Seeking Truth with a Sword

Chapter 715 - 645: Obscure

The streets were shrouded in a thick blood mist, and a cold wind crept in, causing the Heavenly Bells hanging outside each family’s door to sway incessantly, emitting an ethereal ringing.

"Mom, I’m scared."

"Shh, be quiet!"

A family of four hid under the bed, not daring to make a sound.

The curfew drum had long stopped, yet there was no sign of the Imperial Guard’s patrol outside, nor the sound of the citywide bell that signaled the crisis had passed. What did this mean?

The young man forcibly suppressed the panic and unrest in his heart, silently embracing his wife and children, trying to ease their fear.

Perhaps it was the dust under the bed, as the five-year-old daughter lying in her mother’s arms closed her eyes, drew two breaths, and "ACHOO—"

The mother managed to cover her daughter’s mouth at the last moment, muffling the sneeze so that no loud noise was made.

In the dim space under the bed, the husband and wife exchanged looks, their eyes filled with relief.

"Sis, where are you?"

"Is anyone there? BOOHOO... I can’t find my way home..."

A faint, muffled voice drifted from the street outside. The man’s expression changed; he recognized it as the little blind girl from the end of the street. Her parents had both passed away, and she lived with her sister, surviving by selling handmade jewelry.

After calling out for a while with no response, the little girl sobbed as she walked forward, the tapping sound of her bamboo cane hitting the tiles intermittent.

THUD.

The sound of falling, the cane hitting the ground, the sobbing.

The man hesitated for a moment, then silently crawled out from under the bed, gently patted his wife’s hand as a sign not to worry.

With the smallest of movements, he made his way to the window, gripped the curtains with both hands, and very slowly lifted a small gap. Then, his pupils dilated in shock.

The blind girl had indeed fallen in the middle of the road, her skull inexplicably gone, and between the two shriveled halves of her brain was a blood-stained hemp rope.

The rope extended upwards as high as six or seven floors, its end connecting to hundreds of intertwined wooden beams.

Like a puppet show, countless hemp ropes dangled from the wooden beams, suspending several dozen rigid, glowing ’people’ in mid-air.

Noticing someone else’s gaze, the blind girl instantly turned her head, looking in the man’s direction.

WHOOSH—

A rope shot out from the chaotic heap of wooden beams, smashing the glass and coiling around the man’s neck like a python, dragging him onto the street and lifting him into the air.

The rope’s strangling force was so strong that the suffocation and the pain of his neck bones being squeezed and twisted pierced straight into his brain, and his vision rapidly darkened.

BOOM!

Suddenly, a fireball flew from the depths of the blood mist, striking the rope and causing it to snap.

The man plummeted towards the ground under gravity’s influence, narrowly caught by a hand that grasped his collar, saving him from a fatal fall.

"Are you okay?"

Li Ang set him down on the ground, his left hand still maintaining the posture of holding the Radiant Crossbow ready to shoot.

"I’m okay, thank you—COUGH, COUGH, COUGH—"

Compared to being strangled, being scratched by glass shards was nothing. The man recognized Li Ang’s identity and stood up, holding his neck and coughing his thanks.

"Go home. Don’t come out again."

Li Ang released his Telekinesis, casually throwing the man back into the house, then lifted two roadside Stone Tablets to block the window gaps in the dwelling. He then turned to face that incredibly bizarre "thing."

A puppet show type of Alien, huh?

Li Ang’s brows furrowed slightly. The figures hanging in mid-air were all Chang’an citizens, some of whom Li Ang even recognized as neighbors from Golden City Square.

These things have no body, or rather, the hanged victims, the blood-soaked hemp ropes, and the wooden beams together form a complete Alien.

"If it were normal times, we might have considered imprisoning you for research and figuring out the reason for your existence," Li Ang said. "But now... it’s time for you to die."

Li Ang pointed the Radiant Crossbow toward the ground and pulled the trigger, releasing the Wind Talisman. Carried by the gale, he soared into the air.

The blood-soaked hemp ropes lashed out from all directions, and the glowing hanged victims lunged at him, fangs and claws bared.

Li Ang waved his sleeve and threw out a large cluster of Mind Threads, entwining the crisscrossing wooden beams in circle after circle.

ZZZT—

He made a grasping motion with his palm, yanking at the invisible rope. The Mind Threads spun rapidly, like a wire saw.

Wood chips flew everywhere, and within a few seconds, all the beams had been cut into blocks, falling to the ground. The glowing hanged victims had their strength drained and tumbled to the earth, emitting waves of beastly howls.

"..."

Li Ang scanned the writhing corpses of his neighbors scattered on the ground. With a clench of his hand, he telekinetically gathered them into a pile, then pulled the trigger of the Radiant Crossbow, setting the pyre ablaze.

The raging flames barely drove away the nearby blood mist. The burning corpses still thrashed violently, hemp ropes burrowing out from their bodies.

Li Ang’s gaze turned icy. He released his Telekinesis, violently crushing the corpse fragments until the pyre fell completely still. Only then did he stride toward the Imperial City to the east.

An Alien of this level isn’t truly formidable, he thought. It can only harm with its physical form. A high-level Cultivator from the Rain Listening Realm, or a well-prepared army of about a hundred soldiers, could easily deal with it. The crucial problem is that the blood mist blocks sight, sound, and communication, suppresses the flow of Spiritual Energy, and prevents Cultivators from using even half their usual abilities. Moreover, the demons within the blood mist possess the ability to ’infect.’ Ordinary people killed by them also acquire Alien traits, further spreading the pestilence and creating greater chaos. Zhao Ming is kept out by the Mountain and River Guardian Talisman, so this calamity can only have been triggered by Taihao Mountain. What exactly have they released into the city?

* * *

Something is amiss. Very amiss, Yan Lin thought. Clad in Imperial Guard armor and holding a Mo Blade, he gazed at the thick blood mist outside the Zichen Palace, his brows tightly knitted.

After the explosion at the Ministry of Justice and the emergence of the blood mist, the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Palace Tributors immediately sealed all gates of the Great Ming Palace as rehearsed, activated the Prohibitions, and gathered the Crown Prince, concubines, Princes, and Princesses for protection, awaiting news from the front.

However, after so long, the South Government Guards and the Garrison sent to investigate the explosion at the Ministry of Justice still hadn’t appeared. Even the Cultivators dispatched from the palace had vanished without a trace.

"There, it won’t hurt anymore."

Compared to Yan Lin’s solemnity, He Siping in the same Zichen Palace was much more composed.

He used silk thread to suture a cut on a young Prince’s finger. Acknowledging the child’s innocent thanks with a smile, he then approached the Crown Prince and whispered, "The Great Ming Palace is fortified with complex Prohibitions; there will be no issues."

"I’m not worried about that." Crown Prince Li Si, who had shouldered the heavy responsibility of regency despite not yet reaching the age of thirty, scanned the people in the hall. He shook his head and said in a low voice, "I am concerned about the common people and Ministers of Chang’an outside the Imperial Palace. Emperor Yu’s sealing ceremony didn’t take all the officials; many court Ministers remained in Chang’an."

"The city has its own defense forces among the populace; it won’t fall so easily..." He Siping offered comfort, completely unaware that in a corner of the palace, two hidden gazes were intently fixed on his and the Crown Prince’s backs as they spoke.

"The time is almost here."

"Mother, hold on just a little longer."