Chapter 87: A Fierce Battle
As if the most terrible sandstorm was coming, gravel was like dragons coiling to the sky with the peak of the hill as the core.
In the spiral sandstorm, there was a dark shadow. Vague, distorted and scary, the shadow screamed, pacing to the peak.
It was the “Evil Ghost Soliciting Life” of the “Haunter’s 18 Slaps”, exerted by the Crying Elder with the Violent Sand Super Force!
At the foot of the mountain, an oasis withered in the flying sand quickly. It seemed that the water had been drained from everything. Cattle, sheep and herdsmen stood frozen, skin and muscles dehydrating inch by inch. Black shadows flew out of their bodies, heading to the evil spirits at the peak of the hill.
The surrounding hundreds of kilometers were all like this, the souls of creatures evaporating, land withering.
The land outside, within and beyond Quicksand Town, was also affected by the sandstorm, cracking as if it was too dry.
Pedestrians became motionless, their skin dry and the dark shadow struggling out of their body.
Wind sand hit the Immensity Sea Hotel, making a continuous popping sound. This seemingly shabby inn shook and creaked. It seemed that it would soon crumble into powder and collapse to the ground.
Within the inn, the guests were like the herdsmen, motionless and about to lose their spirits.
“Goddammit!” Qu Jiuniang suddenly stood up, and shouted furiously. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this treatment!”
As soon as she finished, there seemed to be a cold wind blowing over the inn. Guests shivered and awakened, looking at each other, scared. At the same time, the wall stopped crumbling, but still shook under the sandstorm, creaking.
“Fights between grandmasters are so terrible… ” a blue-eyed desert tramp murmured. They had almost lost their souls, though they were dozens of kilometers from where the masters fought. Thanks to the mysterious Qu Jiuniang, they were out of danger.
With a sabre on his waist, the desert tramp leader said, terrified, “Normally grandmasters would conceal their power within a certain area, to magnify the power. But the Crying Elder is an exception. The more souls he gets, the more powerful his Haunter’s 18 Slaps are. Damn bad luck we have!”
They were Gobi Desert horse bandits of the Immensity Sea, under the control of Ze Luoju, the “Evil Blade of Immensity Sea”, from whom they had learned about the Haunter’s 18 Slaps.
“Big Brother, do we need to believe in Buddhism, to dissolve our sins in order not to encounter such unlucky things?”
“Nonsense!”
Meng Qi had been in the middle of Quicksand Town. Dark gold covered his whole body, but it turned dimmer and dimmer, as if it would extinguish at any time like a candle in the wind.
He bit his teeth and tried his best to concentrate. He hadn’t known the extreme powers of masters until today, as horrible as natural disasters!
On the hill peak, Xuan Bei fingered his dark gold beads, whispering scriptures. Light emitted from his hands, which covered more than half of the peak as a Buddhism pure land.
With the clap of the Crying Elder, the evil souls came like a torrential black stream, sometimes screaming and evaporating over the light, sometimes beating the light back.
Xuan Bei was neither happy nor angry. He looked at the Crying Elder calmly. His voice seemed to emerge from his heart,
“Do you know why I gave up the complete Divine Heritage, only to choose the Mo-Ke Exorcism Punch without the important verses?”
The Crying Elder concentrated his gaze, lifting the right palm and pushing the left palm. The wind and sand suddenly fell. The souls seemed to walk between yin and yang, for there was nobody to compete with.
Xuan Bei finished his words and punched as a bead on the Buddha beads turned dark.
The punch seemed to fill the entire world. The fist became transparent and pure without any dust.
His body was shrouded in gold. There were lotuses blooming in the air above.
In the air, the ugly, evil spirits calmly surrounded the golden lotus. A Bodhisattva sat above the lotus, with mercy and compassion to the world. The continuous flow of life and death was in his palm, containing all the mysteries of life and death.
As Xuan Bei’s fist reached its maximum power, the Bodhisattva finally showed his clear appearance, identical to Xuan Bei. But the Bodhisattva was full of compassion, while Xuan Bei looked depressed.
The Bodhisattva’s voice echoed in the air,
“I vow to salvage all the evil spirits from hell.”
“I shall not be a Bodhi until then.”
With the light from the Bodhisattva, resentment faded from the spirits. Serenely, they disappeared into the air.
The sandstorms stopped. The foot of the hill echoed the sound of the Bodhisattva. The withered grass gradually turned green. Undercurrent water flowed. The mummy cattle, sheep and herdsmen came back to normal, rehydrated with souls returned.
Dry cracked land was once again as smooth as before. People in Quicksand Town had escaped from the “hell”, dazed and frightened.
Qu Jiuniang at the inn was surprised, whispering, “Someone was this good at Mo-Ke Exorcism Punch?”
Meng Qi also received the benefits. His body became dark gold again.
Watching the world almost become dead and finally come back to normal, Meng Qi could not help but feel amazed. Nothing could be more powerful than this!
Mo-Ke Exorcism Punch could rotate life and death!
The Crying Elder hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He looked toward the sky and shouted. The voice was loud enough to pierce souls and crack clouds, just as the Ghost King had come to the world.
Black air surrounded him. It seemed that hell was wide open, and evil ghosts were out of control.
Then, he clapped his hands from above. He was “Opening up the Gate of Hell” with the “Haunter’s 18 Slaps”!
Xuan Bei and the bodhisattva behind him still looked how they had before, one depressed, the other compassionate. They blew out their fists “Ushering All Souls to Limbo” of “Mo-Ke Exorcism Punch”.
Meng Qi looked back and saw the hill was surrounded by sand. The blackness and the light seemed to be in a never-ending fight.
He knew that he was not able to get near the Hill, let alone to go and help his Master. If he went there he would only be a burden for his master. Meanwhile his Junior Brother was alone at the inn, inexperienced and not smart. Someone could kill him. Therefore, Meng Qi temporarily abandoned his plan to escape Shaolin, ready to return to the inn to find his Junior Brother.
Under normal circumstances, he would leave without the slightest guilt, but at this time, he couldn’t bear to abandon his Junior Brother who was very close to him.
Moreover, though not willing to acknowledge it, Meng Qi knew that the safest place was the inn where Ms. Qu was. Just in case the dehydration and the extraction of souls happened again because of other enemies, or the Crying Elder.
Meng Qi had to admit that his reasons for returning to the inn were both looking for asylum and for his Junior Brother.
He had just turned around, when he was startled to see a man with a strange appearance standing right in front of him on the windy street.
The man wore a black robe like a desert tramp. He was white-haired but had the face of a twenty or thirty-something young man. It was quite frightening.
“An Guoxie… ” Meng Qi whispered his name, not turning to run away.
In this case, running away would give his back to the enemy, thus providing an opportunity for easy attack, which was the last thing he would do.
An Guoxie, the “White-headed Vulture”, was one of the grand disciples of the Crying Elder, ranking 36th in the Ranking List of Young Masters, with Nine Apertures opened. He was a much, much stronger rival than Meng Qi!
With an angular face, An Guoxie was beautiful in an exotic way. He smiled and joked, “Good luck to get some prey. I may get some praise from the Ancestor for that.”
It was just a cat-and-mouse game to An Guoxie, as his rival was not even enlightened yet.
As he spoke, he fluttered like a vulture, palms shoving and giving out a hot wind. Meng Qi was stuck in the desert. It was hard for him to breathe. His skill was dry, body dehydrated. He felt powerless.
Although An Guoxie hadn’t learned the “Haunter’s 18 Slaps”, he knew the “Violent Sand Super Force” very well!