Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
It was a cutting criticism of her personal motives.
A chill ran from her fingertips to the tip of her toes.
Was it? Was it? Was it!
Was it true that she had no intention to sacrifice herself? Was it true that she was selfishly waiting for Hua Zi to stop her?
No! No! No!
Meng Fuyao growled, staggering back with ragged breathing. She desperately waved her hands in an attempt to chase away these phantoms. “No! I did not! It wasn’t like that! I… I was taking off my clothes so I wasn’t able to focus and my reaction was slow… It was not like what you said!” she screamed.
In the illusion, Hua Zi ‘s hand stopped mid-air and floated around weightlessly. He seemed to have not expected that Meng Fuyao, under such circumstances, could still keep a clear mind and have the awareness to defend for herself. His face repeatedly formed and disappeared in the fog. Every time it formed, Meng Fuyao would feel dizzy, and every time she fainted, she felt less and less conscious.
Just as she was about to fall into unconsciousness, Meng Fuyao suddenly felt a pain on her neck, as though it had been bitten by huge teeth.
A small pair of claws climbed onto her shoulder and started giving tight slaps across her face.
Meng Fuyao bolted awake and jumped to her feet. She spat on the floor and scolded, “Demon! How dare you pretend to be a hero!”
The fog cleared in an instant, and “Hua Zi” and the other figures disappeared as well. Saliva had the function of fending off evil spirits. Furthermore, evil spirits and sinful demons were afraid of righteousness. When righteousness rose, the demons always fled.
Meng Fuyao panted as she leaned against a wall. She recalled how the soldier banged against the wall for no reason, as well as the struggle and screams of Three who was stuck in the passageway of the tomb. ‘Did they encounter the same thing?’
‘That thing capitalizes on the doubts and vulnerabilities that we hide in our hearts, and then it using those to manipulate us to fall into eternal darkness?’
Meng Fuyao struggled as she wiped away the cold sweat on her forehead. She took the guinea pig in her hands and smoothened out his hair, sadistically thanking him for his slaps.
The white smoke had disappeared by then, but the black fog appeared once more. Nothing could be seen at an arm’s distance. Meng Fuyao kept the guinea pig and tried to ignite a lighter. However, the fog exerted pressure as strong as steel, and the flame was so pale that nothing and no one could be seen except for her own expression. Meng Fuyao extinguished the lighter, and as she cautiously walked, she called out in a low voice, “Zhan Beiye… Ji Yu… ”
There was no response.
Meng Fuyao felt her surroundings, but it was empty. After stepping into this door, it was as though she entered a space of a different dimension. She was separated from the rest of the group and left to search alone in a place filled with the unknown.
Her voice started to tense. There was no one and no response at all. ‘Where is Zhan Beiye? Where is Ji Yu? Where are all the Black Wind Horses? Where has everyone gone?’
She shouted, “Zhan Beiye! Zhan Beiye!”
Her voice faintly resounded in the black fog and the entire room was filled with echoes of “Zhan Beiye, Zhan Beiye, Zhan Beiye”.
Meng Fuyao reached out her hand and carefully groped around her. Suddenly, her fingertips came into contact with an object. It was slightly cool, had silk clothing on and was of a certain height.
She rejoiced and instinctively called out, “Zhan Bei-”
Her call came to an abrupt stop.
That was not Zhan Beiye!
Zhan Beiye would definitely not stand opposite her but not make a sound!
Zhan Beiye’s skin was also not as thin as this “thing”!
Meng Fuyao retreated in a hurry.
She retreated like a bolt of lighting, cutting through the layers of black fog towards the direction where she came from. Her retreat caused the curtain of fog to slightly stir, opening to reveal a narrow line of brightness, which reflected a bit of the object’s shape.
Meng Fuyao saw the glimmer of light. With a scream, she thrust Destiny Rebellion into that faint line and sliced down!
The black fog silently split apart. Meng Fuyao leaped forward and escaped from the fog before it reformed.
What she saw suddenly changed.
It still looked like a tomb, with murals on the walls and the ceiling. It was a magnificent depiction of sacrificial ceremonies, hunting, and war. Strong men who had a drawing of the Double-Headed Snake on their arms marched out of a long mountain range, sword in hand, towards a huge army. These men were controlling snakes, bats and strange-looking beasts, while the army shot arrows that covered the mountain range like thunder clouds.
This was probably the story of the Gun Tribe being wiped out by the court’s troops. Meng Fuyao shifted her glance away and realized that there was a pond in the tomb, surrounded by handrails in the shape of a lotus and armed terracotta warriors. Using the lighter, Meng Fuyao spotted many small pits on the ground which were likely to be booby traps.
She raised the lighter and shone it around the tomb, but she still did not see anyone. Zhan Beiye, Ji Yu and even the thing she touched earlier on had disappeared into thin air.
In this eerie thousand-year tomb that was filled with danger, it felt terrible to lose all companions and be left alone to face what lay ahead – even the daring Meng Fuyao could not help but tremble.
However, in a split second, she had already commanded herself to calm down. No matter what, Zhan Beiye was powerful enough to prevent anything from killing him. Since she was fine, he would definitely be fine as well. He might have encountered the same situation and was searching for her as well.
The designer of the tomb had incorporated the essence of tomb designs of both the Han ethnicity and the Gun Tribe and had a specialty in strategizing how to control one’s thoughts and feelings. It was highly likely that right from the moment they stepped into the tomb, they had already fallen prey to the designer’s cursed gameplan.
Since it was made up of formations, there must be flaws in it. Meng Fuyao extinguished the precious lighter and started to analyze the situation.
There were some crystal beads scattered on the floor, reflecting scattered beams of light. Meng Fuyao stared at these glittering, crystal-clear objects and her heart suddenly thumped.
She vaguely felt that something was not right, but she could not recall what it was.
If a thought flashed by, the best way to recall would be to run through her memory.
She slowly recapped what she was thinking of.
‘The beads… reflection…’
‘Reflection…’
Something clicked in her brain, and that thought made her hair stand on end.
‘Yes! The reflection!’
When she used the lighter in the fog, there was a projection of her expression, and she vividly remembered how ashen she looked – the question was, how did she see her own face?
It meant that there was a mirror on the opposite side!
However, the tomb that she stepped into after dashing out of the fog had no mirror.
Could it be her position changed in that split moment? That the spot she was standing on was not where she first entered the tomb?
Meng Fuyao took a deep breath and ignited the lighter once again. There was no coffin in the tomb, but there was a diverse collection of funerary objects, such as agate bottles, crystal cups, coral trees, products made of silver or gold, and clay pots of various sizes. She walked towards a wall and wanted to take a closer look.
Behind her, someone gently placed his arm on her shoulder, the exhalation causing her hair to sway.
Meng Fuyao started to turn back in joy and said, “Zhan… ”
From the corner of her eye, she spotted a long black shadow with two sharp heads on the ground.
That was not even human!
Meng Fuyao did not complete her turn and forcefully twisted back her body. She sprinted forward, and with a raise of her arm, Destiny Rebellion drew a clean and sharp arc behind her.
The shadow behind her twisted its body and with a whoosh, avoided her backhand slice with much agility. Meng Fuyao’s expression changed once she saw what was behind.
It was a Double-Headed Snake, but its size was beyond imagination!
It was more like two snakes that twisted together to form a team. They stood at the height of one and a half humans, exceeding Meng Fuyao’s height. There were two heads on the ground and another two above ground, adding up to four heads and eight ghostly eyes that stared deadly at Meng Fuyao.
This tomb actually had the king of the Double-Headed Snakes, and from the look of it, the two snakes seemed to be of different genders. No wonder that Double-Headed Snake in the karst cave did not bite her – the feast had to be offered to the ancestors.
Meng Fuyao flashed her knife, and the glare of the blade reflected a cold glare. ‘Come on, two big springs, I will handle the both of you!’
The snake’s heads shook and stared at Meng Fuyao but did not attack, continuously spitting out large volumes of black fog. Seeing the sight before her, Meng Fuyao realized that it was this thing that created the fog that was surrounding her before.
One human and two snakeheads confronted each other in the cold and gloomy tomb. For some reason, the snake seemed to hesitate. However, in the end, it seemed unable to suppress its natural craving to kill. With a bounce of its body, its enormous tail swept towards Meng Fuyao.
In fact, it was not just the tail but also the head. The green eyeballs hovered in mid-air while its sharp fangs bared, shooting a green and pungent venom in all directions.
With a rustle, the snakehead had already neared with its mouth opened so wide that it could swallow a human, vaguely exposing its dark red organs. Meng Fuyao went head-on determinedly, and with a flip, she landed below the snake’s stomach and was about to stab her dagger into its abdomen.
The giant snake had quick reflexes and avoided the stab even in mid-air by rolling away. Its agility was no less than any martial arts expert, but Meng Fuyao was even faster. She pounced on it and along with her leap came a series of slicing, chopping, stabbing and thrusting; she even used the sixth level of the Cleaving Nine Heavens martial arts. A green fluorescence luminescence radiated from her dagger and sparks appeared wherever the blade passed by, leaving behind a deep trench.
Meng Fuyao’s figure was ever-changing, and she was even more agile than the naturally-flexible snakes. Every time the snake shifted, Meng Fuyao’s blade would be waiting in its line of motion. Though the snake had a tough body and nimble heads, it was still unable to avoid her attacks that were incorporated with inner energy. Before long, many slices appeared on the snake’s body.
Meng Fuyao attacked fiercely and punched aggressively, determined to vent all the pain and grievances she had suffered on this pair of snakes.
“Who told you to keep twisting and twisting and twisting! A damned pair of eels!” Meng Fuyao cursed ferociously. “Let me help you untie your shoelaces!”
A swish of her knife towards the twisted pair of heads made the heads cower in a hurry. Below, the other two heads looked up and slithered towards Meng Fuyao. The latter did not even bother to take a look and directly chopped towards them, with the aura of “I’m going to split you apart even if I have to risk getting bitten by you”.