As the thought crossed my mind, figures suddenly appeared around me.
I couldn't make out their faces. The light talisman burned fiercely in my hand, yet each of them seemed veiled in mist.
No matter how closely I looked, I could see no more. There were five of them.
From their outlines, I judged that three were women and two were men.
There was something hollow about their presence, something deeply strange. I couldn't tell what they were: yao, demons, or ghosts.
'Liu Kunlun. You won't leave here alive.'
One of the figures spoke.
The words seemed meant for me, but the name meant nothing to me.
I had heard it earlier that day, in the Lin family's hall. The enormous creature there had called me the same thing.
Who was Liu Kunlun? Why did they all keep calling me by that name?
Before I could think any further, they attacked. I was hopelessly outmatched. After barely two exchanges, one of them drove a fist into my chest.
The blow jolted through my organs. Blood burst from my mouth.
They weren't so much surrounding me to attack as toying with me.
Four stood watching while the fifth slowly tormented me. A single blow could have killed me. For some reason, the attacker held back.
Instead, the attacks were wearing me down. Perhaps they had some other plan. Or perhaps something was holding them back, keeping them from using their full strength.
Just as I began to fear I wouldn't survive, a rustling rose around the edges of the amusement park.
I glanced sideways. Small snakes were pouring from the dark corners.
King cobras, mountain-crossing cobras, black-and-white banded snakes... There were venomous snakes I couldn't name, and enormous pythons. All converged on us as though obeying an order.
They covered the ground in a writhing mass. Anyone afraid of snakes might have fainted at the sight.
Strangely, they left me alone. They struck at the five figures instead.
The venom each carried was frightening, enough to kill an elephant.
Against these beings, I doubted it would do much good.
A contemptuous snort.
The figures let their power surge outward. Under its pressure, countless small snakes broke into pieces.
Blood and flesh flew through the air. The smell struck me full in the face, so strong it seemed to pierce my skull. Badly injured, I sank to the ground. I couldn't move. All I could do was watch.
Why had these snakes come to save me? I had no idea, but I was more worried that they stood no chance against the attackers.
Then several immense shapes emerged from the shadows.
I looked up. Giant snakes.
They looked exactly like the ones that had carried Grandfather's coffin that night.
No. They were the same snakes. They had come back.
I had seen the black one only that afternoon.
The white, green, and red ones I had seen just once. The force of their presence was overwhelming.
They weren't human, yet when they reared upright and fixed their eyes on you, it felt as though a ruler with no equal in the world was looking down at you. Even your soul seemed to tremble.
'The Four Serpent Lords? I didn't think they'd come themselves. Go!'
One of the shadowy figures spoke, already trying to leave.
But the great snakes weren't about to let them go so easily. They had just slaughtered so many of the smaller snakes.
Snakes tended to hold grudges. After what these figures had done, there would be no leaving the matter there.
The red serpent moved so fast that all I saw was a streak of red lightning through the darkness.
When I caught sight of it again, its enormous body was coiled around two of the figures.
A roar rang out.
The white serpent roared, and the black one moved. It was every bit as fast as the red.
In the blink of an eye, its jaws closed on one of the figures.
Before its victim could react, it opened its mouth wide and swallowed the figure whole.
The green serpent moved next. It vanished before my eyes, then wound itself around another of the figures.
Only one remained. I suspected this was the strongest of them.
The white serpent moved slowly toward him.
'Liu...'
Before he could say any more, the white serpent cut him off with a roar.
Its enormous tail came crashing down. Strangely, the figure neither dodged nor tried to block it.
He stood where he was and let it strike him.
When the serpent lifted its tail, only a mass of blood remained. The figure was gone.
The blow must have crushed him to a pulp.
I thought back over what I had seen. My pupils contracted.
At the instant the white serpent's tail swept down, I thought I had seen the air around it tremble.
It wasn't that the figure had chosen not to move. The serpent had locked the space around him, leaving him unable to move at all.
To manipulate space itself was beyond anything I had dared imagine.
The arts of time and space were among the most profound of all. The fight was over in moments.
The shadowy figures had been powerful, their presence uncanny.
Yet before these great snakes, they had been destroyed without leaving even a bone. The attackers weren't weak. The serpents were simply far stronger.
Their strength frightened me. But why had they come to save me? And why had they carried Grandfather's coffin?
Their power was terrifying.
Had Grandfather held such standing, or possessed such strength, that he could command them?
They had saved me more than once now. With the danger past, the four serpents began moving toward the depths of the mountain.
The smaller snakes vanished in an instant, as though everything I had seen had been a hallucination.
'Wait!' I called after the departing serpents.
The four immense bodies slowly came to a halt.