The demon ape flew into a rage and leapt to give chase to Qin Mu, running a few paces, but its body was far too heavy and its speed could not compare with the boy's. Maddened beyond endurance, the creature tore whole trees from the earth, sweeping its hand along the trunks until every branch and leaf was stripped away, until each had become a great crude spear that it flung with a shake of its wrist.
"Little one, die!"
The blow carried enormous force, its speed astonishing, but its aim was lacking—the great spear whizzed a dozen-odd zhang to one side.
The demon ape grew even more enraged, stripped another tree and meant to throw again, but Qin Mu had by then run too far, and the creature could only beat its own chest in fury.
Senior Brother Qu spoke in a low voice: "That little demon whelp's cultivation is far beneath ours. His wounds must be even heavier than mine—he cannot have gone far."
He forced himself up and grunted in pain; he feared the ape had cracked several of his ribs. But if a whelp like Qin Mu could weather the ape's blows, then so could he.
What he did not know was that Qin Mu's cultivation was in no way weak—it was only that his vital qi carried no element and so could not exert its full power. Young as he was, in cultivation he was the equal of any of them, Senior Brother Qu included.
The five circled the ape's territory and once more found Qin Mu's trail. As Senior Brother Qu had said, Qin Mu had been gravely wounded and, once clear of the ape's lands, his speed could not help but slow, letting them close the distance. Yet as they pressed the pursuit, they found his speed steadily rising, as though his wounds were healing without cease.
"That little demon whelp must carry some fine medicine for wounds!"
The five felt their hearts sink. Senior Brother Qu had taken his own sect's injury-pills, yet they had not worked half as well as Qin Mu's "medicine." Judging by the rise in his speed, his wounds were closing before their very eyes! The thought of such a salve set all five burning with greed.
"Our sect's medicine is not of the first order. If we could lay hands on the formula for that whelp's superior salve, the Master would surely reward us handsomely!"
But at that very moment Qin Mu was not swallowing any medicine. As he ran he breathed steadily, circulating the so-called Overlord Three-Pill Art the Village Chief had taught him—though in truth it was but the most common of Guidance Arts, a thing he did not yet know.
This time, urging the Overlord Three-Pill Art into motion as he fled, Qin Mu made a new discovery: his vital qi grew livelier while he ran, and circulated all the faster! The Chief had always bidden him sit in stillness, inhale and exhale slowly, nourishing his vital qi to moisten his flesh. For some ten years Qin Mu had practiced it exactly so, and only now did he realize it worked far better while running.
When he sprinted, the art ran faster, nurtured his vital qi faster, and moistened his body with far greater speed. Wave after wave of vital qi washed through his five viscera and six bowels, through his limbs and hundred bones, even flushing along the fascia between bone and muscle, again and again. The demon ape's palm had wounded his viscera and bones, yet under that washing the cracks were endlessly mending. Senior Brother Qu and the others believed he relied on a superior salve—they never guessed it was that ridiculous Overlord Three-Pill Art.
Gradually Qin Mu discovered that there was one place where the fascia between bone and skin lay beyond the reach of his vital qi—the brow, between his two eyebrows, a spot barely a finger's breadth wide. Here his qi could not pass. It could wash beneath his scalp and strengthen his skull, but whenever it reached the brow it met tremendous obstruction, as though an invisible wall stood there barring the way.
And when he drove his qi against that invisible wall, something stranger still occurred: he heard a mysterious voice, seeming to come from beyond the ninth heaven, high and distant, rising and falling, melodious and sacred, like a god high above proclaiming a divine decree. And whenever the voice sounded, his vital qi slipped beyond his control, retreating like the ebbing tide and circling around the brow.
"Is this the Spirit Fetus Wall?" Qin Mu wondered in bewilderment.
The Village Chief and Grandma Si and the others had spoken to him of "walls" and of "breaking the wall"—a wall being the seal over one of the treasure vaults within the body, and breaking it the opening of that seal to take the treasure within. But they had never told him where the Spirit Fetus Wall lay, nor how to open it.
What Qin Mu did not know was that they had not withheld this from ill will—simply that no method for breaking the Spirit Fetus Wall existed anywhere in the world! Ordinary men and the spirit-blessed were two different classes of people. Being born spirit-blessed, their wall was open from birth, naturally a rank above; the wall of ordinary folk was sealed shut, setting them a rank below, and lofty spirit-blessed took little heed of common men's needs. Few ordinary men became martial artists, and no ordinary man who had opened his Spirit Fetus Wall—neither the Chief nor Grandma Si had ever heard of such a one, much less how the wall might be broken.
Qin Mu sprinted on, rousing his qi to hurl itself again and again against that invisible wall. The mysterious voice kept sounding, forcing his qi to fall back of its own accord. Each time he failed, but he had patience enough and firmly believed he would break through in time.
He decided he would not tell the Chief and the others of his discovery until after he had succeeded, and then spring on them a pleasant surprise. Whether it would prove a surprise or a fright to them, though, was hard to say.
Senior Brother Qu and the other four grew more anxious with every step. That "little demon whelp" was not merely healing—his speed had actually risen before their eyes! That meant his cultivation was increasing even as he fled! Slow though the rise might be, it was terrifying. Every practitioner advanced step by step; even one who had broken a wall could only rise gradually. And this whelp felt his cultivation climbing while running for his life—truly dreadful!
It was a mercy that Qin Mu had begun weaker than them; a gap still remained. Yet catching him was no easy matter. Since suffering that earlier loss, he had grown far more cautious, avoiding the territories of the strange beasts as he ran. When the Apothecary had taken him to gather herbs, he had told Qin Mu the creatures of the Great Ruin were full of spirit and each held its own domain, leaving traces—trees stripped of bark, bones thrust in the earth, animal heads hung on stakes—so that one who noted such signs kept clear. The fist-prints on the cliffs of the ape's territory marked that land as its own; Qin Mu, having failed to see them, had blundered in. Now he was careful and would not trespass again.
Yet many beasts still left their own lands to hunt, and the Great Ruin was thick with danger on every side. As Qin Mu crossed a marsh he came upon a battle between two lord-class beings—a crested-necked snow vulture and a venomous marsh dragon-serpent. One struck from the air, kicking up gales; the other coiled in the marsh, churning up waves. Qin Mu had not even set foot in the marsh before the hurricane sent him flying, and he landed in a herd of startled wild oxen, near trampled to death.
"Farther and farther from the village…" Qin Mu's heart sank. The five behind pursued without cease, giving him no chance to return home. And far more terrible—the sun was about to set! He and Grandma Si had set out in the afternoon; soon darkness would fall, and if he could not reach the village before then, he might run into terrible peril!
"Senior Brother Qu, it is growing dark!"
Behind him the five had noticed too. The youth Qin Mu had kicked spoke with unease: "The Master once said the Great Ruin is a cursed land. Once night falls it becomes a forbidden zone, and one must return to a village protected by stone statues, or face certain death!"
Senior Brother Qu shook his head: "It is already too late to turn back. We have come too far to reach the old village before nightfall. Darkness is a danger to us, and no less to the little demon whelp. There is but one way now—we must see where the whelp takes shelter!"