Cold sweat immediately broke out as I grimaced quietly in the dimness. Dammit!? What the hell?! That painting... the character in it is missing?! Is this the same like just now? Oh, Gods in Heaven... the characters in the paintings are...
Then something flashed by my peripheral visions. I wheeled around frantically. There! Another painting, now empty too! And before I knew it, every figure in every painting around me convulsed and came to life! They moved slowly at first, as if their joints were stiff or painful, and suddenly, they leaped sideways out of view and disappeared like monsters fleeing from their two-dimensional prisons!
Gods help us! I groaned to myself in the dark as my sword-hand raised warily in anticipation of an ambush, There're at least twenty portraits around here!
In a mere matter of seconds, every single canvas on the wall became blank, leaving only the bare fields of colors and other backgrounds that backdropped the empty
Na San might have been badly weakened, but he had recovered much of his consciousness then. As soon as I began to rise, he caught hold of my ankles. Just in time, Na San managed to keep me from flying away! Frowning, I leaned down, giving him my hand to pull him up. Only more sparks jumped from my outstretched hand and exploded, sending Na San careening off before falling unconscious once more.I punched my thigh in frustration. What the hell?! But there was better than this to be anguished. With a flick of my fingers, my sword heeded my summon and flew under Na San and with another flick of my Seal of the Sword, my sword grew larger again like it did before and it lifted Na San up like a hovering stretcher. What fortune, I mused, Without this spell, I would have trouble bringing Na San with me.We began walking back to the sculpture wing of the gallery where the breaking noise came from with my sword hovering beside me with Na San on it. Imagine my exhalat
The revelation of hit me with the flashes of the poor ghosts dissipating into nothingness just now and I lurched with incredulity. Oh, my God... those poor things... these are all kinsmen of Tribe Nine Li! What savagery is this... To forcibly mesh the Souls of Heaven and Earth of others with the Mortal Soul of another man... That's just abomination...As mentioned before, the ghosts of humans consist of three Souls and seven Spirits in Chinese esotericism and the three Souls are the Heaven, Earth, and Mortal Soul respectively. From the Mortal Soul, the seven Spirits that characterized each and everyone's personality and individualism were derived. But due to the stronger Heaven and Earth Souls forcibly meshed with the native Mortal Soul, Mr. Huang's infernal witchcraft could render his subject cold and impassive, having lost all their former personalities and behavior."That's a quaint and useful trick," I chuckled and said, "But don't you realize that your
Astral projection. I knew that feeling. The feeling of the Core Spirit of my soul leaving my body. I experienced the same sensation as this when Master Six sent me back through time, back to the final years of the Ming Dynasty and as I left my physical body behind, I lost all ability to control myself, floating into the air like a helpless mist.I passed through the space in the Fog World, out and up to the sky where I looked down and saw a glittering expanse of lighted beads and radiantly speckled lines beneath my feet. But the pretty cityscape down beneath did little to assuage my anxiety. What's happening to me?! What's going on?! A strange voice reverberated in my mind. A voice that sounded oddly familiar even though I could not understand what the voice was saying. It sounded more like a song. A chanting song sang in a tongue I could not recognize.The voice went on and one, growing louder and faster like a klaxon inside my head and so was the speed I
"YOU! IMPOSSIBLE! YOU! THE IMMACULATE COMMUNION?!" With blood squirting uncontrollably from his severed wrists, Mr. Huang howled with pain and agony in his voice. "You really haven't placed much thought into my one-week disappearance, have you?"The question left a shocked Mr. Huang wordless. Shang Pei's ice guandao hissed and sizzled, and in a puff of vapor, it disappeared. He formed up beside me, wearing a proud smile. "Well, I see there's no need for old men like me here any longer!" With that, he wheeled around and walked back to Old Men Xie and Chen, and just beside them, Zhu Mei cried loudly with glee, "Good job, my dear boy! Now destroy him!"With my sword-hand lowered but the Shiyan Blade still firmly in my grasp, I approached Mr. Huang. "Spirit of the Heirloom Axe," I addressed, "Through millennia, you and I have been nemeses. Well, I don't know what methods you've used to assume human form, but it appears you cannot become one with your weapon. So
Mr. Huang rose up amidst the dust and splinters of wood like a phoenix rising from its ashes, reborn and renewed. Patting the dust off his clothes, he sniggered. "Did you really expect that I'd be defeated so easily?! I created this Real and Fog World. This is my domain. Mine and only mine! So long as ghosts still wander here, they can be sustenance to me!"So this is what he's after?! I gasped, Sergeant Zhan was trying to buy him time! Gods, we've been thoughtless about that! This dimensional Real and Fog Worlds was created by Mr. Huang, the Spirit of the Heirloom Axe, and they were filled with damaged ghosts missing parts of their Souls. If Mr. Huang could easily dabble with modifications of their Souls, then it should only be expected that he was highly skilled in the manipulation of Souls and that would mean he could just as handily consume any of the damaged ghosts to heal himself and the time that Sergeant Zhan had bought him had allowed him to do just that!
Big Sister screamed and screamed to no avail. Father did not appear nor did he respond in any way. There was only Big Sister's hoarse voice resounding through the void outside.Hum! Another wave of energy swept forth from its epicenter where the two men were still fiercely raining blow after blow at one another. Their weapons met, steel clashed against steel, sending more jolts that the offices and cubicles around us looked as if the ground beneath them would be giving way any moment now. Even on the floating swords, the waves of energy pulsed and nearly knocked Uncle Quan and the others off.Shang Pei's fight with Mr. Huang could not have been any more vicious. None of them would yield to each other and the heavy blows they exchanged were testaments to their unyielding tenacity. But they were not equals. With my Spirit Sight, I could see that Shang Pei was gradually turning weak while Mr. Huang had invariably succumbed to a maniacal bloodlust, the thick ma
The sudden voice ringing in my head made me shudder. Father?! Is that you?! I reeled as the sight of the Heirloom Axe coming nearer reminded me that I was not dreaming. A deep but sonorous hum reverberated in my ears, nearly knocking me out and Mr. Huang's battleaxe came down with a bursting force that erupted and really had me keeled over, unconscious.I did not know how long had passed. After what felt like a very long time, I opened my eyes frantically, remembering that we were still in danger only to inhale heavily in awe at what I saw! I was standing, right in the middle of the auditorium and my leg was fine! The auditorium which had been battered to ruins and only one door still flapping on one last hinge at the frame of the entrance had been restored to what it was before when I first came and everyone was behind me—Zhu Mei, Old Men Xie and Chen, and even Shang Pei! I panned around, spinning on my heels like a spindle. The same podium that Mr. Huang had been spea
With speed we never thought him to be capable of, he bolted! He should be dying already, I gasped. Bitterness and grudge flared effervescently in his eyes despite the foul aura that fueled his powers earlier now completely missing. Still, he looked no less murderous from before! And to make things worse, I spied a newly-cut wound on his wrist; he had slicked the Heirloom Axe with his blood again!But how long could he stand without the supply of power from his ghosts? I wondered. Without it, can this middle-aged man, now almost fifty, sustain any longer in battle? Shang Pei, the mightiest among everyone here, skittered forth to meet him. The blade of his saber gleamed blue as it appeared in his grasp, glowing with an icy-cold fury! Only, before he could do anything, I zipped right past him just as his fingers clasped around the hilt of his freshly-conjured weapon, charging straight at Mr. Huang. I zipped from where I stood in a flash, the tip of my sword p