"Who's there!"
An enraged shout echoed from within the cavern, followed immediately by two streaks of escape light—one black, one white—shooting out from inside. Before Qin Sang could clearly make out the figures within the lights, Gu Tiannan and Gu Yuan sprang into action.
Gu Tiannan lightly raised his palm, and five spiritual swords shot back in a flash, hovering before him.
His disciple, Gu Yuan, drew a fiery red short sword.
"Die, fiend!"
The two took to the air on their swords, swooping down in a pincer attack toward the black streak of light.
"You old ghost again!"
The black streak of light dispersed to reveal a man in a black robe. His face was gaunt to the extreme, with sunken eyes in deep sockets and high cheekbones. His age was impossible to tell, and he resembled a skeleton far more than a living human.
Upon seeing Gu Tiannan and his disciple, the black-robed man flew into a rage. Opening his mouth wide, he spat out a black flying needle that shot forth like lightning, darting straight for Gu Yuan's face.
Having suffered at its hands before, Gu Yuan panicked the moment he saw the needle coming and dodged frantically. Yet the flying needle clung like maggots on rotting bone, possessed of startling speed and extraordinary nimbleness. With a slight flicker, it slipped past Gu Yuan's thrusting short sword, poised to pierce him in the next instant.
Gu Tiannan watched this unfold without showing any panic for his disciple. Seizing the right moment, he suddenly pointed a finger. Moving abruptly from absolute stillness, the Five Elements Dharma-Breaking Sword unleashed five beams of sword light like startled swans that converged into a single strand of sword qi. Moving as swift as lightning, before the black-robed youth could even react, it struck true against the middle of the flying needle.
The flying needle tumbled through midair, its gleam dimming considerably. Seeing this, the black-robed youth grew frantic. Hurriedly recalling the needle, he inspected his magic tool with deep distress, relaxing only when he saw no serious damage.
Yet Gu Tiannan refused to relent. With a subtle flick of the Five Elements Dharma-Breaking Sword, the weapon swung around, its speed surging. The formidable pressure caused the black-robed youth's expression to change drastically. He quickly opened his mouth and spat out a plume of demonic qi onto the flying needle.
Replenished by the demonic qi, the needle was restored to its peak. With a slight tremor, it morphed into a black thread, darting forward to intercept the Five Elements Dharma-Breaking Sword. Tip to tip, needle against sword, the eerie dark glow held fast against the sword qi, neither yielding an inch.
Meanwhile, the black-robed youth opened his palm, revealing a palm-sized ox skull he had been concealing. Devoid of any flesh or blood, its two hollow sockets nevertheless held a pair of eyes that rolled about wildly, looking exceedingly sinister.
Giving Gu Tiannan a venomous glare, the black-robed youth slashed a cut into his own fingertip and forced out several drops of essence blood into the ox skull's mouth.
The ox skull greedily sucked in the essence blood. Its eyes grew brighter and brighter, and demonic qi erupted fiercely from its form.
With a sharp flick of his hand, the black-robed youth shouted:
"Go!"
Trailing billowing demonic qi, the ox skull soared into the air. Its pitch-black eyeballs fixed hungrily on Gu Tiannan as a bone-chilling, eerie cackle echoed from its maw. Chasing forward like a meteor pursuing the moon, it arrived before Gu Tiannan in the blink of an eye, jaws wide open and about to bite into him.
Unexpectedly, Gu Tiannan paid it no heed at all. Instead, he drew a section of dried tree root from his mustard seed bag, held it firmly, and began muttering an incantation under his breath.
At this critical juncture, his disciple Gu Yuan rushed to his side with sword in hand. The short sword flared with crimson light, barely holding the ox skull at bay. With every bite the skull took at the short sword, the flames upon the blade dwindled slightly.
Gu Yuan's face flushed crimson as he gritted his teeth and held on, fighting under immense strain.
Just as Gu Yuan was on the verge of collapsing, the tree root in Gu Tiannan's hand underwent a sudden metamorphosis, releasing blinding arcs of lightning as the entire branch turned a dazzling silver-white.
*Boom!*
With a deafening thunderclap, a bolt of lightning erupted from the root and struck the ox skull squarely.
*Crack!*
The demonic qi engulfing the ox skull violently convulsed, and half of the skull's face was shattered by the lightning.
As though it were truly alive, the ox skull let out an agonized shriek, turned tail, and fled straight back to bite down tenaciously on the youth's palm. No matter how frantically the youth tried to drive it forward again, it refused to budge.
A sneer crossed Gu Tiannan's face. Holding the tree root aloft, he pointed it toward the flying needle hovering in the air.
The black-robed youth's expression shifted slightly. Glancing at the locked battle beside them and hesitating for a fleeting moment, he suddenly recalled the flying needle, morphed into a streak of escape light, and fled.
"Fiend! Today is the day you die!"
Gu Tiannan barked coldly and gave chase on his sword, turning to shout to Qin Sang, "Junior Brother Qin, hold off that cat demon! I will slay this fiend first, then return to aid you!"
Qin Sang offered only a brief grunt in reply. With a forceful sweep of the Azure Wave Sword, three massive waves surged in a triangular formation, completely walling off the path and forcing back the white cat that was rushing to reinforce the black-robed youth.
Indeed, his opponent was a white cat.
It looked no different from an ordinary cat, yet it was a late Mortal Demon stage beast!
Standing upright on its hind legs, the white cat held a magic tool fashioned from green bamboo in its front paws. It possessed remarkable power, unleashing beams of azure light that Qin Sang dared not take lightly—though that was also because he had not committed his full strength.
Suspicious of Gu Tiannan and fearing a trap, he was unwilling to reveal all his trump cards. While tangling with the white cat using the Azure Wave Sword, he had been secretly observing Gu Tiannan and the black-robed youth.
After witnessing their exchange, Qin Sang saw that both sides fought with ruthless ferocity, each intent on killing the other. It did not seem like an act.
*Perhaps I was just being overly suspicious,* Qin Sang thought to himself.
Watching Gu Tiannan and his disciple chase after the black-robed youth until they vanished from sight in the blink of an eye, Qin Sang saw that they had firmly seized the upper hand; victory was only a matter of time. He thus wished to quickly dispatch the cat demon before him so he could return and report his mission complete.
A beast in the Mortal Demon stage possessed no awakened intellect and should not be difficult to deal with.
Having made up his mind, Qin Sang was just about to put away the Azure Wave Sword and summon his ebony sword to end the fight swiftly. To his surprise, the cat demon broke character. Instead of trying to escape, it stood upright on its hind legs and leaned on the green bamboo, facing Qin Sang directly.
From its deep blue pupils, Qin Sang actually detected a gleam of intellect no inferior to that of a human, which struck him as utterly bizarre.
*Whoosh!*
The green bamboo suddenly shed a tranquil, eerie glow that enveloped their surroundings.
Alarms blared in Qin Sang's mind. He instantly summoned his ebony sword to hover around him while warily scanning his environment. Aside from the pervasive green light filling the air, there seemed to be no immediate danger, yet he could no longer see where the cat demon was.
*An illusion array, or something else?*
Qin Sang pondered silently, hesitating over whether to break it with an array of his own.
Just then, the green light shifted before him, and the white cat's silhouette emerged from within. It pressed its front paws together and bowed courteously to Qin Sang, like a human, saying, "Young Master, please do not worry. This green light is merely for my self-defense and cannot harm you. Entrusted by another, I have a matter to lay before you."
The voice was crisp and clear, like that of a young maiden.
Qin Sang's eyes widened in profound astonishment. "You can speak?"
Barring certain rare, extraordinary beasts, most demons could only assume human form and speak human tongue upon reaching the Transformation stage. Such beasts were revered as Transformation stage great demons, their strength rivaling human Nascent Soul cultivators. The white cat was clearly nowhere near that level.
Chapter 117