Chapter Sixty-Four: Summoning the Soul

"My little bird!" Qingying's body trembled slightly, gazing sorrowfully at Ji Hao. "There's no way to notify your father now, Hao—what should we do?"

"Just wait patiently," Ji Hao replied, pulling a venomous thorn from the brambles and idly playing with it in his hand. "I'm the bait, and Father is the fish. Let's wait and see—see what tricks they still have up their sleeves."

"My little bird!" Qingying's face darkened, and behind him, a streak of azure whirlwind spun rapidly. He gritted his teeth. "It was back when I was just old enough to understand things. Mother helped me hatch that bird; I treated it like a brother!"

Streams of azure light poured into the longbow in his hands. One by one, runes flared to life upon the bow, and in a blink, over a hundred blue runes shone along its limbs.

Ji Hao stared in awe at Qingying's longbow—over a hundred witch runes. Aside from the Firestarter Staff, this was the most powerful witch artifact he had ever seen. Compared to this bow, Qingfu's Life-and-Death Stinger and the Wood Pearl, both legacy treasures, seemed utterly weak.

"So biased!" Ji Hao muttered indistinctly.

"Sister married into the Fire Crow Tribe—she couldn't take the best legacy treasure from the Azure Barb Tribe with her, could she?" Qingying snorted. "This bow is our tribe's strongest legacy artifact… yes, right now, it's the strongest in the Azure Barb Tribe."

Three arrows were nocked onto the bowstring as Qingying drew the longbow, aiming at the burly man across the river who was loudly provoking them.

Towering over thirty feet tall, his head bristling with sharp little horns, his face twisted as a ghost's, and his exposed body covered in totems of grimacing faces, the brute waved a pitch-black wooden stake, leaping and taunting toward the cliff.

"Hey, cowards of the Fire Crow Tribe, come fight! I am Redhorn from the Fierce Ghost Tribe—who among you dares face me?"

A faint sound of wind arose, like the silent sigh of a maiden in her chamber, and the three arrows vanished without a trace.

In the next instant, the arrows appeared abruptly before Redhorn. Though burly and strong, his movements were inevitably clumsy; he let out a shriek as two arrows pierced his eyeballs, each as large as a rice bowl, while the third arrow entered through his mouth, spinning rapidly as it bored through the back of his neck.

A torrent of black blood sprayed forth; blood gushed from Redhorn's eyes as he cursed in pain, reaching up to yank out the arrows.

Dark fumes poured from Redhorn's body, which slowly became semi-transparent. After flickering for a while, his form solidified again, and all wounds vanished without a trace—even his pierced eyes were restored.

"Ha ha, this kind of attack is useless against a warrior of the Fierce Ghost Tribe!" Redhorn raised his wooden stake high and shouted toward the cliff, "Are all Fire Crow warriors cowards? Come, let me smash your skull!"

From the dense forest came increasingly raucous cheers, and soon large groups of warriors burst forth, leaping across the small river and cautiously advancing toward the cliff.

Thousands of warriors crossed the river, among them dozens of Fierce Ghost Tribe warriors towering over twenty feet tall. Each had a twisted, ferocious face like a specter; every step shook the earth beneath them.

"Hao!" Qingying turned to glance at Ji Hao.

"Wait," Ji Hao replied calmly. "Wait and see what they intend to do."

He vigorously rubbed the bear cub's small ears, then sat cross-legged on the ground, utterly unconcerned by the approaching enemy.

Deep within the forest, about twenty miles from the Fire Leopard Tribe's encampment, a small clearing ten yards across had been artificially opened. Jiang Yao stood on the edge, draped in an exceedingly luxurious silk cloak, her posture proud and arrogant.

Jiang Xue, recently rescued from the Black Water Turtle's captivity, was also clad in fine garments. With deep-seated hatred in her eyes, she stood beside Jiang Yao, muttering curses through clenched teeth: "Aunt, make Ji Hao die! I want to slice him up piece by piece and feed his flesh to the worms!"

Jiang Yao smiled gently, stroking Jiang Xue's fair, delicate cheek. "He will die—certainly… Well, what do you think of Ji Hou's son? He's not as good as Wu, but if you marry him, Aunt will treat you just like her own daughter."

"So long as Ji Hao dies!" Jiang Xue's eyes flashed fiercely as she whispered through gritted teeth.

"Then let him die!" Jiang Yao's snowy visage twisted slightly. "If not for him, Wu wouldn't have died… If not for him, you wouldn't have fallen into that old Black Water Turtle's hands, making me pay so much to get you back!"

From the woods emerged a massive horned black serpent, atop which Black Water Black Jiao sat, greedily eyeing Jiang Yao's fiery figure. "Jiang Yao, you shouldn't say such things. At least now we share a common target, yes? Remember, the heads of Ji Xia and his son are mine."

He inhaled deeply, speaking with pride. "My tribe's sacred land has offered a bounty—if I deliver Ji Xia's head to the ancestral spirits, I'll receive a legacy artifact. And if I bring Ji Hao's head as well, the Fire Crow Tribe's imperial line—Ji Xia's bloodline—will be severed. What extra rewards do you think I'll earn then?"

"Hush!" Before the altar built from black human bones, a shriveled, dwarfish old witch priest, his skin pitch-black and tightly drawn over his frame, let out a quiet "hush." He turned, muttering, "Silence! The Soul Summoning art of my Specter Tribe is powerful—but… it requires quiet! If you disturb our ancestral spirits and danger befalls you, don't blame me!"

Jiang Yao and Jiang Xue clamped their mouths shut.

Black Water Black Jiao stared hard at the old witch priest, a flash of uncontrollable greed and viciousness in his eyes.

The old man produced a black bone wand and danced wildly around the altar, chanting softly, now and then inserting Ji Hao's name into the incantation.

On the altar sat a small effigy made of human skin, with a strand of black hair swaying gently at its waist.

Jiang Yao smiled slightly at the sight of that strand—it had taken great effort to retrieve these few hairs from Ji Xia's household in Golden Crow Ridge, but now it seemed all the effort was worthwhile.

As long as the blood of Ji Xia and Ji Hao fell into her hands… heh!

Suddenly, the effigy leapt up, moving like a living person in time with the old witch priest's motions.

A wisp of black smoke rose from the altar, slowly sketching a twisted, faceless visage above it.

"Ji Hao~~~"

The face let out a sharp cry, and countless insects and birds throughout the surrounding forest exploded in a burst.

Behind the Fire Leopard Tribe's encampment, atop the cliff, Ji Hao's body suddenly stiffened; his vision was awash with blood, and he jolted up as though shocked by electricity.

Under Qingying's horrified gaze, Ji Hao's body moved uncontrollably, striding out along the winding path through the poisonous brambles, and within a few breaths, he was nearly beyond the thicket's protective reach.

***

When I was little, elders always said: If you hear someone calling your name at night, never answer!

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