Chapter 29: Sorrowful Ode

  The sound of the wings fluttering came rushing, making it seem as if there was a storm brewing within this quiet tribal ruin. Su Ming's eyes flickered, but his body remained still.

  Although the sound of flapping wings and sharp screeching echoed around his ears, Su Ming knew the length of this passage. Despite the sound coming first, in reality there was still a short period of time before those Moonwings returned here.

  This time may not be much, but it is his last moment here.

  Su Ming didn't hesitate, focusing his attention on the strange skeleton's leaning spot, where a line of words was written on the mountain rock wall.

  "Alas! Heaven is vast, why cry alone?"

  The opening sentence of that letter was this phrase, and in the midst of its majestic and powerful writing style, a hint of arrogance and overbearingness seeped through, causing Su Ming's pupils to constrict as soon as he read it.

  The meaning of this sentence, Su Ming was somewhat bewildered, but for a moment it was still vague, only the sadness and loneliness that permeated the text made Su Ming feel extremely deeply.

  "Heaven is vast, why cry alone..." Su Ming murmured to himself, his eyes gazing at the remaining barbarian script.

  "The Way of the Barbarian Desire, exhausting the edges of the eight directions, residual fire melts blood, thoughts emerge from the furnace, thoughts are exhausted in the void... Like a fiery moon rising from the clouds, vast and boundless between heaven and earth... At that time, silently pondering, blood and fire overlapping, nine is the extreme, one is the law, burning barbarian fire nine times, completing the transmission of the Fire Way!"

  "That azure sky is yours alone to tread!" The words below were clearly written by the same person, but instead of being a lament, they formed a rather complex phrase.

  "Barbarian fire nine worship...... become the fire of the pass......" Su Ming furrowed his brow, this paragraph of Hu's content was complex and difficult to understand, Su Ming looked at it again, but still vague.

  As he pondered, the hissing and flapping sounds from the entrance tunnel grew more intense. Su Ming's eyes flashed, and in an instant, he sprang up agilely and sprinted towards the entrance tunnel at high speed.

  In the blink of an eye, he arrived inside the passage, standing there, the sharp howl by his ear grew clearer. Su Ming turned his head to take one last look at the tribe filled with desolation, then turned around and ran quickly into the passage.

  He ran while paying attention to the sharp whistling sound in his ear, and after running for about a dozen yards, Su Ming suddenly stopped and darted into a crack in the rock wall.

  The crack was not big, but Su Ming's body was originally weak and thin. At this moment, after entering, he immediately squatted down, even his breathing became weaker, relying on the shelter of the stone wall, his heart beating rapidly, his eyes looking out through the gap, silently waiting.

  Time passed by, and after ten breaths, Su Ming's body hair stood on end. He clearly saw a thick red mist erupting from the passage like an explosion, and in that mist, ear-piercing howls thundered forth, with red shadows darting past at high speed.

  That red shadow is actually a Moon Wing!!

  At such a close distance, observing the moon wing made Su Ming's heart beat faster, but his body didn't move at all. His narrowed eyes didn't even reveal half a glimmer of light.

  This group of moon wings was too numerous, constantly whizzing past from that passage, and one even crashed into the edge of the crack, only less than half a meter away from Su Ming's crouching body.

  Su Ming's right hand was tightly grasping the bone horn, his palm had turned white due to excessive force, and at this moment, he couldn't even feel his own heartbeat. The whole person seemed to have calmed down completely in this extreme situation.

  He stared at the Moon Wing that had accidentally flown in, looking at its ferocious appearance, watching as it flapped its wings and flew out of the crack in an instant, but Su Ming's vigilance did not decrease, instead increasing even more.

  Just then, a desperate cry suddenly came, Su Ming's gaze followed the crack and clearly saw that outside the fog, several figures were caught by a large number of Moonwings and rushed towards the end of the passage to the tribe.

  There were nine people in total...

  Among these nine people, Su Ming couldn't see their faces one by one, but in the instant that his gaze swept past, he saw a white-clad figure, and on that face, he saw a beautiful countenance filled with despair and emptiness.

  "It's her!" Su Ming's pupils contracted, he recognized at a glance that the white-clothed figure was indeed the White Spirit of the Wudang Department, whom he and Lei Chen had met in the department!

  Su Ming was silent.

  Time slowly passed, and before long, the howling in the outer passage gradually dispersed, and even the mist dissipated by more than half. It seemed that all the moon wings had returned to their nests, and as the blood moon outside the sky disappeared, it was as if they were about to start another sleep.

  A scorching breath, at this moment, quickly spread, replacing the chill, and even the cracked walls were rapidly heated up. At this moment, the sound of crackling echoed, and Su Ming saw with his own eyes that the rocks beside him had also produced several more fine cracks.

  "It turned out that the crack was formed like this..." Su Ming's eyes condensed, and he quickly stood up and walked out of the crack. Standing in the passage, the surrounding fog had thinned out, and waves of heat came from the end of the passage where the tribe was located, blowing on Su Ming's body, making him sweat profusely.

  The rocks on the ground also heated up quickly, and even stepping on them gave a faint feeling of scorching feet. Su Ming clearly knew that it wouldn't be long before the high temperature and heat here would no longer be a place he could exist!

  Go or not go!

  Su Ming's face flashed with a hint of hesitation, and the mournful howls that came from afar sent chills down one's spine, evoking a sense of desolation that left one's heart trembling.

  "Never mind, the whole temple was deceived by Lei Chen together with her, and today they met again. If I leave like this, my heart won't allow it..." Su Ming was still a child after all, with a pure heart. At this moment, he took a deep breath of the hot air and suddenly ran quickly towards the end of the passage.

  "If it can be saved, then save! If not, no regrets." Su Ming's eyes were resolute and determined as he grasped the bone horn, and the closer he got to the end of the passage, the more he could feel the scorching heat of the crazy ascent.

  Fortunately, the distance was not far, and soon Su Ming arrived at the end of this passage. Regardless of the high temperature on the rock wall of the passage, he stuck his body to it and slightly poked his head inside for a look.

  At this glance, there was a faint flash of light in his eyes.

  Under the giant basin, the tribe that Su Ming had seen earlier with numerous sharp thorns piercing through its surface now had seven struggling survivors on those thorns.

  The bodies of the seven were pierced by seven sharp stakes from back to abdomen, blood flowing along the stakes, they had not yet died, and were constantly emitting mournful wails, feeling their lives slowly ebbing away.

  These seven people, without exception, were all men. Su Ming gazed at them intently and let out a slight sigh of relief in his heart; he didn't recognize any of these seven people, and they clearly weren't members of the Wu Shan Tribe.

  Even around them, the remaining ice thorns were melting at a visible rate, and as they melted, large amounts of dark red magma spread across the land of this tribe like rivers.

  Upon seeing this, Su Ming took a deep breath, and it was only then that he understood what those sharp blades were!

  "This place is extremely strange, and perhaps the awakening and departure of Moon Wing are also related to these sharp thorns!" Su Ming vaguely judged that these sharp thorns would transform from magma at regular intervals for some unknown reason, but this transformation would not last long. After one night, when Moon Wing returned again, they would melt and return to magma once more.

  "Looking at the number of meltwater streams, I'm afraid that once they all merge, they will fill this basin and hide the tribe again in the depths of the lava...” Su Ming suddenly raised his head and saw a large tree with a small section of red trunk exposed in the center of the tribe.

  The tree trunk is now in this basin under the scorching heat, as if it also has signs of melting, eerily twisting and turning. If you look closely, you can clearly see that inside there are lines entwined, sometimes revealing a corner, suddenly it's a moon wing!!

  But those moonwings that had entered the trunk of the tree, occasionally revealing their heads, no longer looked ferocious, but were filled with pain, desolation and sorrow.

  They didn't continue to howl, but the expression was as if they were silently wailing. Many of them made rather strange movements, and it could be seen that in their painful sorrow, they repeatedly lifted their paws to their mouths, biting them open to wipe their eyes, but not a single drop of blood appeared on the bitten fingers.

  "Those moon wings, have actually drilled into the trunk of this tree! They... are doing what... " Su Ming stared at the trunk, feeling the scorching heat in the air growing more and more intense, as if he could no longer stay there.

  "Can't find her... never mind..." Su Ming shook his head, he had done his best, and was about to leave quickly, but just as he was about to move, he suddenly stopped.

  His gaze fell on the red trunk in the center of the pot, two faces emerged from inside the tree, one of whom he did not recognize, but the other was indeed Bai Ling.

  Bai Ling's eyes were open, empty and devoid of any vitality, as if she had already given up on life, exuding a sense of tragic beauty.

  Su Ming gazed at the face, then looked down at the magma that was slowly gathering below. The magma had already covered a thick layer as it rose with the melting of the ice and snow, reaching about halfway up the tribal houses.

  At this moment, looking out, you can only see the rooftops of those stone houses floating in the basin, and those rooftops are also gradually turning red.

  "The moon-winged creatures venture out, related to the Blood Moon, but at this moment, it seems that the scorching heat of this place is also relevant. They seem to be afraid of the heat... so they only fly out to forage after the cold has set in..."

  Moreover, after they came back, all of them drilled into the tree trunk, without a single one outside. This point is in line with my judgment." Su Ming did not make any rash moves, but stood there, his eyes gleaming.

  "It should be possible to save... but we still need to wait a little longer..." Su Ming stared at the tree trunk, occasionally looking down at the height of the magma in the basin below.

  A moment later, the scorching heat rose again, causing Su Ming's body to sweat profusely, and his skin showed signs of cracking. Then, with a flash of his eyes, his blood surged, and the power of the eleven Blood Lines burst forth from his body. He took a step forward and disappeared in an instant.

  Its speed was so fast that it fell on the roof of a hut in a village in the basin, and at the moment its feet landed, a hissing sound suddenly rose. His feet immediately dispersed white gas, Su Ming didn't stop for a moment, his body jumped up again, falling on another house top, after several jumps, he was close to that strange red tree trunk.

  Just as he was about to approach, Su Ming suddenly saw another woman he didn't recognize beside the white spirit's face. She let out a shrill and mournful cry, and her face rapidly withered away, transforming into a terrifying skeleton in the blink of an eye!

  She seemed to have been merged into the trunk of that tree, absorbed by some strange power all her flesh and blood and life.

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