Three-Eyed Serpent Pattern
Page (1/3)
幽 blue droplets fell from the stalactites crowning the cavern. Shen Yi crushed the luminous moss beneath his boot and gazed at the crimson-flame-patterned robes closing in from both front and rear. Then, staring at the seven figures reflected in the gleam of Gao Yao's sword hilt, he suddenly whistled.
“Fellow Daoist Blazing Sun, did you bring out every last card up your sleeve?”
“Why not guess for yourself whether this fragment of a spirit-vein cavern is worthy of becoming your burial ground?” Blazing Sun raised a golden-red flame in his palm. Its tongues licked the undried juice of the vermilion fruit on the cavern wall, burning the markings Shen Yi had left behind into blackened scars.
Behind him, eighteen cultivators formed hand seals in unison. The temperature in the cavern soared. From the shadows behind them, Azure Feather emerged with seven others, the black-iron chains in their hands gleaming with a poisonous green sheen.
Gao Yao’s sword tassel stirred without any wind. She had only just begun to form a sword seal with her left hand when Shen Yi caught her wrist.
Lowering his eyes, he noticed luminous powder clinging to the girl’s sleeve. He suddenly kicked a loose stone beside him. The rock struck a stalactite hanging from the cavern roof, sending a shower of phosphorescent dust and centuries of accumulated ash pattering down. The binding formation Azure Feather’s group had just laid was stained a mottled silver-white.
“Bloodshed is most taboo at daybreak.” Shen Yi’s dark cloak billowed like the wings of a night owl. He flicked three emerald seeds from his sleeve. “Clear Wind, southeast position!”
At the sound of the command, the folding fan snapped open. Three man-eating flowers burst from the earth, their serrated leaves shredding three poisoned darts flying toward Brightmoon.
Seizing the opportunity, the girl sent a mechanical bird whirling from her sleeve. Its bronze beak snapped two black-iron chains in half, but when a third wrapped around its wings, it exploded with a thunderous roar. The flying fragments forced Azure Feather to retreat three steps.
“Parlor tricks!” Blazing Sun snarled, hurling a Nine-Yang Heaven-Burning Talisman. A web of golden-red fire descended over their heads.
Gao Yao’s Ice-Soul Sword barely held back thirty percent of the flames. Shen Yi suddenly seized her and spun with her straight into the mass of man-eating flowers.
Serrated leaves scraped past his neck. The shattered sparks they scattered ignited the dandelion seed hidden between his fingers.
Millions of burning seed tufts drifted toward Blazing Sun’s forces. The cultivators hurriedly raised shields of water essence, never noticing that one seed slipped through a gap in the watery curtain and burrowed into the formation’s core.
Shen Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. From the corner of his eye, he saw Clear Wind hurled against the stone wall by the aftershock of a fireball. The ribs of his folding fan gave a strained, cracking groan.
“Big Brother Shen, look out!” Brightmoon flung out a mechanical serpent. It coiled around Azure Feather’s right foot, but vines had already wrapped around her waist and were dragging her toward the venomous formation.
Gao Yao swept her ice sword sideways and severed the vines, but a poisoned dart carved a three-inch gash into her left shoulder. Her frostlike features instantly took on an eerie blue-violet hue.
Shen Yi’s pupils contracted. The Divine Farming System suddenly flashed a scarlet warning in his sea of consciousness:
[Host’s spiritual power remaining: 13%. Maturation countdown for the Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass: twenty breaths.]
He thrust the last five Explosive Flame Fruits into the hands of the spirit-beast cub. The little creature shot toward the cavern roof like lightning, but just as it was about to reach the stone door of the main tomb chamber, Blazing Sun’s fire-dragon talisman forced it to flee in a panic, its fur standing on end.
“Fellow Daoist Shen still has time to raise pets?” Blazing Sun advanced step by step over the wreckage of the man-eating flowers. The Crimson Sun Cone condensing at his fingertips cast a sinister light over his twisted face. “Why not let me send the little beast to the Yellow Springs to scout the way?”
Gao Yao staggered forward and raised her sword before Shen Yi. Webs of cracks covered the blade of the Ice-Soul Sword.
Shen Yi suddenly caught her trembling wrist. With a bloodstained fingertip, he rapidly traced a certain rune across her palm.
The girl’s lashes trembled. Reflected in the sword hilt, she saw an unusually thick stalactite near the cavern roof. Luminous powder had been scraped onto it by the frantic spirit-beast cub, and with every falling droplet of water, it shimmered with an uncanny turquoise glow.
Twenty paces away, Azure Feather’s venomous formation had taken shape. Dark-green poisonous mist began devouring the last barrier of wind Clear Wind had raised.
Page (1/3)
Page (2/3)
Brightmoon pressed a hand to her bleeding temple and desperately reassembled the mechanical beast. The clatter of parts mingled with the wild laughter of Blazing Sun’s forces, echoing through the cavern.
Shen Yi tasted the metallic tang of spiritual exhaustion on his tongue, yet his divine sense remained locked on the countdown flickering across the system panel.
When the Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass’s maturation indicator turned a dazzling gold, he suddenly leaned close to Gao Yao’s ear and chuckled.
“Immortal Maiden, care to wager something big with me?”
The waves of heat rising through the cavern distorted the color of the poisonous mist. A trace of emerald radiance suddenly flared from Shen Yi’s bloodstained fingertip.
The Divine Farming System’s light screen flashed wildly within his sea of consciousness. The Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass’s attribute panel dissolved into streams of light and flowed into his palm. Three thumb-sized Bewitching Mist Lotus seeds now rested there, exuding a ghostly blue haze.
“Clear Wind, southeast position—sweep away the clouds!”
The instant Shen Yi snapped his fingers and shattered the seeds, Clear Wind’s broken folding fan suddenly burst into azure light.
The young man bit through the tip of his tongue and spat out essence blood. The shattered fan ribs transformed into seventy-two blades of wind, carrying the abruptly exploding indigo mist lotuses as they swept through the entire cavern.
“Hold your breath!” Azure Feather’s warning was drowned out by the shrill howls of the mist lotuses.
The cultivators were horrified to discover that their divine senses felt as though they had sunk into a swamp. The drifting haze transformed into countless fiends before their eyes. Three men at the front even began hacking at their own companions with their swords.
Brightmoon seized the opportunity and cast out a swarm of mechanical bees from her sleeve. The brittle ring of bronze wings slicing through black-iron chains mingled with the thunderous collapse of the venomous formation.
Azure Feather had only just begun to scream when Shen Yi’s mocking laugh drowned him out.
“Deputy Hall Master Azure Feather, did you know that the Heart-Eating Grass delights most in drinking blood steeped in yin poison?”
He crushed the last Mist Lotus seed beneath his boot. Seven thorn-covered vines suddenly thrust through the poisonous haze, binding Azure Feather and the others who were trying to retreat into silken cocoons.
At that moment, Gao Yao’s Ice-Soul Sword swept out in a blaze of frost. Sword energy sent three cultivators—clutching their eyes and howling—sprawling backward.
The girl staggered into Shen Yi’s arms. The faint fragrance of mist lotus clinging to her hair mingled with the scent of poisoned blood seeping from her shoulder, and the system in Shen Yi’s sea of consciousness suddenly began to hum. The Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass in his storage space abruptly blossomed with an eerie purple light.
“Big Brother Shen!” Clear Wind coughed blood as he pointed into the depths of the haze.
Blazing Sun’s golden-red robes burned like the rising sun within the maze of confusion. The Nine-Yang Heaven-Burning Talisman had actually scorched a charred opening through the illusions of the mist lotuses.
The eight surviving cultivators behind him formed the Crimson Sun Demon-Slaying Formation. Flames licked the thousand-year-old mineral deposits hanging from the cavern roof, while the poisonous mist boiling in the heat began to turn back and corrode everyone’s meridians.
Shen Yi suddenly pressed a hand against the back of Gao Yao’s neck and covered the wound on her shoulder with lips filled with spiritual dew.
Her startled cry was stifled by the sweet coolness rising in her throat. The detoxifying sap of the Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass mingled with the spiritual power he passed through his tongue, and the cracks in the Ice-Soul Sword began to mend at a visible pace.
“Allow me to borrow your sword, Immortal Maiden.”
With a rakish flourish, Shen Yi spun and drew the sword from Gao Yao’s grasp. Yet the sword flowers he traced with the Ice-Soul Sword in his hand carried a chilling intent to kill.
When Blazing Sun’s fire dragon tore through the final veil of mist, everyone was astonished to see golden-core pressure flowing around Shen Yi’s body. The Heart-Eating Grass was blossoming within his dantian, transforming the poisonous backlash into pure energy.
The instant Blazing Sun’s Crimson Sun Cone collided with the Ice-Soul Sword, the stalactites hanging from the cavern roof suddenly exploded in succession.
Page (2/3)
Page (3/3)
Shen Yi launched himself skyward on the flying fragments of stone, each step landing precisely upon a spiritual-energy node of the demon-slaying formation.
When his seventh step shattered the crimson-flame banner at the formation’s core, Blazing Sun finally realized that an arcane pattern of cultivation lay hidden within the rogue’s swordsmanship. Shen Yi had clearly turned the cavern into a spirit field, each step sowing an Explosive Talisman.
“You dare—”
Blazing Sun’s roar was swallowed by a chain of explosions.
Shen Yi flung the Ice-Soul Sword forward and pinned the hem of his robe to the ground, then used the blast to flip backward toward Gao Yao.
The girl instinctively reached out to catch him, only to be carried through three spins in the air. As his dark cloak swept across her flushed cheek, she heard the bastard’s amused whisper.
“Hold on tight this time, Immortal Maiden.”
Spiderweb cracks suddenly spread across the ground.
The Explosive Flame Fruits Shen Yi had buried earlier were ignited by the aftershocks of battle, blasting the entire Crimson Sun Demon-Slaying Formation into a rain of falling fire.
Clutching his charred right arm, Blazing Sun fled into the underground river. The last sight he saw was Shen Yi crushing the rebounding poisonous mist with his bare hand, golden light glowing from his fingertips as he gently brushed the ash from the tip of Gao Yao’s nose.
“Did we win?” Brightmoon knelt on the ground, assembling the remains of the mechanical beast. Her voice trembled with disbelief.
Using the broken ribs of his fan, Clear Wind swept aside the poisonous haze and discovered that the surviving enemies had already fled without a trace.
Shen Yi suddenly sagged against a stalactite, utterly drained. The phantom of the Heart-Eating Grass within his dantian slowly faded.
Gao Yao reached out to support him, but he took advantage of the motion and pulled her to his side.
“Don’t move. There’s still poison in your shoulder.”
The emerald spiritual light gathering at his fingertips spread carefully across the wound. He was so serious that he seemed like an entirely different person, the rakish air from moments earlier completely gone.
A dull rumble of splitting rock suddenly echoed from the depths of the cavern.
The nerves of the group, only just relaxed, snapped taut once more. The half-assembled mechanical beast in Brightmoon’s hands suddenly emitted a shrill alarm.
Shen Yi narrowed his eyes at the stone door of the main tomb chamber across the underground river. The sealing formation that should have been there had somehow cracked open. An ancient and savage aura was spilling through the gap with the flowing water.
“Rest for fifteen minutes.”
Shen Yi tossed a Rejuvenation Pill into his mouth. His words came out indistinctly through the crunch of crushed medicine.
“I’m afraid the real trouble is still ahead.”
He appeared to toy carelessly with Gao Yao’s sword tassel, but his divine sense had already sunk into the system space. The Sevenfold Heart-Eating Grass, which had advanced by devouring the poisonous mist, was now bearing a pitch-black fruit in the spirit field, its surface engraved with the patterns of an ancient tomb.
The underground river suddenly ran faster, rushing against the ancient totems scorched by flames along the stone walls.
While整理ing his folding fan, Clear Wind discovered that the back of a melted Crimson Sun Sect token bore, unmistakably, the same three-eyed serpent pattern as the sealing formation on the main tomb chamber.
Page (3/3)