The Furious Sand Descends

Nian Songyu and He Chunhua exchanged thoughtful looks and stopped sniping at each other.

Perhaps their luck had finally turned. Not even the time it took to drink a cup of tea had passed before another strange beast took the bait.

It had a bulky body like a hippopotamus, but its four limbs were fins, and its tail and neck were both long. By comparison, its head was bizarrely small.

This low-witted creature never let go once it took the bait, making it even easier to reel in than an Earth Dragon.

The only trouble was its enormous size. It took up an entire Walnut Boat and made the vessel rock wildly.

Fortunately, the Walnut Boat was close to the stone bridge. More than a hundred soldiers grabbed the ropes and hauled it onto the bridge by sheer force.

Then came the grand slaughter.

The group fetched buckets from homes in the city, bled the two monsters, and carried bucket after bucket into the temple.

They were enormous, like water jars. They spilled out a great deal of thick blood, and the stench filled the air.

He Lingchuan watched from the side, hoping to himself that the Great Square Pot wouldn't be too picky.

Meanwhile, the water in front of the main hall grew redder and redder.

Best of all, after more than thirty buckets of beast blood had been poured in, the pool began to expand!

"It's working!" Sun Fuping exclaimed, overjoyed. His fingers were white where they gripped the pool's edge. "Keep going, keep going!"

At last, after the final few buckets were emptied, the blood managed to cover the pool's bottom. It looked like no more than a thin layer.

Zeng Feixiong and his men dropped their buckets. "What now?"

"Wait!" Sun Fuping stared unblinkingly at the water. "Just wait!"

He Chunhua suddenly said, "The wind in the city stopped a long time ago."

At his reminder, everyone recalled it. When had the ever-present cold wind stopped?

At some point, the bright moon had hidden behind thick clouds, and everyone could feel the city growing dimmer.

As soon as He Chunhua finished speaking, a string of little bubbles rose from the still water, sending out a faint ripple.

"There's a hole underneath..."

Zeng Feixiong had barely asked the question when Sun Fuping shushed him and raised a hand to stop him.

The vast plaza of Mitian Temple was utterly quiet. One could hear a pin drop.

That in itself was unnatural.

Another string of bubbles rose.

Sun Fuping lowered his body, about to lean closer for a better look, when the water suddenly splashed. Something sprang out, nearly colliding with him face-to-face!

The others could only make out a dark blur, but that didn't stop them from crying out in alarm.

Only Nian Songyu, He Chunhua, and a few others managed to see it clearly in the chaos. It was a wolf-like monster, with a dog's head, tail, and limbs, but its body was covered in rough cracks. It didn't look like animal hide so much as tree bark. And there were no eyeballs in its sunken sockets; instead, a tiny red ghost fire burned within each one!

The creature emerged directly toward Sun Fuping. Without the slightest courtesy, it opened its huge jaws and went straight for his throat.

Its jaws could open to a hundred and twenty degrees, wide enough to swallow a head whole. The two were so close that, in the blink of He Lingchuan's eye, Sun Fuping was about to lose his head.

But a State Preceptor was a State Preceptor. Sun Fuping stayed calm in the face of danger and thrust his staff into the monster's face.

The beast head atop the staff opened its mouth and spat out a blazing red fireball.

The monster let out a piercing scream and vanished into ashes.

Nian Songyu started, then exclaimed with delight, "A vengeful spirit!"

The monster had no physical body at all. It was a vengeful spirit.

People always thought that vengeful spirits lurked in the shadows of the Coiling Dragon Desert, bewitching people's minds. In truth, the real culprit was the Three-Corpse Insect. This vengeful spirit was the first genuine one they had encountered since entering the Coiling Dragon Desert.

Now that it had appeared, Nian Songyu was overjoyed. It meant they had been heading in the right direction!

Ashes dusted Sun Fuping's face, but he had no time to wipe them off. He bent down to study the water.

He Lingchuan maliciously thought that if Sun Fuping leaned another inch closer, the next monster to emerge could ride right on his face.

The entire pool was bubbling now, with more bubbles rising ever faster.

It was as though a fire burned beneath it, and the water was about to boil.

Layer upon layer of ripples spread to the edge without fading. Instead, they grew stronger as they expanded, until they began to raise waves.

The waves struck the pool's edge and rebounded, churning the water even more.

Everyone's faces darkened.

If a string of bubbles meant one monster was emerging, then these countless, tightly packed bubbles meant...

Sun Fuping suddenly turned and bellowed at the crowd, "Take the Soul-Suppressing Powder and kindle your Life Fires! Quickly, quickly, quickly!"

His shout was empowered by true force. It shook the surrounding area and rang like thunder, laying bare his desperation.

Everyone moved at once.

Fortunately, the more than a hundred soldiers who had gone fishing in the sea of sand had already taken the Soul-Suppressing Powder. Now Sun Fuping, He Chunhua, and the others just had to take theirs.

The little pills had barely gone down when Sun Fuping hurriedly instructed them, "Hold your breath and stand by the pool. Don't look back! These monsters are harder to deal with than the Three-Corpse Insect!"

His last words made everyone's hearts tighten.

Sun Fuping stressed it again. "Hold your breath. Hold it!"

The moment he finished speaking, the surface of the water exploded!

The scene was like a volcanic eruption. The pool's surface was the crater, and countless grotesque vengeful spirits were the lava blasting out of it!

Some looked human, some beastly, some like plants, and some had features of all three. The living couldn't tell what they were supposed to look like.

But far too many spirits were surging out for anyone to examine them. All they could see was a spectacular column of black smoke shooting up like volcanic ash, then spreading in every direction!

Most terrifying of all, every vengeful spirit opened its mouth and wailed. Their shrieks were piercing and grating, filled with pain and fury.

Without waiting for a warning, everyone covered their ears and clamped their mouths shut.

But the sound reverberated in each person's sea of consciousness, shaking their hearts and leaving them dizzy and disoriented.

Most of the vengeful spirits flew upward, but a few circled twice above the main hall before flying back down!

Not a soul dared so much as take a deep breath.

State Preceptor Sun had been right. These things seemed far more vicious than the Three-Corpse Insect.

Three wisps of Life Fire burned above them, while the Soul-Suppressing Powder did everything it could to conceal the living's presence.

The ghosts darted among the crowd, but took them for clay statues and wood carvings. Before long, they drifted away.

He Lingchuan looked up and saw ghosts swirling across the night sky, rapidly changing the weather.

The wind rose.

Twenty breaths passed.

Forty breaths passed.

Thousands of vengeful spirits surged out with every breath. By now, tens of thousands had emerged, yet the spirits kept gushing forth without the slightest sign of slowing.

Outside Coiling Dragon City, the wind grew steadily stronger. Sand Tornadoes began forming one after another, growing from small whirls into enormous funnels, with one end reaching the sky and the other touching the ground.

Apart from the raging sand and howling wind, nothing else seemed to exist between heaven and earth.

The windblown sand stung their eyes, but they rubbed them and watched anyway.

The Furious Sand Season had accompanied most Blackwater City residents as they grew up, but how many of them had ever witnessed its true cause with their own eyes?

As time passed, the soldiers' faces grew redder and redder from holding their breath, nearly swelling to the color of pig liver.