Vessel of Worlds

The Ice-Wind Python, still frolicking in the Cold Fragrance Spring, suddenly shot from the water like a bolt of wind and lightning, jaws gaping, and blasted a stream of white cold a chi thick straight at the green jade saber.

The instant the frost left the python's mouth, it congealed into a pillar of ice over a zhang long—sealing that small, exquisite green saber fast inside, unable to stir!

Even Andy blinked at the sheer potency of the python's frost—he hadn't anticipated this.

He had only wanted to see whether the python's cold could usefully slow the artifact's attack. Instead, in this environment of extreme cold, the frost-breath's power had multiplied—and locked the enemy's artifact bodily into a pillar of ice in a single stroke.

The python stood at a mere rank two—if its powers were already this domineering, what might it wield after advancing?

The Taiyi youth was badly shaken. His exquisite jade saber—dainty to look at, but a peak-grade artifact through and through—had been trapped alive in one exchange by the other man's spirit beast. Wrench at it with his spiritual sense as he might, the green saber lay inert in its icy prison.

With a sharp crack, the ice pillar dropped from midair to the ground—and did not shatter.

Andy, curious to test the python further, sent it diving back into the Cold Fragrance Spring at his command. The great serpent drew in an enormous gulp, and freezing springwater flooded its belly until its body visibly swelled.

The Taiyi youth, seeing his saber useless—and knowing his two remaining peak-grade artifacts were little stronger and would threaten nothing—wasted no more spiritual power on them. Teeth clenched, he set the green jade shield before him and drew out a palm-sized piece of beast hide, exquisitely made, shimmering with green radiance.

Upon the hide were painted strange runes and a vivid little bamboo sword a cun long, glinting green.

A talisman treasure! Andy judged its nature instantly.

Since each talisman treasure was made from a different dharma treasure, their powers varied enormously. The weakest—like the little knife talisman in Andy's own pouch—matched a peak-grade artifact. The strongest exceeded ordinary dharma treasures outright—though those devoured such spiritual power and sense that no Foundation Establishment cultivator could rouse their full strength.

This green bamboo-sword talisman clearly ranked above the little knife. How far above, Andy couldn't be sure.

The Taiyi youth shot Andy a venomous look, then bent his head over the talisman, murmuring incantations, pouring his whole body's spiritual power into it in a rushing stream.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator roused a talisman treasure far faster than any Qi Condensation cultivator could. Though the bamboo sword demanded far more power, within moments the miniature blade was flashing green and trembling against the hide's surface, straining to leap free.

At that moment, on Andy's command, the Ice-Wind Python gaped wide at the casting youth and loosed another chi-thick stream of white frost—and behind it, the spring-water in its belly came jetting out. Meeting the frost, the water froze instantly into countless ice spikes, from several cun to a chi in length, sweeping down on the sword-browed youth like a collapsing sky.

Against an assault that ferocious, the green jade shield and the Fire Yang Talisman alone could never have held.

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But in that same instant, the youth completed the talisman's awakening. The miniature bamboo sword sprang from the hide, hung in midair, and swelled into a flat blade three chi long and two cun wide, blazing green—then met the oncoming storm of ice spikes with a single downward cut.

A soundless arc of green light swept out. Every spike it touched dissolved into nothing, and the arc drove on undiminished, cutting clean through the barrage.

It was well that Andy had already ordered the python back into the spring—struck by that green light, even its iron scales might not have held.

One stroke of the bamboo sword had unmade the greater part of the python's attack; the shield and the Fire Yang Barrier absorbed the rest.

The bamboo sword flicked again—not at Andy, but at the zhang-long ice pillar on the ground. The youth's jade saber still lay frozen within; left too long, its spiritual nature would suffer badly, perhaps decay to high-grade power forever.

The green light split the pillar with ease, and the jade saber wobbled back to its master's hand. He gave it one pained glance, stowed it—and stared at Andy with murder in his eyes.

"A formidable talisman treasure indeed, Brother Fang. No doubt it's this that gave you the confidence to insist on our duel," Andy said, eyes fixed on the flat bamboo sword overhead—its dense, almost liquid green radiance far beyond anything a peak-grade artifact could show.

"Ha ha! Too late for regret now—die!" Reading the gravity in Andy's face, the youth's spirits soared and he laughed aloud—then the laugh froze on his face, warped, and collapsed into naked horror. His eyes went round. "Impossible... impossible!" he breathed, as though beholding the most unacceptable sight the world could offer.

For Andy had drawn and now held his trump card—the four-chi scarlet bone saber: the Blazing Heaven Blade.

Whether or not the Taiyi youth had ever seen a high-grade spirit tool or a high-grade spirit stone, one look at the red stone set in that hilt told him everything.

The instant the fire-attribute high-grade spirit tool appeared, it scoured the white cold from the air around it—even the sword-browed youth, twenty-odd zhang away, felt the temperature climb.

While the man still reeled, Andy raised the Blazing Heaven Blade and delivered one unhurried stroke.

A crescent arc traced its red trajectory through the air, slicing serenely toward the ash-faced youth.

A last hardness rose through the despair in his eyes. He hurled every remaining shred of power into the talisman; the bamboo sword flared thick with green light, planted itself before him, and met the crescent head-on.

A thunderclap of collision—the crescent was actually stopped. But the bamboo sword's radiance had gone deathly dim: a spent arrow at the end of its flight.

Unhurried, Andy swung again. An identical red crescent, faster now, scythed toward the youth. He tried to slip aside behind the talisman's cover—but the crescent bent slightly in midair, sheared through the green bamboo sword as though it were nothing, and cut the man in two even as he lunged a zhang away. So great was the crescent's heat that not one drop of blood fell.

That stroke of the Blazing Heaven Blade yielded nothing to an ordinary dharma treasure—far beyond anything the sword-browed youth could have withstood.

With practiced efficiency Andy swept the field, collecting artifacts and storage pouch, then flicked out two small fireballs and burned the two halves of the Taiyi youth's corpse to ash.

Then, with great care, he brought out several jade-green bottles and decanted the Nine Colds Mystic Nether Water into them, every drop. The stalactite overhead still released a drop at long intervals; Andy set one bottle beneath it to catch each as it fell.

He had scarcely finished when something jolted in his chest. White light flashed, and a red orb lay in his palm—its surface now crossed by a crack, which split it cleanly in two with a snap.

Trouble—Hongchen's in danger! Has that Song woman turned on her too, blind to all good sense? So Andy reasoned—the girl Qianqian, he judged, was not the kind for such a deed.

Abandoning the bottle still gathering its drops, Andy swept a hand; the python leapt from the spring to his side. He flattened himself along its back and sent it racing for the tunnel mouth.

The narrow passage was no place for the Wind-Treader Dragon, but the python threaded it at tremendous speed—far faster than he could ever have run.

The passage was not long. Borne on the python's swift coils, he soon regained the junction where he had parted from the three women—and plunged at once into the right-hand tunnel.

This passage ran slightly wider, though not by much. Beyond the deepening cold, Andy caught a faint thread of something else on the air—an aura at once oddly familiar and deeply unsettling.