61 Coordinated Strike (1/2)
It was dark out. Strangely, all the lights in Fairweather had been extinguished. The only source of illumination in the empty city streets was the full moon shining in all its glory. Its white light was filtered through the red mist covering the entire city, making it appear like a giant bloody moon. But the darkness didn't bother Huxian. The darkness was his home.
He expertly darted between buildings, hiding in one alley after another. Occasionally, he encountered people who had not been lucky enough to find shelter for the night. They sat outside, weakly clinging to their remaining vitality. Some of the older homeless individuals had collapsed after losing consciousness. The unhealthy ones had already moved on.
To Huxian, life and death were both necessary. There couldn't be life without death, just like there couldn't be good without evil. The death of these poor people meant nothing to him—what bothered him was that they were hurting those select few that he considered friends: the restaurant owner, the cook, and the little girl who petted him every time he walked by. Those who dared hurt them deserved to die, plain and simple. He was only too happy to assist Cha Ming.
He wasn't overly worried about breaking the formation—that much was simple. The only thing that concerned him was the questioned that had haunted generations of his ancestors: Are formations tasty? His inherited memories were vague on the subject. Many formations were edible, but whether they were tasty was a controversial subject. His ancestors had deemed the topic worthy enough to pass on to their progeny, so the least he could do was to contribute empirical evidence.
She's so slow. Is she really an eighth-level cultivator? he asked himself as he stalked Xing Tong from the darkness. Unfortunately, he didn't know the way to the guard house and could only follow her helplessly. To kill time, he ducked into a nearby residence. There he found a small family with two children sitting at a kitchen table. His beady eyes narrowed as he realized that one of the children was the little girl who always fed him scraps whenever he brushed past her legs. Rage bubbled up in him when he saw her vitality getting syphoned away.
These beasts have gone too far!
While he didn't have time to stay here and help her weather the crisis, he could help her in passing. Huxian's small figure blurred as his shadow darted out and expanded itself tenfold. He activated a technique, and the few lights in the room were swallowed by the shadow, plunging it into darkness. The red mist in the room was sucked up along with the light, as were the red threads that connected the two children and their parents to the formation.
As he prepared to leave, he shot a worried look at the table full of food. What would happen to the poor family if they woke up and ate the food that had been out all night? Would they become sick or get food poisoning? He wasn't sure, but it would be unethical to allow them to take that risk, so he walked up to the table and ate everything in a single gulp. His duty accomplished, he darted out of the house and caught up to Xing Tong.
It took them an incense time to arrive at a small stone building that protruded from the city wall.
This must be the guard house they spoke of. Well, I shouldn't let such a pretty lady face danger on her own.
Huxian jumped into a nearby shadow. His immaterial form passed through the barred windows and into a dimly lit room. There he saw five individuals. Two skinny men were sitting down, sharpening deadly spirit sabers. One larger man was chewing on a large haunch of meat, his large truncheon leaning against the table.
How impolite. They clearly aren't ready for company. The two other individuals were cloaked men. They were chanting, and with each syllable, the two runes in the room glowed brighter.
Huxian took advantage of his shadow form and edged along the wall toward one of the bite-sized figures. His shadow expanded, but this time its gaping maw protruded from the wall and bit down viciously. The skinny man didn't have time to scream before half his body disappeared. The other half tumbled on the floor, spurting blood. The other two guards swiftly grabbed their weapons and faced the wall. Uncertainty flashed in their eyes as the shadow disappeared and a small figure walked out of the darkness.
”Yip!”
Huxian darted at the larger one, who had his mouth wide open. The mouth was like a dark abyss, and it quickly expanded to two three times the size of the small fox. Several rows of dagger-like teeth lined the horrendous mouth.
Playing with a knife in front of an expert swordsman?Huxian thought. The mark on his forehead began glowing, and his shadow, which had disappeared previously, turned into the vivid projection of large black fox.
One of the saber wielders reacted quickly and attempted to attack the shadowy projection. His spirit saber bounced off the lifelike projection with no noticeable effect. The massive fox bit down on the large man, devouring him in a single gulp. The remaining saber wielder didn't hesitate and attempted to escape the building. He only made it three steps before being eaten just like his comrade.
As Huxian approached the glowing formations, he noticed a few red threads separating from the formation and attempting to latch on to him. A bright white glow appeared around him, and the bloody threads evaporated into thin air. With a thought, Huxian expanded the white glow, encompassing the chanting figures. They howled in agony as the purifying white aura ate away at the unholy power they controlled. Soon, only their cloaks remained.
Now to answer the question—for posterity. Huxian glowed once more, but this time two projections appeared behind him. One was a large black fox, and the other was a large white fox. The moment the white fox appeared, both formation eyes and their supporting formations creaked under the strain and began crumbling bit by bit. The large black fox ate each piece as it broke away. It took less than ten breaths before the two formation eyes were fully dismantled.
His two projections disappeared just before Xing Tong walked in. She found the cute baby fox sitting among the remnants of the ruined formation. The only evidence that people were once present was the half-eaten corpse of a devilish cultivator and two empty cloaks. Huxian involuntarily let out a cute, satisfied burp. Huxian had determined that formations were tasty. But he was in no hurry to submit his verdict, as there would be many more to sample in the future. Meanwhile, he felt the blood and gold energy he gathered strengthen his body and toughen his skin.
”What are you doing here? Cha Ming will be upset if he knows you ran away,” she said cheerfully while petting him. Huxian indulged her for a few moments before letting out a shrill wail of agony. The sudden shriek forced Xing Tong to the floor with blood seeping out of her ears.
Uh oh. He felt a sharp, burning sensation as an object sprouted from his backside. It was a second tail. Huxian was now halfway to becoming a demon beast. He then became instantly aware of a frightening fact: His tribulation would arrive in three days.
***
Cha Ming's footsteps echoed through a lonely street near the eastern guard house. He was distracted by what he had just witnessed in a nearby shop. He hadn't intended to step into the shop, but a large crashing sound changed his mind. It was caused by the owner of the shop, who had collapsed on a display case. The room was covered in shattered glass splattered with blood.
As he rushed over to help the man, he quickly discovered that he wasn't simply unconscious. The elderly man's fires of life had been burning low even before tonight's events. The blood-gathering formation was just the last nail in his coffin. The cruel reality of the situation pressed the urgency of the situation: Many young children and the elderly would be the first to die if the blood formation wasn't stopped.
He glanced over the empty shelves in the shop before leaving. What should have been a thriving jewelry shop full of expensive merchandise had been thoroughly looted. He would have suspected looters if not for his timely arrival. The store's owner had just died, and he watched as the golden watch on the old man's wrist suddenly evaporated into a gold mist and wandered toward the nearby guard house.
Cha Ming understood that the priority was to stop the blood formation. But what if all the wealth in this rich city was used to strengthen the second individual? He resolved to destroy the gold formation eye after the blood formation eye.
He readied the Clear Sky Staff in his hands as he approached the guard house. Using his Mountain Stance, he rooted himself to the stone pavement as he heaved the elongated and weight-enhanced staff. It was now eighteen feet long and weighed 200 jin.
His bones creaked as he used the entire strength of his physical body while simultaneously channeling earth qi into the staff. The staff bent as he wielded it and performed a pure vertical strike toward the center of the guard house. The vibrations Cha Ming had imbued ensured that any stone encountered would crumble to dust.
A deafening boom broke the silence in the empty city streets. Without any warning, two saber-wielding individuals burst out from the newly formed entrance and lunged at Cha Ming, who wasted no time and counter-charged them. He put down each one with a single strike of his Sword Staff Art, and his precise blows crushed their necks and smashed their spinal cords. He felt no pity for them, however. These devil cultivators couldn't be considered human.
Cha Ming jumped over the rubble and noticed that a large figure had been crushed to a pulp, then saw two hooded figures at the back of the room, dead. Seemingly, the impact of the blow had thrown them into the wall and killed them. He left nothing to chance as he approached the formation, sending out a Flame Manifestation with his rosary. The two figures were reduced to ashes in mere moments.