Liu Xing shouted so loudly that the wind he created rippled across the sea. He accelerated faster and faster, to the point that the world became a blur, yet his focus was fixed on two people. One was Fang Ruxue, who was running with her hands extended as if trying to grab invisible hands that could save her. Behind her was a man with a white and bloodied spear.

His shout was a reflex, one meant to announce his presence and perhaps distract the spearman, buying him time to save her. And yet, while the man snapped his head toward him, even as Liu Xing kicked his shield to go faster and faster until the sounds of thunderclaps echoed, even as he cycled his qi to activate the Lightning Palm Technique as fast as he could and shot a bullet forward, the man chose to swing his spear toward Fang Ruxue instead of defending himself.

As the distance between Liu Xing and the man closed, and as the Lightning Palm Bullet flew faster than him, aimed straight for the man, the spear was only a hair's breadth from Fang Ruxue's clothes.

He shouted as he brandished his stone blade forward, intending to deflect the spear, his face twisted in fury, but his eyes were colored by a shade of anxiety.

When the bullet was finally a hundred meters away from the man, the spear was already cutting into one of Fang Ruxue's feet. But Fang Ruxue kept running, and Liu Xing kept accelerating. However, the spear cut deeper and deeper.

As Liu Xing and his bullet crossed the ten-meter distance, the spear was already ten centimeters deep in Fang Ruxue's leg. When the bullet was right in front of the man, and Liu Xing was a mere ten meters away, the spear... had already come out the other side. Fang Ruxue suddenly lost her balance, and as she fell, her upper body and her legs were separated.

Liu Xing's eyes became red. The spear shone with an eerie light, as if it were laughing and mocking him. Then, his late Lightning Bullet finally hit the man, paralyzing his body and locking him in place for a second. By reflex, knowing he was already too late to deflect the spear, Liu Xing rotated his body and swung his stone blade not toward the spear, but rather, toward the head of the man with red hair and red eyes. The man's eyes were panicked and terrified, and by the twitch of his body, he was trying to pull his spear back to deflect the stone blade. However, this man had made a miscalculation. When he saw Liu Xing, he should have canceled his attack. He shouldn't have continued. He should have ducked, rolled to the side, or even jumped backward so that he would live and Fang Ruxue's legs wouldn't be severed.

With his face twisted into a mask of fury, Liu Xing unleashed his full power in the swing. A fraction of a second later, his stone blade landed on the man's cheek, and then with a swift motion, the blade cut through his cheek, continued through his nose, and came out the other side, splitting the man's head in two.

He then rotated his body and kicked the man in the chest. The force of the kick was so great that it shattered the man's ribs and Liu Xing felt it would pass through his back. However, his power and momentum sent the man flying through the air. Like a missile, it hit several trees, felling them, and bounced several times on the ground before sliding and stopping as a bloody pile. Without stopping, Liu Xing shouted as he sent all of his Lightning Missiles toward the bloody pile. When they landed, they exploded, destroying the man's body completely, leaving not even his bones behind.

Liu Xing summoned his shield to stop his momentum before he landed on the sand with one foot bloodied. As he landed, Fang Ruxue's upper body finally hit the sand.

His mind was blank. Without thinking, he scanned his surroundings. Near his feet was Fang Ruxue. She looked behind her and saw her severed legs, which had landed nearby. Her expression was one of shock. Qing Yuan had stopped crying. His eyes glistened with tears as he looked at him with fear and guilt, as if it were all his fault. Some people were still crying and howling in pain. He could see Su Nian being hugged by her mother with one arm and her sister lying at her side, crying together. At that moment, realization finally hit him, causing him to lose his grip on his gun and stone blade. Both weapons landed in the sand.

"I am late," he muttered reflexively.

It was all his fault. If he had been faster, if he had been stronger, if he hadn't wasted time, if he had been more prepared, none of this would have happened. The attack from the Nether Lotus Sect was a surprise; however, if he had been there from the start, his people, his... friends, wouldn't have had to experience this.

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Liu Xing opened his spatial bag hastily and began pulling out pills. However, as several pills lay on his palm, he knew he couldn't give them to anyone. They were mortals—even Qing Yuan—and even if he connected their severed limbs and fed them these pills, their bodies wouldn't become whole. Rather, they would explode from the energy contained within the pills.

At that moment, he suddenly remembered all the times Fang Ruxue had asked him to let her and her new sisters become cultivators. He had refused, believing it to be the best option. After all, becoming a cultivator is not easy, nor is it something to be taken lightly—especially given their reasons for wanting to become cultivators in the first place. If Liu Xing had agreed to teach them cultivation, he could have given them pills to reconnect their freshly severed limbs. Granted, some people need years, or even decades, to transform from mortal to cultivator. However, he was confident that with his knowledge and potent qi, he could help everyone begin absorbing qi and expelling impurities from their bodies.

In that instant, Liu Xing clenched the hand that held the pills, and he gritted his teeth as he felt a deep regret well up from his heart. It was as if his stomach were suddenly filled with acid, and this substance began eating away at him from the inside. His heart was likewise pained, as if it were being stabbed again and again by a rusty needle, to the point that it felt as if his heart wanted to explode.

This was all his fault. His fault.

Before Liu Xing could drown in his regret, however, he slapped his own cheek with his right hand. The slap was loud and sharp, leaving a red mark. However, it was the best way for him to set aside his feelings and not dwell on useless things. He was standing here like a fool, wasting time, while his friends were lying on the sand, crying and howling in pain, their limbs severed and blood gushing from the stumps.

Projecting his qi, Liu Xing enveloped each and every person with it, and then he began to constrict it around their stumps. His actions made some of them squeak and howl in pain, but he gritted his teeth and continued. Their bleeding was terrible. Qing Yuan was especially pale.

"But how?" Liu Xing muttered as he began lifting his friends from the sand with qi.

"Liu Xing," said Fang Ruxue. Her face was pale, beads of sweat covering it, and she clutched the stumps of her legs. "We-we need to go! Those demonic cultivators are terrifying." Tears began to fall from her eyes. "We need to go!"

Liu Xing nodded, and he began to spread his qi further, lifting all of their severed limbs into the air. His mind was trying to come up with something, but it felt as if it were made of mud. He couldn't think of a good idea.

"Liu Xing, I'm sorry," Qing Yuan cried. He was the only one with intact limbs, but the hole in his stomach was large. Even when Liu Xing pressed his qi around the wound, and Qing Yuan grimaced in pain, the bleeding didn't stop. "It's because I'm too weak. If only I were as strong as you, we wouldn't be like this. And my mother," he cried, "we were separated from my mother!"

Upon hearing that, Liu Xing swept his eyes around and realized that Qing Lian wasn't there. Remembering her, an image of a notebook suddenly surfaced in his mind, and he looked at Qing Yuan with a complicated expression. The boy deserved to know the truth, but the situation was not right. He needed to save him and the others before telling him the bombshell news about his existence.

"Mom, it hurts," Su Nian whimpered.

"M-my legs... it hurts... they're gone," cried another.

Others were crying, some began to shout angrily, as if they couldn't believe what had happened to their legs, while others were sobbing and trying to reassure themselves and each other.

Liu Xing's heart began to beat faster as his mind tried to come up with ideas to save them, as well as a way to reconnect their limbs. This was a cultivator's world. He knew there were talismans that could regenerate limbs, pills that could save a dying mortal, and elixirs that would have started a war if they existed in his old world. However, as his eyes swept around, and he saw fear, sadness, and anxiety blanketing all of his friends—from Qing Yuan to Fang Ruxue to Su Nian—he realized that was not the first step.

Liu Xing curved his lips upward, trying as hard as possible to make his face look confident and reassuring. "Everyone," he said calmly, causing all eyes to turn to him. Some of them looked at him with eyes full of hope, as if they were waiting for a miracle; some of them looked at him with sadness and hopelessness; some were looking at him with blank eyes, as if they couldn't accept reality. "You must be hurting and afraid right now. But you don't need to worry." He flashed a shaky but confident smile. "I'm here now. You're all safe. I am strong, you saw what I can do, so one, two, ten, twenty, even a hundred demonic cultivators cannot touch you anymore. You're safe. I will protect all of you. And, just as I promised Fang Ruxue I would regrow her teeth, I also promise that I will find a way to reattach all of your limbs. I promise!"

At his words, some of them nodded resolutely, and even those with blank eyes began to regain their hope.

Liu Xing tried to project confidence; however, he couldn't help but think that his words were false. That promise was heavy, and even now, though he tried to stop their bleeding, blood was still gushing from their stumps. Not only did he have no way to reattach their limbs, but there was still a very real chance that, if he couldn't find a good solution, some of his friends would die simply from blood loss.

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