Blood Moon looked up from the shadows beneath a root of the tree she had to guard. Her internal organs were severely injured, to the point that even in her shadow form, her body ached all over. While she snarled and vowed to kill that fearsome and abnormal cultivator—who, despite being only at the Core Splitting realm's second stage, possessed such strength—she actually hoped he would ignore her and proceed to the other source of the mist. She guarded this tree not because she wanted to; rather, it was an order from that Whore Princess, one she could not disobey. She would have been glad if that bitch died gruesomely, but she would also perish if she died.

Blood Moon groaned inside the shadow as that troublesome cultivator, wreathed in lightning, stood atop a floating platform. His eyes were focused, his eyebrows as straight as swords, and his intent to attack was clear.

Blood Moon gritted her teeth inside the shadow, lamenting why her life was so wretched. Now, she needed to fight to the death to protect this damn tree!

When the man summoned a turtle made from stone, she clenched both of her daggers tightly. It was true that she hated that Whore Princess, and it was also true that she did not care about whatever lay beneath this tree. But since she would also die if she disobeyed her command, and since she wanted to live, she needed to fight and kill this bastard who had decided to attack this tree.

The stone turtle he summoned began to grow bigger and bigger; then he rotated the turtle around him, causing it to orbit him diagonally. When she saw this, she pressed her lips. Surely, he wouldn't do what she thought he would do, right?

Blood Moon was an assassination specialist. Her techniques revolved around her Heaven Grade Technique, which allowed her to sink into shadows. To this day, while she was the best at killing, she lacked powerful and flashy techniques and didn't have a way to protect a damn tree from a large-area attack. She was an elder in name only, after all.

The order to protect this tree, as well as the order that enslaved her to do everything she could to be useful to the Whore Princess—which meant she needed to live—warred within her. These two orders fought inside her mind, while her heart screamed for her to just move and ignore both of them. Something she could not do.

"Damnit!"

In the end, both orders compelled her to do something. So, she came out from the shadows and jumped toward the hurling turtle. As she flew toward the stone turtle, which grew closer and closer, eclipsing the sky and the cloud of smoke above, she gritted her teeth and activated her enhancement technique. Instantly, she was shrouded entirely in shadow, only her eyes shining with white light, making her look like a ghost emerging from a nightmare. She enhanced both of her daggers with this technique, extended both of them forward, and shouted as hard as she could.

When both of her daggers touched the stone turtle, bright sparks flew from the collision. In a split second, she saw that her two daggers had not even scratched the turtle. Her enhanced body was not capable of redirecting the huge turtle, let alone destroying it. Still, she pushed as hard as she could.

As she tried to fight the stone turtle, she thought how unlucky her life was.

She was merely an orphan who had trained from the age of five to kill people. When a cultivator decided she had enough talent to cultivate, she thought she would be propelled into a life full of abundance and freedom. The abundance part had been realized, but the freedom part had not.

When both of her daggers broke, she grimaced, but the order of the Whore Princess compelled her to push the turtle with her own hands, which did not work at all.

The turtle slammed into her body as if a mountain had fallen on her, and then, she was pushed like a fly stuck to the sole of a human's shoe. As she was stuck there, she looked down and could see the tree she was supposed to guard getting closer at a rapid pace. Soon, her back slammed into several branches, and then her body slammed into the tree trunk. She spat a mouthful of blood as she screamed angrily to the heavens.

Why, why the hell was her life so unlucky? She suddenly remembered the saying about one's past flashing before death, and then she remembered all her past.

She... she had not been a good person. She had stolen, scammed, robbed, and killed people. Sometimes she had done those things because of necessity, sometimes because she could, and sometimes because she enjoyed it. But she was a cultivator! She was strong! And from her experience, the strong could do anything they wanted. Surely, it should have been okay for her to kill and skin alive the man who had raised her to be a killer. Surely, it should have been okay for her to cut off the dick of the man who had wanted to rape her sister and push that bloody meat into his mouth. Surely, it should have been okay for her to massacre an entire family that had dared to insult her height. Surely, surely, surely she had done nothing wrong in her entire life! She had not done anything wrong. The ones in the wrong were that Whore Princess, that despicable, backstabbing, and cutthroat sect, and this damn cultivator wreathed in lightning who hurled a stone turtle at an innocent woman.

"Who the fuck are you?!" she shouted. "Don't you know who I am? I'm Blood Moon—"

As she shouted, the giant turtle slammed into the ground, crushing several trees as well as Blood Moon, who was still stuck to the shell of the turtle statue. When it hit the ground, a giant thud, accompanied by an earthquake, shook the world. A giant cloud of dust rose into the air, and the shockwave pushed the wind and mist, creating a gust of wind that toppled everything and cleared the surrounding area of mist. The targeted tree was destroyed, reduced to splinters, and the demonic cultivator who had been stuck to the turtle statue transformed into a bloody stain upon it.

And thus, Blood Moon was no more.

***

Liu Xing fell from the air and landed on a toppled tree close to his upside-down turtle statue. He was quite surprised by the outcome of the fight. While he had intended to kill the woman, he never thought his opponent would be crushed so easily. His statue was heavy, but he had been quite sure it would be countered or deflected, or that, at the very least, his opponent would simply dodge to the side. Her actions had looked so foolish and suicidal that the only reasonable explanation that came to his mind was that this was a trap.

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He frowned and looked around, his body still wreathed in lightning, and he materialized a lightning blade in his right hand. As he looked around, he could see the mist, dispersed by the descent of his turtle, slowly rolling back, trying to blanket everything again. Liu Xing stayed vigilant. His eyes scanned the surroundings, and his heart beat steadily as he considered what he needed to do to defeat this specific opponent. Her ability to dissolve into shadow was troublesome, but it was not impossible to counter; after all, she needed to materialize herself to attack, and so, the best time to strike was at the same moment she attacked.

He waited for several more seconds, and then several more. He realized that too much time had passed, and doubt began to creep into his mind. Was she truly dead, or had she escaped?

Liu Xing began to walk, vigilantly at first, but the more steps he took, the deeper his frown became. Soon, he arrived near his turtle, which lay upside down. Beneath it were the crushed remains of the tree that had supposedly been his target. He thought for a moment and then decided to dismiss the statue. Soon, a large crater lay before him.

It was deep and filled with splintered bark, stone, and other debris pressed into the earth. In the middle of the crater, he could see the remnants of the tree, as well as black clothes entirely drenched in blood. Chunks of flesh, hair, and innards coated what remained of the tree, as if the woman had been a balloon filled with blood that had then popped. It was gruesome; the smell of blood permeated the air.

"She is dead," Liu Xing muttered. It felt surreal for the fight to end so abruptly, yet, wasn't this what he wanted? A swift fight that wasted no time?

Liu Xing inhaled deeply, trying to calm his mind, and then nodded. It was indeed what he had wanted. He needed to kill these demonic cultivators as effectively and efficiently as possible to spare unnecessary deaths on the side he supported. There was a strange feeling in his heart, as if it could not be fully content with the death of his recent enemy and yearned to unravel the mystery surrounding her. But he pushed that thought aside and focused on his self-appointed task. He needed to stop the source of the mist.

Looking around swiftly, he tried to locate the spot that gushed mist. It had been under the roots of the destroyed tree before, so it had to be nearby.

As he looked around, he indeed saw several spots that emitted mist, looking almost like smoke. But aside from that, he saw something that made his stomach churn. He was not entirely surprised, but it was still bad news nonetheless. Atop a chunk of flesh that loose resembled a crushed head, he saw a black smoke floating lazity. It was faint, barely visible, yet by this point, he knew that darkness well.

He moved closer and observed the darkness more clearly. It was far fainter than any darkness he had ever seen, like the wisp of smoke after blowing out a candle. The demonic cultivator before her had exuded a thicker darkness, despite being weaker.

For a moment, he thought to summon his gun and absorb this darkness. But as he focused on the eye that oversaw the gun, he saw it rapidly shooting Exploding Fist bullets at the dragon, aiding a man enveloped in a blue aura, so he decided against it.

The darkness hovered in the air for a while, slowly rising higher, and then vanished as if it had evaporated. This darkness was somewhat different from usual. Perhaps if the woman were still alive, he might have found something interesting that made her different from others, but alas, there was no use lamenting that fact.

He refocused his mind and, flexing his lightning blade, swiftly dug at the ground where the mist gushed out. Soon, he unraveled its source. And as he saw it, Liu Xing's brows furrowed.

It was a mummified corpse with skin so rough and dry it resembled old leather. The mummified face had its mouth wide open, its empty eye sockets gaping, as if the mummy had died mid-scream. From its hands, feet, chest, and head, white mist gushed out, as if its soul were escaping the body in vaporous form.

Upon seeing this mummy, Liu Xing's heart beat faster, and his stomach began to churn as if a wasp buzzed within it. The mummy emitted a foul qi that made him shudder, as well as gibberish whispers. The longer he looked, the clearer the words became. Curiosity about the words began to form in his mind, growing more intense each second, as if the whispers contained the secrets of the universe. His gun and the stone blade shuddered as Liu Xing began to lose control of his mind.

Instantly, he understood what was happening. It was a mental attack!

Realizing this, he hurriedly extended his lightning blade and intended to strike the mummy. But as soon as he moved, the mist at the edge of the crater began to move and churn, rushing toward him as if trying to drown him.

He swung his lightning blade downward, trying to split the mummy in two. He then heard growling from all around, as if thousands of spirit beasts surrounded him. When the lightning blade was mere centimeters from it, Liu Xing's hand trembled, and he stopped. His mind screamed at him not to destroy the mummy. It wanted to know the secrets of the universe.

"Damn it!" Mental attacks were always fearsome; it felt as if he were rebelling against his own mind. He knew the mummy needed to be destroyed, yet he found himself unwilling to do so.

As more and more of the strange qi surrounded him, the eye that followed his stone blade saw the fire dragon suddenly turn its body and fly away from the group it had been trying to kill. In the sky, the eye that oversaw everything also saw widespread activity cease for a single instance; then, many people suddenly moved in one direction, as if they had heard an order from an emperor and were trying to obey.

Liu Xing fought with his own mind, trying to think logically that all of this was merely a mental attack, and the mummy was nothing but a conduit for a technique.

He tried his best to force the lightning blade down. When it touched the mummy's forehead, the whispers in his mind suddenly increased a hundredfold. Thousands upon thousands of words flooded his mind; some were profound, but he could not grasp their meaning. Then there was a sweet female voice that promised him everything if he just waited still and listened.

At that moment, something crashed into his back and made him stumble. Pain stung his back, and for an instant, he was suddenly aware of his surroundings. To his right, a giant fire silhouette in the general form of a dragon was nearby, and to his left, he saw people enveloped in fire lunged at him with twisted faces and murder in their eyes. He looked behind, searching for the one who had hit him, and was surprised to see his shark.

In that instant, he understood what his shark had done. It had realized Liu Xing was under a mental attack and so had tried to help him.

Liu Xing grinned, glad to have his shark. While words and whispers still circulated in his mind, he swung down his lightning blade.

"Die!" Liu Xing shouted.

At the same time, the fire dragon unleashed a potent breath attack toward him, while demonic cultivators enveloped in fire rained down a myriad of attacks upon him.

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