Chapter 100 — The Dark Serpent
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The wind passed through, and countless flowers swayed all at once.
Lu Xueling stood in the sea of blossoms, expressionless, silently watching Ming Li where he had come to rest opposite her.
A faint, hidden fragrance drifted on the air.
Ming Li gave a slight shrug, and Xiao Hui sprang from his shoulder in a flash. The monkey looked wide-eyed at his master, cast a glance toward Lu Xueling across the way, scratched his head, and then ran off to one side on his own.
Ming Li's gaze settled on the towering stone gate behind Lu Xueling. All at once he smiled. "So this is what we've been looking for?"
Lu Xueling stood before the gate. She did not smile, nor did she speak; only her face seemed somewhat pale, and no one could tell what she was thinking.
Ming Li walked slowly forward. "What I want," he said lightly, "is inside."
"Clang!"
The Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword lay across the space between them like a river of autumn water, mirroring both their figures, swaying gently.
Ming Li stopped walking.
Lu Xueling raised her head slowly, her face as pale as frost, yet in that pallor she resembled all the more one of the celestial maidens of the Ninth Heaven, untouched by the mortal world, of a beauty beyond all measure. Even the words she spoke now carried a chill to the bone: "I will not let this strange treasure fall into the hands of the demon cult, to be used to harm more innocent lives."
Ming Li looked at her—looked at her deeply.
The woman was as beautiful and cold as she had been in those years; time had carved not the slightest mark upon her. But in her heart?
He had changed. Had anything in the depths of this woman's heart changed as well?
He suddenly laughed—but amid the laughter his gaze slowly turned cold. Smiling, he said, "Is that so? Then this is most unfortunate. It happens that I intend to take this unknown treasure, and after that, to kill even more people!"
Lu Xueling's body trembled faintly. She stared at the man before her and said nothing more; only her grip on the Heaven-Cutting Sword tightened a fraction more.
From somewhere far off, a faint roar suddenly came—a sound rising from the depths of the mist beneath their feet, seeming still very distant, like the bellow of some wild beast.
A moment later, Ming Li and Lu Xueling both sensed it at once: within the trunk of this true heaven-scraping tree beneath their feet, a faint tremor suddenly passed.
Ming Li and Lu Xueling both shifted expression slightly. This wondrous tree was vast beyond all reckoning, surpassing even ordinary mountain ranges; to shake the tree itself—why, even the thought of trying to shake it seemed inconceivable.
But what manner of figures were these two, that the movement beneath their feet could escape them? Clearly some immense upheaval had suddenly occurred down in the mist below, and some tremendous force, unknown to them, was capable of shaking this tree.
At the thought, both being quick of perception, they understood at once: this upheaval must surely be connected to the Heavenly Emperor's Treasure Vault before them.
At that very moment, the first ray of sunlight from the horizon slanted down and fell upon the sea of flowers some three feet from the stone gate.
Ming Li stirred and made to act, but Lu Xueling's bright eyes flashed; she brought the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword across her breast and barred his way in front of the stone gate of the Heavenly Emperor's Treasure Vault.
Ming Li's gaze sharpened, a red gleam seeming to flicker in his eyes. "I do not wish to fight you," he said in a low voice. "Stand aside."
Lu Xueling looked straight into his eyes, betraying not the slightest intention of yielding. "Kill me," she said calmly, "and of course you may pass."
The red light in Ming Li's eyes flared. Suddenly he gave a long cry, leapt into the air, and blazed all over with a dark blue radiance, fierce and overwhelming.
Lu Xueling's face turned cold as frost. She raised the Heaven-Cutting Sword to meet the sky and said icily, "Since you have entered the demon path, why still use the arts of the Canglan Sect?"
Ming Li hung in midair, the Blood-Devouring Pearl at the head of Soul-Eater blazing crimson in his grasp, so that his eyes too were flooded with bright red and his killing aura surged. "And what of the Qingyun arts?" he shouted. "What of the demon cult's foul sorcery? I use them all alike to take lives—what of it?"
Amid a shrill whistle, that red glow mingled with the pale light and came crashing down from above.
A flash of anger passed through Lu Xueling's eyes. She yielded not half a step; the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword rose to meet it in midair, and the two peerless treasures of heaven and earth collided with a thunderous roar!
"Boom!"
At the great report, Ming Li's body was hurled upward, while Lu Xueling, standing upon the tree trunk, could not help but stagger several steps back, her face paling. Yet the cold, clear woman only knit her willow brows, and her body rose with the sword; centered upon the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword at her breast, dazzling blue light burst outward in all directions, and within that radiance she was lovelier than all the world.
"Ten years ago, in that battle, I was the one defeated!" She hung in midair, staring at Ming Li before her, speaking slowly, word by word. At the same time, her own daoist art drove the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword, its blue halo growing ever brighter, until it seemed as though even the sunlight in the sky were being forced back by her.
"Ten years later, I ask your instruction once more—you, the only man alive who has mastered the true arts of the Buddhist, Daoist, and demon paths all at once!"
Ming Li laughed aloud. "What a memory you have!"
No sooner said than he acted: Soul-Eater spun before him in a blur, pale light rolling in waves, while his left hand traced strange seal patterns without pause. In an instant a Tai Chi diagram of brilliant pale light flashed into being before him—the true esoteric Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art of the Canglan Sect.
Lu Xueling saw it, and her face grew colder still. With a clear cry, the light of the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword surged; as her wrist turned, the sword seemed to lengthen tenfold and came cleaving down at Ming Li.
Ming Li's expression shifted. He himself had poured immense effort into the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art, and from the power of this single sword stroke he knew that in ten years her cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds. Among the younger generation of the Canglan Sect in those days, not one could so easily have gathered the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art into sword-light so pure, with such overwhelming force; he himself had seen it used only once, in his boyhood, when his master Tian Buhui disciplined Qi Hao—and even then, Tian Buhui's mastery of the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art had already reached the "Supreme Clarity Realm."
And now Lu Xueling struck out as though at random, her sword-light like a mountain, her blue radiance keen as a blade, its momentum enough to topple seas and overturn mountains—scarcely less than Tian Buhui's had been. The speed of her progress over these ten years was simply inconceivable!
Yet for all Lu Xueling's astonishing gifts, Ming Li bore three schools of rare arts, and had trained night and day for ten years—how could he be counted ordinary?
Now, facing that mountain-like sword-light, Ming Li flung out both arms, and the Tai Chi diagram before him suddenly whirled at furious speed, swelling rapidly to shield his breast.
"Hiss!" A sharp report—it was as though the all-piercing sword-light had been stopped dead by that Tai Chi diagram. Yet the blue light only blazed brighter, the pale radiance flickered, and brilliant halos sparkled between the two of them, a sight of rare beauty. But everyone knew that a single misstep, a brush against sword-light and pale radiance so freighted with the true power of the Daoist arts, meant death or injury.