Chapter 38: The Idol Is Dark, Yet Divine Might Persists
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The four guards’ cries of alarm exploded through the dead of night.
They did not rouse a great flock of crows and sparrows, but they did awaken everyone else within the ruined temple.
“What happened?”
Before the words had even faded, several guards had already leapt to their feet. The crisp ring of drawn blades was especially harsh in the silence as they rushed toward the temple gate to reinforce their comrades.
The others retreated in succession, forming layer upon layer of protection before the screen that concealed the woman. The chill of weapons mingled with their heavy breathing, creating an atmosphere that was all the more terrifying.
Only the captain of the guards remained utterly still. He did not reach for the saber at his waist. Instead, he plunged a hand into the shadows and drew from deep within the baggage a blackwood cavalry lance.
With a deadly weapon in hand, the heart found its calm.
After exhaling a long breath of foul air, the captain—having inspected the guards’ flawless positions—carried the lance to the front of the ruined temple.
He was about to ask what had happened when he caught sight of the terrifying horse corpse flickering in and out of the firelight.
His breath caught.
“What is that?!”
He had fought his way up from the bitter, freezing frontier and believed he had witnessed countless scenes terrible enough to make an ordinary man tremble in body and soul.
But this—this was something he had truly never seen before.
“Captain, what do we do?”
“Could you make out what it was?”
“No! We only sensed movement in the darkness. After we threw out the torch... it became like this!”
The four guards who had first raised the alarm had already drawn their blades. While keeping watch in every direction, they hurriedly reported everything they knew to their captain.
Every detail showed that this was a handpicked group of seasoned fighters.
Under ordinary circumstances, they could have dealt with bandits or hardened marauders without difficulty. Even if they encountered a body of disorganized soldiers, they should have managed easily enough—so long as the enemy was not heavily armored.
“Keep throwing them. Prepare the lamp oil!”
The captain’s deep command betrayed not the slightest trace of panic. At his order, more than a dozen pine-resin torches were thrown one after another beyond the temple.
To their northwest, the instant the torches touched the ground, all light and shadow abruptly collapsed into something bizarre.
The strange phenomenon naturally fell within their sight. The guards immediately shifted their positions, preparing to face the enemy from that direction.
The captain raised his cavalry lance and called out in a low voice, “Stop playing tricks and pretending to be a demon! If you are a true man, come out and match yourself against me!”
What answered him was not a human voice, but a grating, tooth-aching tearing sound.
From within the shadows, a horse corpse even more emaciated than the first was suddenly ripped in two by brute force. Its reeking remains were flung out like scraps of cloth.
The heavy thud of the corpse striking the ground exploded in everyone’s hearts like muffled thunder.
That single sight was enough to make the guards retreat several steps. Even the tips of their blades trembled uncertainly.
This truly did not look like something a human being could have done.
“Stand your ground!” the captain roared. “Once your formation breaks, death is the only road left!”
His cavalry lance struck the ground with a heavy clang. Copper studs scraped against stone and sent sparks flying. He tried to rally their spirits.
“Hold your weapons steady! Guard the temple gate! Do not disturb the honored lady!”
Only under the captain’s shouts did the guards barely manage to steady themselves.
At that very moment, a fierce wind suddenly rose outside the temple, sweeping dead leaves against them and bursting open half of the rotten door behind their backs.
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From the depths of the shadows, the monster finally revealed its true form amid the wavering, flickering firelight.
It was a gigantic wolf as large as a yellow ox!
Its entire body was drenched in blood, hideous beyond measure. As it slowly advanced and pressed one forepaw upon half a horse corpse before it, the shriveled ribs beneath its paw opened and closed as though they were alive.
As it moved forward, the light-devouring darkness followed like a shadow. Only a pair of pupils burned with a ghostly green radiance within the blackness.
The captain knew that if things continued like this, the men—whose courage had already deserted them—could do nothing but wait for death. Thus he shouted,
“Beast, prepare to die!”
With a battle cry bursting from his throat, he bent his back into the curve of a northern eagle bow. He raised the cavalry lance high, then suddenly drew his body backward and hurled it with all his strength.
It would strike!
It absolutely would!
As all the blood-born valor within him erupted, he felt as though he had returned to the frontier. He clearly remembered that on another lightless night like this one, he had hurled a spear and slain the barbarian hundred-man commander leading a raiding party.
Because of that feat, he had won the favor of his superiors and gained the honor of entering the service of the Han clan of Yizhou. He had even been granted the cavalry lance in his hands.
Nothing could go wrong. That barbarian commander had been wearing forged-iron armor, yet he had still been hurled from his horse by the force of the throw.
This monster, with nothing but flesh and blood, would surely be no different!
As the lance’s shadow tore through the night with a piercing shriek, he could already envision its tip bursting through the creature’s back—just as it had once cleaved open a road of blood and fire for him amid the frontier beacons.
That day, it had been a road to heaven.
Today would surely be the same!
But when a sharp clash of metal against metal erupted, the captain felt as though someone had struck him squarely on the forehead from across the air.
The cavalry lance, which even iron armor could not withstand, had merely struck a shower of sparks from the monster’s fur before tumbling aside!
“How is that possible?!”
His question exploded together with his terror.
The monster, meanwhile, continued its slow advance.
This time, the guards—most of their courage utterly crushed—could not help raising their blades and retreating.
The captain did the same. He stumbled backward several steps and was already on the verge of crossing into the temple.
Only then did he barely recover his senses and shout, “Crossbows! Bring up the crossbows! Shoot it with fire arrows!”
They had not used the crossbows at first because powerful crossbows were weapons that the imperial court forbade private citizens to possess. In terms of severity, the prohibition was nearly equal to that on armor.
The same was true of the extremely difficult-to-forge cavalry lance, though his own had been bestowed upon him and therefore did not fall under that restriction.
That was why he had been unwilling to reveal the powerful crossbows immediately and invite criticism.
But now, there was clearly no time to worry about such things.
Six powerful crossbows rarely seen even among the army emerged from the temple gate, accompanied by several longbows.
“Loose!”
Bowstrings snapped. Arrows shrieked through the air as they flew to kill.
The monster finally abandoned its leisurely pace. It sprang high toward the people at the temple gate and charged in for the slaughter.
At this sight, despair filled every person standing there.
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They were confident they would not miss. But they did not believe that a monster impervious to a cavalry lance could be stopped by their arrows.
What they had just done was no more than a refusal to wait helplessly for death...
The arrows struck the monster, only to crack and splinter apart in the darkness. The creature continued its relentless charge.
By then, everyone could even smell the foul reek pouring from its cavernous maw, lined with countless fangs.
Yet just as they all shut their eyes and waited for death, they heard a mournful whimper.
The violent tearing pain they had expected never came.
Opening their eyes in confusion, they were astonished to see the monster tumble to the ground like a drenched dog beaten half to death, its tail tucked between its legs.
Now it writhed and howled incessantly upon the ground!
At this sight, the guards were overjoyed. The captain shouted, “The crossbow bolts work! Quickly—charge out with the lamp oil and burn the beast alive!”
The guards immediately seized the lamp oil and prepared their loaded crossbows to rush outside and attack.
But at that moment, someone shouted from behind them,
“Do not throw your lives away!”
It was not a command to slow down, nor one to stop, but a warning not to throw their lives away.
The words carried a truly tremendous force. More than that, the voice itself seemed to possess some inexplicable power.
The guards who had been about to charge out were forcibly halted in their tracks.
The captain turned his head and saw Du Yuan walking toward them at an unhurried pace, his hands clasped behind his back beneath the altar.
“Ox-nose, what nonsense are you talking about? That beast was plainly struck by the arrows and knocked down!”
Du Yuan gave a helpless laugh and pointed toward the open ground before the temple.
“Why don’t you take a proper look? When did it ever fear your crossbow bolts?”
Following his voice, they looked out.
Across the ground washed by moonlight lay dozens of broken arrows in disarray. Their arrowheads were twisted out of shape. Some were deeply embedded in the earth; others were half-buried in rotten wood. Yet not one bore even the slightest trace of blood.
The crossbow bolts they had thought had struck the monster had all been shaken off and snapped upon the ground!
They truly had not wounded it!
“Then why did it fall down?!”
Du Yuan shook his head and gave a faint, mocking smile. Raising a hand, he pointed toward the altar.
“Fools! How could it fear your common iron? What it fears is this—”
Du Yuan lifted his hand higher.
There, unmistakably, stood the statue of the Mountain God.
Though the statue had no visible radiance, the divine might it embodied remained undiminished.
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