Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The pagoda had six floors in all, each roughly four meters high. I did the math in my head. After dozens of steps, I should have reached the second floor by now no matter what.

But there was no entrance to the second floor on this staircase.

Towering walls rose on both sides, with a narrow wooden staircase squeezed between them. No matter how far I walked, it felt like there was no end.

My legs were aching by the time I finally stopped to rest.

At intervals along the walls were niches, each holding a Buddhist statue.

I shone my flashlight on the statue beside me. It was only thirty or forty centimeters tall, painted in vivid colors and rendered so lifelike it almost seemed real. The more I looked at it, though, the more familiar it seemed.

I stared for a while, then suddenly realized-wasn’t this the monk who had received us earlier? Round head, big ears… what was his name again? Fayuan.

Before I could stop myself, I reached out to touch the statue.

The moment my fingers brushed its head, a faint click sounded by my ear.

The next instant, the wooden step beneath my foot vanished.

My body dropped into empty air. A terrifying sense of weightlessness hit me, and my heart seemed to hang in midair along with me. In a panic, I flailed, trying to brace my hands against the walls on either side.

The stairwell was only sixty or seventy centimeters wide. In theory, as long as I could wedge my hands and feet against the walls, I should be able to hold myself suspended.

But I had no idea what those walls were made of. They were as slick as if someone had poured oil over them. My palms slid right off without finding any purchase.

My body plummeted, and my mind went completely blank.

Damn it. I had no idea how long I’d been climbing. If I fell straight down from more than ten meters up, even if I didn’t die, I’d be crippled.

Think of something. Fast.

I reached for the bag on my back, but before my hand even made it halfway, something grabbed me.

My fall stopped abruptly. The inertia slammed my whole body hard against the wall.

I focused my eyes and saw a deathly pale hand reaching out from inside the wall, gripping my wrist.

That hand was as thin as a bundle of sticks. Its skin was so white it had a bluish cast, and the veins twisting along its arm looked like coiled centipedes.

Then a second hand emerged from the wall and grabbed my left leg.

More and more hands began sprouting from the wall like bamboo shoots after rain, reaching for every part of me.

They were terrifyingly strong. Once they latched on, they yanked me viciously toward the wall. My back was pressed flat against it, and the crushing force sent a wave of agony through me.

I could almost hear the bones inside my body being compressed, making cracking sounds. The pain was so intense cold sweat poured down my face.

I had landed myself in a painfully awkward, impossible situation.

Logically, I should have taken out the Thunderstruck Wood Talisman and dealt with these hands. But if I got rid of them, I’d fall.

It seemed like I only had two choices: get dragged into the wall and crushed to death, or drop and smash myself to death.

My back, legs, and arms hurt more and more. When the pain reached its limit, it instead forced a bit of ruthlessness out of my bones.

I formed a thunder seal with my fingers and shouted, “Five Thunders, gather at once! Roar with lightning, strike with swift thunder!”

A flash of thunderlight burst out. The ghostly hands gripping my arm were severed one after another, black blood spilling from the stumps. Then the blood began to writhe, and new arms slowly grew out again.

But my right hand was free.

Seizing the chance, I formed a Vajra Seal with my hand and slammed it into the wall.

I hammered it again and again. My finger joints struck the wall with brutal force, skin scraping against stone until blood seeped out.

My blood strengthened the power of the Vajra Seal. I drove another savage punch into the wall.

With a boom, the wall cracked open, revealing a hole.

Every arm in the wall snapped at once and fell away together. My body dropped with them. In that split second between life and death, my reflexes kicked in, and my fingertips hooked onto the edge of the broken wall, barely managing to hang on.

I let out a breath of relief, then got my other hand up as well. Digging in with my fingers, I planted my toes against the wall and started climbing.

Just as I had managed to push myself up and my head rose above the opening, a human face suddenly appeared in front of me.

He was crouching on the ground, head tilted, so close we were practically face-to-face, nose to nose.

I was so startled I nearly let go.

Song Tianming stared at me, his eyes filled with venom, and gave me an utterly wicked smile.

“Go to hell.”

As he spoke, he stood and kicked viciously at my head.