Free Web NovelChapter 2123: Chapter 1985: Marching Ants of the Desert (Part 4)
Inside the sand dunes are heaps of skeletons, covered by a thin layer of sand on the outside. When Master Benwu shook them, the sand fell away, and moonlight seeped through the piles of bones, scattering fragmented light onto the ground. ƒreewebɳovel.com
The sound of the wind began to resonate in everyone’s ears.
As the wind rose, the night ghosts cried.
The wind came closer, increasing in speed, the cold gusts intermingled with sand scraping against everyone’s faces, blowing through the hollow skeletons, producing a clear whistle.
The group felt their hearts stirred.
"Amitabha Buddha." Master Benwu recited a Buddhist chant again.
The group steadied their minds and continued walking.
Yet still, they could not reach the center of Lop Nur.
Master Benwu paced around and occasionally stomped on the ground. After a while, he pointed to a spot and said, "Dig!"
The warriors began digging at that spot.
With the first shovel, the wind suddenly intensified, the sound of the bone flute became shrill, as if countless people were struggling in agony.
Moreover, the previously motionless skeletons began to stir.
All kinds of skeletons seemed to come alive, slowly waking, stumbling towards Song Xiaodong and the others.
"Xiaodong..." Sun Yiyi and Chu Xianling had seen these things in Africa, but Chu Xianling hadn’t, and seeing them for the first time naturally made her nervous. Chu Xianling hid beside Song Xiaodong and placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Attack!" Zhao Ruonan gestured.
The warriors opened fire on the nearest pile of bones, the gunshots echoed, fire tongues spattered, shattering the bones into fragments.
After digging several shovels, the sand began to feel damp, turning a dark red color, and a bloody smell began to permeate the air.
Liquid started seeping from the sandpit.
A young warrior used his hand to scoop, only to have his hands covered in fresh blood.
The young warrior was petrified, took a while to react, then staggered aside to vomit.
Master Benwu maintained a calm expression, but upon seeing this, his face suddenly turned grim.
"Wretched creatures!" Master Benwu exclaimed, pulling out a handwritten copy of the "Diamond Sutra" from his pocket, handing it to a young warrior, saying: "Rip each page and stick it on the ground."
The young warrior complied, tearing the Buddhist scripture into individual pages and pasting them on the ground.
In the harsh desert wind, the pages covered with text clung to the ground as if charged with static electricity, the wind was able to blow away small bone fragments but couldn’t move a single page.
Song Xiaodong and the others stepped onto the scriptures.
More skeletal animals emerged from the surrounding bone piles, stepping onto the scriptures, which immediately ignited, flaring with a ghostly blue flame, reducing the bones to ashes.
The sandpit stained with blood was also covered with a page, but was soon soaked in blood, making the text unreadable.
The sandpit quickly filled with blood, which began to spread towards other pages.
Master Benwu, steeling himself, pulled out another scroll of scripture from his pocket, the "Great Shurangama Sutra," a long and thick handwritten tome densely packed with tiny characters. After closing his eyes and muttering something, he instructed everyone: "Step back, make room."
Everyone hurriedly retreated.
Seeing everyone retreat, Master Benwu flung the scripture with a swish into the blood-filled pit. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
The splash of blood sprayed everywhere, Master Benwu swiftly stepped back three paces, and as the blood landed on the scripture on the ground, the pages immediately ignited.
The Buddhist scripture soaking up a lot of blood began to burn as well, like a candle wick, absorbing the blood from the pit, the scripture started to automatically flip open, burning page by page.
The blood level in the pit began to drop.
The burning blood emitted extremely mournful screams.
More skeletons crawled towards Song Xiaodong and the others, the pages on the ground quickly burning to nothing.
Chapter 1988: This Bodily Form Is Not of Concern
"Attack!"
Zhao Ruonan ordered again.
Another round of shooting drove the skeletons back.
But behind the shattered bones scattered on the ground, were mountains of piled bones, countless more skeletons could yet awaken.
It was unclear where so many animal corpses came from in this desolate desert.
The "Shurangama Sutra" quickly burned through as well.
The pit’s blood level ceased rising temporarily.
At this point, the nearest bone mountain to Song Xiaodong and the others suddenly emitted a loud crash, the broken bones crumbling down, revealing a slender skeleton awakening, bending its body, slithering towards Song Xiaodong and the others like a snake.
"Fire!"
After a round of shooting, the snake’s body shattered into countless segments, leaving only a basketball-sized snake head, dropping at Song Xiaodong’s feet.
"Are there also pythons in the desert?" Song Xiaodong asked.
"Sect Leader Song, this formation is called the Bone Array, do you have any means to break it?" Master Benwu inquired of Song Xiaodong.
"Bone Array?" Song Xiaodong quickly scanned his mind and discovered records of such a formation in the Dragon Gate Secret Vault.
It’s a low-level formation, primarily intended to confuse, but due to its massive scale, it relies on quantity to prevail, hence the method to break it is quite primitive and violent.
"Use fire," Song Xiaodong suggested.
"Get the incendiary grenades and flamethrowers," Zhao Ruonan commanded.
The warriors unpacked flamethrowers, incendiary grenades from backpacks, and soon set several bone mountains ablaze, the wind fueled the flames, burning fiercely.
Before long, the flames started to dwindle, the stench of blood in the air intensified.
