Chapter 197 - Shadow and Light
Gold Crow’s bone!
The piece of bone that had been spat out by Mr Crow belonged to an ancient Gold Crow. A piece of bone, belonging to a Gold Crow could contain inexhaustible sun-like power, which was capable of illuminating all darkness, similar to the sun. Wherever the light, emitted by the bone of the Gold Crow, fell, all darkness dispersed immediately.
The muscular men who were wearing tight leather armour and had fallen out of their shadows, were howling in pain while clouds of black smoke was rising from their bodies. Their bodies had been burnt by the great heat released by the bone of the Gold Crow and had nearly turned them into coke[1].
A raging and hoarse growl came from afar, “Crap! A bone of an ancient Gold Crow? Feathered-animal, good for you!”
After pausing for a moment, the voice then continued in a vicious tone. “The light will eventually dim, and then the shadows will rule over the world. Wherever the Dim Sun shines, all light will be gone, only shadows will last forever!”
Along with this mysterious and evil voice, a slim man of the Yu Clan appeared silently, while causing a swishing sound. This man was wearing a luxurious long cloak with a large black sun embroidered on his sleeve that had silver-purple, metal-silk threads. The large black sun was floating above a tower, on top of which there was an erect black eye that seemed as if it was looking down on the entire world.
On the edges of the large black sun and the black erect eye, countless twisted and thin spell symbols were vaguely visible, which were releasing an evil sense of power, capable of frightening any ordinary person. Even from a great distance one would be able to see that the air around this Yu Clan man was distorted weirdly. The ground around him was like water and this Yu Clan man seemed like a fish that lived in that water and could merge anytime with that water.
Man Man swung her pair of huge hammers and banged them hard against each other, then yelled harshly at the Yu Clan’s man, “Do not play ghost there! Come and take three-thousand hammer strikes of Man Man! See if you can survive that!”
The Yu Clan’s man gave Man Man a hideous and creepy grin, and said, “Little girl, watch your language. When I catch you, you will certainly beg for death. Hehe, although I don’t have a particular hobby with little girls, I know many lords, who especially fancy little girls like you.”
Man Man stared confused at this Yu Clan man. She had not yet fully understood those sexual matters, but at least she had sensed disrespect from the words of this man. Therefore, Man Man let out a great shout in anger while swinging both her arms forward. Her pair of hammers transformed into two gigantic fiery shooting stars and flew towards the man from the Yu Clan.
The Yu Clan’s man let out a creepy laughter and said scornfully, “Under the protection of the great Dim Sun no one in the world will be able to ever hurt its people.”
While speaking the man of the Yu Clan raised his palm, transformed his power and twisted his wrist. Instantly, the space within a radius of ten zhang in front of the man twisted and turned into a visible, transparent swirl. The huge pair of hammer of Man Man were sucked into the swirl, then reappeared abruptly behind Mr Crow, striking heavily onto Mr Crow’s back.
Mr Crow cawed out in sudden pain. Man Man’s hammers had hit hard on its back and knocked it down onto the ground. Its head bumped against a huge piece of rock, smashing a tremendous hole in the ground. Man Man’s hammers were terrifyingly heavy. Although Mr Crow was strong and its bones were solid, a few sections of its spine were broken. Blazing blood instantly gushed out of its eyes, beak, and earholes.
Man Man screamed out in fright. She rushed hurriedly over, held one of Mr Crow’s claws and yelled, “Mr Crow! Are you okay?! Man Man didn’t hit you, it was that guy! It was him!!”
Flakes of flames spurted out from Mr Crow’s eyes. It struggled back up with difficulty and stretched a wing to shield Man Man behind it. With the instinct it had as a combat spirit beast, Mr Crow sensed a genuine danger. This man had directly twisted space and turned an enemy’s attack into his own. Mr Crow had neither heard nor had it ever seen such an ability. Although, with regards to such abilities it did have some remnants of incomplete memories in its inherited bloodline, those memories were way too old and incomplete. They were unable to do any possible help.
“The great eternal Dim Sun, let these barbarians, who are poor and ignorant, witness your great power!” shouted the Yu Clan man while laughing. He then took a deep breath and suddenly waved his sleeve, from out of which, six three-foot-long black metallic sticks darted out.
Once these three-foot-long and an arm-thick sticks flew out from the man’s sleeve, they began shaking and expanding while being blown by a fierce gust of wind. They soon turned into three-zhang-tall, water tank-like thick pillars decorated with totems. On each of those pillars a large black sun that was floating in the sky had been engraved. It was being worshipped countless people from the Yu Clan, Jia Clan, Xiu Clan and other strange creatures, which were standing on the ground.
Man Man had a good eyesight, which allowed her to easily see the patterns on the pillars. There where all the multi-eyed people were standing, was a vast piece of land with steep landscapes. There were thickly built bastions on that land and in the middle of each bastion, was a high tower that reached into the sky. On top of each tower a straight eye was floating.
The six totem pillars flashed across the air and immediately disappeared in the swirl. At the following moment, those pillars had jumped across space and reappeared miles away from Man Man and Mr Crow, firmly impaled on the ground in the shape of a regular hexagon.
The six pillars generated a loud buzzing sound, along with which, the pillars released wisps of black smoke that spread quickly towards all directions.
The bright light, released by the bone of the ancient Gold Crow, clashed intently against the black smoke, letting out huge muffled booms. The bone began to vibrate intensely, so did the six totem pillars. One after another, deep cracks started to appear on the ground surrounding the pillars and large amounts of earth-power leaked out from those cracks. It was difficult to tell how much pressure had been caused by the bone of the ancient Gold Crow.
“It’s nothing but a piece of crappy bone!” yelled the Yu Clan’s man harshly, “Do not think it could protect you!” He then raised his arms high into the air and slowly opened his erect eye above his eyebrows. The eyeball of that erect eye was purely black and was rotating slowly like an extremely deep swirl. He slowly chanted a spell while streams of darkness from out his erect eye began to spread towards the surroundings like water. Soon, darkness had shrouded the area within a radius of ten miles.
The black smoke released by those totem pillars merged with the darkness spread out from the man’s erect eye. After that, the space inside the regular hexagon that was formed by the six totem pillars, began to tremble. Even the air started to vibrate along with which, streams of fierce airwaves formed gradually.
Mr Crow cawed out in panic. It had never encountered such a weird attack and didn’t know how to react at all.
In the Southern Wasteland the fights between clans were mainly operated by frontal and physical attacks that were launched with all kinds of heavy weapons. If some kind of terrifying magic was involved, the powerful Maguspriests would be the ones to deal with it. Therefore, Mr Crow had never encountered anything like this by himself.
This power was completely different from any inherited power system that it had known of in the Southern Wasteland. Whether it was the twisted space or those weird shadows, it had no idea how to deal with them. The only thing Mr Crow could do at the moment was to try its best to activate the power of the Gold Crow’s bone, continuously releasing bright light and illuminating the surrounding area to fight against the darkness with difficulty.
However, a small swirl suddenly appeared behind the Gold Crow’s bone and sucked the bone in. The Gold Crow’s bone that had been letting out bright light and protecting Man Man and Mr Crow, spun in the swirl then instantly disappeared. The following moment, the bone reappeared tens of miles away.
Man Man and Mr Crow were suddenly shrouded by darkness, and huge numbers of shadows immediately rushed over from all directions and circled around them. Those muscular men, who had fallen forcibly out from shadows earlier, all let out evil grins. Then they merged with the darkness once again, transforming their bodies into wisps of shadows, darting towards Man Man and Mr Crow.
Every time the feathers and skin of Mr Cow would be cut open by the sharp shreds of shadows that were coming one after another at it, noise could be heard. Soon, over nearly a zhang long wounds appeared on Mr Crow’s body. Every wound was bone-deep and huge amount of blood spurted out from them.
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[1] Coke: A solid fuel made by heating coal in the absence of air so that the volatile components are driven off.
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Edited by SecondRate and Dylan
Translated by XianXiaWorld