The biting mountain wind howled past, carrying the stench of rotting leaves and damp soil as it viciously slapped Chu Ning's cheeks.
Night poured down like thick ink, shrouding Eagle Beak Cliff in deathly silence. Jagged rocks gleamed coldly beneath the moonlight, resembling the fangs of a giant beast poised to devour any intruder.
Chu Ning lay concealed in the shadows atop the cliff, his fingertip caressing the beads of night dew condensed on his arrowhead.
Below, a winding dragon of torches was making its way through the narrowest bend of Snake-Shed Pass, while the black-iron cages cast spiderweb-like shadows in the firelight.
Amid the clanking chains came the muffled sobs of children.
"The Wang family actually treats living people as 'cargo'?"
His gaze was icy as he watched the winding escort convoy below.
"Three quarters past the Xu hour. The lead carriage is entering the bend."
Chu Ning slowly exhaled a breath of stale air. The Void Spirit Bell in his palm glimmered with a ghostly blue light, strangely twisting the air around it.
Even the sound of his hurried breathing seemed to have been filtered away, leaving behind only the distant tolling of a bell.
More bizarrely, when he raised his foot and stepped onto the cliff face, loose stones pattered down beneath his boot, yet not even a speck of dust was stirred—as though he were walking across reflected emptiness.
The three gold-inlaid carriages were like lambs awaiting slaughter as they slowly squeezed into the Eagle Beak Fissure, which was just wide enough for a single carriage to pass.
"Crack!"
At the instant the bowstring twanged, the thick vines on the eastern cliff face snapped in response. The arrow, saturated with Thunderous Force, burst into a blinding purple radiance, and the thousand-catty boulder lying in wait behind the vines came crashing down.
The arrow flew, the stone collapsed, the horses screamed, and men died.
The lead coachman did not even have time to cry out before man and horse alike were crushed into a thin meat patty.
"Enemy attack! Protect the carriages!"
The convoy descended into chaos in an instant. Cries of alarm and the sounds of weapons leaving their sheaths overlapped, and the atmosphere grew taut as drawn swords.
The guards' commander's roar tore through the night sky, and more than twenty martial artists drew their sabers at once.
Before the convoy could come to a complete stop, Chu Ning had already struck decisively.
The second arrow pierced a crack in the western cliff face and precisely nailed a weathered load-bearing stone.
The entire mountain gave a dying beast's groan, and the collapsing rock sealed off the retreat completely.
Chu Ning drifted down onto the cliff top like a ghost. The cold gleam of the Rusty Saber sliding from its sheath illuminated the children curled up inside the cages.
Their pale little faces bore a numbness far beyond their years. The youngest girl had even voluntarily stretched her wrist toward the iron bars, where it was covered in needle holes from blood extraction.
"The Wang family." A bestial growl rumbled from Chu Ning's throat, and the thunder patterns along his blade swelled violently.
"Boom!"
Thunderous Force tore through the Blood Mist like silver serpents. The raging lightning carried a terrifying impact, overturning the lead carriage outright. Its wheels shattered, and the fine horses reared and scattered with shrill cries.
"Heh heh heh..."
A streak of blood shot out from the splintered carriage.
Wang Zheng's face twisted and warped amid the Blood Mist, while web-like crimson markings crawled beneath his skin like venomous snakes.
His eyes were completely swallowed by scarlet. His fingernails had lengthened into pitch-black claws, and every strike carried the stench of rotting flesh. "You think... you can save them?"
His voice seemed squeezed out from the depths of an abyss. Hoarse and edged with mad laughter, it snarled, "These children... became offerings to the old ancestor long ago!"
The web-like crimson markings on Wang Zheng's face writhed as if alive. His flesh looked soaked in blood, and his hands gleamed with a chilling light as he carried a bloody gale straight toward Chu Ning's throat.
"Wang Zheng? A Blood Puppet?" Chu Ning's heart jolted violently, but his saber momentum only grew fiercer.
Thunderous Force exploded along the point of impact, scorching the rotting flesh on Wang Zheng's right arm until it sizzled.
"Hrk—how dare you hijack the Wang family's silver carriage." Wang Zheng's vocal cords sounded as if they had been seared by a branding iron. "The old ancestor wants your... eyeballs soaked in wine."
Three arrows answered him in rapid succession. They pierced the Blood Mist and embedded themselves in the cliff wall, linking together in the night sky to form a cage of lightning.
Who would have thought that "Hundred Steps Penetrating Willow" and Thunderclap Saber Art would merge into a new technique? Dancing arcs of electricity locked Wang Zheng firmly within a space no larger than a few feet.
"Speak! Where are these children being sent?" Chu Ning pressed the tip of his saber against the Blood Puppet's brow.
Wang Zheng split open his mouth, which dripped with Black Blood, and suddenly tore open his robe.
Nine bronze spikes were clearly embedded in his chest, three of them already rusted into the bone. "Blood Refining Hall. They bestowed upon me an undying body." Before he finished speaking, his entire body suddenly swelled like a ball.
Chu Ning touched the ground with his toes and retreated explosively. The spot where he had stood was already corroded by poisonous blood into a pit over ten feet deep.
Wang Zheng's body swelled to its limit as if inflated. The instant his skin split open, countless blood bats surged forth amid foul-smelling black mist.
Twisted human faces even surfaced on the backs of every bat—the faces of the children who had been refined.
Their scarlet eyes locked onto the children inside the cages. They shrieked as they pounced toward the carriages, their cries and laughter blending into an ear-piercing demonic sound.
Chu Ning's pupils contracted sharply.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
His arrows pierced the bats in front. The human faces dissolved into blood spray, splattering across the iron bars and corroding them with hissing white smoke.
Seven iron arrows tore through the air, pinning the bats three feet before the cages.
Taking advantage of the opening, Chu Ning leaped onto the last carriage. Yet when his blade slashed across the black-iron chains, it only sent sparks flying.
He slipped beneath the carriage like a ghost. Reaching out slightly, he searched through a hidden compartment beneath the carriage. When his fingertip touched a raised mechanism, he pressed it lightly, and the compartment opened soundlessly.
"Rumble!"
The entire carriage suddenly sank three feet. The instant the hidden compartment sprang open, nine bronze spikes shot out.
Chu Ning swung his saber to block them, only to see the spikes form a strange formation in midair. The birth dates engraved on their shafts seeped blood beneath the moonlight.
The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches and name on one of them froze the blood in his veins—it was unmistakably Wang Lin!
"The Wang family's old ancestor... actually intends to refine himself into a living corpse!" Stormy waves surged through Chu Ning's heart.
The Wang family's old ancestor was not seeking longevity at all. He was splitting his soul and storing it inside nine living corpses, each body requiring nourishment from the bloodline of a close relative!
The secret arts of the Blood Refining Hall had already reached such a terrifying level. Just how many filthy secrets was the Wang family still concealing?
"Click."
The sound of a mechanism turning came from deep within the hidden compartment. Chu Ning spun around and hacked down.
The instant his saber energy flipped the carriage roof away, he saw a sight he would never forget.
Nine similar-looking corpses were soaking in a blood pool, each with a bronze spike engraved with birth dates driven through its heart. The "corpse" in the very center suddenly opened its eyes, the corners of its mouth stretching to its ears. "Boy. Your blood smells delicious."
"Boom!"
The Rusty Saber came crashing down, wrapped in fury, but an appearing blood shield blocked it.
The webbing between Chu Ning's thumb and forefinger split open. Yet the "corpse" raised a hand and summoned a sky full of blood rain. The droplets immediately corroded skin down to white bone upon contact, and even the Void Spirit Bell's barrier began to tremble.
Wang Zheng pounced over at that moment, his nails extending three feet as he attempted to rip out Chu Ning's heart with his bare hands.
At the moment between life and death, a ball of snow-colored lightning shot from Chu Ning's collar.
"Clang!"
Amid the clash of metal, Little White Fox's eyes erupted with azure light. Her tiny body met the poisonous claws head-on, and most of her snowy fur was instantly corroded by Black Blood.
She turned and whimpered at Chu Ning. The Golden Cudgel Spell patterns on her left forepaw blazed like the sun.
"No!" Chu Ning's eyes nearly split apart. But Little White Fox had already transformed into azure flowing fire, her nine illusory fox tails winding around the Blood Puppet like chains.
The Golden Cudgel Spell patterns spread from her brow across the Blood Puppet's entire body. Wherever they passed, the bronze spikes shattered one after another.
The Blood Puppet let out an inhuman wail, its body twisting into charred coal amid the foxfire.
When the final bronze spike burst from its body, Little White Fox fell like a kite with its string cut.
Chu Ning lunged forward and caught her. What his palm touched was no longer warm, soft fur, but carbonized flesh.
"Cough."
Little White Fox's claw lightly hooked his lapel, while the azure pupils in her eyes gradually lost focus.
The proud Spiritual Beast that had refused to submit even unto death in the cavern that day was now curled in his arms like a kitten.
A sickly sweetness surged into Chu Ning's throat. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, but he did not notice at all.
The body heat of Little White Fox in his arms was rapidly fading. Her originally lustrous azure pupils were gradually clouded by a layer of gray.
Her paw weakly caught on his lapel, as if making one final confirmation that he was still there.
"Hang on..." Chu Ning's voice was hoarse to the point of breaking. His trembling fingertips stroked her scorched black fur, where the acrid smell of fire still lingered.
Chu Ning staggered back to the cliff's edge, with an abyss of bottomless darkness behind him.
He stared fixedly at the undamaged gold-inlaid carriage and suddenly cleaved through the chains binding its carriage pole with the Rusty Saber.
The carriage tilted and overturned under the pull of gravity, and gold cascaded down like a waterfall.
As they fell, he held the barely breathing Little White Fox tightly in his arms, letting the sensation of weightlessness swallow his entire body.
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