Mysterious Creatures
"Illuminate!" Xingchen shouted, activating another Light Talisman. He sent it hurtling toward the creature, a beacon of light piercing the oppressive darkness. Meanwhile, his right hand crackled with energy, a brilliant white light gathering in his palm. He was ready to unleash his full strength, if need be.
"Grrr… grrr…" The sounds grew louder as the light drew closer, finally revealing the source of the commotion. Xingchen's blood ran cold.
It wasn't a beast… or a demon… or anything he could have ever imagined.
It was humanoid in shape… vaguely…. but that was where any similarity to a human being ended. It stood on all fours, its body hunched and twisted, easily twice the size of a grown man. Its flesh was a sickening tapestry of exposed muscle and pulsating veins, as if someone had skinned it alive, leaving nothing but raw, throbbing sinew. Its teeth, long and jagged, protruded from its slack jaw, and its eyes… Gods, its eyes… were enormous, bloodshot orbs devoid of any discernible intelligence… just pure, primal rage.
There was no reasoning with a creature like this, no appeal to logic, no sliver of humanity to exploit. It was a killing machine, pure and simple.
And it was charging straight at him.
"Wind Devouring Palm!" Xingchen roared, unleashing a torrent of wind-infused palm strikes that shot towards the creature like homing missiles. Each strike was powerful enough to cripple… if not outright kill… a normal opponent.
But this… thing… was anything but normal.
Just as Xingchen's attack was about to connect, the creature… vanished.
It reappeared an instant later, several feet to the side, having effortlessly evaded his attack.
Too fast, Xingchen thought, his heart pounding against his ribs. He'd only ever encountered that kind of raw speed while using his Galeforce technique…
He'd missed.
Before he could react, the creature lashed out again, a clawed hand scything through the air towards him. Xingchen threw himself backward, a split second ahead of the attack. The force of the blow ripped through the air where he'd been standing, sending a shockwave that rattled his teeth and left a tingling numbness in his left arm.
The creature had used Martial Qi.
Xingchen's eyes widened in disbelief. Not only that, but the raw power behind that attack… it was…stronger, more refined, than his Martial Qi cultivation…
"How?!"
He didn't have time to ponder the impossibility of the situation. The creature was already upon him.
Xingchen didn't hesitate. This thing was far too dangerous for half-measures…
He channeled his Spiritual Energy, his hands igniting with twin plumes of fire. He brought his hands together, compressing the flames… feeling the heat building, growing, until it felt like holding miniature suns in his palms…
"Blazing Dragon Blast!"
The flames erupted, twisting and coalescing into a roaring dragon's head. The dragon lunged forward, a torrent of fire engulfing the creature…
The tunnel trembled as the Blazing Dragon Blast detonated. Xingchen threw up an arm to shield himself from the intense heat as flames billowed out in every direction. Damn, he'd forgotten how strong that technique was in such a confined space…
He waited for the flames to die down, his ears ringing, his skin slick with sweat.
When he could finally see clearly again, his heart sank.
Two crimson eyes, brighter than ever, glowed menacingly in the newly formed darkness.
"No way," Xingchen breathed, his voice a strangled whisper. He'd seen that attack connect… felt the heat of the blast…
Hesitantly, almost afraid of what he might see, he activated another Light Talisman…
A wave of nausea washed over him.
The creature wasn't just alive, it was…glowing. A faint, purplish haze emanated from its grotesquely scarred flesh…
"It…absorbed it…" Xingchen stared in horror. The purple haze… it was all too familiar… it was the same energy Bai Yunfei had used…
He thought back to his encounter with the blood-crazed cultivator, remembering the feeling of impending doom as Bai Yunfei had unleashed that horrifying purple attack…
"But…how? Did this…thing cultivate the Heavenly Demon Art?" Xingchen's mind reeled. From what little he understood, only those with the Soul Eater bloodline could even attempt to cultivate those techniques…
A blood-curdling roar echoed through the tunnel, shattering his train of thought. The creature reared back its head, and the purple haze around it intensified, flowing inward… into its skin.
Its flesh, once a grisly red, darkened …became a sickly purple…
It moved then, faster than before, a blur of shadow and rage hurtling toward him….
This time, though, Xingchen didn't move.
He stood his ground, a strange calm settling over him as he watched the creature approach.
This…this was different…
He wasn't just facing a mindless beast anymore…this was…personal.
As the creature lunged, its jaws gaping wide, ready to tear him limb from limb… Xingchen finally moved.
A cold smile spread across his face, his eyes hardening with resolve as he channeled the dormant power within him. Black mist, crackling with ominous energy, erupted from his pores, swirling and solidifying in his outstretched hand…
In the blink of an eye, he was holding a sword.
Not just any sword…
The Soul Slayer.
"Soul Slayer," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the creature's outraged roar.
He brought the sword down in a swift, clean arc.
The creature let out an earsplitting shriek as it was cleaved cleanly in two, a geyser of blood erupting from the wound, showering Xingchen in its foul-smelling gore.
He wiped the blood from his face, disgust battling with exhaustion in his gut.
"Gods…how can something that disgusting bleed so damn much. "
"Drip… drip…drip…"
Xingchen froze, the metallic scent of blood suddenly thick and cloying in his nostrils. He'd been so focused on wiping the gore from his clothes… he hadn't heard it before…but now… it was unmistakable…
That sound.
Coming from behind him.
Trembling with a dread he couldn't ignore, he turned slowly.
The severed halves of the creature… they were… moving.
"Impossible," Xingchen breathed, his voice barely a whisper. His Blazing Dragon Blast…the Soul Slayer… he'd made certain-
He watched, horrified and mesmerized, as the creature's flesh began to bubble…
A torrent of blood gushed from the wound, pooling on the ground. Xingchen jumped back, stumbling over a loose piece of rock in his haste to put some distance between himself… and whatever fresh hell was about to unfold.
The blood receded, revealing not… flesh and bone… but…
A figure.
Human in form… though barely… its skin flayed and burned… cleaved almost clean through at the waist…
It was still alive.
"Th…thank…you," the…thing… rasped, its voice a gurgling, pain-filled whisper.
"Who… what are you?" Xingchen asked, cautiously approaching the figure. It was weak… dying…he could feel it…
"Thank…you… released me… do… not…enter… the … chamber…" The figure's voice faded, its eyes fluttering closed….
"Wait! What chamber?" Xingchen knelt beside the dying man. "What's in there?!" He could feel the faint flicker of life fading fast.
Desperately, he sealed the man's meridian points, stemming the flow of blood. He pulled out a healing elixir from his pouch, pushing it into the man's mouth. It was a long shot, he knew, but… he had to try.
He had so many questions! Who was this man? Was he a member of the Soul Eater Sect? And what did he know about the Soul Devouring Secret Art?!
The elixir took effect, the man's chest rising and falling with a rattling, gasping breath. He opened his eyes, staring up at Xingchen. His gaze, though filled with pain, held a strange clarity…a sense of peace that Xingchen found both unsettling and strangely reassuring.
"Ask…" the man rasped, his voice stronger now, "I will…answer… what I can…"
"The Soul Devouring Secret Art…where-"
The man interrupted him, his brow furrowing in concentration. "Soul… Devouring… You mean… The Sacred Scripture?"
"Sacred… Scripture? Is that… it?" Xingchen's gripped the man's arm, his fingers digging into unyielding bone. "Where is it? Tell me! Were you…are you… Soul Eater Sect?"
The man coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Yes. I…was… once… They called me…" He drew a shuddering breath. "…Seven… They…took everything… twisted…perverted..our teachings… The Sacred Scripture… it is… in the… chamber… but…"
He arched his back, a scream dying in his throat as blood sprayed from his mouth…
"No!" Xingchen cried, shaking the man's lifeless body. "Don't you dare… What about the chamber?! What's inside?!!"
But the man didn't answer. His eyes stared blankly up at the flickering Light Talisman, his expression frozen in a mask of silent terror.
He was gone.
"Damn it!" Xingchen slammed his fist against the ground in frustration. So close…he'd been so close…
What was in that chamber? And why had the dying man – clearly a high-ranking member of the Soul Eater Sect – warned him…begged him…not to enter…?
"Master?…. Master?!"
Xiaoqian's voice, laced with concern, echoed from the labyrinth of tunnels behind him.
"Over here, Xiaoqian!"
He'd been so caught up in questioning the dying man… he hadn't even realized how much time had passed!
A moment later, Xiaoqian emerged from one of the branching tunnels, her face a mask of concern when she saw him. She rushed to his side, her eyes darting to his bloodstained clothes, the severed body…
"Master! You're hurt!"
"It's not mine," Xingchen said, forcing a reassuring smile. The creature's blood was already starting to dry, stiff and uncomfortable against his skin.
"What happened here, Master? Where…" Xiaoqian trailed off, noticing the body for the first time. "Another one…"
"You… encountered more of these… things?" Xingchen asked, nodding toward what remained of the creature he'd just slain.
Xiaoqian nodded, her expression grim. "I fell… into a different passage after… the platform collapsed. I tried… to find you… but there were so many tunnels…"
"Did he…did he say anything? Before he…" Xingchen asked, hoping against hope that Xiaoqian had learned something… anything…that he hadn't…
"No," Xiaoqian said, her voice barely a whisper. "By the time I realized… that he was…human…it was too late."
Xingchen's stomach twisted. He hated the flash of …satisfaction…he felt when Xiaoqian confirmed that she'd also killed one of these things…but he understood…
They were beyond reason… beyond salvation. They'd been twisted… corrupted…into something… monstrous. Was that to be their fate too? If exposed to… whatever dark power permeated this place … for too long…?
"I continued on, Master," Xiaoqian continued. "And…I found a large chamber… with ten…no… nine … other tunnels leading out of it…each one…guarded by those…" She shuddered. "Creatures…"
Xingchen couldn't believe what he was hearing. He'd been so shaken by his own encounter, by the dying man's words… but Xiaoqian… she'd faced nine of those creatures?! In the time it had taken him to… Gods, she was strong… stronger than he'd realized… He couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy…
"You…cleared…nine tunnels?" he said, his voice a mix of awe and disbelief.
Xiaoqian nodded. "There's… something else, Master," she said, her eyes fixed on his. "In the chamber… with the other tunnels… there is…another room. A hidden chamber… I sensed it… a powerful energy… and I heard them…whispering…"
"Whispering?"
"They said…Sacred Scripture…"
Xingchen sucked in his breath. Could it be…?
"They said… it was… the key..."