Chapter 171: Thousand-Armed Guanyin

The flare in the sky went out, and darkness quickly descended. Panzi immediately fired another flare, which burst into light in the air. Then everyone below opened fire, dozens of tongues of flame pouring upward. Soon several of the flying shadows in the heavenly palace were hit and fell from the sky.

The bright light could cause these creatures to have temporary illusions, just like if you quack and waddle like a duck in front of a bear, it might momentarily not tell you from a real duck. But this is only temporary. If my memory serves, this is our last flare.

With so many strange birds, once this flare goes out, we will face countless merciless attacks in the darkness.

The strange birds pressed lower and lower, some even swooping past our heads. Our bullets were not enough for such intense suppressive fire, and soon several guns ran dry. Fatty's situation was extremely critical; if no one went to save him, even his tough luck wouldn't save him this time.

When I was torn and at a loss, Fatty fired a shot at my feet, startling me. I looked up at his lip movements and understood he meant for us to run! I steeled myself and said to Panzi, "You take Third Uncle and the others and run to the end of the rift valley. This is their nest, they must fly out along the rift to hunt. Look at the direction they're coming from, then run that way. Don't worry about me—I'm going to save Fatty!"

Panzi grabbed me and said, "Are you up for it? How about I go save Fatty and you take Third Uncle away?"

I said, "I can't carry that old man!" and raised my hand to show him my wound. "I've got precious blood, I'll be fine!"

Panzi saw my wound, felt a bit reassured, nodded vigorously, and said, "Be careful—we'll wait for you outside!" Then he hoisted the immobile Third Uncle onto his back and yelled to the others, "Follow me!" and retreated toward one side of the rift valley.

I caught the gun Panzi threw me, checked the magazine with a click—three rounds, damn generous. The others sprinted past me, shouting for me to follow, but I ignored them. Then I saw A Ning still standing there, pale-faced, not moving.

I went up and tapped her, telling her to hurry, but she shook off my hand, cocked her gun with a click, and raised it. I had no idea what she was planning now.

I knew it was useless to persuade someone like her, so I ignored her and ran toward the stone platform with my gun raised.

The lid of the Ten-Thousand-Slave King's coffin had been opened more than halfway. A huge black thing, like a spider, was squeezing half its body out of the coffin, its entire body a bruised purple. I rushed to the edge of the stone platform. Fatty had already climbed back up the rope to the bronze chains above, constantly firing his M16 in bursts at the diving strange birds, with no time to spare for the monster below.

Luckily, even in such chaos, the giant centipedes lurking around the coffin platform still hadn't awakened. Perhaps after so many years of slumber, these huge insects had long since died.

At this point, I threw caution to the wind and yelled, "Fatty, give me your Type 56 ammo! I'll cover you!"

Fatty's own gun was a Type 56, and he was loaded with Type 56 ammo, but when climbing to reduce weight, he hadn't brought his gun, so he was using Kirk's M16. But the M16 didn't have much ammo; if he ran out up there, he was finished. The only chance was to get down to the ground.

When Fatty heard me call, he immediately held the gun with one hand, tore off a few magazines with the other, and tossed them to me. I caught one and ignored the rest, swapped magazines, raised my gun, and fired. Under my covering fire, Fatty scrambled along the chain, climbed back to where he'd gone up, then slid down in a flash and waved for me to run.

I turned to look for A Ning, but she was gone—either she'd run or been carried off by a strange bird. I sighed to myself: why is such a beautiful woman so stubborn? Then I looked at the coffin platform and saw that the coffin lid had been flipped aside. A huge black male corpse stood up, wearing faded and rotting Jurchen armor. To my shock, the corpse actually had twelve arms arranged in a ring behind it, and all twelve arms were writhing, just like the Thousand-Handed Guanyin in temples.

I immediately thought of the twelve-armed wax corpse I'd seen in the underwater tomb, and I was astonished. Could it be that the Dongxia royal family were not human—meaning they were deformed? Was this twelve-armed male corpse the Ten-Thousand-Slave King? Fatty was firing bursts to drive back the diving strange birds while pulling at me and yelling, "What are you staring at?" I ignored him and said, "Look... what is he trying to do?"

I saw the Thousand-Handed Guanyin corpse waving its twelve arms, showing no interest in us at all. After quickly jumping off the stone platform, it walked straight toward the giant bronze door.

Fatty exclaimed in surprise, "Is it trying to enter the giant door?"

I suddenly recalled the last line of Wang Zanghai's Dragon Fish Secret Script: if the time is wrong, opening the underground giant door will incur divine punishment, and the underground hellfire will surge through the door and burn the entire sky. At the time, we thought this prophecy of disaster was just Wang Zanghai's imagination after entering the door and seeing the volcanic interior. But it was also possible that the one who had set up this bronze door had installed some powerful mechanism to prevent the secrets inside from being discovered.

Right now we were right in front of the giant bronze door. If there were any mechanisms, we would be the first to bear the brunt, the first victims. Whether it was real or not, we had to stop this deformed zombie corpse.

I chased the Thousand-Handed Guanyin corpse and fired several bursts, but the bullets hit it like they were hitting rubber—they didn't penetrate or explode, it was like throwing mud into the sea, no reaction at all. Worst of all, it didn't react to us at all. I yelled to Fatty, "Explosives!"

Fatty suddenly remembered—he still had a few detonators on his belt that he'd prepared to threaten A Ning and the others. He immediately charged forward, leaped onto the back of the Thousand-Handed Guanyin corpse, and shoved the detonator into its mouth like a black donkey hoof. Then he nimbly jumped down.

I squinted and fired a burst. Somehow a bullet hit the detonator's fuse, and immediately the detonator exploded. The head and shoulders of the Thousand-Handed Guanyin corpse were blown apart. We were knocked to the ground by the shockwave, fragments and blast hitting us in the face. My chest felt tight, and my ears were ringing.

The strange birds above were stimulated by the intense sound and went crazy. I scrambled to my feet and saw the Thousand-Handed Guanyin corpse lying on the ground. I was overjoyed—explosives really were invincible.

Unexpectedly, Fatty still had a terrified expression and was shouting at me. I couldn't hear anything, only saw his mouth moving rapidly. It took a while before I understood: "Run! The flare is about to go out."

Before I could react to run, the light above disappeared within seconds. Darkness enveloped us like fog, and suddenly the only light left came from the flashlights in our hands. The surroundings became strangely quiet. The gunfire from those who had escaped into the depths of the rift gradually faded, leaving only our gasping breaths and thunderous heartbeats.

Fatty and I stood back to back. I unwrapped the bandage on my hand, revealing the bloody wound, praying my blood would also work on them. That professor or whoever had said that this qilin blood only worked on things that eat corpses, and I didn't know what these strange birds ate. Fatty raised his gun, clicked the magazine to count the bullets, looked up at the sky, and asked me what to do. I said, "If you're asking me, who am I supposed to ask?" Just as I spoke, a strange bird flapped its wings and landed about ten meters in front of us. The bird was enormous, standing taller than me. After landing, it twisted its ugly head a few times and stared straight at us, as if sizing us up. I faintly saw the fangs in its beak glint coldly. I quickly raised my hand, pointing the wound at it, but the strange bird didn't react much, just stood there motionless.

Then two more strange birds flew down—one landed to our left, one behind us. I kept turning my wound toward them, unsure of their intentions.

Gradually, more and more strange birds landed, one after another. Soon we were surrounded by these birds, a dark mass. They didn't act. I began to feel uneasy. These birds didn't seem affected by my blood at all, and yet they didn't attack immediately—it seemed like they had some scheme.