STNS: Chapter 474 (Patreon)

Wu Jian had been searching for the entrance to Soul Eclipse’s headquarter’s for a while now, but they had no idea where to search. The sounds of battle had become a distant and dull roar. He could see lights and smoke rising in the distance. It looked like their forces had engaged with the Undying Sun Sect in earnest.

Their search had led them through quite a number of buildings. Because the vast majority of the enemy forces were located closer to the entrance, they didn’t run into many disciples, though they eliminated those they did.

“Hey, are we sure Soul Eclipse is located here at all? What if they have a base somewhere else?” asked Shuchang.

Wu Jian shrugged. “That is a possibility, but I doubt it.” He glanced at the youngest one among them. “Youmei, can you sense anything?”

Youmei tilted her head and began sniffing the air. Her little nose wiggled several times before she bent over on all fours and began smelling the ground.

“Youmei smells people… this way!”

They followed Youmei as she led them even further from the main gate, eventually stopping at a building that seemed to have been abandoned. Nothing about the building seemed odd. It looked the same as most of the other buildings within this complex, but Youmei continued sniffing around the area.

“Here. This is where Youmei smells people.”

Wu Jian opened the door, though Shuchang preceded him. The older man’s hands were glowing a fiery red even though they didn’t seem to be producing a flame.

The room they found themselves in looked like any other room. It was a distinctively designed room that blended functionality with elaborate decorations. Like most buildings, it had an open air layout to cope with the tropical climate, meaning the room was designed to be open with large windows and doors. Much of the furniture within the room was lacquered and there were silk tapestries hanging from the walls. Wu Jian looked down. The floor was made of wood, but a large rug covered most of it.

“Where do you smell the people?” Wu Jian asked Youmei.

Youmei continued sniffing around, wandering to and fro across the room on all fours. Wu Jian and Shuchang watched her with blank eyes. They glanced at each other, realizing they were thinking the same thing. Neither of them were sure what to make of a young girl sticking her butt in the air as she sniffed around.

“Here! Youmei smells them here!”

Youmei had stopped near the back of the room, next to a statue. It was just a normal statue of a man holding a sun. Wu Jian and Shuchang poked around the statue but didn’t find anything. He thought there might be a secret lever or something that would unlock a secret passage, but no such lever seemed to exist no matter where he touched the statue.

“Maybe the statue isn’t the switch? Maybe it’s along the walls?” suggested Shuchang.

Wu Jian shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

They searched the walls but couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a switch. All the wood panels were exactly how they should be.

As their search continued to prove fruitless, Wu Jian became increasingly more frustrated. Where were they? Was anyone really down below? He wanted to trust Youmei. She had sharp senses, but it felt like they were wasting time. With his frustration mountain, Wu Jian decided that they didn’t need to find a secret passage if he just made one himself.

“That does it. Stand back, you two.”

“Oi. What are you--”

Shuchang didn’t get a chance to finish as Wu Jian went back to the statue, raised his fist into the air, and activated all the muscles in his arms. Veins throbbed along his forearm as he brought his fist down. A loud boom echoed around the room as wood splinters and cement flew in all directions. Youmei screamed in shock and Shuchang protected his face from flying debris. Wu Jian paid them little heed and stared at the massive hole in the floor. There was no staircase or anything. It was just a hole that went down into the darkness.

“What the fuck, Wu!” Shuchang said in shock.

Wu Jian looked back. “What? We weren’t getting anywhere just searching. I’m not gonna waste anymore time.”

“Oh!” Youmei suddenly started sniffing the air. “The smell got stronger.” She wrinkled her nose. “It smells bad.”

“Whatever the case is, we know there’s a passage down here. Let’s go,” Wu Jian said.

Shuchang peered down the hole. “We really dropping down this hole? We don’t know how far down it goes?”

“So? We can fly. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well…”

“All right. Here we go.”

“Aaaah! Wait for me, dammit!”

Wu Jian and Youmei jumped down the hole without hesitation and Shuchang, after a moment’s hesitation, leapt down as well. They could all fly so their descent was slow. Wu Jian narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t see anything at first, but he soon picked out lights down below. They were lamps. Dozens of lamps lit a narrow stairwell. It looked like this stairwell was perhaps hidden behind that statue. Everyone landed on the stairs and began walking down, until they reached a rickety old door.

“This has to be where Soul Eclipse is,” Wu Jian muttered.

Shuchang sighed. “Let’s hope so.”

The door was locked, but it was rickety, so Wu Jian busted it down with his fist. It was easy. Shuchang was shaking his head, but Wu Jian didn’t want to waste anymore time.

They entered a darkened corridor that reeked of death. Even Wu Jian could smell the scent of decay hanging in the air. Youmei couldn’t stand it. She plugged her nose as they walked.

Nobody came out to greet them. Wu Jian wondered if maybe Soul Eclipse had decided to abandon the Sui Kingdom and the Undying Sun Sect to its fate, though he didn’t think it likely. Weren’t they here because they had nowhere else to go?

The underground section was like a maze, twisting and turning, with numerous intersecting hallways. He wouldn’t be surprised if this place spanned the entire palace. It was like an underground palace of darkness.

“I’m getting a bad feeling,” Shuchang muttered.

“You too?” asked Wu Jian.

“My instincts are screaming at me to turn back.”

“We can’t turn back, and you know that.”

“I do. Ugh, I do, but…”

“Let’s just keep going.”

After entering through one of many doors, they soon came upon a sight that made them freeze.

A man who looked quite young stood in the center of a massive room. He stood at an average height, but he still felt intimidating in a way that Wu Jian couldn’t place. Graced with feminine features, his delicate appearance defied traditional gender expectations. His face was framed by silky black hair, his pale skin glowed with an otherworldly luminescence and was akin to the finest jade, and he possessed expressive eyes of the deepest amethyst.

He wasn’t quite… alone. A sealing array surrounded him, and several young men and women were kneeling at key points of the array. They were all dead. Every single one of them. Wu Jian could tell at a glance that they had died in that position. He might not know much about seals, but he could tell this array they were in was what had killed them.

“Oh, you’re finally here.” The young man turned to them and smiled, spreading his arms wide in a welcoming gesture. “Welcome, Jian Wu, Shuchang, and Youmei. I am Luan Desheng, and I will be your executioner this fine night.”

***

Mei Xilan and Hou Jingshu had been successfully trapped within their own minds. Qiang Bao took only a moment to make a decision.

“Elder Xi Feng. Kill Hou Jingshu. I’ll kill Mei Xilan. The rest of you will stand witness.”

“Very well,” Elder Xi Feng stepped forward and summoned a sword from his storage ring.

Qiang Bao also summoned his sword. The sword he possessed was a thing of beauty. The golden hilt looked like it had been taken molded from the sun itself, and the blade gleamed a brilliant silver. It was called Sword of the Undying Sun. This weapon was passed down from sect master to sect master within the Undying Sun Sect.

The pair stepped forward to deliver the finishing blow to the pair of helpless women. Qiang Bao raised his sword high above his head. A dark, cool shadow engulfed his sword, mimicking the appearance of an eclipse. He planned to kill this woman in a single blow.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH?!”

And yet before he could bring his blade down, a loud scream echoed through the main hall, forcing him to turn his attention to Elder Xi Feng.

“Elder Xi Feng, what is the--”

Qiang Bao ceased talking when he saw the shocking scene. Elder Xi Feng stood just a few steps away from Hou Jingshu, but the sword that he had been holding to kill her with lay discarded on the floor, and a hand had penetrated his chest. The hand belonged to Hou Jingshu. Blood dripped down her fingers and ran across her arm. A large crimson stain spread as ichor soaked into the man’s robes.

“W-what the heck is going on?!”

“I thought she was trapped within the illusion!”

“Has she been tricking us into thinking she was trapped this whole time?!”

All of the elders were shocked, too shocked to do more than gawk and squawk, and during that time, Hou Jingshu pulled her hand from Elder Xi Feng’s chest. The elder squealed as her hand, now scaled and shaped like a dragon’s claw, grabbed a hold of his face, lifted him into the air, and slammed him down hard into the ground. A loud rumbling echoed around them and caused everyone to nearly fall on their backs. Qiang Bao could only gape as a massive crater appeared beneath Elder Xi Feng, whose head had been crushed like a grape. The man’s body twitched several times before going completely still.

She killed him in a single blow… how?! She should be trapped within Luminous Soul Eclipse’s illusion!!

Hou Jingshu removed her hand from the corpse and stood hunched over, arms dangling at her side. She didn’t move after that. Qiang Bao had no idea what was going on. Why was she just standing there. However, he snapped out of it.

“It looks like she just escaped from the illusion! Quick! Kill her before she fully recovers!!”

While several elders hesitated, Elder Lian Huo and Lei Gong, who had been close to Elder Xi Feng, readied their weapons and charged forward. Elder Lian Huo wielded a pair of nunchuku. He channeled the power of sun chi into them. A bright light like the sun on a clear day illuminated the entire chamber. Meanwhile, Elder Lei Gong wielded a naginata with a leaf-shaped blade.

“How dare you kill Elder Xi Feng! You have courted death!”

“I won’t let you get away with this!”

The two elders screamed out their rage as they bore down on the young woman. Qiang Bao was certain they would kill Hou Jingshu. He was naive. Terribly naive. Hou Jingshu raised an arm to block Lian Huo’s nunchaku, which was hot enough to melt meteorite iron, and while her scales sizzled, the nunchaku did little actual damage.

“What the--aaaah?!”

Elder Lian Huo wasn’t even able to express shock as Hou Jingshu yanked the man off his feet and swung him at Elder Lei Gong. Forced to stop his swing, lest he hit his fellow elder, Elder Lei Gong was instead struck in the chest with the full force of Hou Jingshu’s makeshift human weapon. The power she packed into her swing was so great that the elder was sent crashing into a column, which snapped like a twig. She didn’t stop there. Raising her arm high and taking Elder Lian Huo with her, she soon swung down, slamming the older man into the floor, which cratered beneath him. Before Elder Lian Huo could even recover, Hou Jingshu speared him through the throat with her clawed hands.

She just killed two elders! And those claws! Is she even human?!

Her hand wasn’t just shaped like a dragon’s claw, Qiang Bao realized. It was a dragon’s claw. Her hand all the way up to her forearm was covered in glistening silver scales that were as beautiful as they were deadly. Each finger was tipped with a sharp claw that could easily penetrate a person’s body, and they were currently stained with the blood of his sect’s elders.

As Hou Jingshu raised herself once more, Qiang Bao finally got a good look at her face, at her completely blank eyes and slack-jawed expression.

What…

Her flat eyes showed that she was not there. The lights were on, but there was no one home.

What is this…?

He had never felt more shocked now than he had in his entire life. Hou Jingshu had not escaped from the illusion of Luminous Eclipse Seal. She was still trapped within the illusion. How in the hell was she still fighting? Qiang Bao’s entire body began shaking, and though it took him a moment, he realized what that sensation was.

He was afraid.

Afraid of this woman who could fight even while trapped within an illusion.

She’s… she’s a monster!

As he thought this, Elder Jin Sheng tried to sneak up on her, but Hou Jingshu turned around and grabbed his head. The elder dropped his weapon and latched onto her scaled forearm, which had grown thick with powerful muscles. Yet no matter what he did, the woman did not let go. Qiang Bao had a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“Quick! Attack her!” he commanded.

Yet before the other elders could even think to attack, the muscles in Hou Jingshu’s forearm bulged as she crushed Elder Jin Sheng’s head. Qiang Bao felt like he was going to vomit as he heard the sickening squelch. The corpse dropped to the floor, and Hou Jingshu turned to him.

How can we win against this monster?!