Volume 1, Chapter 53 – The Foe Arrives

Silent as a shadow, the blood mist swallowed the soldier.

It rippled like fireworks, like some irregular fluid blooming in seawater, contracting and flaring once; when the soldier staggered out, he had already changed.

His clothes and gear were intact. His body, though—every bit of exposed skin was riddled with countless pinholes.

He noticed nothing, kept running, and as air rushed through those holes, a strange zither-like tone poured from his body.

“What’s that noise?”

“An attack?”

The Chilong Army reacted fast. In an instant a hundred-odd men burst out of the surrounding tents, fully armed, apparently having slept in their kit.

But when they saw the soldier running toward them, they still gaped.

Partly from shock. Partly because the tone rising from his body seemed to hold a bewitching power; the moment they heard it, their senses scrambled, and the unit fell into chaos.

“What is that sound? What sound is that?”

As the one who started it all, the whistling soldier ran while looking back in terror, shrieking.

His whole body kept churning with sour chill; that eerie music rang in his ears.

No matter how he ran, whichever way he turned, the music seemed to come from behind him, even right at his ears. He was scared witless, flailing through the trees.

Swish, swish…!

Slender red threads suddenly lanced from the crimson fog and pierced his spine. With a scream his entire skeleton burst out of its flesh, popped free with a wet rip, and turned into a marionette skeleton.

By then it was close to its former comrades.

With their senses scrambled by the music, a dozen men at close range were nervously aiming the wrong way; others were shouting over one another. Almost no one noticed the skeleton’s change.

Bzz.

In Bai Xiang’s eyes, the red threads through the skeleton seemed to carry a vibration. Crimson witchfire flared in its sockets; it snatched up an assault rifle and raked the front ranks.

Ratatatat…

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With no time to react, several men took rounds at point-blank range, limbs shattered, collapsing with screams as the rest went wild and returned fire.

Bai Xiang sprang out, dove behind a trunk, and as she hit the ground felt the wood shudder under tight bursts.

So it was phantom sound.

Leaning on the trunk, she sized up the fight.

The whistling soldier was dead; the enemy in the red fog was puppeteering him with red threads. The demonic music sowed hallucinations, leaving the soldiers directionless or with senses scrambled, firing blindly in all directions.

Ratatatat…

Boom.

The woods became a maelstrom, gun and cannon roaring, earth trembling, the air rank with cordite and dust.

“Roar…!”

“Splurt!”

A low beast-roar rose to her right rear. She peeked and saw a warped bone-beast crawl from the red fog and bite off a soldier’s head.

It looked stitched from several human skeletons, over two meters tall, with spikes jutting from the joints, thicker bones and huge jaws. Back to back, torsos offset, at least eight great bone-claws hauled it along the ground.

“Roar!”

“Roar, roar!”

More low roars sounded in the fog; there was more than one bone-beast.

Hit so suddenly, the defenses on this flank were starting to buckle.

Demon-Immortal Dao?

They just said they wouldn’t dare assault; why unleash such force now?

Doubt flickered, but Bai Xiang did not hesitate in action.

She tugged up the matching black mask, rolled from behind the tree, drove her thick-soled field boots into the mud, and shot into the fray like a black shadow.

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“Ah…! Aahhh…!!!”

Ahead, a Chilong soldier who had come to lay on the ground, firing an assault rifle madly at a bone-beast.

This one was pieced from five skeletons. Its massive skulls had nearly fused; bullets sparked on bone with little effect.

As the claws came down, his vision dimmed. A lithe black figure had appeared.

Both hands on her cloud-pattern wooden sword, Bai Xiang’s face was masked, only a pair of eerie golden-tinged yellow eyes showing.

She poured heart flow into the blade. The air around the edge wavered and warped.

Try it first…

Riding all the force of her charge, she held her breath and swept from low left to high right in a vicious rising cut.

Slash!

She felt scarcely any resistance. The blade sheared diagonally through the beast, skimming claws, ribs, joint-spikes, and face.

It stood there a beat; a slanted seam opened across its body, and from the skull’s cut line a gush of red and white flew outward. It collapsed with a wet crash.

Oh…

Seeing that, Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes.

She had the gist.

“Roar!!!”

Another bone-beast bellowed, planted a dozen claws, then sprang like a giant spider to crash down on her.

Bzzz bzzz.

As it fell it tore the air; the myriad pinholes in its frame spilled twisted demonic music. The rescued soldier lying on his back and staring up at Bai Xiang had his eyes bulge and pop with a wet burst under the sound.

Bai Xiang was unaffected.

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Her heart-aspect warning rose, like a blazing sun within. Under that heat, her inner landscape, her heart flow, her very blood all boiled; instead of hindering her, it drove her body higher.

She fixed on the blur and, as it slammed down, snapped back a step; one-handed, she thrust into its skull and flicked up, sending the cap sailing and brain-matter arcing.

A hiss of air came from behind. She half-turned and twisted; a claw skimmed her chest and stabbed into the dirt, not so much as scuffing a hair.

Left leg released, right leg side-stamped.

She snapped left, slipping the snapping jaws, reversed her grip.

Then both legs drove; her left palm braced the pommel. She folded and carved a right angle through the air, ramming the blade into the skull.

Splash.

The thrust was brutal; the huge head was punched clean through. A sheet of crimson jetted from both holes, splattering her at arm’s length.

No time to fuss. She drew breath, feet never still, and dashed for the fourth beast.

Witchfire flickered in its eyes. Six thick claws rose and caged its head, while four more reached from front and rear to cut her off mid-run.

Bai Xiang’s eyes slit; her speed jumped again, and she seemed to dive into the cage.

Just as it was about to close, she sprang forward, spun in midair, slipped the gaps, hit the ground and rolled, and sent her blade through the bars.

“Roar!”

The beast convulsed; bones all over contracted toward the skull, fusing fast to jam her blade.

Pointless.

Grinning beneath the mask, she poured on spirit-soul and heart flow. The blade’s invisible warp surged.

Crushing through, she carved into the skull’s core, then pivoted along its axis, teeth clenched, grinding the blade like a millstone and heaving a gout of gore.

Splash.

Bone chips flew. Blood fountained.

The fourth beast crashed down as well.

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Drawing breath again, Bai Xiang’s instincts flared. She threw herself low, slid around the carcass, and heard rounds hiss against bone.

The “sentry skeleton”…

The only monster on the red threads. It could use firearms.

She rolled out the other side, left hand up to guard her face against the rounds, right hand dragging the blade, and charged the sentry. One thrust from under the jaw up; half the blade punched out the crown.

Bang!

The skull could not take her force; it burst.

The red threads in its frame recoiled like startled snakes and snapped back into the crimson fog.

Bai Xiang did not chase. She stood and snapped the red-and-white gore from her blade, eyes on the surging mist.

During the charge, she had taken rounds in her left shoulder and right leg.

The suit had protected those spots, no blood drawn, but she still needed a moment to work out the bruising.

“Impressive…”

Meanwhile the mist shifted again, and a woman in a dark red archaic robe-skirt stepped out with languid grace.

She was stunning—pale skin, waterfall hair, seductive phoenix eyes; every move simmered with allure.

Her gaze ran over Bai Xiang, lingered on the tight lines of the combat suit, and her eyes gleamed with hunger and want.

“Power like that before you even Forge the Sword… in history only a few with perfect Nurture the Spirit could match you.”

“By rule I should invite you to the Sacred Dao. Even if you refused, I should take you alive and bring you back for the elders to study.”

“But you killed Yang Xing.”

She drew out the words.

“I will refine you into a demon slave… to replace him at my side.”