Chapter 107:
An Explosion of Poison
THE WORLD WAS SPINNING so badly Hongjun felt like throwing up. He shook his head violently. A drenched Li Jinglong called his name: “Hongjun! Hongjun!”
Hongjun watched as the gu ape chased Li Bai, feeling his head about to split. The ape drew almost all the wine from the pool and sent it crashing toward the poet, who darted around, scaling the cave walls as if he possessed divine powers.
As the chase went on, the pool was gradually drained. The divine kun lay in the center, Hongjun’s knife, crackling with lightning, still embedded in his flesh. Wine streamed from his slack mouth. His eyes opened a sliver and blinked slowly once before snapping awake.
The great kun’s voice echoed through Hongjun and Li Jinglong’s minds: Li Jinglong, raise your sword. Stab it into the energy flowing through the earthly meridians.
Li Jinglong staggered to his feet. Hongjun, still dizzy, asked, “Who’s that?”
Hongjun, crawl backward until you reach the wall. Raise the pentacolor sacred light up around you.
Still muddled from the wine, Hongjun unthinkingly did as he was told. He turned around and crawled until his head collided with the cool stone of the cave, where he woozily expanded his sacred light.
When I say ‘Go,’ Li Jinglong, stab your sword into the walls, the divine kun instructed quietly, lightning flashing in his eyes. When I say ‘Gather,’ Hongjun, slap it.
“Slap who?” Hongjun slurred.
Li Bai, turn around! the divine kun roared. Swing your sword!
Li Bai was running like mad, the gu ape in hot pursuit behind him, when the kun’s voice thundered into his mind. He jerked to a stop in confusion—he had no idea who was speaking to him. Turning instinctively to look for the source, he yelled back, “This is a saber!”
The gu ape whipped its head toward the pool as it realized the kun was conscious, fear palpable in its gaze. It wavered just a fraction before abandoning Li Bai and redirecting all the wine back into the pool. At that moment, Li Bai’s saber came singing down from behind, the gleam of his blade tracing a perfect arc in the air as the gu ape was halved. With a pained cry, it disintegrated into a swarm of insects that scattered in all directions.
The divine kun roared again, Go!
Li Jinglong plunged the Sword of Wisdom into the cave wall. The energy within the earthly meridians flooded into the blade as Li Jinglong gripped it tight, his body flaring bright. The heart lamp barely managed to shield his heart meridian as the blinding blue glow swallowed him whole, until he appeared to be composed entirely of light.
Attack! the divine kun bellowed in his mind. The great fish opened his eyes wide, and lightning forked from his eyes, meeting the veins of energy flowing over the cave walls around them.
Li Jinglong screamed in pain as streams of pure blue flames erupted from his palms and shot toward the buzzing cloud of insects. The insects dodged the flames and dove at the divine kun. The crackling lightning fanned out along the earthly meridians, forming a spider’s web that bombarded the insects scattering in all directions.
Trapped, the insects flocked toward the far end of the cave. The divine kun called, Hongjun, gather!
Hongjun, head drooping from the wine, jolted awake at the sound of his name. His hand glowed with the sacred light; he flung it over the insects swarming toward him, and suddenly, it felt as if he’d pinned something small to the ground.
Hold it down! Now, incinerate them! the divine kun ordered.
Li Jinglong pressed a hand to the ground, sending a stream of blue flame licking toward Hongjun, who still had one of the insects trapped under his palm. Countless insects buzzed around the imprisoned one in a frenzy as Li Jinglong’s cyclone of earthly-meridian fire engulfed them in dazzling light, burning them until nothing remained.
With a muffled rumble, the ground began to buck beneath their feet. The divine kun let the lightning fade. Li Jinglong wrenched the Sword of Wisdom from the cave wall; he was on the verge of collapsing from pain, but he forced himself to trudge toward Hongjun.
Hongjun had slumped face down on the ground, having passed out from drunkenness. Even in sleep, his hand—still glowing with the pentacolor sacred light—remained firmly planted on the ground, trapping something beneath it.
It’s incapacitated now, said the divine kun slowly. When the queen alone remains alive, it can’t do much—not without the powers of its offspring. Seal it with an incantation.
A pitch-black beetle scuttled out from the gaps between Hongjun’s fingers. Li Jinglong fished out a wooden box Qiu Yongsi had given him, caught the creature inside, and shut the lid firmly before tucking it away.
“Hongjun, wake up.” Li Jinglong scooped Hongjun into his arms.
Hongjun stirred slightly. Li Jinglong turned to face the divine kun. The cave was rumbling more violently now, the walls beginning to crumble.
“We have to go,” Li Jinglong said. “Hongjun!” he called, shaking him awake. “The teleportation sigil!”
Climb onto my back, the divine kun commanded. I still have use for his throwing knife.
Li Jinglong looked at the divine kun. “You…”
We’ll talk once we’re out of here, the divine kun said, cutting him off. Quickly now!
Li Bai was the first to climb up onto the divine kun’s back. “So you’re the ‘fish of the North Sea’12 from the ancient texts… Whoa!”
The instant Li Jinglong had clambered up with Hongjun in his arms, the divine kun surged upward and crashed through the ceiling of the cave. The three of them screamed as Yuan Kun soared out of the subterranean cavern and passed through an underground river, where a roaring cascade of cold water rushed over them, sobering them up instantly.
Hongjun jolted awake. “What’s going on?” The last thing he remembered was entering some strange glowing cave with Li Jinglong.
The divine kun began to shrink in size as he smashed his way out of the depths of the earth. They arrived at the transportation array at the foot of the underground staircase as the divine kun regained his human form.
There was an enraged roar as a tempest blasted in, sweeping all four of them toward opposite corners of the cave.
“I didn’t expect you to outmaneuver us,” Wan Jue said coldly. “A miscalculation on my part.”
Yuan Kun sneered. “You were born of emotions and desires, and they will also be your downfall.”
Wan Jue narrowed his eyes dangerously. “We’ll see about that, shall we?”
With difficulty, Hongjun levered himself upright and looked at Wan Jue. The handsome man sat on a massive boulder within the cavern, a gold bracelet around his wrist exuding a stream of black mist.
“Foul creature!” Yuan Kun said, his voice deepening to a guttural growl as the dense fog from Wan Jue’s bracelet wound around them.
Gasping violently, Hongjun spotted Li Jinglong amid the mist and felt a feverish heat suffuse his body.
“Hongjun, recall your knives!” came Li Jinglong’s voice from beside him.
Hongjun’s eyes snapped open. Li Jinglong was standing right in front of him. With a flick of his fingers, the last knife wedged in the wall on the other side of the cave came loose and speared toward them—without a sound, it plunged into the back of the false Li Jinglong’s neck, revealing Wan Jue in disguise.
In a blink, Wan Jue shifted into a pure white gu ape. The ape disintegrated with a chilling howl, becoming an endless swarm of insects that darted away from Hongjun, swirling toward the far side of the cave. The black mist winding around them subsided, revealing Xiangyu standing in front of Li Bai, trembling as she turned toward the mist.
At that same moment, a vision of a naked Hongjun dissipated in front of Li Jinglong. This time, he needed no prompting from the divine kun: He dashed forward, slashing the Sword of Wisdom straight into the swarm of insects. The powers of the heart lamp licked down the blade as white flames, incinerating the insects.