Chapter 281 - The Infernal Abyss

Freeing himself from the five enemies surrounding him, Xiao Chen unfurled his Phoenix wings and chased after the pair running away from him. With a ferocious downcut stroke from his saber, he sent a magic blow that shaped like a ten-feet-long scythe that streaked after the escaping pair.

Realizing the incoming blow, one of them turned, hoping to deflect the blow. But before he could do anything, he crumbled to the ground, being mortally struck down by a flying Xiao Chen who had caught up with his Phoenix’s Wings.

The remaining man tossed his sleeves and sent six shiny throwing-knives that shot straight at Xiao Chen. The emerald-green daggers barely missed him by inches as Xiao Chen ducked. But this brief distraction was enough for the five enemies behind to catch up. They rained another brutal onslaught of attacks on Xiao Chen, apparently trying to murder him for good measure.

Xiao Chen was forced to land; the attacks were too much for him and he was heavily outnumbered by a seven-man group who were all not only strong and powerful, but cohesive and tenacious in their compulsion to kill him. “If only Qingluan and the others are here,” Xiao Chen thought in his haste. He needed to evacuate safely, more so, with Xin’er’s pressing injury.

Another volley of throwing knives wheezed dangerously past his hair just when he trailed off. They gleamed in the glow of the moon hanging above, shining with cold fury. Xiao Chen drew his Blood Lotus Demon Blade and parried another barrage of throwing knives training at him and looked north. He muttered a quick spell and the Phoenix Wings on his back flared up, lighting his surroundings with an eruption of a fiery burst and he vanished. Before his enemies could realize where he had gone, he was already in the sky, tearing through the air in a bolt of light, racing as fast as he could towards Huangfu Xin’er.

When he finally got near, Zhiluan barked frantically, “Oh Heavens! I’ve told you every time to meddle only on your own business! Look what have you got us into! It must be that brat yesterday who had leaked our trail!”

Xiao Chen did not attempt to retort; he whisked Huangfu Xin’er off in his arms and conjured the fireballs of the Nine Heaven-scorching Flames technique. He tossed all nine of the fireballs in a hurry, and they whistled off into the wind and rained down Hell onto Earth. Everything in sight was immediately engulfed by a fiery inferno that devoured all plants and trees in its path.

With the seven enemies held off for now, Xiao Chen picked up his pace. They would be safe as long as their pursuers did not pick up any scent of theirs before nightfall.

For almost an hour they flew until the black shroud of Night was fully upon them and reached a mountainous region filled with rocky peaks and jagged spires swathed in gossamer mists that shone like a silvery veil under the moonlit sky, and everything beneath him looked as grim and as macabre as the quiet of the graveyard.

Trying not to look too inconspicuous, Xiao Chen unsummoned the fiery Phoenix Wings and drew his sword before he rode upon it, descending into the shadow of the gorges.

Cold, thick mists rolled across the woods in the quiet vale, penetrated only by the soft shafts of moonlight that illuminated a nebulous path that weaved and twisted deeper into the forest. But there was something eerily creepy about this forgotten jungle—the strange stones sprawled incoherently amid the thickets and bushes and the shifting shadows of the trees did little to dispel the nightmarish atmosphere that lingered ominously around them.

“Meow… It’s terrifying here…”

Zhiluan perched on Xiao Chen’s shoulders, its paws digging deep into his flesh as they trembled with fear.

Xiao Chen held on to the still panting Huangfu Xin’er. He could feel that her pulse was erratic; she must have channeled her powers earlier and the exertion has aggravated her injury. “How are you now?” he asked with concern.

Huangfu Xin’er head tilted back against him to look at him. “You should have just left.” She breathed with ice in her voice.

“Shhh! Enough bickering, you two. We don’t want to be noticed hiding here!” Zhiluan hissed.

The air around them was unusually chilly, and steam escaped from their mouths whenever they spoke. The presence of Huangfu Xin’er and Zhiluan were the only things that gave Xiao Chen any warmth in this ghastly forest.

They wandered through the woods and came upon a cave where they took refuge for the night. But the shelter was no less comforting; icy winds whistled in through the mouth of the cave and Zhiluan was sneezing uncontrollably. Fearing that her injury would worsen, Xiao Chen hung his Fire-heart Jade around Huangfu Xin’er’s neck to keep her warm.

They could not start a fire, for fears of attracting any enemies. Hence, Xiao Chen extracted a mink coat he previously bought for Murong Xian’er from his Divine Vessel and tossed it to Zhiluan.

The cat spirit wrapped itself with the fur and pursed its lips as it began grumbling, “I should never have followed you! There’s hardly any security with you, not with enemies chasing for your life almost every day!”

Xiao Chen ignored him, devoting his thoughts instead to the seven dark-clad strangers who had attacked them. Who were they, and by whose orders did they come to try to kill him? He remembered about the assassins whom he encountered at the Thousand Summits Mountain. He was certain they were acting on the bidding of the Ling Clan. But the skills and tenacity of this seven-man group were wholly different. These were highly-trained assassins that not even the Ling Clan or the Zuoqiu Clan would be able to command…

He was never short of enemies who wanted to bury him, but he was fortunate that none of the seven assassins were overly powerful conjurers like those with powers of the Nascent Soul Realm. But unbeknownst to him, something was happening in the faraway Tianyuan City.

Five old elders were seated together in the citadel of the Immortals’ League at Tianyuan City. These five men wielded the highest authority in the League and indescribable powers themselves. Yet under the wavering glow from the lamps burning overhead, distinctive frowns creased upon their ancient foreheads.

“It seems there’s indeed a problem with that place… All domains beyond Lv. 7 of the Forest of Illusory Moon have collapsed…”

“We’ve been organizing tournaments after tournaments annually to accumulate spiritual energy from so many conjurers. We’re still far from reaching completion, it seems… A century ago, the Chief has gone missing during his investigation of the Soul-consuming Evil Flower and the Four Sacred Guardians are but elusive folk. We’ve heard nothing from all of them yet the threat of the collapse of that place is imminent… We will be defenseless if the Devil Clan strikes now…”

“What do you propose? I think we should wait for the end of the Sword Assembly before launching a recon into the area. But it is kept by powerful enchantments; no one, not even we, can avoid being reduced to cinders if we get too close…”

“The Sword Assembly… Heavens… But with the three still missing, there’s no way we can conclude the Assembly…”

…

The whole night, Xiao Chen had not slept a wink. He got out of the cave the next morning and looked as far as he could. The mountain range stretched endlessly into the horizons and everything looked normal. But he could feel something wrong with the lands here; a strange aura had been emanating from the ground beneath him. “It must be the meridians of this lands underground,” he mused, although he knew not from where.

Huangfu Xin’er was looking better now; she was sitting on the ground, meditating and healing herself while Zhiluan, who had long got up, refused to expunge himself from the folds of the mink coat.

“It’s not safe to remain. We’d best be on our way.”

“Quit fretting, boy. I still need more sleep…” Zhiluan’s grip on the mink coat tightened as he fussed.

Quietly, Huangfu Xin’er got to her feet and sauntered out the cave. Xiao Chen muttered a spell and drew his sword. Before they could fly away, Zhiluan came scampering out. “Wait for me!”

“I thought you still need more sleep?”

“You! How dare you!”

Still unable to fly, Huangfu Xin’er clung on to Xiao Chen as they left the gorge with Zhiluan roosting on Xiao Chen’s back. For 50 kilometers they flew, and the end of the mountain range was nowhere to be seen. A thick mist swallowed the peaks below them, with the unmistakable menacing aura from something sinister residing in the gorge. Even from their altitude, the strength of the aura sent a shiver into Xiao Chen.

“MEOW! I’d hope for our sakes that what lies below us is not the barrow of something evil and powerful!”

But Xiao Chen remained silent, wearing a hard and intense look on his face. They have seen not even one beast or bird since coming here and that could only be because of the evil aura that spanned for hundreds of leagues beyond this mountain range. No single entity could have embodied such vast and rich energies that could spread such distances. Rather, the sheer volume of the aura indicated that it could only have originated from the earth itself. But the lands of the Violet Manor were sacred and tranquil, it was simply unthinkable that such an evil place even existed!

They had barely flown far when a terrifying sight unfurled before them. Zhiluan felt its fur stood as it bellowed with fright, “MEOW! WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS PLACE!?”

Xiao Chen immediately stopped in mid-air. He could feel his heart drumming anxiously as the crack of the gorge before them was blanketed by a thick, black fog. Every fen and leave near the gorge had withered and wilted. The dark fog blotted out the sun from above and everything beneath it was nothing but a black and bottomless abyss. This was the source of the unholy aura that had plagued these lands but there was no indication of where this place was!

No one would be safe from such a rich and undiluted corrosive aura; even one from the Devil’s Practice could easily succumb to its deadly effects, never mind a common conjurer vulnerable to such taint.

Xiao Chen’s senses tingled wildly, warning him about something dangerous and immensely evil lurking within the abyss!

“Please tell me you’re not thinking of going near,” Huangfu Xin’er voice came softly all of a sudden.

“MEOW! Are you mad, boy?! I’m not accompanying you into certain death with you!” Zhiluan cried and flapped its wings, readying itself to pull out to safety.

But Xiao Chen was quiet; his face was creased into a heavy frown. He could tell that something was terribly wrong with the alarming signs happening around him. Many thousands of years ago, both factions of the Immortals and Devils suffered terrible losses and all six domains nearly collapsed. And all of it was a mystery to him that awaited unraveling.

He understood that this strange abyss could be the key to the strange anomalies now taking place around the world. But before he could react, a voice rang in his mind.

“LEAVE! Leave this place at once, boy!”