Great Fire Ahead, Passage Forbidden!

Cisu's broken murmurs darted into the ears of Bai Zhou and the others, whispering the same things over and over. "The Grandmaster is here..." "Kneel... kneel..." "You have seen a title. Why do you not bow?" A formless domain closed around them. Grand chanting and faint weeping sounded in their ears. The grotesquerie of it all left them dizzy, their vision swimming. Fang Xiaoxia had it worst. Formless air and rain locked in place seemed to quicken all at once into lines, burning with colored radiance. Gaudy insects twisted and wriggled, rushing straight at their faces. "Bzz!" Bai Zhou's heart stirred. The character Soothe, carved upon the Sea of Ignorance, trembled. Formless ripples washed through his whole body and brought him clear at the first instant. Bai Zhou went blank for a beat. Then delight sprang up in him. He had known before that the character Soothe could lessen mystical contamination. He had never thought it could also shut out the influence of a Spirit Intent Domain. —Perhaps, as the character Soothe saw it, the way a so-called Spirit Intent Domain twisted and pressed upon a person's cognition was itself a kind of mystical contamination. "And these two are still here..." He turned to Fang Xiaoxia, who was swaying and about to tumble off the rooftop. Guiding the power of the character Soothe within him, Bai Zhou brought one hand down on her shoulder. "Smack!" Formless ripples shook through her whole body. Fang Xiaoxia jolted awake. The illusions vanished from before her eyes, and the tangled voices drew back like a tide. The stalled rain flowed again. The world she perceived returned, for the moment, to its proper shape. From the sky all around there seemed to come a soft sound of surprise from Da Vinci—an ethereal woman's voice, high above them, carrying a certain puzzlement. "What was that just now?" Suddenly clear of all that chaotic grotesquerie, Fang Xiaoxia jolted again. A powerful stillness came over her whole body. Tension, fear, chaos... she had no thoughts left at all. Her mood was so quiet she did not want to think of anything. She seemed drained empty. "Playing at gods and ghosts..." Bai Zhou stood on the rooftop, looking down at the carriages coming along the street below. "Bzz, bzz!" The red gem at the Gem Witch's waist vibrated several times. Red light ran through her body, and she soon broke free as well. "Ha! A petty trick!" She was sure she must have been the first to throw off the Spirit Intent Domain. She turned her head and found Bai Zhou and Fang Xiaoxia both clear-eyed, looking as if they had not been touched at all. ...For real? The Gem Witch was struck dumb. For a moment she wondered whether this Spirit Intent Domain had aimed only at her—or whether the high estimate she put on Bai Zhou would forever fall short of even one percent of what the real Bai Zhou could do. At the same time she saw Bai Zhou lifting a hand and reaching toward her, with no telling what he meant to do. What are you doing? Almost by instinct, the Gem Witch whisked away the precious wand she was holding—whoosh—and shielded it behind her back. Bai Zhou: "?" Gem Witch: "!" The two stared at each other. He stopped short. His palm hung in midair. Bai Zhou quietly drew back the formless oscillation surging between his fingers and palm, his expression odd. He had only meant to help the witch throw off the influence. Who would have thought the Gem Witch would wake at exactly that moment? And... why was she guarding her food? The Gem Witch realized almost at once that she must have misunderstood something. Her pretty face went crimson in a flash. Fortunately, the mask on her face could hide most of it. "I never thought you would even know about Spirit-Name Secret Treasures!" In the pouring rain the Gem Witch hurried to change the subject. "Truly impressive!" Her face was astonished. The words she spoke might have been praising Bai Zhou, or praising herself. She could not have said which. Goods sell to those who know them. Some things are utterly different before one who understands and one who does not. What is junk in a person's eyes is a priceless antique in the eyes of someone who can judge it. A Spirit-Name Secret Treasure was even more so. Its power could be known, and then only the tip of the iceberg, solely by those who had heard the name. The Gem Witch had already prepared herself to be taken for someone who had picked up a rotten stick, and to have to open her mouth and explain. But Bai Zhou? Not merely know of one—I have one of these in my own hands... Bai Zhou grumbled inwardly, his gaze weighing the decayed wand in the Gem Witch's hand. If the explosive wand that had appeared from the Gem Witch's hand at the ghost market bore ancient magic runes that felt familiar to Bai Zhou, seemingly bound by a thousand threads to the age of Zhuluoji, like an imitation of that era— then the magic runes on this decayed old wand were ten times, dozens of times more complex than those on the explosive wand. Only the overall style of the runes was cut from the very same cloth. The relationship between the two was like a grandson and his grandfather. Like Little-Head Son and Big-Head Dad. And yet it made one wring one's hands. The surface of this complex wand was covered in cracks. Beneath the obscure magic runes lay several scars nearly deep enough to snap the wand clean through. Those scars had also broken the runes' circuits and certain vital nodes. Just then, a detail caught Bai Zhou's eye. The wand was a dusty gray outside. Where the scars split open, the inside was... gold. What kind of branch showed gold within? Bai Zhou turned it over in his mind. As he thought, understanding came all at once. Perhaps that "explosive wand" had only been bait, and an appetizer. The Gem Witch had kept herself planted at the ghost market for a whole year, a fixture who would not budge, and the real reason she wanted the "explosive wand" repaired was that she was looking for someone who could repair and decipher this decayed old wand! "Last time I told you I was looking for a runic master... a very rich runic master." "Although that fellow has owed me eight yuan and twenty-seven cents all this time and never paid it back." The witch said it quietly. "But that isn't the point. The point is, I saw in him a thread of hope for repairing this wand. At least it was worth a try." "Unfortunately..." Under Bai Zhou's gaze—his expression odd for reasons she could not know—the witch seemed to think of something. She stopped talking and ground her teeth. Unfortunately, that person had blasted his own face pitch-black, and then run! Vanished into the vast crowd. The two had never met again! "If the wand could really be repaired, then those two Titled Extraordinary down there?" The witch pointed at the carriages that had already come to a quiet stop below the building. Even as she spoke, she watched their movements closely, and only gave a cold laugh. "Not worth mentioning in the slightest!" "Clip. Clip-clip-clip..." Two carriages, one from the east and one from the west, finally met on the long street directly beneath the rooftop, and stood there quiet in the rain. In the downpour, the Bronze Celestial Horses breathed out flame-light from their nostrils. The pale-gold radiance was like a mass of burning fire, scorching the rain until it hissed into vapor. The silver mechanical horses had gone utterly still. Only the sound of turning gears came now and then, like the second hand of a clock. They stood on the asphalt, confronting from afar the few tiny figures on the rooftop. Oppression and killing intent bred madly. The world under the storm seemed to go quiet. The tension was one touch from breaking. Even so, the Gem Witch on the rooftop went on chatting with Bai Zhou in a low voice, not the least restrained. "Of course, even now it's entirely enough. Even the thinnest camel is still bigger than a horse." The witch paused. "Even a celestial horse cast in bronze!" The decayed wand pointed from afar at the two carriages of overwhelming presence below. The witch's killing intent boiled. "Me, I just love killing other people's horses!" "So there's no need to worry," the witch said softly. "Leave those two monsters below to me." "Or rather—leave them to it!" With that, the witch raised the wand before her. A half-transparent glow of spirituality was called forth, circling her fingertips and winding about the wand. The decayed wand truly looked little different from a length of branch about to snap: rough, withered, as if one light bend would break it in two. Scar upon scar made one ache to see it. It was not hard to picture the wand passing, in some extremely ancient stretch of years, through countless wars fierce beyond imagining. Even so, when Bai Zhou's gaze fixed on the wand, he still found, with a shock— that with this length of dead branch as the center, the rain in that small space, the flowing wind, even light and shadow, all bent in some strange way. Everything bent. It was as if the dead branch were a vortex, silently swallowing all that lay around it. Spirituality wanted to submit to it. But this venerable one happened to be traveling incognito, and the time had not yet come to put on the yellow robe and manifest before the world. So the spirituality drifting in the air could neither kneel nor ignore it. Either way was awkward. "A Spirit-Name Secret Treasure..." This was a Spirit-Name Secret Treasure, sovereign among Extraordinary arms! The wand was, without question, a Spirit-Name Secret Treasure of no small origin. Who knew where the Gem Witch had scrounged it up. And if it had not been damaged, it might even have been something still more special... The instant he saw it, Bai Zhou took back his doubts about the Gem Witch. His heart settled a little. Others might not know. Would he not know the true weight of a Spirit-Name Secret Treasure? Every Spirit-Name Secret Treasure, even if only a small part of its might could be brought to bear, was the equal of a being above level 6 striking in person. Against a being of level 6, that was, beyond any doubt, an overwhelming strike from a whole tier above. Only, even to call up the slightest thread of that might, the conditions for using a Spirit-Name Secret Treasure were far too harsh. Set aside every difficulty of use and every interfering factor, and the lowest threshold alone demanded that the user be either a powerful Extraordinary above level 6, or a Destined whose path lay close in nature to the treasure. Yet if the witch could bring it out, there was no reason she could not use it. In other words— from the moment she produced this Spirit-Name Secret Treasure, the Gem Witch had as good as laid her greatest secret open before Bai Zhou. First, she had all but told him outright that she was a Destined. A level-5 Destined! Second, she held in her hand a Spirit-Name Secret Treasure... Exposed before others, a thing like this could certainly let her run rampant for a time. Pinning down a level-6 Extraordinary, even driving one back, would be no trouble at all. But let word leak, and it would surely draw, in days to come, the covetous eyes of those great figures above level 6. The Gem Witch was a veteran Extraordinary. She could not have failed to think of this. Even so, the trump card she had hidden for so long, and never once exposed, she brought out tonight. This was trust in Bai Zhou. Bai Zhou knew that any word more from him now would be making a sentimental fuss. He let his thoughts race, pressed his lips together in silence, and was moved. Say no more... Brothers, in the heart! "Then I'll leave this place to you." Bai Zhou drew a deep breath. His fingers moved slightly, and an invisible miniature ritual settled onto the witch. "What's this?" The witch was a little curious, but she let Bai Zhou do as he would. "A miniature ritual that can give me the state of your life," Bai Zhou said. "I've laid the same ritual on Fang Xiaoxia." Fang Xiaoxia, standing to one side, felt her sensitive ears twitch twice, lightly. This involves me? Since when? But once she had heard Bai Zhou out, the witch at once put on a look of distaste. "It sounds like a kitten peeing to declare its territory." "?" Bai Zhou blinked twice. "Then you'd better erase it." She did not answer. The witch only shook her head, face full of distaste. Distaste or not, she did not erase it. Though for the witch, stirring her spirituality to scatter this miniature ritual would not have taken so much as the strength to lift a hand. "Right. Once you've peed, washing it clean still means it got peed on." Bai Zhou looked thoughtful, as if he had worked something out. Gem Witch: "?" What is this person even saying! She had not felt much of anything before. But now, why did she suddenly feel as if she truly were not clean... In fact Bai Zhou was thinking of the Major and his obsession with cleanliness. The man had to wipe his hands and disinfect after so much as a touch. If someone else's ritual were branded onto him, he would not have been able to stand it either. "In that case, you've all the more reason to stay alive and well." To the Gem Witch's blank face, Bai Zhou said seriously, "After all, even if you mean to pee on me afterward to pay me back, you still have to wait until all of this is over, right?" At that, the Gem Witch's eyes nearly rolled up into the sky. —Who wants to pee on you! Talk sense! Bai Zhou took Fang Xiaoxia's hand, ready to leave, and spoke again. "Also, if the ritual sends me an alarm, I might not be able to hold back from killing my way back." "Oh..." Only then did the Gem Witch catch the meaning under Bai Zhou's words. "Don't say the kind of line that plants a death flag." The Gem Witch glanced at Bai Zhou. "I never watch any tragedy. Psychology says tragedy tends to be tied to the sublime, and that people can always take pleasure from pain... Yet I refuse to see it that way." "Just roll straight over everything, all the way to a happy ending where everyone is glad and laughing, and stand above the high heavens by absolute strength." "That is the road by which I practice justice." The wand tapped lightly in midair. The spirituality that had been circling the witch's fingertips poured into the wand. A point of pale-gold radiance woke at the tip of the forty-centimeter wand. "A wand of 15.74 inches. The material is suspected to come from the mysterious sacred grove near Lake Albano, in the ancient Italy of the Western Federation. Whoever holds it shall be victorious in every battle!" "—This is my reason for being a witch." At the same time. "Hum! Hum-hum-hum!" Her cape snapped and danced in the wind. The belt around her supple waist rang out long and loud. A pure, flawless ruby clicked into the buckle at the center of the belt. At the same time, twelve glass beads of different colors snicked into the small buckles on either side. "Rejoice!" The twelve glass beads and the ruby blazed at once. The belt's voice was like rolling thunder. "Magician! My lord descends!" Light enveloped the witch. Under the stare of Fang Xiaoxia beside her, eyes wide with disbelief, the Gem Witch began to change. The splendid Western dress on her became a long scarlet gown in a blink. The cut of the gown was noble and elegant. Her tall figure was ringed and borne up by killing intent and fierce flame. The scarlet queen came once more to storm-wrapped Tinghai—in a bearing of absolute might such as never before. Fang Xiaoxia's eyes were huge, her heart and her gaze full of yearning and shock— Was this a knight, or a magical girl? "Do you know why I'm called the Gem Witch?" The scarlet queen held the wand. Her gaze met the two Titled Extraordinary on the long street below, yet her mouth, quite out of place, kept up its chatter with Bai Zhou and the others. "Alchemists hold that gold is mystery itself. Certain ancient schools of magic hold that precious gems conceal a pure natural power of mystery, never touched by human hands." "And magic has always stood for certain impossible miracles." The witch stood at the edge of the rooftop. Her vivid red skirt danced in the wind and rain. "So the name Gem Witch is the inconceivable miracle itself." "It means a miracle made by God!" "Miracle itself, is it..." A rumbling voice came from below. "A fine little sideshow." Armor shifted. High-spirited Michelangelo stepped unhurriedly out of the carriage. He tilted up his bronze-masked face. His gaze carried a blaze of golden light and locked onto the few upon the rooftop. The low voice spread like thunder— "I do admire your confidence. Yet the script was written long ago. Any sculpture or painting already has its shape and its result before the first stroke falls." "—Tonight, not one of you will escape!" The instant his voice fell. Michelangelo bent his knees. The muscle all over him bulged, layer on layer. He stamped, and drove his strength! The Bronze Celestial Horses grunted as if a crushing weight had landed on them. All four cried out together, unable to bear it, and their hooves sank deep into the road. A ring of rushing air burst open beneath his feet. The rain drew back of itself. Michelangelo shot forth like a cannon shell. Violent wind and terrifying force circled a body perfect as a sculpture. The height of more than ten floors was crossed in a blink. "Don't you understand human speech?" The witch stood on high, watching Michelangelo charge up from the long street, her gaze haughty. The unremarkable wand in her hand drew a half circle in the air and left a pale-gold arc hanging there. Then the tip turned down, and the witch drove it fiercely into the ground at her feet. "Boom!!!" No complex chant. No obscure gestures to guide it. With the point where the wand struck as the center, a sheet of golden flame rushed into the sky and burst apart. Rain evaporated in an instant. The air warped as if into a vacuum. Golden flame burned straight from the rooftop toward the two carriages on the ground. That dreadful momentum was in no way inferior to a level-6 Titled. In the nobility of its essence, it even faintly stood a head above the latter. "Rumble, rumble, rumble—" Michelangelo flew backward even faster than he had come, turning more than a dozen somersaults along the way. Da Vinci's face changed sharply. Golden light-flame rushed skyward. The huge display lit the two nearby streets. Even if a Titled Extraordinary's Spirit Intent Domain could shield the cognition of others, once the witch's light-flame broke through the paired blockade of the two and rushed into the sky... this place had probably already been seen by the official departments. "I said it." Red skirt snapping, the masked witch looked down in disdain from within the flames. "This road is closed!" The two Titled Extraordinary from the Fine Arts Society were as if a great enemy were upon them. Their faces were grave. The ease they had shown before was gone. They could not quite understand what was happening. Weak lambs had turned in a shake into tigers and wolves that could match them—and even brought a fatal threat upon both of them at once! Bai Zhou and the witch were no fools. Every word of their talk about the Spirit-Name Secret Treasure had been veiled by a ritual Bai Zhou put to use. "Pat, pat..." Feet stepping in puddles, Bai Zhou had long since taken Fang Xiaoxia to the other side of the rooftop. "It's magic! Magic!" Fang Xiaoxia rattled it off, fast and excited. "That lady witch—how will she deal with those strange people? What magic will she use?" "Does she know a life-claiming curse? Or is it the magic of love and justice? For example... Summon the Divine Guardians!" No girl would be uninterested in "magic" and "miracles," and Fang Xiaoxia was certainly no exception. She looked unusually worked up. That rush, for the moment, pressed down tension and fear. Everyone was like this the first time they met extraordinary power. "Who knows?" Bai Zhou thought a moment, then answered offhand. "Maybe she'll trip those two right where they stand. Level-6 Titled Master Painters must all be getting on in years. An old man or an old woman takes a fall, and it hurts them bad." "T-trip them?" Fang Xiaoxia's eyes went wide, her face badly shaken. What kind of crooked magic was this? Bai Zhou could well understand Fang Xiaoxia's excitement and expectation. Everyone who first touched extraordinary power felt a strong urge to put themselves in its place, and took the height of the Extraordinary they saw for the shape they themselves would one day become. So for a long while, under the influence of a certain someone, Bai Zhou's goal in cultivation had been the kind of strength that could split the moon... But it was shameful to say. He had worked this hard for so long, and all he could do was blow up a building or chop a car, that sort of thing. Ashamed, ashamed. Brushing off Fang Xiaoxia's question, Bai Zhou pulled her to the rooftop's edge on the opposite side. "Boom, boom, boom!" Explosive blasts came from behind them. The sense of the ritual linked to Bai Zhou reported to him, in the moment, the witch's present rush of life. How was he to describe this perception? Bai Zhou felt as if he dimly saw something. Like a— vast and sacred Niche! Endless secrets seemed held within it, so that awe rose together with yearning. "...Secrets?" Bai Zhou suddenly remembered another matter that mattered. He turned and looked far across to the witch on the other side of the rooftop, in the midst of a great display of divine might. Only when he was sure the two Master Painters were held for the moment at a distance by the roaring flames did he give two light coughs. Just then the Gem Witch was waving her wand like a rapt conductor directing music, driving the golden flames as they roared, when she heard Bai Zhou call from far behind her. "What?" Don't be tactless and interrupt when a person is trying to look cool... The witch muttered it inwardly. Keeping the suppression of her flame domain, wary of the two Master Painters below, she looked toward Bai Zhou. "Why haven't you left? Hurry and take Fang Xiaoxia—" The urging cut off halfway. The witch's eyes flew wide. "Rustle—" In the distance, the black cloak on the man danced in the wind. A brand-new cloak, yet a familiar cut. The big white characters were especially stark on the black cloth. The witch had long since learned them by heart: "West City mass grave, new housing development! A century-old mansion! Unlimited appreciation, down payment only seven figures!" In that moment the witch held her breath. She wore the look of someone who had seen a ghost. The person she had sought for she knew not how long—she turned her head, and he was right beside her. Seeing Bai Zhou put on the mysterious cloak, the two Master Painters below did not understand. They thought Bai Zhou still had some means in hand, looked at one another, and dared not move rashly. Only the Gem Witch and Bai Zhou knew what this cloak meant. "I just remembered there was still this important thing I hadn't told you." "After all, now that things have come this far, keeping it from an ally wouldn't be decent." Bai Zhou gave a shy smile toward the old acquaintance in the distance, the gem at her waist shining. "The wanted man is Grandpa KFC—but Grandpa KFC is the cloaked runic master too." "I'll pay you back the eight yuan and twenty-seven cents. And also..." "—When this business here is done, remember to bring your wand over!" A Spirit-Name Secret Treasure tied to the age of Zhuluoji? Say so sooner! If you'd said so sooner, who would still be hiding from you! Bai Zhou was interested in this. Far too interested. His voice fell. The cloak swung. Under the Gem Witch's stare of disbelief, Bai Zhou turned without a look back and left straight away, taking the blank-faced Fang Xiaoxia with him. Their figures melted into the depths of the dark. "No... how many disguises does this bastard even have?" The Gem Witch drew a deep breath. What did it mean, that Grandpa KFC was also the cloaked runic master? She only wore a mask. How was she supposed to compare with Bai Zhou? Was he more mysterious than she was? —What other identities did he have that she still did not know? The next instant. "Boom!!!" Golden flame, filled with destruction, surged into the sky, even more worked up, even more violent! "Looks like I need to hurry..." From the sky-high burning sea of golden fire, the masked witch in the great red gown walked slowly out. Borne up by the flames, she came down from the rooftop one step at a time. She walked toward the long street, toward those two restless carriages, toward the two grave-faced Master Painters. The storm grew fiercer. A war that seemed to come out of myth was about to begin. Flame stretched the silhouette of her back, as if an ancient epic shone into the real world. Only, right now, the others were the heroes come to make the challenge. And the witch was the fire-breathing evil dragon. "Want to consider taking the carriages home now?" she said. "Because there's a fire here." The witch's scorching gaze looked down on the two great Titled. The decayed wand in her hand lifted a fraction. "—Ahead, passage forbidden!"