Chapter 25: Man and Beast
“Art shifts the eight directions—redirect.”
“Mist swirling—disorienting smoke.”
“Water swamps the earth—heavy feet.”
A Bagua formation was drawn in front of Lu Jianjia, with several stones pressing down on its edges. She pulled various artifacts out of her Qiankun Ring and placed them on the ground: black crystals, yellow bronze mirrors, white clay figurines…
Every time a new item was placed into the formation, the pattern on the ground would light up. She would quickly point her finger, sometimes causing white smoke to spew out from thin air into a wolf demon’s face, and other times causing light to flash beneath a wolf demon’s paws, forcing one that should have lunged right at them to suddenly veer off course.
Although there wasn’t much she could do beyond barely obstructing them, this modest bit of assistance was enough for the one-armed fox spirit to deliver fatal strikes to the wolf demons.
She didn’t know how much time had passed; the wolf howls beside her ears and the raging cold wind never ceased.
The metallic stench of blood in her nose grew increasingly pungent. Her sweat-soaked clothes clung to her body, growing colder and colder, until even her vision lost all clarity.
Finally, she could hold on no longer.
As the final figurine in the formation burst apart, a nearby wolf demon veered off and crashed into another, after which she collapsed onto the array.
The single trace of clarity remaining in her mind told her: she must not sleep, or else upon waking, she would see only a blood-red hell and life-claiming reapers.
