight to the death then! I have no fear of them! To our deaths it is!” A swordsman beside Yang Qing spoke fiercely.
But no one else answered his call. Xiao Chen looked up at the sky in reflection. “Was I here before? Yes, I was… Because of someone from Clan Zuoqiu pursuing Xian’er and me? Yes… We were outside Canglan City then… Then we came here… And we encountered Yu Yangzi… Then we met Su Xiaomei…”
“What will I encounter here this time? After being chased here by the forces of the Immortals’ League?” The Changyin Mountain Range experienced changes every few thousand years, having laid witness to many a great historical event and the changes of its terrain had hidden just as many secrets underneath its feet. The ancient remains of an unknown Immortal King and the ancient scroll now kept by the Xianyong Sect were all found here.
“We should find a place to rest and decide tomorrow,” Xiao Chen croaked after seeing the girls of the Levitating Dark Fragrance, all of whom were injured, and even some of them were with a few gravely wounded, including Qingluan at death’s door. Anymore further and Ziyun’er and her sisters might collapse.
After an hour’s trek, they found a cave where they decided to spend the night in. They could not start a fire, fearing that one would alert any soldiers of the League lurking around to their presence. Yang Qing and his men kept watch not far away with Gu Feng and Xiao Ning guarding the entrance. Ziyun’er and the rest of the Levitating Dark Fragrance recuperated inside and the shelter allowed Gui Xian to help with Qingluan’s wounds. Xiao Chen rested not far away from the entrance, his countenance paling by the second as a layer of sweat slicked at his temples.
“Koo-chee! Koo-chee, Koo-chee!” Koo-chee screeched anxiously, circling around Xiao Chen like a distressed chicken. “I’m fine, Koo-chee,” a haggard and sickly Xiao Chen said to him.
Koo-chee groaned mournfully in response. Suddenly, it tore out of the cave and vanished. “Come back, Koo-chee! Don’t run off!” Xiao Chen cried, but to no avail.
Yi Tong stopped him from getting up. “It’s all right, Xiao Chen. Koo-chee is more intelligent than we often give him credit for. He’ll be fine.”
Xiao Chen softened. It was right. Koo-chee had been with him since the Miasma Mountain Range, surviving through so many gritting and fierce battles with him and had many a time showed more gumption than even that dratted Leopard Cat Spirit. “But how are they now,” he wondered, Xian’er and that Leopard Cat Spirit… Are they well at the Jade Qing Sect? This could be my end though and I may not yet see them again…” The thought of parting with Xian’er made him felt even sadder. “Brother Yi Tong, Brother None-flower… I’m afraid I have landed you both in a huge mess this time…”
“Hold it, Xiao Chen. We’ll speak nothing of that sort.”
Huangfu Xin’er walked over to him. She looked at his arm wound and the telltale rings around her eyes deepened. They had always loved each other so much even as children, feeling sad for each other whenever the other got hurt. And here was Xiao Chen now, missing an arm for her, and for all the good that the Heartless Cultivation Method could do, nothing would ever help restore him once again, and for that, it pained her immensely so.
“I’m all right…” Xiao Chen gasped feebly. Yet despite his smile, he seemed to have lost all color of his face and looked closer to be dying as if his very life was leaking out of the wound at his shoulder.
Sitting at a corner not far away were Gui Xian and Yi Tong, both looking equally bothered and tense. They knew what was coming, although they could not quite bring themselves to be truthful to the others.
Koo-chee reappeared suddenly after missing for almost half an hour, screeching “Koo-chee” agitatedly as it darted back into the cave. Ziyun’er walked up to him and crouched, asking him, “What’s wrong, Koo-chee?”