Final Battle - 5
Almost at the same moment the poisonous miasma exploded in the cave deep within the icy abyss, Gui Tiao, who was on duty at a temporary camp on the edge of the far north ice plain, suddenly shivered without warning.
The chill didn't come from the endless wind and snow, but rather crept up from the spine, like the palpitation of being locked onto by countless eyes.
He looked up at the perimeter of the camp. The wind was still howling, swirling up fine snowflakes, and everything was exactly the same as it had been moments before.
"Youhang." He lowered his voice, moved a little closer, and asked Youhang, who was concentrating on checking the stability of the magical artifact, "Don't you think it's too quiet around here?"
You Hang immediately looked in the direction of his gaze.
She knew that although Gui Tiao had a carefree personality, he was exceptionally gifted in combat perception and would not say such a thing for no reason: "Tell me more?"
Almost the instant she finished speaking, Mi Quan, who was discussing the details of the follow-up support route on the other side of the camp, suddenly changed her expression.
Her keen intuition, inherited from the fox clan, allowed her to detect the murderous intent emanating from beneath the icy plains faster than anyone else present.
She whirled around, staring intently at the seemingly unremarkable area of glacial moraine to the west, and shouted sharply, "Who's there?! Show yourself!"
The shout was like a thunderclap, startling all the disciples in the camp. They then instantly entered combat mode, drawing their magical artifacts, surging with spiritual energy, and turning their gazes in unison to the direction Mi Quan was looking.
Gui Tiao reacted even faster.
Before Mi Juan's sharp shout had even faded, the Dawn Blade in his hand was already fully drawn, shielding You Hang behind him: "Be on guard."
However, the response to the crowd was not a human figure, but a series of rapid, loud noises, like bones being forcibly snapped, coming from that glacial moraine area.
In that seemingly naturally scattered glacial moraine, dozens of stones had spiderweb-like cracks on their surfaces.
The next moment, the outer shell of these stones completely peeled off, revealing the terrifying true nature of what lay beneath.
They were monsters forcibly pieced together from various pale bones, some resembling giant wolves but topped with enormous bull skulls.
More often, they resemble spiders, with limbs haphazardly grafted from the leg bones or ribs of seven or eight different creatures, half of their bodies covered with not-yet-completely-rotted fur and frozen muscles.
"They're bone golems! Be careful, don't get scratched!" You Hang, with his extensive knowledge, immediately shouted a warning, and then reminded the disciples on the flanks to form a defensive formation.
However, what first met the attacks of these bone golems was not talismans or the sorcery of Jiehai Mountain, but a sword light as swift as the wind.
Gui Tiao was in mid-air, his longsword already transformed into a streak of silver light. Facing the three bone puppets that pounced first, reaching out their claws to tear him apart, his figure showed no sign of stopping, and the tip of his sword trembled as it drew three almost perfect arcs.
The sword light seemed to drift by lightly, but the moment it touched the bone puppet's claws and joints, it unleashed a hidden force.
The first bone golem's claws were skillfully deflected, the second one's joints were precisely struck, causing its movements to suddenly change, and the third one was staggered by the flexible force carried by the sword. The combined attack of the three bone golems instantly collapsed!
This ingenious counter-move caused a flicker of surprise in You Hang's eyes, who was just about to make his move.
She knew that Gui Tiao was exceptionally talented, but she hadn't expected his swordsmanship to be so profound. Clearly, beneath his usual carefree demeanor lay relentless and diligent practice.
"Excellent swordsmanship!" Mi Juan praised, and the claw wind formed by her demonic power whistled out, knocking back the two bone puppets that attacked from the other side.
Gui Tiao landed, his steps as nimble as a fish, weaving through the ice spikes that suddenly broke through the ice, without a scratch.
His expression was calm, completely different from his usual self. He said sternly, "Youhang, these monsters are not afraid of attacks. Their joints and chests are weak points where evil energy flickers! I will use my sword to hold them back. You and Elder Mi Quan will seize the opportunity to break their core!"
As they were speaking, four more bone puppets rushed in, forming a pincer movement.
Gui Tiao neither dodged nor avoided, but instead pressed forward, his sword light suddenly splitting into a net of light that was difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion.
The sword net not only shredded all the ice spikes aimed at them, but also blocked all the attacks.
"Don't fight head-on, cover each other, and attack the joints and chest!" You Hang's voice pierced through the chaotic battle and clearly reached the ears of every disciple.
Facing a bone puppet that pounced from the side, You Hang advanced instead of retreating. With a flick of his wrist, the soft sword in his hand suddenly became taut and straight. As he turned around, he pierced the joint between the forelimb and the torso, and a wisp of sword energy pierced straight through the blade.
The bone golem's forelimbs stiffened instantly, and its attack faltered.
Almost simultaneously, she slightly twisted her wrist, and the soft sword bent and sprang open at an incredible angle, wrapping around the ankle of another bone puppet that was taking the opportunity to attack her from behind. The supple sword straightened and exerted force, causing it to stumble and collide with the sword light that Gui Tiao was sweeping across!
"Clang!" Gui Tiao's sword light was incredibly sharp, and the bone puppet instantly scattered to the ground.
"Beautiful!" Gui Tiao exclaimed when he had a moment to praise it.
Mi Quan and her people also blocked another wave of impact, their demonic power trembling continuously.
However, the bone golems are numerous, and their attacks are combined with ice spikes that can appear from anywhere, making them insidious and cunning.
A disciple of the Zongtian Pavilion was nearly struck by the claws, but fortunately, his companions rushed to his aid, and he was only injured in the arm.
On the other side, a Jiehai Mountain tribesman was suddenly cut on the calf by an ice spike under his feet, blood staining the ice surface, and he staggered backward.
Wounded soldiers began to appear in the camp, and the atmosphere suddenly became even more tense. Although everyone fought hard, they were clearly struggling to cope.
"This won't do!" A disciple gritted his teeth, parrying a bone golem, and said breathlessly, "There are too many of them, we can't fight them all!"
"Use fire! Or lightning! These things grow on ice fields, after all!"
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw that it was the young man from Jiehai Mountain who had spoken rudely to Bu Jiu earlier and had been reprimanded by Mi Juan. He held a pair of short blades in his hand, the blades faintly glowing red.
He had just used these short blades to help a disciple defeat a bone golem.
Seeing everyone looking at him, he pursed his lips, raised his voice slightly, glanced at Mi Juan, and quickly said, "I was wrong to have spoken offensively before; I was blinded by hatred. But with a formidable enemy at hand, this is not the time to dwell on such things! These ghostly things are clearly being manipulated by someone behind the scenes, trying to trap and kill us! We cannot sit idly by and wait to die!"
He pointed in a specific direction from which the puppets were surging, where an even stronger fluctuation seemed to be hidden:
“There’s something controlling these things under the ice over there! I’m very familiar with fire. Give me a few men, and I’ll try to destroy it! Even if it’s to avenge Wan Lai and the others, I can’t stand behind!”
These words brought a glimmer of comfort to Mi Quan's eyes, and she made a decisive decision: "Alright! Ling Chuan, you take two people and probe the attack in the direction you indicated! The rest of you, clear the way for them!"
The young man called Lingchuan nodded vigorously and pointed to two agile clansmen: "Follow me!"
Seeing this, Gui Tiao drew the attention of several nearby bone golems to himself with a flash of his sword, and shouted, "You Hang, cover them!"
Ling Chuan and his two companions darted forward, using the cover created by the desperate efforts of the others to rush straight towards the direction he had locked onto.
The closer you get, the more obvious the anomaly becomes.
The ice beneath my feet seemed to come alive, with ice spikes erupting frequently and erratically at tricky angles.
"This is it!" A fierce glint flashed in Ling Chuan's eyes. He pushed off the ground with his toes, using the momentum to leap into the air, and the flames on the pair of short blades in his hands blazed brightly. He crossed his arms and swung them down, two crisscrossing blades whistling out and slamming hard into the seemingly thick ice surface beneath his feet.
"Boom—!" The solid ice shattered, and fragments shot out in all directions like a torrential rain, creating a hideous crack in the ice layer.
The depths of the fissure were not frozen soil or rock, but a vast and complex array of runes.
"Good sense of smell, little fox."
A hoarse voice, like a rusty gear being forced to turn, suddenly rang out above the three of them.
Ling Chuan felt a chill run down his spine and suddenly looked up.
At the edge of the crack, a short, stocky figure, clad in thick, old white fur, stood silently, almost blending into the ice field.
The man slowly took a step forward, his boots making a soft cracking sound as they stepped on the ice shards.
“What a pity.” Bai Gong paused, then casually pointed to the runes that were still flickering beneath the crack. “Reaching the edge of the door and breaking down the door are two different things.”
As soon as he finished speaking, all the bone golems that were attacking frantically around the camp simultaneously let out a shriek, abandoned their current opponents, and as if summoned, turned around at an astonishing speed and rushed towards the location of Ling Chuan and his two companions!
At the same time, the ground shook violently, and the ice layer cracked outwards from the feet of Bai Gong. Several giant bone pillars with patterns wrapped around their surfaces broke through the ice and rose up with a powerful binding force. They not only blocked the retreat of Ling Chuan and the other two, but also closed like a giant mouth, enveloping the core of the camp!
"Send a message—!"
"Send a message?"
As Ji Wang was on high alert, wary of any possible backup plan that Po Suo might be hiding in the poisonous fog, the jade pendant at his waist, used for emergency communication with Bu Nian Temple and the outer camps, suddenly began to flash rapidly and unexpectedly.
Inside the cave, the thick, pinkish-purple poisonous fog continued to churn, yet it could not penetrate within three feet of the three people.
The moment the Bone Staff shattered the ice bamboo shoot and the runes lit up, Huaiqing had already swung the flower branch in his hand. A layer of soft yet stable light blue barrier light rippled out from him, firmly protecting the three of them.
This barrier not only blocked the poisonous miasma and the alluring fragrance, but even the Ice Soul Needles mixed in with the poisonous mist only caused ripples when they hit it before falling to the ground with a clanging sound.
The three appeared to be trapped in the poisonous fog, but in reality, they remained as steady as rocks. It was precisely because of this that the sudden flash of the jade pendant at their waists seemed particularly dazzling.
Ji Wang's face darkened, and his fingertips swiftly brushed against the jade pendant. Instantly, the sounds of weapons clashing and grinding against bones, mixed with the sharp hissing of spiritual energy and the disciples' groans of pain, entered his mind. Finally, he heard You Hang's brief message, urging him to remain calm:
"...The bone golems have surrounded us...We urgently need...rescue!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com