The creature had been concealed in the beams for an unknowable length of time. The moment it showed itself, the entire hall went dim.
Qin Yao and the others blanched in unison. They saw that the thing was jet black and glossy all over, its length more than eight feet. Its form was roughly like an ape yet not quite an ape — with a pointed mouth, sunken cheeks, and a grotesquely ugly face. A pair of pupils radiated an eerie jade-green glow, and behind it trailed a smooth, curling tail.
The creature plunged down from the beams — but did not extend its claws to attack Qing Xuzi. Instead, it opened its sharp mouth wide, intending to bite Qing Xuzi’s head clean off.
Qing Xuzi swiftly recovered from extreme shock, retreated three quick steps, and drew from his waist a dull, unassuming length of grass rope. He intoned: “Go—!”
An utterly unremarkable piece of grass rope seemed, in Qing Xuzi’s hands, to come alive, snapping and whistling through the air, and in moments had wound itself like a serpent around the creature’s neck.
The creature, caught off guard by the rope pulling it from mid-air, let out a muffled grunt and stumbled and crashed to the floor of the hall.
Qin Yao and A’Han were overjoyed. They immediately rushed to Qing Xuzi’s side and arranged themselves into the Three Absolutes Formation, each activating their own ritual implements, wishing they could pour every technique they had ever learned onto the creature all at once and subdue it then and there.
But the creature had only been dragged along the ground by the grass rope for two steps when it suddenly bent low and drove both four-toed claws deep into the floor, anchoring itself. Then, emitting a low, rumbling howl, it tore the grass rope savagely from its own neck.
Qing Xuzi was suddenly thrown off-balance, nearly stumbling backward. It was only thanks to his deep reserves of inner power that he managed, after several staggering lurches, to hold himself steady.
It was plain to see: the ritual implements and formation of all three of them were completely ineffective against it.
Qin Yao felt a cold jolt of dread. For the first time in all her encounters with malevolent entities, she felt genuinely helpless. All three of them had already deployed a great many of their best techniques without hesitation — yet the creature had not been harmed in the slightest. Such was the magnitude of its spiritual power. If they could not subdue it and simply wore themselves down, every person in this hall would die at its hands.
Lost in these racing thoughts, she heard Qing Xuzi speak in a voice pressed as low as he could manage from behind: “A’Han — in a moment I will create a distraction so you can slip out. Run to Fulu Lane outside Dayin Temple, find that bald old man Yuan Jue, and tell him the Luo Cha has appeared in the world. Tell him to gather his people and come here quickly to help us face it.”
A’Han could not bear to abandon his Master and younger martial sister at such a critical moment. He was first stunned, then stood straight and shook his head quietly. “Master, let me and A’Yao stay here to deal with the creature instead, and you go send word to Senior Master Yuan Jue.”
There was no need for Qing Xuzi to reprimand A’Han — even Qin Yao was on the verge of being infuriated to death by her senior brother’s stubborn, block-headed thinking. Keeping her voice low and urgent, she said: “Senior Brother, this is not the time to play the hero. The time you’re wasting right now dithering is time you could have used to run a great distance already. Hurry up and do as Master says. If you find help sooner, maybe we’ll all have a chance of getting out of this alive.”
Even his own junior martial sister was furious with him. A’Han had no choice but to relent and said, “Alright.” He thought of something, then hesitated again. “Master — the Luo Cha is this difficult to deal with, and you and Master Yuan Jue have never gotten along. Will he really come to help?”
“I told you to go — just go! Why all this talk?” Qing Xuzi’s patience was exhausted. His face dark, he hissed in a low voice.
A’Han at last shut his mouth obediently.
While Master and disciples were settling the matter of sending word to Yuan Jue, the creature in the hall had shifted its attention away from the three of them — it was now fixed on Lin Xiao, staring at him for a good long while with those jade-green eyes, yet holding back from acting. It seemed to be recalling how it had taken a sword cut from him in the tunnel and could not afford to be careless.
Lin Xiao returned the creature’s gaze coldly. The Chixiao Sword in his hand hummed on and on without cease. He knew this thing would be extraordinarily difficult to deal with — even Qing Xuzi could do nothing against it — and naturally he had no intention of making a rash move.
After a long standoff, the creature at last could no longer contain itself. It let out a strange cry toward the doorway of the hall — as if summoning someone — and a moment later, a slender, shadowy figure slipped in from outside. She came directly before the creature and knelt at its feet, waiting in silence for its command.
Qin Yao turned to look carefully — it was the female ghost. She was slightly taken aback, not having expected the female ghost to be so utterly subservient to this creature.
She watched as the creature made a gesture and pointed with a sinister air toward Qin Yao and the others. The female ghost accepted the command, bowed her head and rose, and her gaze hardened as she lunged straight toward Qin Yao and the others.
A’Yao and her Master dealt with the female ghost together, and in the meantime took the opportunity to cover A’Han, helping him manage to slip out the temple door and make haste to find Yuan Jue.
With the female ghost now occupying Qing Xuzi and the others, the creature had nothing more to hold it back. Its great, dark body moved slowly as it turned its gaze on Lin Xiao — and this time it did not hesitate. The jade gleam deepened in its eyes, and it drifted toward Lin Xiao like a phantom.
Lin Xiao was fully prepared. He saw the creature’s lethal claw drive straight for his chest, swiftly twisted aside to evade it, held his sword sideways to block — and the blade, ordinarily cool and lustrous, suddenly blazed with brilliant, intensified radiance, flooding the hall with sudden bright light.
When the creature’s claw made contact with the Chixiao Sword, it recoiled as though burned, letting out a low, strange cry — yet it neither retreated nor dodged, but instantly redirected, reaching instead for Lin Xiao’s throat.
Though Qin Yao was occupied contending with the female ghost, she kept a constant eye on Lin Xiao’s every movement. At this sight, terror seized her and she let out a low cry. If the creature landed that blow, Lin Xiao would surely be killed.
She immediately dropped the female ghost, snatched the grass rope from her Master’s hand, and drove it furiously toward the creature.
But Lin Xiao’s sword speed was far beyond what Qin Yao had imagined. One moment the blade was across his chest — and in the next eyeblink, he had gripped the hilt and sliced upward through the narrow gap between himself and the creature’s reaching claw. The claw was caught squarely, sliced so cleanly it nearly lost half a finger.
The creature drew back its great claw. It had no more appetite for the fight. With a sinister, cold laugh, it leapt back up to the beams and began to make a low, prolonged howling sound — mournful, yin-cold, like a lament. The sound pierced through the walls and passed through the temple doors, carrying far and distant in waves of wretched, bone-chilling cries. When the creature had finished, it vaulted from the beams and vanished into the ink-black night outside.
Qing Xuzi heard it and his face went suddenly the grey-white of ash. He cried out to Lin Xiao and Qin Yao: “Terrible — this Luo Cha most likely just summoned the Procession of a Hundred Ghosts. If that is so, in a moment this place will be surrounded on all sides by a hundred ghosts, and escape will be all but impossible. We must get out of here now.”
On this thought, the ferocity in his heart surged abruptly. He snatched the grass rope back from Qin Yao’s hands and, chanting his incantation, wound the rope tightly and relentlessly around the female ghost’s neck, throttling her in a fierce grip.
This time the female ghost did not transform into black shadow and flee. She fixed her gaze on Qing Xuzi — those beautiful yet utterly lifeless eyes staring hard — her nostrils flaring, her face pale as gold foil, still struggling frantically with everything she had.
Qin Yao studied the female ghost’s face with quiet, careful attention, and was suddenly reminded of the living, breathing person who had once sat at Donglai Tavern. Her heart dimmed. She thought quietly to herself: Yao Niang’s eyes…
The female ghost was being strangled so savagely that her features seemed on the verge of being wrenched from her face — her eyes had already begun to bulge from their sockets, grotesque to behold.
Qing Xuzi showed no mercy at all, intoning the incantation rapidly as the grass rope emitted intermittent flashes of apricot-yellow light.
Clatter— One of the female ghost’s eyes finally rolled free from its socket and dropped to the floor. Slick with viscous fluid, it did not roll fast — after a long, slow journey, it came to rest at the foot of the tunnel exit they had climbed out of moments before.
At that very moment, someone lifted the thin plank and emerged from the tunnel. The eye came to rest directly at that person’s feet. They stiffened for an instant, breathing audibly and heavily, and slowly crouched down, cradling the eyeball in their hands as tenderly as though it were a priceless treasure. Over and over they let out a low, desperate howl: “No — no — no—”
Qin Yao heard the voice and turned her head. It was Qin Cheng.
She had no idea when he had come up through the tunnel — his hair was in disarray, his appearance disheveled. His pale moon-white brocade robe was already soaked through with fresh blood. The long sword in his hand still dripped red. On his handsome, sharp-featured face lay a murderous, savage expression — like a demon from the depths.
He cradled the eye in his hands and looked up in a wild, frantic sweep — and then his gaze landed on the female ghost still being held in a death-grip by Qing Xuzi’s rope. He went still with shock and grief, and cried out in anguish: “Rui Zhu!!” Like a man gone mad, he swung his sword at Qing Xuzi.
Lin Xiao saw Qin Cheng’s state clearly, and his mind went utterly blank. The long sword in his hand almost slipped from his fingers. Qin Cheng had broken through and reached here — which meant — where were Chang Rong and the others?
F