Chapter 106

Chapter 106: The First Time the Blade Tip Was Stained with Blood

One of them snapped: “Stop wasting words on her. She is obviously stalling for time. Hurry up and kill her.”

Another answered: “Fine, I will do it.”

The senior brother with the flamboyant bangs drew a longsword from his Storage Pouch, then stepped toward Rong Shu one measured stride at a time. The other two fanned out to block her front and back, cutting off any path of escape. Three at Qi Refining Stage, tenth level, bearing down on one at Qi Refining Stage, fourth level, was a complete mismatch. Even so, the three of them were about to do something foul—murder a fellow disciple—so they moved with extra caution.

Seeing this, Rong Shu sighed and muttered in words only she could understand: “First Wife, it seems I can no longer keep you suppressed.”

What First Wife? For such words to come out of a thirteen-year-old kid’s mouth felt eerie and wrong no matter how one heard it. But there was no time to think about it. The senior brother with the flamboyant bangs raised his sword and thrust straight for Rong Shu’s heart as he snarled: “Die.”

Rong Shu lifted her gaze to meet the incoming strike, her face unafraid; instead she stepped forward. In that instant, an immense surge of wind spiritual qi between heaven and earth gathered to her, and the wind spiritual qi within her body began to hum and boil. With a sharp crack, she shattered the bottleneck of Wind-attribute Qi Refining, tenth level.

Steel rang as Rong Shu caught the attack on a cross-hilted saber that appeared in her right hand. Before he could react, her empty left hand closed on air, another saber formed, the blade turned, and a cold arc flashed across the attacker’s throat. “You…” he managed only a single syllable. Blood gushed from the cut; pain crashed over him. His hand flew to his neck on reflex. A second flash sliced past—an eyeblink later, a wide-eyed head and a severed wrist spun into the air, and a headless body thudded to the ground.

“Zhang Qian!” one of the other two cried. The other blurted: “You’re Qi Refining tenth level?!”

From Rong Shu’s sudden breakthrough and revealed cultivation to the two strokes that ended Zhang Qian’s life, everything had happened within the span of two breaths. Hunters became lambs for the slaughter.

Expression calm, Rong Shu flicked blood from the saber’s tip, yet the faint tremor at her fingertips betrayed her. This was the first time her blade tip had been stained with blood—human blood.

She drew a steadying breath; the next heartbeat, her form dissolved into a smear of black mist and slipped into the dim ground. [Stealth]

This imprisoning formation could not reproduce a full world. The world inside it was murky and lifeless. Precisely for that reason, it gave Rong Shu a battlefield where the darkness itself favored her. When the two saw her vanish, their faces twisted with shock.

They edged about with swords drawn and demanded: “Where is she? Where did she go?” In their alarm they overlooked the most ordinary of things: shadows on the ground.

A barely discernible blot of darkness darted through the interlaced light and shade and slid, silent as breath, into the silhouette of one of the men. The next instant, two dagger points burst out of that shadow and Rong Shu’s figure surfaced with them. [Shadow Kill]

Metal tore flesh with a ripping hiss as gold-lit blade tips hacked across his thighs, the knife wind ruthless and certain of the kill. He screamed: “Ah!” Agony flared at both knees; his legs were cleaved and he toppled, helpless. Rong Shu seized the moment and, with a backhanded stab, drove a blade into the space between his brows, pinning him to the ground.

As she rose, the dark spiritual qi within her roared in jubilation. Dark-attribute Qi Refining, tenth level—breakthrough.

She glanced at the blood wetting her blade again and felt a quiet stirring within: nourish battle with battle. It was the advancement path that belonged to the Dark, sovereign of shadows.

“Next is…” She lifted her eyes to the last senior brother present and let a faint, cool smile touch her lips as she asked: “Senior brother, now can you tell me why you thought it was fine to bully a defenseless little young lady like me?”

The survivor swallowed hard, terror in his eyes. Hearing her question, all trace of swagger vanished as he shook his head repeatedly and stammered: “I… I don’t know… a masked man came to us out of nowhere, told us to wait for the right chance, and then… and then…”

He could not bring himself to repeat the words kill Rong Shu in front of the girl who had become more like a god of slaughter than prey. In this moment he dared think of only one thing: keeping his life, finding a way to flee. He blurted: “When it was done, he promised us cultivation resources all the way up to the Golden Core Stage. I truly don’t know anything else! Junior Sister Rong, a debt has its debtor—go find that masked man! This really has nothing to do with me!”

Having heard what she wanted, Rong Shu casually flicked the saber in her right hand toward him. Strung tight as a bow, he flinched aside from the spinning blade and snapped, face twisting with anger: “Rong Shu! So you want mutual destruction? We’re both Qi Refining tenth level. If we fight head-on, you might not beat me!”

Rong Shu answered with layered meaning: “Senior brother, when did I ever say I was Qi Refining tenth level?”

At that, his heart clenched; terror spiked. What… did she mean? Could it be that Rong Shu was—

In that brief lapse, the saber that had flown past hooked a sudden arc and knifed back toward him from behind.