Dark Spirit Jiangshi (2)
The demonic qi veil that crashed down without warning stole both vision and composure.
Seizing that opening, a host of presences charged out of the darkness, each one steeped in killing intent.
Cheonhwa’s shout, warning of an ambush, snapped the investigation unit back to their senses and drove them into combat readiness.
Moments later the attackers revealed themselves—jiangshi, wreathed in black wind, that had melted into the gloom.
At the sight of living corpses the martial artists could not hide their shock.
“Wh-what the hell is this?!”
“The corpses are moving?!”
“These things are jiangshi!”
“Damn it—they look like corpses, so why are they so strong?!”
Even if they were only secular disciples, they had survived war and possessed real skill. Yet the jiangshi that fell upon them were far stronger than anyone had expected.
“I’ll cover you from here—stick together and fight back!”
Neungpung, standing at the heart of the formation, roared the order.
As an archer and former hunter he had trained in sensory martial arts; even in total darkness he could pinpoint friend and foe with perfect accuracy.
There aren’t many. Ten of them at most, all told.
Yet every one of them radiated an unsettling aura. Judging by the waves of qi, their internal energy had reached a level comparable to Peak Experts. Two among them in particular gave off the unmistakable presence of true Peak Experts.
Daoist Cheonhwa is handling one. The other must be the one that raised the veil.
That jiangshi kept its distance, pouring out demonic qi. Only by killing it could they tear away this pitch-black darkness. First, however, they had to deal with the ones already swarming the others.
I’ll take this side. Leave that one to you.
Neungpung sent the message by sound transmission to Cheonhwa, then nocked an arrow.
The moment he poured internal energy into the bow it gave a low, resonant cry—the mark of Body-Bow Unity, the state in which archer and weapon become one. Naturally the energy flowed along the string into the shaft; a clear yellow radiance gathered at the arrowhead. This was the technique of Intent Qi Manifestation.
In the space of a breath Neungpung finished every preparation and loosed the string at an enemy hidden in the dark.
Twang!
The released string snapped home, rending the air; the arrow, driven by that rebound, split the void. Bound to Neungpung by internal energy, it became a second pair of eyes for him. As though sucked into its target, the shaft buried itself in a vital point.
What is this feeling?
The sensation of striking home was wrong. The black wind of the Black Wind Divine Art sheathed the jiangshi like protective qi, yet Intent Qi Manifestation should have pierced it easily. The problem lay beyond the barrier—the body of the jiangshi itself.
Even Intent Qi Manifestation can barely punch through… how can anything be this hard?
Had he not aimed for a vital spot the arrow would have bounced clean off rather than embedding. As a member of Haomen, Neungpung knew a fair amount about jiangshi, so the dissonance struck him all the more sharply.
Don’t tell me these aren’t Demon Spirit Jiangshi—they’re Dark Spirit Jiangshi?
Dark Spirit Jiangshi: corpses whose flesh was so dense that even Intent Qi Manifestation could not easily pierce them—jiangshi of Peak Expert caliber.
No. If that were true this arrow would have bounced too.
They were certainly hard and tenacious, yet he still felt certain Intent Qi could punch through. If they grew any denser, however, even that would fail.
The thought sparked a sudden realization.
Wait—could it be?
Demon Spirit Jiangshi could grow by refining demonic qi through the Essence-Stealing Qi Absorption Art. The ones before him fell short of true Dark Spirit Jiangshi yet were clearly stronger than ordinary Demon Spirit Jiangshi. Linking those two facts left only one conclusion.
These things are evolving into Dark Spirit Jiangshi through demonic arts!
To test the theory Neungpung loosed arrows at the remaining jiangshi. The results confirmed that each was at a different stage of growth—and that the one Cheonhwa faced, as well as the one maintaining the veil, were already Dark Spirit Jiangshi.
He did not know the upper limit of a Demon Spirit Jiangshi’s growth or what conditions produced a Dark Spirit Jiangshi. One thing, however, was certain.
No one can be allowed to die.
The moment a single person fell, the jiangshi would feed and grow. If luck turned against them, that one death could birth another Dark Spirit Jiangshi.
The question is whether I can drop them all before my arrows run out.
Neungpung felt the veil-caster’s gaze settle on him—as though the creature were simply waiting for his quiver to empty. It seemed to know that only two men in the party could inflict meaningful wounds.
Everything hinges on whether Daoist Cheonhwa can finish the one he’s fighting before my arrows are gone.
Until then he had to keep everyone alive and buy time. Unbidden, his grip on the bow tightened.
Facing the Dark Spirit Jiangshi, Cheonhwa had felt a constant sense of wrongness.
The demonic art it unleashed was more refined than anything the Demon Spirit Jiangshi he had previously fought had shown. At the same time it was utterly different from the work of masters who fully commanded such arts. The nature of that dissonance became clear almost at once.
These things aren’t wielding the demonic art. They’re surrendering themselves completely to it.
Those who practiced demonic arts were usually swept along by the arts’ ferocious power; only a rare few ever mastered them as if they were their own limbs.
Like trying to hold back a raging current with a half-built levee—holes open everywhere. Because they handle the art clumsily, the art handles them.
The Dark Spirit Jiangshi before him was the exact opposite. Instead of resisting the current it had given itself wholly over to it. The jiangshi was not operating the demonic art; the demonic art was operating the jiangshi.
With every movement black wind howled. Its body moved as lightly as the wind itself, and even that lightness was merely a means of releasing more wind. Each time it unleashed Jin Release through fist or foot, razor-edged force whirled outward.
Cheonhwa met it by wrapping Okgyeong’s blade in force and layering Intent Qi Manifestation atop it. Pure white flame swirled, driving back the oncoming black wind—yet the scale of the demonic force was too vast to stop entirely.
Krrraaaak!
A murderous sound like a blade-edged gale tore past his ears, hammering again and again against the four-colored internal-energy barrier that sheathed his body. The black wind of the demonic art tried with every means to shatter his balance, but the “Never Retreat in Battle” principle of the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret held his center as immovable as a mountain, while the Nine Palaces Footwork and Nine Palaces Divine Steps kept him steady even in motion.
A Dark Spirit Jiangshi is certainly a troublesome opponent. But its weakness hasn’t changed from a Demon Spirit Jiangshi’s.
No matter how formidable, once head and body were severed a jiangshi ceased to move. Therefore Cheonhwa had only one task.
Cut the neck.
Light flashed in his eyes. He swung Okgyeong, white flame roaring along its length; the qi swirling around his body assisted the motion through aerial object control, amplifying the sword force.
The Dark Spirit Jiangshi stacked black wind layer upon layer to block, yet the whirling Intent Qi Manifestation sliced through the wind and drove forward. A jiangshi arm, riding the wind, thrust itself into the path of the cut.
Crack.
The tough, durable forearm stopped the blade halfway, biting only into bone—yet that was the creature’s mistake.
BOOM!
Sword force erupted from Okgyeong, crushing the surrounding space. This was the diffusion of sword force through Striking the Mountain to Hit the Ox. The stronger the sword force, the greater the crushing pressure; it slammed down on the jiangshi that had been riding the wind so freely and pinned it in place.
Cheonhwa did not waste the opening. Force exploded, driving Okgyeong’s blade; the impact absorbed through the energy-absorbing sword technique combined with Stored Jin and detonated. The half-stalled jade wooden sword surged forward once more.
Sword light flashed; the arc it drew sheared through the arm and continued straight across the neck.
Shhhk!
With a sharp noise the Dark Spirit Jiangshi’s head spun into the air. Instantly the wind that had sheathed its body began to howl with redoubled fury. Cheonhwa realized too late that it was not mere wind—the demonic qi densely compressed inside the corpse was thrashing free.
Danger…!
His survival instinct screamed. If he stayed put the exploding demonic qi would engulf him. Even his internal-energy barrier would not hold.
Running clear of the blast radius will be slower than the detonation itself.
Judging so, Cheonhwa drove Okgyeong’s tip into the jiangshi’s solar plexus and hurled the body skyward with all his strength.
The moment the corpse hung motionless in the air—
KRA-BOOM!
A thunderous blast shook the heavens; demonic qi erupted. The shockwave itself shoved aside the veil of demonic qi that had blanketed the sky. Darkness peeled away; sunlight poured down, revealing every jiangshi still wreathed in black wind.
“Now!”
“Press them!”
Once the enemy’s forms, previously hidden by darkness, could be seen, the secular disciples surged forward with renewed spirit. They might be only secular disciples, but the experience of surviving war was no empty boast; having shared the methods for breaking demonic arts, they had also learned with their own bodies how to face the Black Wind Divine Art.
As if proving how many fierce battles they had already endured, they coordinated their breathing and unleashed sword formations. The one-sided pressure reversed in an instant. Successive waves of sword wind from the secular disciples carved away the black wind; into every gap that opened, streaks of light drove home—Neungpung’s arrows, lodging precisely in the jiangshi’s joints and locking their movements.
“Take the necks!”
The first to answer Neungpung’s shout was Wijiun. Heat haze rose from his entire body as he shot forward like another arrow; that speed became sword force and streaked toward a jiangshi’s neck, biting through the tough flesh and severing it cleanly.
“Ugh—these things are filthy hard!”
Wijiun spat the words. He had poured every technique he possessed, Stored Jin included, into that single stroke. Had the sword force been even slightly weaker the neck would not have been cut through. One glance at the edge of the longsword he was using showed it had reached its limit with that final blow.
Still, dropping even one jiangshi was heartening. Riding that momentum the other martial artists moved in to finish the rest.
While the secular disciples and Demon Spirit Jiangshi tangled, the remaining Dark Spirit Jiangshi that had maintained the veil began to move. To stop the Demon Spirit Jiangshi from falling it raised its demonic qi to the extreme and began pouring successive blade-gales at the secular disciples.
Cheonhwa stepped into the storm, extending the jade wooden sword toward the oncoming sword winds. The qi coiled around the blade became aerial object control, pushing and pulling the winds, smoothly redirecting every trajectory so that no one was struck.
He immediately unfolded the Cloud-Stepping Free Roam Art and sprinted toward the last Demon Spirit Jiangshi. Naturally the creature spat force in rapid succession to keep him away, yet Cheonhwa deflected every wave; any wind that slipped past was punched through by Neungpung’s arrows streaking in from behind.
Thud! Thud!
Each advancing footstep rang with heavy resonance; the striking force generated by those true steps accumulated without waste until the qi Cheonhwa radiated began to tremble. This was the subtle principle of the Hundred-Steel Sword Method that stored strike force.
Sensing the danger, the Dark Spirit Jiangshi shrewdly chose flight—yet Cheonhwa did not simply watch it go.
Thirty-First Form
Stars of All Under Heaven
A sword stroke laden with intent drew downward from above his head. All the strike force he had stored transformed into pure sword force and crashed down upon the fleeing Dark Spirit Jiangshi.
BOOM!
A dull impact that shook the earth froze the creature in place. Had its body not been dense enough to withstand even Intent Qi Manifestation, it would have been crushed to death on the spot. Yet a momentary opening remained just as fatal as ever.
Four layers of qi stacked upon one another, blazing pure white, compressed until they clung to the blade itself. The flash that then raced through empty air sliced through the wind the Dark Spirit Jiangshi wore as easily as silk and drove straight into its neck.