The Tale Never Ends

With that newfound discovery, I quickly unlocked my phone and looked for Father’s phone number and tapped on it!

Father sounded as if he was sleeping when he answered after the dial tone with unmistakable lethargy in his voice. “What time is it now, Father?” I asked first. A beat of silence ensued as Father checked his watch before he breathed into the mouthpiece. “One in the morning. What is it?”

I quickly gave him a concise version of what was happening. Father remarked in a drowsy voice, “The Stone Sentinel Maze… That’s easy. Just look for the weakness. Find it and destroy it.” “I know! But I can’t find it!” “Huh?! Then what good is your Spirit Sight for?!” Father scoffed impatiently from the other end, although his voice softened just as easily, “Use the Spirit Sight and look east.” “But the directions in this enchanted space are all jumbled up. How am I supposed to know where’s East?” “Up is North, Down is South, Left is West, and Right is East. Just follow your present course. Disregard the enchantment.”

With my Spirit Sight on, I looked to my east just, as per Father’s instructions.

Immediately I saw tendrils of malicious aura swirling to and fro at the direction I was looking at despite the darkness. There he is, I thought quietly, feeling my heart beginning to race. Behind me, Lin Feng adjusted his hold of the still-sleeping Chongxi and squeaked a whisper, “See anything there?” But I made no reply. Instead, I spoke into my cell phone which I was still holding close to my ear, “What now?” Only there was silence. I lowered my cell phone and looked. Father had ended the call! Caught between tears and laughter, I scoffed. What a father I have! Is he not even worried about me?!

With only myself to shrug helplessly to, I scowled quietly while looking at where the malicious aura was concentrating at and I saw a humanoid shape crouching in the midst of the darkness, shrouded by the thick evil aura. I have found him! Cao Xuedong, the weak spot of this enchantment!

I tugged at Lin Feng’s arm and pointed at Cao Xuedong’s direction quietly. “So, we go here this time?” he asked and I merely nodded and we began moving together.

Several minutes passed and we got closer to the mass of malicious aura. Strands of it encircled us like a strong fog that would have also blinded us if not for the dark, spreading far and wide in all directions. In the center, where the aura was coming from like a natural spring, was the origin which could only be Cao Xuedong!

We were very close and there he was, running off in another direction to evade us! By the time we reached the spot where he was first hiding at, the nimbus of malicious aura had moved with Cao Xuedong and was now five to six meters away from us.

Lin Feng stopped when he saw me halted. Before he could ask me the reason for stopping, he saw me weaving hand seals behind my back. Having grown up with me, he immediately knew what I was doing and he could see that I have noticed something. I spun slowly and gave him a knowing look which he confirmed and quietly slipped his hands under his shirt where the pouch for his throwing darts was.

A ball of flame burst into life on my opened palm just as the order of hand seals ended with the Seal of the Sword. The mass of evil aura shuddered as if in fear when he saw the Fire Charm I conjured, although he made no other movement, deciding only to quietly observe me. He must be unaware that we have found him.

In contrast, I was edgy and anxious to put a stop to all this. I threw the ball of flame at the mass of evil aura that was Cao Xuedong like how I would with a baseball and it streaked through the black space like a bullet. With a loud bang, it smacked right on him and engulfed him in flames and the black space was quickly illuminated by the hungry flames roaring to life, licking away the darkness around. Through the flickering luminescence, we could make out a human figure trying desperately to bat away the flames. I’m right, the mass of evil aura really is the weak spot, Cao Xuedong!

Just then, something flew right past my shoulders! Seeing his target lit up by the flames, Lin Feng had hurled his throwing darts! Three steel blade whistled dangerously towards the fire and the three successive thuds of steel crunching into flesh told us that they have found their mark which was further confirmed by a scream of pain. Through my Spirit Sight, the glob of malicious aura that was Cao Xuedong began running for his life and the flames still trying to ravage at his clothes subsided a little as he drew further into the dark smog. But that also showed one thing: whatever enchantment was this that was causing the darkness around us, it was far from absolute. The dark fog around us could still be penetrated with any strong source of light and the flames burning at Cao Xuedong still flooded enough to tell us where was he escaping to.

“Stand right there, you lowlife!” Lin Feng hissed and he chased after the fiery glow that was slowly turning into a dot in the unseen darkness. He had forgotten that the metaphysics of this pocket dimension has been altered; he would never reach Cao Xuedong in time. And indeed, Lin Feng had barely sped ahead for three meters when Cao Xuedong was but a mere speck of glow far away. Lin Feng let go of Chongxi and the latter dropped to the ground with a thud.

The still-unconscious Chongxi did not wake up. Instead, he rolled on the floor with a loud snore. But just as he spun like a log, his hand knocked on the floor and he mumbled a sleepy “Where you’re going…” and suddenly, we saw Cao Xuedong still struggling against the fire running towards us!

It was a moment that left us all—Me, Lin Feng, and even the fire-engulfed Cao Xuedong—dumbfounded. He stared at us for a split-second, bewildered and stunned, before Lin Feng reacted first with his lightning-quick reflexes by leaping into the air. With his Twin Kicks technique, he landed a kick so hard on Cao Xuedong’s face that a crack that echoed like a thunderclap through the darkness. Carrying too much momentum in his run, Cao Xuedong could not evade in time and Lin Feng’s square blow on his face elicited an anguished cry before he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

We inspected the fainted man. He looked absolutely hideous with terrible, still-raw wounds covering many parts of his body. I muttered the incantations to stop the Fire Charm. Anymore and the man would be barbecued meat instead of having a grotesquely-misshapen face. Then we found Lin Feng’s darts. Two of them had struck his shoulders and one was lodged in his shoulder blades. Then I looked at Lin Feng, who was still wearing an incredulous look. “What happened just now?”

I bit my lips, my gaze slowly traveling to the still-snoring Chongxi. “What should we call him? Genius or fool? If I’m not mistaken, that was Zhu Mei’s Windchaser technique. Somehow, this buffoon had inadvertently used such a powerful spell in his sleep!” “Huh?! The Windchaser?! Just now?! Since when did he learn such a powerful technique?”

“Remember the first time we met Zhu Mei? He did mention some key points about the Windchaser technique. The last time I visited him during the New Year, he had told me more about the gist of it. But let us not forget that compared to me, Chongxi has a greater aptitude in the understanding of the cosmological and metaphysical bearings and vectors. He might have already understood much of it when Zhu Mei first explained his magic although his slow-wittedness is the reason he has yet to fully master the technique. Somehow he must have subconsciously learned it sometime later and he accidentally used it just now.”

Lin Feng stared at his sleeping friend with disbelief. Even I too could not quite believe what happened just now myself. Chongxi? The Windchaser technique?! It was simply unbelievable, although I had to confess my wonder and admiration for him.

We stood up. It was still dark around us. Had we failed to stop the enchantment? Lin Feng threw me a look that said exactly that. But I chuckled. I took out my Spirit Gourd. With Cao Xuedong physically in front of us, I could now strip him of the evil aura shrouding him and his soul easily.

Just when Cao Xuedong’s soul and his evil aura were all sucked into my Spirit Gourd, the rest of the infernal ambiance of darkness around us immediately disappeared; all having withdrawn into my Gourd. I stoppered it and explained, “To stop the enchantment we have to destroy the weak spot of this enchantment. That would mean killing him, since in this case, Cao Xuedong himself is the weak spot, the core of this magical bounded field. So technically, he has to die.” I pointed to the door that appeared behind Lin Feng.

By “dying technically”, it simply meant that a person’s soul had to depart from his physical body, which could be easily done by withdrawing Cao Xuedong’s soul into my Gourd and with the enchantment broken, the house was back to normal. We found ourselves alone in the wide, empty space that was the ground-floor level sitting area of Unit 104, a bare area completely devoid of any furnishing. Behind me was a flight of stairs that led upstairs and at Lin Feng’s back was a door. A door with two lanterns flanking it, both glowing sluggishly dim.