Chapter 622 — Beneath the Evening Mist, Silver Blossoms and Fiery Trees

" True God Pang Yu grew wary. "Sect Master Shen, neither the Imperial Teacher of Jingping nor the Heavenly Teacher is here. Best not stir up trouble. " Shen Mu said soberly, "True God, it has been more than half a year since I came to Taihuang Heaven.

Have you ever seen me stir up trouble?

Do not slander me.

" True God Pang Yu beamed and nodded again and again.

"I understand all that Sect Master Shen says.

My words were ill-chosen; I beg the Sect Master's pardon. " Honored God Sang Ye leaned to his ear and whispered, "City Lord, have you forgotten how he shattered our Taihuang Heaven's sun? " "Quietly.

" Pang Yu lowered his voice. "He has no sense of measure, and have you none? A disciple of the Heavenly Teacher; you and I cannot afford to cross him. Besides, he made the Imperial Teacher of Jingping forge two new suns for us, and they are far handsomer than the old one.

" Honored God Sang Ye shut his mouth in a hurry.

Shen Mu watched the darkness deepening in the west, clenched his fist, lowered his voice, and said with excitement, "Vajra and Chi Xi have wounded each other grievously. Now is the perfect chance to pick up heads!

How I would love to go and pick up the heads of Vajra and Chi Xi. .

. " Pang Yu was chilled inwardly.

He threw a look at Honored God Sang Ye and said in a low voice, "Watch him closely. Do not let him go courting disaster.

" Sang Ye nodded again and again.

Elsewhere, outside Gu City, Vajra touched down, turned, and walked away; in an instant his form vanished into the darkness and was gone. Chi Xi too landed staggering. He forced down the blood choking his chest, but could not hold it; suddenly his whole body split open and his defeated blood sprayed wildly, three heads, three mouths, spouting blood without cease.

In a few short moments his body withered.

The six sabers in his hands shattered with a clatter. He and Vajra had indeed wounded each other unto mutual ruin. From first to last the two had not spoken a single word, only fought in grim silence; in that brief exchange they had dealt each other grievous harm, both of them near the last of their oil and the end of their wick.

And the reason Vajra turned and left was that he bore wounds in many places, and feared Chi Xi would seize the chance to take his blood and qi; so retreating was in fact the surest way to kill Chi Xi. He need only send devil-gods without a wound, and he could take Chi Xi's life with ease.

As the wise man of the devil race, he saw this clearly, more clearly than anyone.

Chi Xi understood too why Vajra had withdrawn, and knew this was no place to linger; before long, he feared, devil-gods would come to claim his life. Yet his blood and qi were spent and ruined.

He could not go far, he reckoned, before the devil-gods ran him down, and then would be his day of death. "Am I to die here?

" Chi Xi knelt and sat, his three heads hanging low, a dead stillness in his heart.

"I have not yet gone to the ancestral land. I have not returned to my reclusive kin to tell them of the ancestral land. I am not resigned.

. .

" In the distant Gu City, a mass of black qi drifted ghostlike among the heaps of corpses, now taking the shape of a small tree, now of a stubborn rock.

And little flags fluttered all around this black qi, gathering devil qi, gathering up the remnant souls the underworld runners of Youdu had no use for.

The black qi drifted and drifted, ever changing; sometimes it settled into the flames kindled by divine powers and became a tongue of fire. Not long after, this black qi came testing its way to Chi Xi, who knelt sitting there.

It hesitated, wavered, plainly longing to come near and see whether Chi Xi was dead and to scavenge some wealth, yet also somewhat afraid.

"You are of the human race," Chi Xi said suddenly.

The devil qi started; the next instant it became a clump of grass. Chi Xi went on, "No need to put on your many changes before me. I can see through you.

If you can carry me away alive, I will take you as my disciple and teach you the highest secret art of the Crimson Bright era, the Leakless War God Art, and grant you great benefits. " The clump of grass swayed; then the grass vanished, and a youth with two deer legs appeared before Chi Xi.

The deer legs bent, and he knocked his head on the ground in salute, crying aloud, "Ban Gongcuo pays his respects to the Master! Rest easy, Master, I have spent months mixing among the devil race, and when it comes to the art of fleeing for one's life, no one under heaven would dare claim to be my better!

"