Su Ning had been pleasantly surprised by Ling Yun. The area was hidden by a concealing formation that even she couldn't sense. And somehow Ling Yun had also discerned the girl's location in this big village.

  Ling Yun is not a simple person.

  Before she would have suspected that he was in cahoots with these demonic cultivators leading her to a trap. But she had seen his sincerity and received his kindness so the thought of it being a trap never crossed her mind even for a second.

  She could sense that among four demonic cultivators the one who claimed to be the eldest was of fifth level and the others were of fourth level of Qi refining realm.

  Born with a first grade spiritual root, Su Ning had reached the sixth realm of Qi refining. Her parents were also important figures of the Absolute Sword sect so she never lacked resources nor did she lacked in diligence, reaching this milestone at the age of 17.

  The eldest one stepped up first. "Hey miss if you don't resist I promise we won't be too rough. I would hate to damage that beautiful body. How about you surrender?"

  Su Ning didn't answer and kept watching carefully, just waiting for them to make a move. Being ignored, the thug got angrily shouted, "That was the last of my mercy. Watch this big brother knock her ass out in a single blow."

  He yelled out a cry and dashed forward taking out a dagger from his sleeve. His speed was much faster than the average person, he must practice some body enhancement martial arts.

  But for Su Ning it wasn't noteworthy. She had dealt with far worse to be intimidated by petty thugs. She remembered her lessons, when fighting these types of thugs the first thing to do is to crush their morale.

  The thug went with a wide swing trying to slash at her chest. But before he could reach her, her sword stabbed straight through his shoulder. His smirk turned into a pained grimace as the dagger fell from his hand.

  But before he could even scream, she spun around and SLASH- another head was sent flying. She stepped back to avoid the spray of blood from his decapitated neck wanting not to even let a single drop of their filthy blood stain her clothes.

  The other three were frozen with fear. They had been waiting for elder brother to bring that girl to them, dragging her by her hair but now their brother was dead. The girl swung her sword, shaking off the blood and the fat of their elder brother from it, and then their eyes met. Her eyes gleaming with murderous intent made them nearly soil their pants in fear.

  At that moment they knew they had stepped on the tigers tail. One of them gathered some courage and said, "Brothers don't fear, let's fight together. Three on one she stands no chance."

  He had just finished his sentence when the one on the left turned tail. "What.." Being distracted he failed to see the incoming sword and died instantly from being stabbed straight through the heart.

  The one on the right immediately threw his dagger on the floor and raised his hands in surrender.

  "Please wait, I won't do it again.." and with a horizontal slash his body got split in two. His split torso fell on the floor and his legs crumbled after a second.

  The one who was fleeing heard the painful cry of his brother. But instead of feeling grief, he cursed them for being useless and dying this fast.

  Fuck, couldn't they stall her more. And what the fuck is master doing? Forget them, I'm not going to die.

  He turned around to take a look and saw the girl chasing after him. He could see the spectre of death closing after him. He put more strength in his legs and tried to run faster.

  It was the fastest he had ran in his entire life. He again turned around to check and to his surprise the girl had disappeared.

  "Where did she go?" The man turned to his front and saw the girl was waiting infront of him. In his fear he tried to stop but slipped and tumbled forth ending with his face on the ground infront of her feet.

  "Unlike you people, I don't stab others in the back."

  He hurriedly got up and kneeled, "Please fairy show some mercy. Even Buddha said.." SHICK.. blood spurted as the sword pierced his throat. She took out her sword and again made a swing to shake off the blood.

  "The thing I hate the most about you people is that even though you mercilessly kill innocent people but when it's your turn you all dare to speak of mercy and Buddha.

  "I already told you people- for your sins you only deserve death."

  ***

  Ling Yun had untied both little Hua and Chensha. Upon seeing him, little Hua hugged him tightly and started sobbing loudly. "Don't worry it's fine now. Big brother is here okay." He stroked her hair trying to calm her down.

  He gave her his shirt. Fortunately the shirt was large enough to cover her privates. She seperated for a second to wear the shirt and immediately went back to hugging his side. Chensha was still unconscious.

  He started to slap him awake. "Brother Chensha wake up fast." After a few slaps, Chensha opened his eyes and blinked a few times. Then his eyes regained focused and he immediately sat up and grabbed his shoulder.

  "Ling Yun little Hua she had.. quick you have to" "It's fine now brother Chensha. Here, look."

  Little Hua left him and hugged Chensha who returned it back tightly. His arms wrapped around her and pushed her further in his chest and gave a huge sigh of relief.

  "Thank the heavens you are still alive. "

  Ling Yun could only watch this scene with a wry smile. Lovers before brothers huh.

  He looked back to check on Su Ning cutting the thug in half. Two of the them had already died and the last one was running away. There was quite a distance between them but in a few seconds she overtook him.

  The sight of Su Ning kiling a man begging on his knees pleading for mercy sent faint tremors in his heart. For the first time in his life, he had witnessed people killing and people being killed.

  If not for the Serene Ocean sutra, he was sure he would be puking uncontrollably. The Serene Ocean sutra had rid his mind of useless thoughts, he could only feel relief at the number of his enemies going down.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Still, seeing Su Ning radiating killing intent with her sword coated with blood beget some unease in his heart. It was like a seeing an unknown different side of a familiar person. He heard Chensha asking from behind him, "Ling Yun do you know that girl?".

  No I don't. I know I have no right to condemn her for killing thugs but still I thought we are a bit similar. How stupid was I to think I understood her.

  The memory of Su Ning sitting by his side, drinking tea morphed to her brutally killing people, so further away from him.

  Killing all the thugs in sight, Su Ning's voice rang out. "Five of your friends have died. How long you are going to keep hiding, you blood fiend."

  ***

  Blood fiend. It was a derogatory term applied to blood path demonic cultivators. Among all demonic cultivators, they were the most common and the second most despised.

  The reason it was so widespread because nearly all of the demonic blood arts requires blood essence which if you ignore moral implications, is quite cheap and easily found.

  These demonic arts use blood essence to increase cultivation speed and break through bottlenecks. But further cultivation requires more blood essence which in turn meant more killing letting its practitioners sprial straight into hell. Many of these demonic cultivators go insane, turning into mass murders.

  Also cultivators of these type of techniques give off a disgusting blood qi which is very difficult to conceal leading to most of blood path cultivators treated as a pariah at best and killed on the spot at worst.

  Still even after all these risks, the lust for power triumphs all as countless still cultivate the blood path.

  ***

  "Tchh. So you knew from the beginning. And here I was waiting for an opportunity to sneak you."

  A deep voice echoed from the blood pool. Ripples started forming on the surface as a person slowly rose from the blood pool. It was a man with his face twisted in an angry snarl. He was standing on the blood pool completely naked but a blood veil covered his lower half.

  His age was a bit hard to tell but one could tell he was past his youth. Not only he was bald, he didn't have a single hair on his upper body. Even his eyelashes were missing. He was very thin; his skin had a very pale complexion as if he was suffering from a sickness.

  But from his gleaming blood red eyes and the immense murderous intent coming from him made it clear that he was a very dangerous man.

  "Do you know how hard it was for me to find those pawns. Judging from your robes, you are from the Absolute Sword sect. If those ignorant fools knew, they would have ran on first sight."

  Su Ning sensed this man was in the seventh realm of Qi refining, a realm higher than her. Unlike those thugs, he was a formidable enemy. She could not dare to act carelessly.

  But the man still had a lax attitude. He closed his eyes and kept on talking.

  "Maybe it is a gift sent by heaven. I sent them to get a young female girl and now you came in."

  His eyes opened and the figure of Su Ning was reflected in those red pools. With a vicious smile, he continued.

  "You are far better than a mortal girl. Little girl how about you help me break into the later stages of Qi refining.

  "Go forth, python."

  A red snake emerged from the the pool and rushed straight towards Su Ning. It wasn't an actual python, the blood had taken shape of the snake and now it was about to bite her with his jaw wide open.

  Su Ning dodged with a backflip and then jumped sideways. The python crashed right at spot she was an instant before.

  My guess was right. It's not a single attack, the blood python could continue to attack multiple times after forming.

  She slashed at its neck but the python immediately reformed taking no damage.

  "Hahahaha. Judging from your eyes filled with hatred I can imagine how many of my brothers you must have killed with your sword.

  "How does it feel seeing your sword being useless? The sword you must have cultivated hard for so many years. Hahahaha, your righteous path is weak and useless infront of us demonic cultivators."

  Ignore his taunts. If attacking the python won't work let's go straight for the man.

  Su Ning lured the blood python further away from the man. She dodged its incoming attack and rushed straight towards him. Against her high level movement skills, the blood python was quickly left behind.

  She had readied her sword to attack but the man quickly formed hand seals in succession. He spoke with a mocking tone, "My sincerest apologises. I should have made it clear that I can form more than one blood pythons."

  Two more blood pythons emerged from the pool and attacked her. She jumped backwards but it put her in the range of the original one coming from the back.

  She tried to twist her body to dodge but her back got slashed. Blood started oozing from her wound but fortunately for her, it wasn't that deep.

  The three pythons began their relentless attacks. Forget attacking back, Su Ning could only dodge for her life against their assault. While dodging she noticed that one of the pythons always remained near that man, only attacking when she got closer.

  That man was still being vigilant of her; he wasn't letting his guard down even a little bit. Another thing she noticed was that all three pythons, even if they moved freely, their other end was always connected to the blood pool.

  Focus Su Ning. Master always said 'In a battle, the sharpness of mind triumphs over the sharpness of sword.' Don't just rush in blindly, think of a strategy.

  The man was a realm higher than her so trying to outlast him would be futile. Her Qi would run out far before him and all this dodging and running was also depleting her stamina.

  Since the pythons are always connected, maybe they continuously require his instructions to move. I've got to take this chance.

  She again pushed forward towards the man. The two pythons attack grew more rapid and when she gets closer, the third one will join making dodging much more difficult.

  But to everybody's surprise, she took a long leap high in air straight towards the man leaving the two pythons in dust. The third python immediately started closing in on her, its mouth wide open to swallow her completely.

  Since it was impossible for her to dodge midair, it looked like she was going to meet her demise. But then she threw an object hidden within her left hand.

  "Evil Sealing talisman."

  As the name suggests, it is a rank 1 talisman that binds the enemy in chains, particularly super effective against demonic cultivators to restrain their evil Qi.

  To temper her sword heart on the advice of her master, she had refused all kinds of spiritual artifacts carrying only the Sensing talisman and this Evil Sealing talisman. She mostly used them to capture the demonic cultivators alive when it was required of her.

  Mostly she beat them with the sword first before restraining them. This talisman was the last one left.

  The talisman flew towards him and shone with a golden light. Golden chains immediately sprang forth, restraining both his body and Qi flow.

  The pythons immediately stopped moving pausing in their attack. Now free, she descended from her jump, her sword ready to behead him. She could see the shocked look on his face, his body struggling against the chains in futile.

  "Get ready to die and repent for your sins in the afterlife, you blood fiend."

  She swung her sword aiming the straight for the neck but before her sword could reach, blood rushed above forming a screen between them. She still tried to cut straight through it swinging with her full strength but CLANG- the sword failed to break the barrier and was pushed back.

  She landed on the ground and saw that the blood had completely surrounded him form all sides forming a dome. The blood had frozen and was was hard enough to block her full powered strike.

  The dome turned into liquid and the blood receded back into the pool. When the man came in the view, her heart fell seeing the chains disappear as if washed away by blood.

  The man was also furious. "You bitch! If not for my blood pool automatically defending me in danger I would have died. I never expected a sword cultivator from a top sect to rely on a talisman.

  "It seems like I have been far too relaxed."

  He again started forming hand seals. An orb of blood started rose and was soon floating above him. She had no time to pay attention as three pythons have again started their assault.

  "I didn't want to use it since it consumes my blood pool but now I want you to die as quickly as possible.

  "Bloody rain."

  The orb of blood split into multiple razor sharp spikes and were launched straight towards her. She wanted to dodge but the three pythons have cut all paths of retreat leaving her no choice to take it head on.

  She again swung her sword sending a slash through the air breaking most of the blood spikes. But a few were still escaped and they had come very close to her. With no time for another attack, she raised her left hand trying to shield her face and chest.

  Her left hand was completely pierced through in four places making it completely useless now. Even her veil got slashed uncovering her beautiful face.

  But it was a shame that only the blood fiend was there to witness it. "Oh what a lovely face! I wonder how it would look when I slowly extract your blood, letting you die little by little."

  With the three pythons hovering above and her left hand hanging limp, the situation looked dire for her.

  But the defiant look on her face showed it was far from over.

  "Just you wait blood fiend, I promise you will die by my sword."