The Tale Never Ends

I looked to the front and the stony passage had given way into a huge cavernous hall. In some ways, it would be more apt to call it a square, for it was easily larger than the size of two basketball courts put together!

But I was more shocked by the heap of human bones piling up into a huge mound on the floor. The presence of human skulls among the heap of bones was the very reason I immediately recognized them as human remains and the decaying dark greyish hues of the bones showed that they have been left here for quite some time. The air was thick with the fetid stench of rotting flesh; the same which could be imagined belching from the bowels of a man-eating monster after its pleasures of human flesh and tossing the bones aside lazily.

Father fanned himself with a palm, his nose wrinkling with disgust at the smell. “I did not know that there were so many human sacrifices buried alive here when this crypt was completed. These could either be prisoners of war or even slaves.” I see, I gasped quietly, He’s right! Whatever it was which had eaten these people, it could not have caught so many people! Moreover, the decay of the bones clearly shows that they have been dead for a long time! This is a mass burial crypt with humans buried alive! My face curdled with horror at the revelation. When was this crypt built? And why were so many people so savagely sacrificed alive?

I might know little about history, but I was sure that the practice of human sacrifice was discontinued as early as the reign of Qin Shi Huang. Could this crypt predate even that era?

Father began walking slowly into the huge spacious hall. But just when he set foot into the stone cavern, my Spirit Sight picked up a wisp of foul aura emanating from the heap of bones. But a wisp it might be, the malice and hatred in it were the strongest I have ever encountered! Oh God, I gasped with fright. Unlike most other foul auras, this was the demonic aura of Wretched Ghouls! With such malice, grudge, and evil, who could say what power could this Wretched Ghoul hold?

But that hardly stopped Father from continue pacing forward! By the time I looked at him again, he was already near the mound of bones. As if a Wretched Ghoul was not bad enough, my Spirit Sight picked up another burgeoning aura ready to burst!

Father stopped. He stood motionless, his person illuminated by the flickering glow of the fire. The growing aura within him burst forth like a broken dam and a ripple of divine aura, awesome and powerful, swept around the entire hall; unstoppable tide so rich with celestial power! Many a time I have been reminded that my parents were demigods and immortals. But I have never once felt the true extent of his powers, until now! They have always kept their powers hidden; even with my Spirit Sight, I could detect nothing that set them apart from common human beings. But now, at this moment and this place, here was Father, revealing his true strength in all its glory and splendor that not even my Spirit Sight could truly fathom its depths.

I was so amazed that my mouth was left hanging wide. But that was hardly the last of the spectacle; Father leaned to the back slightly as he drew a long breath, his chest puffing up with air! I watched incredulously. What was he trying to do? Through my Spirit Sight, I saw a huge mass of Qi of an unknown element, one that I have never before seen, accumulating in his mouth! The volume of the Qi grew larger and larger, as did the feeling of excitement swelling in me and Father raised his left hand. His fingers, other than the fore and middle fingers, bent to make the Seal of the Sword and he raised it to his mouth like how cowboys in Western movies usually blow the fumes from their smoking guns and blew hard with a loud “Poof!” at the heaps of bones!

But what came out of Father’s mouth was not mere air; it was fire! A powerful jet of fire squirted from his mouth like the breath of a dragon! Not even the afterburners of jet planes could boast such fiery intensity! The searing tongues of his flames lashed at the broken and shriveling bones, reducing them to cinders that leave not even ashes in their wake!

All of a sudden, a shrill and horrid howl emitted from within the heap of bones and a deafening “Bang!” followed almost immediately as something lunged from within the mound, tossing bones, skulls, and rib cages into the air! Something huge and menacing had appeared and with it came its angry howl! Mother, now back to the form of a fox, stood upright suddenly on Father’s shoulders, and an aura, similarly divine and pure, ballooned in the blink of an eye! My eyes grew so wide as I watched Mother at work with her magic; she tilted backward like Father did and released a blaring roar so powerful that a powerful gust of wind with the force of a storm erupted. The walls of the stone hall shook as the vestiges of her voice continued ringing off the eaves of the great but barren crypt and the winds buffeted the fire and enveloped around that huge monster!

The tornado fused with the jets of flames still spurting from Father’s mouth and formed a fiery inferno that wrapped around the monster and engulfed it in fire and blood! The monster ripped and tore vainly at the winds and fire with its claws, writhing and squirming in agony as the winds sliced at its flesh and the flames gnawed at its soul. Before long, the monster gave off one last dying howl of defiance and it crashed to the ground, very much dead at last.

As soon as the monster breathed its last and collapsed, the expanding divine aura, fire, and winds immediately ended. Father and Mother stood quietly, looking down at the heap of blackened soot on the ground, looking no more extraordinary and awesome like a common human. Silence returned to the entire chamber as if everything that had just happened was just a dream!

Everything had transpired in just a brief moment of seconds that I barely had time to see what the monster actually was! All I saw from the chaos of fire and blood was that the monster towered at least three-meters tall with abnormally long limbs.

I looked around to study the aftermath. Not a single piece of bone was left lying around; the fire had incinerated everything to dust and the entire subterranean chamber was utterly bare and empty now! Father was already on the move to the next chamber with obviously no intent nor purpose to delay. I jerked myself back to the present and chased after him. Just when I reached the center of the hall, I saw a large hole on the ground! It was deep and wide; the very same spot where the heap of bones was sitting on earlier. The giant monster earlier must have been lurking here inside before Father flushed it out and destroyed it with his fire.

I exhaled heavily and picked up my pace. As he walked, Father quenched his thirst with another swig of wine. My parents hardly spoke anymore as they continued walking in the dark. I would have thought myself lost or drift off into some hallucinations of my own if not for Father’s footsteps pattering off the hard flagstones in the dark.

The somber march continued for almost twenty minutes and we reached another chamber. Sunlight flooded this stone hall from above like a patio in Chinese traditional architecture. But as I looked up at the ceiling meters and meters up high, I could see something blocking out part of the sun at above. I looked around. This stone hall was smaller by at least half the size of the chamber earlier, carved and hewn round as if we were standing at the bottom of a large well. Innumerable coffins lined the walls of this circular hall in rings, cramming into every inch available from the ground to the top where our eyes could no longer reach. There must be at least hundreds or even thousands of coffins here!

Father chuckled with amusement. “What’s this? A crypt for an entire legion of soldiers?” He observed dryly.

Just then, a litany of creepy rattling noises came from the lower rings of coffins around us just when Father barely finished speaking. My head jerked around frantically; most of the coffins were opened but their innards were hardly visible from the lack of light. But one after another, large, hairy hands crept out slowly, wincing and jerking every now and then as they moved with their inches-long hairs wiggling with their motion. Some of the hairs were white and many more were black. But through my Spirit Sight, every one of the coffins was radiating with sinister auras of the undead!

Oh, Heavens! I cursed, Surely not all of these coffins contain jiangshis fully grown with hairs?! There was simply no way to make out how many jiangshis could be in the coffins here! I remembered about the jiangshi of Li Shouzhong at Mount San Feng Zi. I shuddered to think about what I could have done in such peril. No. There’s nothing I can do. I might as well just surrender myself with inevitable death staring at me in the face!

But I could hardly believe my eyes; Father nonchalantly continued walking towards the center of the circle as if he had not seen the jiangshis rising! Then, the sounds of metallic clinking filled the air as the jiangshis emerged from their wood caskets. They were all clad in decrepit and rusted armors and chainmails. What was left of these pitiable raiments barely covered their decomposing flesh but it was clear that these jiangshis were all once soldiers!

Despite the jittery angst, I was still feeling far from panicking; I might not know what other tricks Father might still have up his sleeves, but I was sure that he would be fine.

Indeed, Father stood in the middle of the rings of rousing jiangshis. He nudged a shoulder and the sword hanging on his back shot into the air, hovering just over him, glinting dangerously at the menacing threats closing in on its master. Then the unbelievable happened again: the sword shook and split into two, and two into four, four into eight and more doppelgangers of Father’s sword began to materialize until they were as many as the stars in the sky. Their tips shone with fury and they attacked with minds of their own! Like silvery serpents, the swords lunged at their foes with the intensity and speed that would have paled even a bolt of lightning, spilling blood and viscera at every blow as red blood marred every white bolt of flash that streaked the air. The windstorm of blades whirled and whirled, tearing and ripping at every jiangshis it could find and in barely seconds, the slaughter had ended as quickly as it began with scarcely a whiff of the undead aura still remaining!

But that was the least of the wonders Father wrought; the swords disappeared all at once. I see, I realized, They are not actual swords of steel or iron, but weapons conjured by Father with magic and Qi!

I rubbed my chest, trying to calm myself as I stood in awe of Father’s power. Father walked to a coffin and I ran after him, puzzled at what has interested him. He looked into the casket and I took followed suit and what I saw made me gasp with shock!