pdf-ebookys Chapter 420: Snow and Wind
Chapter 420: Snow and Wind
The wood has rotted and turned black, but you can still vaguely see the exquisite carvings it once had.
In the shrine is a stone statue about a foot tall. It has a round and smooth head without facial features. It wears a crown made of ice and snow, and is dressed in a gorgeous dress, sitting upright on the throne.
The stone statue's hands are folded in front of its chest, holding a diamond-shaped groove, which seems to be supposed to be inlaid with something.
"All the shrines enshrine the same god." Hu Qing said softly.
His fingertips brushed against the crown of the stone statue, and the touch was so icy cold that even a cultivator in the Dust-Breaking Stage felt a chill.
Gu Yang kicked away the remains of the nearby shrine: "Playing tricks."
He squatted down and picked up a half-burned incense stick from the ashes. "The incense ash is still hard. The people here have been gone for no more than seven days."
Upon hearing this, the rat man immediately looked around nervously, fearing that some monster would suddenly jump out from somewhere.
Xiao Zi curiously approached the gate of the stone temple, and suddenly scales all over his body exploded, signaling Hu Qing and the others to come over.
There are words on the door!
Hu Qing flashed over and saw a line of strange characters engraved on the gate of the stone temple. They were neither human seal script nor demon runes. There was a kind of primitive hideousness in the strokes.
But the strange thing is that they can all understand its meaning:
[Offer treasures and you will be protected; come empty-handed and you will be enslaved forever.]
Gu Yang sneered: "You are just trying to be mysterious." He raised his hand to push open the stone door.
"Wait, don't be impatient." Hu Qing stopped him and pointed to the crack in the door. "Look here."
In the gap between the stone gate and the ground, a thin layer of ice-blue substance condensed, like the trace of some dried mucus.
Hu Qing picked up a little bit with a wooden stick, and the substance immediately turned into a wisp of green smoke and dissipated into the air, while a pungent fishy smell came from it.
The rat man suddenly screamed and pointed at a shrine in the distance: "That...that statue just moved!"
Everyone turned around suddenly, only to see that the faceless stone statues in all the shrines were still sitting quietly in the same place.
But I don’t know if it’s an illusion, the ice and snow on the crown seem to have become more crystal clear...
"Should we go in and take a look?" Gu Yang asked uncertainly. He felt a chill on his back at this moment.
Hu Qing did not answer immediately.
He looked up at the higher reaches of the Holy Mountain, where the snow and wind had turned into a terrifying black whirlwind.
The brand on his arm was becoming hotter and hotter.
"Rest for two hours first," he finally said, "and then continue on our journey. We won't go in."
Gu Yang curled his lips, but still found a corner sheltered from the wind and sat down to regulate his breathing.
The rat man was as if pardoned. He immediately changed back to his original form and crawled under Xiao Zi's wings to keep warm.
Hu Qing stood still, his eyes swept over the faceless statues again, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter——
If these statues are really "gods", then what are they enshrined in the stone temples?
The cold wind whimpered through the gaps between the shrines, making a sound like a whisper.
In a trance, Hu Qing seemed to hear countless voices whispering the same word in his ears:
Lord of the Holy Mountain
The bonfire crackled, and the orange-red flames cast swaying shadows on the mottled walls of the stone temple.
Hu Qing broke up pieces of dry food and threw them into the boiling water, watching the hard pieces of food slowly soften in the hot soup.
Gu Yang sat cross-legged beside the fire, playing with a piece of ice crystal picked up from the shrine.
The ice crystals glowed with a strange blue light under the firelight, and there seemed to be liquid flowing inside.
"This place is weird," he whispered. "The wind is raging outside, but not even a snowflake can get in inside."
Hu Qing looked up at the sky. The thick dark clouds were like boiling ink, forming a huge vortex above the buildings.
The sound of howling wind came from a distance, but strangely bypassed this area, as if there was an invisible barrier.
"It's not the protection of the gods." Hu Qing suddenly spoke, and a ray of golden light condensed at his fingertips, gently tapping the open space in front of him.
The moment the golden light touched the ground, the patterns on the stone slabs suddenly lit up, forming a huge formation pattern that covered the entire building complex. "It's a formation."
Gu Yang narrowed his eyes: "To be able to maintain such a large-scale wind shelter, the person who set it up must be at least..."
"I don't understand, but at least he is more powerful than all the formation masters I have ever seen." Hu Qing took over the conversation, frowning slightly.
He remembered the words on the stone gate - "Offer treasures and you will be given shelter."
It seems that this formation does require some kind of price to activate.
Beside the fire, Xiao Zi and Shu Ren were already fast asleep.
Xiao Zi's huge dragon body curled up into a ball, and its tail twitched from time to time, as if it was fighting with something in a dream.
The rat man was lying on the small purple belly with his arms and legs spread out, with crystal saliva hanging from the corners of his mouth and snoring loudly.
Gu Yang sneered: "These two guys are really careless."
The bonfire suddenly shot up high, sparks flying everywhere.
Hu Qing added a few more pieces of firewood, and the fire illuminated the open space in front of the stone temple.
The sound of wind and snow outside was getting louder and louder, like countless wild beasts roaring in the darkness.
"It seems we have no choice but to spend the night here." Hu Qing said in a deep voice, his eyes sweeping over the densely packed shrines around him.
Those faceless stone statues cast distorted shadows in the firelight, as if they were wriggling silently.
Gu Yang suddenly frowned and listened attentively: "A Qing, did you hear any strange sounds?"
Hu Qing concentrated for a moment and shook his head: "It's just the sound of the wind."
"Strange..." Gu Yang rubbed his temple, "I clearly heard--"
"Crack!"
A crisp cracking sound suddenly rang out, as if the ice was pierced by a heavy object.
This time Hu Qing also heard it clearly, and they both looked up at the same time -
In mid-air, a dark crack appeared out of nowhere, like a broken mirror.
The cracks spread rapidly, becoming several feet wide in the blink of an eye.
"Space crack!" Hu Qing shouted, "Back off!"
But it was too late.
Strong winds carrying heavy snow gushed out from the cracks, sweeping across the entire shrine complex in an instant.
The seemingly solid pine shrines were torn into pieces like paper in the strong wind, and the wood chips mixed with ice and snow to form a terrifying white vortex.
"Squeak!"
The rat man was frightened by this sudden change and used all four claws to climb onto Xiao Zi.
Xiao Zi was also awakened, and just as she opened her eyes she saw this doomsday-like scene—
The wind and snow were like knives, scraping grooves on the ground and even the hard bluestone slabs began to crack.
"Come into the barrier quickly!" Gu Yang shouted, forming seals with his hands, and a golden light curtain instantly unfolded.
Hu Qing attacked at the same time, and the green spiritual power flowed into the light curtain like water, making it more condensed.
Xiao Zi reacted extremely quickly, grabbed the rat man by the scruff of the neck and rushed towards the barrier.
Just as it pounced, a piece of gravel blown up by the strong wind hit its tail heavily, and dragon blood spilled all over the ground.
"Roar!" Xiao Zi roared in pain, but still protected the rat man and brought him safely into the barrier range.
Inside the barrier, the bonfire still burned tenaciously, becoming the only stable source of light in this chaos.
Hu Qing and Gu Yang stood back to back, continuously injecting spiritual power into the barrier.
The wind and snow outside were getting more and more violent. One could vaguely see countless ice crystals condensed into sharp spikes, which kept hitting the surface of the barrier, making a teeth-grinding friction sound.
Gu Yang just breathed a sigh of relief, and before the smile on his lips could fully unfold, Hu Qing's expression suddenly changed drastically, and veins bulged on his temples.
An unprecedented sense of crisis flooded his consciousness like a tide, and his foresight talent frantically warned him—
"Danger, everyone scatter!" Hu Qing's roar tore through the wind and snow.
Almost at the same moment——
"boom--!!!"
A giant icicle with a diameter of more than ten feet fell from the clouds like a spear thrown by a god, accurately hitting the place where everyone was just now.
The bluestone floor shattered instantly, and spider-web-like cracks spread out for dozens of feet.
The flying ice fragments were like sharp arrows, piercing through all the remaining shrines around!
"Get out of the way!" Gu Yang shouted, and his body turned into a golden stream of light and retreated quickly.
The second and third ice pillars followed one after another, and in the blink of an eye the entire stone temple area became a death zone.
Every time an icicle fell to the ground, it caused an earthquake-like tremor. The violent cold froze the air into white mist, and the vision suddenly became blurred.
Xiao Zi let out a long roar, and his dragon wings fully spread out, moving flexibly in the rain of icicles.
Its purple-gold scales were covered with a thin layer of frost, and every time it flapped its wings, it would shake off a piece of ice crystals.
"Hold on tight!" it roared to the shivering ratman on its back, and made a sharp turn to avoid the icicle that was falling on its head.