Chapter 587: A Terrifying Figure in the Sandstorm
“The green wind changed color...” Xu Qing murmured. Looking out the window, he could see the white-colored wind, and it left him with a very uneasy feeling. Dramatic changes like this would either be the result of magical and natural laws, or would be some unimaginable power at work. The Heavenfire Skycrossing and the nature of the Greenhair Badlands were good examples.
I wonder if the two are connected.
Xu Qing wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to the Moonrite Region, plus there were far too many mysterious things in existence for him to understand all of them. Xu Qing quietly extended his hand out of the window, grabbed some of the white sand, and pulled it back inside to look at. It was pure white, and almost seemed alive. It struggled to escape his palm, and when it failed, started burrowing into his flesh.
Golden light glittered on Xu Qing’s hand, preventing the sand from digging into his skin.
After studying it for a time, Xu Qing came to realize that the white grains of sand... seemed like bug eggs.
When the green wind changes color, is it some kind of unknown entity, spreading its eggs out into the desert to provide nutrients?
Of course, it was just an unconfirmed theory. Other than the physical appearance, he had no evidence to confirm that the grains of sand were eggs. After all, there were all sorts of strange living beings in existence, and observation alone wasn’t enough to prove anything.
Ling’er was also looking outside at the moment. Her eyes were full of reverence; she also sensed the inauspicious nature of the white wind.
When the parrot noticed the expression on Xu Qing’s face, he looked a bit guilty. Blinking a few times, he explained how he had defecated in that pit of quicksand.
Xu Qing looked away from the sand and back at the parrot. The parrot shivered and quickly stood up a bit straighter.
“You can teleport people?” Xu Qing asked calmly.
“I can!” the parrot replied loudly. If I’m in the mood for it , he added, but only in his thoughts.
“Where’s the Captain?” Xu Qing asked.
“In the west,” the parrot answered. “Near the shores of the Yin Sacrifice River.”
Xu Qing didn’t ask any more questions. He still wasn’t sure why the Captain had sent the parrot with a message about lighting some sort of fire. But if it had something to do with suns, then Xu Qing could only speculate that it might relate to his golden crow powers.
Might as well go see what the situation is. Besides, the shadow hasn’t returned yet.
Because of Xu Qing’s curse research, the shadow was constantly going out hunting for him. Sometimes it stayed out for a day or two, other times it needed five or six days.
Xu Qing looked back out at the white haze. He issued a mental call to the shadow, but didn’t get any response. Presumably the wind and sand were interfering. He could still vaguely sense the shadow, and knew that it was somewhere relatively far away, staying in place without moving.
Considering the parrot made it back through the wind, it seemed unlikely that the shadow would foolishly get spooked by the same thing.
“Big Bro Xu Qing,” Ling’er said, clearly worried, “do you think Little Shadow...?”
“The shadow should be fine. But let’s go check, just in case.”
Xu Qing looked around the Green Spirit Pharmacy. After tidying things up and taking anything worthwhile, including Sprouty, he pushed the door open and stepped out. The parrot and patriarch followed. One hovered by his side, the other perched on his shoulder. Xu Qing locked the door, then, after some thought, he found a sign and wrote ‘closed for a few months.’ After hanging the sign on the door, he left.
There weren’t many people on the street in the city. Occasionally, he spotted people kowtowing to heaven and earth, all while mumbling something. As the white wind blew, most commoners in the city were hurrying inside and locking their doors and windows. It was the same with the cultivators from the various local organizations. Unless it was absolutely necessary, none of them wanted to be out in the white wind.
It was only the people with the deformities who stayed outside, where they would offer praise to the white haze.
“White Mother is awake, enjoying the fiery river.
“The godchild cometh, to bring salvation hither.
“All beings are dazzled, in confusion they quiver.
“I will become the soil, a nourishing caregiver.”
The chanting of the deformed ones carried with it dedication and piety. As they kowtowed, they threw open their garments to reveal the exaggerated ugliness of their bodies. They were truly horrifying to look at. It was as if they had just started growing randomly, with strips of flesh hanging here and there. Some even had limbs or faces growing out of their abdomens. And the fleshy growths would move of their own accord, swaying back and forth oddly.
The sight of it all caused the parrot to inhale sharply.
Xu Qing took it in without any change to his facial expression. He had noticed the people with deformities before, so he wasn’t very surprised, and just walked past them. Step by step, he left the city and eventually reached a nearby cliff.
From this location, he could look out at the hazy white atmosphere. The sobbing wind made the entire world look like a sea of white. And the countless particles of sand blew against him, landing on his clothing and trying to burrow into him. However, golden light would shimmer from within him, and the sand would drop to the ground.
After determining the shadow’s general location, Xu Qing tightened all of his clothing, then blurred into motion, becoming a prismatic beam of light that flew out of the Bitter Life Mountains and into the desert. His garments fluttered as the sandy wind enveloped him.
He moved at top speed through the desert. There was no end to the sand, and it surrounded him voraciously, as if it sought nourishment from anything alive. It had incredible life force power within it, such that any living being it encountered would be unable to stop the bizarre growth that led to deformity.
The grains of sand never stopped their efforts to burrow into living flesh.
This white wind has a catalyzing power in it. The grains are parasitic bug eggs, and they catalyze the growth of flesh to serve as nutrition. Most people who experience that catalyzation ultimately get sucked dry and end up dead. But some of them make it to safety first. That’s why all those deformed people live in the Bitter Life Mountains. That said, they can’t reverse the effects. The parasitic bug eggs are still inside them. That’s what those fleshy growths are.
As he proceeded through the wind and sand, Xu Qing sent out some taboo poison power, creating the lone section of black color in the white wind. When the grains of sand touched the black cloud around Xu Qing, hissing sounds resulted, and the sand dropped dead to the ground.
However, there was simply too much sand to deal with. Xu Qing was well aware that unless he came up with some other method to deal with it, he couldn’t stay out in the white wind for very long. With that thought in mind, he accelerated.
Six hours passed.
There weren’t many cultivators out in the white wind. Xu Qing actually felt like he was all alone in the desert. Everything looked very different than what he remembered from before.
The green desert didn’t have many plants in it. But in this white sandstorm, all sorts of white plants were growing out of the ground. Their growth rate was rapid. They would start out the size of a finger, but in a very short time were about half the height of an average human.
White plants swayed in the wind everywhere. It was almost as if they were a part of the sandstorm. Xu Qing had never seen anything like it before.
The white plants bloomed with fuzzy white flowers that looked like dandelion seeds. And when they flew into the wind, they resembled white puffs that floated through heaven and earth. They made the wind even whiter.
The voracious hunger of the sand only seemed to increase. White wind. White sand. White dandelions. And the catalyzing power. As Xu Qing flew through the wind, he could feel every inch of his flesh twitching. It was as if his flesh wanted to separate from his body. To grow until it exploded. The overwhelming sense of malice caused Xu Qing to frown. Eventually, he stopped in place and sent taboo poison power sweeping out around him.
Three meters. Nine meters.... In the blink of an eye, Xu Qing’s poison had expanded for 30 meters in all directions, creating a black storm around him. After that, he continued following his senses toward the shadow.
He could now sense exactly where the shadow was. The closer they got, the stronger the sensation became. By this point, the shadow could also sense Xu Qing, and was sending him feelings of humiliation along with pleas for help.
Xu Qing’s eyes turned cold. His previous assumption had been correct; the shadow had run into trouble. He sped up.
***
The shadow was some distance away from Xu Qing in the white sandstorm, howling in pain and grief. Normally speaking, its voice wasn’t audible to random people. But that wasn’t the case now.
It was stuck in place! It was pinned to a white plant by a bronze dagger covered with golden blood that stabbed into the shadow so thoroughly that no matter how it struggled, it couldn’t free itself. Whenever it did struggle, the dagger would send out golden light that would crush down on the shadow, resulting in further injuries.
The black canopy the shadow could create was covered with countless fuzzy dandelions. Their roots had burrowed into the shadow, and were constantly draining its life force. For those reasons, the shadow was in pure agony.
Surrounding the shadow were about a dozen figures. All of them wore white robes that obscured their facial features and covered them completely, protecting them from the wind and sand. The only thing visible were white eyes, which stared coldly off into the distance.
“Your lord and master still hasn’t come?” asked the leader of the group. He looked at the struggling shadow, then performed a quick incantation gesture and pointed at the dagger.
The dagger glittered brightly, then sank down further, stabbing deeper into the shadow. Golden light shone, and the shadow screamed even more shrilly.
“That sounds horrible,” said the leader. He was just about to continue tormenting the shadow when he suddenly looked up, his eyes shifting to the horizon. His companions noticed the same thing, and all looked in the same direction.
The shadow suddenly got excited and issued a cry for help.
A black tempest had appeared in the distance. Anything that got close to it, including dandelions or sand, were infected and turned black and either fell to the ground or became part of the black tempest. As the tempest neared, the white plants in the area turned black and wilted. It was as if the ambassador of death was on the way.
The people in the white robes were shaken by what they were seeing. They had previously been waiting for the shadow’s master in full confidence. But seeing that darkness coming for them, they instinctively thought about some of the legends that circulated in the Green Sand Desert.
As their guard went up, the leader struggled to take in a breath. Staring at the figure approaching within the black tempest, he called out, “Halt! Who goes there!?”
The tempest didn’t stop for even a moment, and the figure within it neared relentlessly. Then a cold voice spoke with was completely devoid of any sort of emotion.
“Do you people have a death wish?”