Chapter 044

Chapter 44: Can’t, But We Can Learn

One in green and one in white arrived one after the other. The young woman in green still looked innocent; when she threw her sword and came over, a clean fragrance followed as she landed in front of Fang He An and Li Wan Zhi.

She stood there without hesitation, planting herself in front of them. Her small face was tight, her expression very serious. Fang He An almost cried as he called out: “Senior sister.”

The first to rush over was Bai Jian. She tossed her heavy sword ahead as she ran; a moment later, another blade, the Heart Questioning Sword, hummed into the air, and its owner stepped across the sky to catch up.

Xue Wu stared at the two newcomers. He could not see through one of their auras, which meant that one stood above his realm. But the other one… was only at the Qi Refining Stage. He froze at the sight of her walking on air. [What a joke.] What kind of Qi Refining Stage could fly?

As the two girls’ eyes swept over him, the hair on Xue Wu’s arms stood up. Years of living on the knife’s edge sent a warning through him. He shouted to his partners even as he turned to bolt: “Something’s wrong!”

He dragged Xue Yin and Xue Dong to run, but Ye Wan Wan and Bai Jian moved at the same time. Bai Jian’s attacks were always straight and direct. She drew the Greatforce Sword and slashed sideways. The thick blade qi smashed into all three of them and sent them tumbling.

She rushed after the strongest, locking onto Xue Wu. The other two, Xue Yin and Xue Dong, felt the danger and used the chance to flee.

Ye Wan Wan gave a soft laugh and lifted her hand: “You bullied my senior brother and still want to run?”

She pinched a sign and cast out a ring of array patterns. In a blink, the lines spread and covered the whole area.

“Run!” Xue Wu roared.

Xue Dong tried to break out, but the power of the Array Arts bounced him back. His face changed as he blurted: “Array Master!”

“Pretty sharp,” the girl said as she appeared right before him.

Xue Dong’s expression flipped. He thrust his palm, hoping to catch Ye Wan Wan off guard and seriously injure her. His strike passed through her.

An afterimage.

“Senior brother Xue Dong, behind you!” Xue Yin shouted.

Xue Dong turned. The girl stood in a thin mist. Her eyes were cold and without pity. The sword in her hand looked ordinary, and her aura felt like the lowest Qi Refining Stage.

But when the sword qi pierced his body, he still could not understand why he could not stop it. The Heart Questioning Sword stabbed through his heart. In his fading mind, a voice asked him: “What is your biggest regret in this life?”

Xue Dong opened his mouth and answered: “My regret is…” He had not reached Nascent Soul. He could not go home to tell his parents that from now on, their whole clan would be under his protection.

With a thud, Xue Dong fell.

The sound drew Xue Yin’s and Xue Wu’s attention. Their eyes went blood red. Xue Yin raised his bow with a snarl: “Die! Go die for me!”

But his aim was not at Ye Wan Wan. It was at Fang He An. He clearly knew who was easiest to take.

Ye Wan Wan swept her hand. The Heart Questioning Sword split one into a hundred and wove a round net of blades that blocked the blood arrows Xue Yin had formed with his qi. She stepped forward and closed in on Xue Yin. Seeing his sneak attack fail, he turned his target to her.

A blood arrow split into eight in midair. Each one aimed for one of her vital points.

The girl’s hand moved like an unbreakable shield. She lifted her arm and closed her fingers, catching all eight blood arrows in her palm, then crushed them.

Xue Yin’s pupils tightened. He rasped: “Who in the world are you?”

Ye Wan Wan lifted her eyes and answered in a flat tone: “The one who came for your life.”

In a panic, Xue Yin loosed a rain of blood arrows. He no longer had time to draw the spirit bow, so he drew power from the blood on his body itself, condensing his killing move. At the Golden Core realm, he unleashed his strongest strike, the one that could badly wound even a Late Golden Core cultivator. He shouted with mad pride: “This is my own creation, Azure Dragon Emerges! One last time, can you dodge this?”

He burned his own blood and chose a unique move that would drag the enemy down with him. When the beast shadow rose from the blood droplets, when a huge blood dragon coiled into the sky and its Late Golden Core pressure roared down, the whole forest trembled. Xue Yin swelled with pride. This was the strongest strike he had made as a genius of the Blood Rainbow Pavilion, a technique that had stunned even his master and earned high praise. Here, in this secret realm, before the talents of many sects, he would finally make his name. As long as he won today, Xue Yin would be famous across the world.

He stared at Ye Wan Wan, wanting to see awe in her eyes, to see panic and confusion. He saw none. She looked at the flying blood dragon and seemed to be asking him with her gaze: “That’s it?”

Xue Yin’s smile slowly died.

Off to the side, Fang He An muttered in confusion: “What ‘Azure’ Dragon? Isn’t it a blood dragon?”

“…”

“And with such a big show, how much attack power is even left?”

“You know nothing!” Xue Yin snarled back, losing his temper.

“Just bluffing,” Ye Wan Wan said. Spirit power poured from her fingers. Between them a rune slowly took shape, the lines Shapeshifting into a pattern that shone under the sunlight. It was smaller than the blood dragon in the sky, but it drew the eye more.

The blood dragon spat a storm of arrows meant to pierce her heart. Her guarding rune blocked them completely. Standing behind the glow, she did not show the slightest strain or weakness. She simply stood there, calm and light, like a goddess looking down on all beings.

Xue Yin snapped: “Who… are you?”

Ye Wan Wan answered, her tone mild: “Heavenly One Sect, Ye Wan Wan.”

Ye Wan Wan. The name sounded familiar, like he had heard it somewhere before. Xue Wu’s face changed first as he blurted: “Supreme Sect Azure Cloud Peak’s Ye Wan Wan, junior disciple of Yan Ding, Dao Sovereign, the one who reached Core Formation at fifteen?”

A voice corrected him at once: “Senior brother, that was sixteen!”

Xue Wu’s voice shook: “No, the one who did it at sixteen was someone else. She was the first.”

Although Ye Qian had let the outside world assume she was the fifteen-year Core Formation prodigy, among the elite disciples of all the sects, the top genius had never been her. It was Ye Wan Wan.

“But weren’t you…” Dead? The question stuck in his throat.

Ye Wan Wan frowned. “Do you people have too many questions?”

She flicked her hand and sent the blood arrows back. They punched through Xue Yin’s chest. She did not spare Xue Wu either.

“We can keep it quiet!” Xue Wu shouted.

The girl did not stop. When the blood arrows swallowed them, and the breath of the two brothers faded in the forest, Ye Wan Wan’s voice drifted out, faint and cold: “Only dead people can keep secrets.”

[Not that I thought much about secrecy, but you hurt my third senior brother.] Xue Wu died with eyes wide open that would not close.

Ye Wan Wan turned and walked the other way. Bai Jian and Fang He An called in a hurry, asking: “Where are you going?”

She pointed ahead: “Two more. I will handle them too.”

Only then did the two relax. They had worried she would leave and not come back. Ye Wan Wan went fast and returned just as fast. She carried two more bodies, laid them beside Xue Wu and the others, then seemed to remember something. She looked back at her three companions and asked: “Do you know how to bury bodies?”

Fang He An thought it over and answered: “I don’t, but I can learn.”

Bai Jian nodded hard in support and added: “Right! Learn!”