Chapter 40 — Reunion

Zhang Qingyue had no objection to offer; he nodded in agreement. The two of them backed away — but alas, for every step they took, the yin spirits in the sky followed one step, and the beast too seemed unwilling to give up, and actually came after them. So they went, stopping and starting: the yin spirits wary of Zhang Qingyue's black iron staff, and the pig-headed beast seemingly somewhat in awe of the two of them as well — yet unwilling to let the matter rest.

Zhang and Lu were already wounded, and after repeated fierce fighting here in the gloomy, damp depths of the Dead Spirit Abyss they were long since spent. Had the yin spirits and the beast not pressed them so hard, the two of them would surely have relaxed and fainted away on the spot.

But now, facing life and death, some courage and strength they knew not whence rose within them, and they had somehow held out until now.

This Dead Spirit Abyss, unknown to any of the righteous path, proved to be a chasm of astonishing size. The two had retreated for a long while and still walked only on open ground, with no sign of any sheer cliff — nor could they guess how, when they fell, they had come to land so very far from where they began.

Yet they had no leisure now to ponder such questions. Ahead and all around were beast and spirits glaring hungrily, and life and death truly hung by a thread. As Zhang and Lu stood at a loss, Zhang Qingyue suddenly felt a pain in his back — he had struck something hard.

All this while the two had not dared show the beast the least carelessness, and so had walked only backwards. At this sudden collision Zhang Qingyue started and quickly turned — and to his surprise saw a great tree. Its trunk was thick and massive; by the look of it, three men could not have encircled it with arms joined.

Only then did Zhang Qingyue set his heart at ease, and he said to Lu Xueling, who was still watching behind them, "It's nothing — just a tree."

Before he finished speaking, Zhang Qingyue suddenly felt a pain in his throat: his neck had been caught by something like a rope. His whole body was wrenched upward by an immense force.

Lu Xueling was badly startled. She turned to look in alarm and cried out, "A tree demon!"

The great tree that stood alone on this open ground — now all its motionless branches began to move like human arms, and the one that had caught Zhang Qingyue was a thick branch among them. In the darkness the tree demon's whirling, dancing limbs made it seem like a fiend of the nine netherworlds.

Zhang Qingyue felt the branch around his neck cinch tighter and tighter, and he was slowly choking. Lu Xueling had just moved to rescue him when a earth-shaking roar came from the distance; the pig-headed beast seized its chance, sprang forward, and brought its huge claw down on his head, the claw glimmering with a faint green light — surely laden with deadly poison.

Lu Xueling had no choice but to turn and fend it off, but with the beast blocking her way she tried again and again to go to Zhang Qingyue's rescue and could not, and found herself meeting peril after peril besides.

Zhang Qingyue, caught by the tree demon, felt agony in his throat, and heard the tree demon give off an ugly, whuffing sound that was likely glee. The branch around his neck dragged him backward toward the trunk, while several more branches came to bind his body; only his two hands could still move, and he could struggle no more.

Zhang Qingyue burned with anxiety. He looked to Lu Xueling and found her hard pressed enough on her own account; he turned his head and his soul nearly fled in terror — for upon the tree demon's trunk a great maw was slowly splitting open, belching forth a pungent stench of rot, and the branches were dragging him toward that maw. Surely this was the tree demon's mouth.

Zhang Qingyue shuddered from head to foot. He would sooner have died than ever imagined that one day he would become fertilizer for a tree; such a death was truly hard to accept.

But the arrow was already on the string: he was indeed being drawn inch by inch toward that great maw, the stench growing heavier, and in the blink of an eye cold sweat streamed down Zhang Qingyue's forehead.

He was nearly at the maw's edge when Zhang Qingyue, he knew not whence finding the strength, gave a violent wrench and braced his feet against the trunk to stop his progress. Alas, the tree demon's strength was beyond all ordinary measure; the branches jerked a few times, and Zhang Qingyue's strength gave out at once, and he was borne to the very lips of the maw.

A thick, rank stench struck him full in the face — who knew how many living things this tree demon had killed. In this moment with death a hair's breadth away, Zhang Qingyue struggled for his life, swung his hand up with all his might, and drove the only weapon at hand — the black iron staff — into the trunk beside the tree demon's maw.

Upon the black iron staff, and above all upon the round bead at its tip, a faint cyan glow arose.

The blunt, crude black iron staff, swung by Zhang Qingyue against the tree demon's body, proved like a divine blade: it sank clean through the tree demon's exceedingly hard trunk as easily as a knife through melon. In that instant every branch of the tree demon, dancing across the sky, suddenly froze still.

Zhang Qingyue was startled himself — and at the same time a sudden fear rose in his heart.

A familiar, icy sensation coursed through his whole body, and then brought with it a new breath of life: threads of warmth flowed from the black iron staff into Zhang Qingyue's body — just as before, when Zhang Qingyue had fought the vampire Jiang the Third in the ancient cavern of ten thousand bats.

Zhang Qingyue hung there in midair, stunned!

He stared numbly at what was unfolding before him. The tree demon, so arrogant and savage, so invincible but a moment ago, had only to be pierced by a single ugly-looking black iron staff — and its vast body, so out of all proportion to that staff, withered with astonishing speed. Every branch and bough, even the trunk itself, seemed drained of all its moisture: shriveled, curled, leaves falling like a pelting rain. After one last great roar of its life, the whole great tree crashed down — and then it crumbled away to nothing.

Zhang Qingyue dropped to the ground and sat there blankly. He did not even need to exercise his qi to know that the warm currents the staff had drawn in were of great benefit to his body; the damaged meridians, nourished by this newly come warm breath, had largely recovered.

He looked at the black iron staff in his hand. In the gentle circulation of its dark cyan glow, it was as though the staff had eaten its fill: it gave off a light of perfect contentment. Especially along the shaft, where the blood-threads had once been faint, they now shone bright as though gorged on fresh blood, red and vivid, bearing a hint of menace.

"Clatter" — the somewhat fearsome black iron staff slipped from Zhang Qingyue's hand, struck the ground, bounced twice, and lay still.

Parted from Zhang Qingyue's palm, this wondrous black rod seemed to have lost its parasitic host: all its light vanished at once, and it became a plain, ugly, ordinary black stick.

Zhang Qingyue drew a deep breath. His heart surged with turmoil; only one voice echoed through his mind: What is this? What is this?

Just then a cry of pain came from Lu Xueling in the distance. Zhang Qingyue started awake and turned to look. Lu Xueling was beset by countless yin spirits and the pig-headed beast; her whole body seemed to have taken a heavy blow, and she flew backward, her robes stained crimson over a great expanse — at a glance, plainly badly wounded.

Zhang Qingyue jolted as if shocked through. What did he care now for all this confused mess of things? He seized the black iron staff in his hand and flew toward Lu Xueling.