Chapter 342
Xinyi stared at the maw of the divine beast. Her Blood Qi surged around her, forming sharp crescents that crescendoed to the sky. The sandworm's wide open mouth descended onto her location. Needle-like teeth spun in its mouth.
There was always one thing she respected about the Jiuling and its many sects and families. One principle that had been beaten into their very bones from day 1 of being thrown into that cave to train.
In the face of overwhelming odds, a cultivator will never back down.
Planting her feet, she gripped her sword tighter, blazing Blood Qi around the edge of the blade. She lowered her stance, her blade just behind her, ready to strike.
A human can dream, yet the heavens always strike lightning where dreams try to stand. If the heavens do not want to give her the life she dreams of, there was only one choice.
Defy the heavens!
She jumped backwards. Sliced forward, sending a crescent blood blade at the descending sandworm. The sharp Qi hit its body, only to bounce off and not even leave a scratch on its skin.
The sand suddenly began to swirl around her. 5 Tornadoes formed around the dunes, spinning columns of sand rose to the night sky. Each one taller than the skyscrapers in her home city of Shanghai.
As they fully formed, the stars vanished, covered in a cloud of sand. The tornadoes blocked everything, moving in to corner her from all directions.
Spirit sense saw that each sand tornado had its own core. Pure energy converged within that core.
With one slash to the core, Blood Qi shot out.
The tornado loosened and collapsed. Sand rained down as the column lost its momentum.
Bursting through the gap created by the broken tornado, Xinyi escaped the entrapment before the other 4 compressed into her previous position.
Spirit sense warned her of the danger below.
Blood coalesced below her, forming a shield, but not before the first volley of keratin needles shot up from deep in the sand towards the sky. A few needles managed to get through the blood shield before it fully formed. A line of blood streaked her cheek and neck.
Temporarily paralysed, the giant sandworm burst upwards, rising from the sand directly below where she stood.
Its mouth opened, threatening to swallow her with its giant maw whole.
Forcing an upward slash, her body used the momentum of the force and launched her into the air just before the maw reached her body.
Looking at the canyon, it was the only place the beast couldn't enter. She slashed again, propelling herself towards the canyon.
A sand tornado closed in on her escape route, blocking her way to freedom.
The sand suddenly rose around her from all directions, climbing towards the sky in a dome shape. Walls of sand closed in, blocking any of the remaining ambient light.
Escape the trap.
Xinyi put her sword beneath her feet and flew to the top of the forming dome. A sand tornado bent to cover the escape route.
She pushed through anyway with sand tearing at her face. Her body was now covered in small cuts. None were deep enough to hinder her full combat capacity.
Bursting free from the sand dome and the tornado, the fight wasn't over. The sandworm was already there, waiting for her to fly into its maw.
The divine beast had set up trap after trap after trap. There was no rest. Its mouth was so close to her now that she could see the rough edges of each needle-like tooth. Its rancid breath almost made her gag.
Blood Qi surged once again. Hemorrhaging Grasp activated. An orb of Blood formed in front of her, dense and pulsing like a living heart. For a moment, it hung there.
Suddenly, it exploded into a web of bloody veins spreading across the sky like a net, large enough to cover the entire sandworm's body. Each vein pulsed with flowing blood, and was connected to her Qi.
Extending her hand, Xinyi suddenly formed a fist. The web constricted.
Every vein tightened at once, wrapping around the sandworm's body like ropes. The divine beast's momentum was halted by the sudden constriction. Though it was supposed to suffocate the target, it did nothing to this worm.
Xinyi slashed toward the canyon. Its force carried her forward once again, putting distance between her and the divine beast.
Before she could put the sword beneath her feet again, another hail of keratin needles flew at her from behind. Blood shield formed once again.
After the hail finished, Xinyi once again attempted to fly away, but not before a vacuum pull grabbed her body backwards.
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Glancing back, the sandworm had opened its mouth wide, sucking everything towards its maw. She put as much Qi as possible on her sword before it broke. She fought against the pull with all her might.
But the vacuum was too strong.
Inch by inch, she was being pulled back toward the mouth of the beast. The sword she had wasn't rated for flying, and it was losing against the force pulling her back.
Turning around, face to face with the sandworm, she picked up the sword beneath her.
Activation sword form: Blood Blade Soul Devouring Hell Blade.
The sword in her hand transformed. The white metal darkened, shifting into a shade of blood red that seemed to pulse with her heartbeat.
Xinyi slashed downward.
A massive swirl of blood crescents erupted from her blade, forming a maelstrom of cutting edges that spiralled toward the sandworm's open mouth. Dozens of crimson arcs cut through everything in its trajectory as tiny grains of sand floating in the air were split in half.
The maelstrom hit the sandworm's maw. This time, the attack cracked one of the teeth in its mouth. A slight green liquid came out of the crack.
Xinyi smiled. She had made the beast bleed.
Quickly, she put her sword back beneath her feet and flew forward once again, this time, without the vacuum. But just as she managed to escape a few metres forward, keratin needles fell from above.
How?!
They were the same ones that managed to escape before her blood shield had formed earlier. Or maybe it shot something upwards before, just to calculate that she'd try to escape like this.
Xinyi clicked her tongue. Fucking Divine Beasts.
Conjuring another blood shield, the blood Qi barely formed. Her dantian barely had any Qi left to even keep her awake.
It was then that the hundreds of needles hit her body. As multiple needles passed through her body, she glanced back at the sandworm. The thing's maw was already above her, descending in an arc.
Tornadoes closed in from all sides, preventing her from escaping to the canyons.
There was no escape.
This was the power of a Mystic-stage divine beast. The kind of creature that not even a Grand Elder at Late-Mystic could scratch. It's funny how heaven always wins. But at least she had bought the disciples time to escape.
That was something to smile about.
However, before she could close her eyes, 2 signatures popped up in her spirit sense. They suddenly came from just a couple of metres away, as if they were there the whole time.
One was covered in darkness. Her eyes couldn't focus on the person yet she could clearly see the outlines of tendrils that surrounded the being.
The other burned with green fire. Flames engulfed her body that didn't seem to be hurting her. It was more like it was strengthening her signature.
Neither of their signatures were Harmonic. In fact, the burning one was only a Late-Resonant while the one covered in darkness was at most Mid-Attuned. To think that these fools would jump in front of the maw of the beast, they were perhaps as foolish as her.
The dark one reached her first. A hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her up, hoisting her body over his shoulder. In his free hand was a weapon she hadn't seen before. A sword made of pure darkness that seemed to portray the stars beyond. It instantly turned into a mist which then formed a shield of the same material.
The burning one grabbed onto the dark one's shoulder. Green flames wrapped around his body and flowed into hers. She brought up her other hand and pressed it flat against the back of the shield.
Her signature flared once before an explosion erupted behind the shield. The force of the explosion launched all 3 of them towards the canyon. Wind screamed past Xinyi's ears. Even her flying sword technique couldn't match the speed at which they flew.
When the momentum slowed down, another explosion erupted behind the shield. Again. And again. And again.
Each blast propelled them away from the giant sandworm. Her spirit sense showed her everything: at how the fire one kept exploding the air behind the shield, and how the dark one's muscles would somehow withstand the impact.
These two were insane, yet it was working.
The giant sandworm made chase, but its sand tornadoes couldn't keep up. Every time it threw keratin needles at them, the shield would just expand to where they would be hit, which would then be used to continue their momentum.
One final explosion, the biggest one, propelled them enough to finally see the canyon walls rise up before them. The sandworm no longer followed, unable to follow through the rocky formations.
It probably could, but it would've had to expend a lot of its effort to do so.
At this point, the one engulfed in fire took the dark one by the arm. Her feet shot off a jet of flame as she softly touched them both down onto the rocky exterior of the canyon.
Xinyi's legs touched the floor, set down by the dark one, but her legs gave out immediately. She laid down on the rock, eyes staring at the foreign star systems above.
The one engulfed in fire crouched beside her as her hand reached for her forehead. Green fire wrapped around her body. Xinyi didn't resist. There was no way to. Even an outer disciple could kill her right now. Knowing she did her best to fight for her freedom, she accepted her fate right here.
Heaven's will, once again, could not be defied.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the fire to consume her body, yet the pain didn't arrive. Instead, what she felt was warmth pouring in, filling her and easing all the pain she felt from that fight.
Her spirit sense grew stronger. The holes on her body left behind by the keratin needles closed and her skin reformed as if they had never been there. And surprisingly, she felt something disappearing from the back of her neck.
Xinyi's hand shot to the back of her neck, feeling for the death mark. The green fire slowly consumed it. The connection to the grand elder and the whole sect, gone.
Her head turned up to the one engulfed in fire as the fire receded from her body. Red hair, distinctly Chinese, hexagonal ruby gemmed earrings, perfectly proportioned elegant features that were all over Aur news websites. The one before her was the Ann Heiress.
To her side, the shroud receded from the one covered in darkness. Black hair, black eyes, slightly wild looking hair, and eyes that looked as if they were about to snap. Perhaps feral, maybe, but he had a restraint within him that Xinyi couldn't grasp.
These two saved her from the divine beast.
Xinyi tried to get up, but couldn't. Although she'd been healed by the Ann Heiress, her dantian was still completely empty.
"It's ok, we're not going to hurt you, hat lady."
"Hat lady?" Xinyi asked.
"There's a hat on your cheeks," the boy said.
"Ugh, it's not a hat..."
"It looks like one."
"May I ask for what reason you saved me?" Xinyi asked.
"Oh, shit, her English is good," a man from behind her said.
Xinyi turned around. Two men in suits, identical features, very tall. One looked like an asshole and the other was eating a snack. The Path twins, Kyle and Clyde.
And there were two women beside them. A blue haired one that seemed to walk while floating. The other woman was a platinum blonde woman and the smell of a witch, a blue witch, Lily Grace.
"Excuse me?" Xinyi asked.
"Just relax," Clyde said. "Want a Twinkie?"
The man threw it at her, though she couldn't move her arm. The Twinkie hit her face.
"Seriously?" Lily said.
"Why did you save your soldiers?" the feral one asked.
Xinyi turned back again. His face was right in front of hers. The wild eyes seemed to look into her soul. "They were..."
"Were what?"
"Just children."
The feral one looked at the Ann Heiress. "I think she's a good person."