Su Nian was lying on the ground. Her back was drenched with sweat and blood, her forehead was dotted with beads of sweat, her cheeks were red, and she was shivering. Anyone who saw her would have concluded she had a fever, and they would have been right. However, while her wounds were severe—she was the only one who had lost all her limbs—and would become infected if not treated, she had gotten sick not because of a disease, but because she was so, so scared. She had been lying on the ground when red threads erupted into the sky, blotting out the darkness as if the heavens had split apart and were pouring out blood. The amount of power radiating from that attack was so overwhelming that it made her dizzy and she had even fainted several times, but that same power was so terrifying that she could not stay unconscious for long. She hoped that all of these terrible things were merely a delusion caused by a high fever, but she knew for a fact that it was not an illusion. Her mind could not conjure something so terrible.

  And now, at this very moment, the man who had wrought such terrifying power was looking straight at her. His crimson eyes were like pools of blood. Worse, his calm face radiated an annoyance that even she could feel.

  "The number is exactly right," he stated. He extended his right hand toward her, and she was lifted slowly from the ground. Her bandaged limbs dripped with blood, and agonizing pain rampaged through her body like fire. Tears began to fall from her eyes, and she felt a profound fear in her heart. "But it seems the report was wrong. You're not the one I invested resources in." He paused for a moment, then looked around and said, "Is there anyone willing to explain this to me?"

  "M-mom," Su Nian choked out a sob, and she craned her neck to the side, where her mother's face was deathly pale. Her mother raised a hand toward her, as if trying to reach out. "H-help me, I am scared," she croaked.

  Her mother looked at her, her expression full of fear. She swallowed hard and looked toward the Patriarch of the Nether Lotus Sect. "Esteemed cultivator, I-I can explain the situation," she said with a trembling voice. "I-in exchange, would you let my daughter go?"

  Ye Xuanming looked at her coldly but didn't acknowledge her request. So, she continued. "She...she wasn't one of the people your men took. They took me and my other daughter." She looked over at Su Nian's sister, who was lying with her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling quickly. "We were saved by Liu Xing and one other cultivator," she said, looking toward the raging fight and the clamor of battle and Liu Xing's howls. "The other cultivator commanded a white whale and a little shark. While Liu Xing took us, one person followed that cultivator. I overheard them say that they were brother and sister, but I also remember seeing them kiss."

  The Patriarch looked at her with his crimson eyes as if contemplating murdering her. After a moment, however, he looked back at Su Nian, who was floating in the air right in front of him. At that moment, the dark clouds swirling in the sky began to flash with occasional blue lightning, lighting up the dark sky. A particularly large bolt struck down right where Ye Xuanming was standing, but with a single sweep of his hand, the lightning dispersed before it could hit him. The light illuminated the Patriarch's face, and Su Nian saw his expression flicker for a single moment. It went from calm to pure hatred and fury, as if he had been humiliated by a monkey, then he schooled his expression back into a mask of calmness.

  Su Nian swallowed hard, but when the man looked at her with disdain shining in his eyes, she regretted the reflex.

  "I see, so it's like that," he said, swiping his right hand in her general direction as if she were an annoying fly. However, neither his hand nor the wind it created touched her.

  For a moment, Su Nian thought that perhaps she would be spared. Perhaps she would live. But before she could believe that thought, her body was suddenly split into twenty pieces. It was as if invisible swords had cut her twenty times in a single instant, slicing her body into thin ribbons of flesh. Su Nian could only widen her eyes before her body began to unravel, and her remains fell to the ground, forming a bloody pile of meat. Her brain, her torso, and all her organs were cut. Not a single part of her was spared from the attack.

  Su Nian's mother was only several meters from her daughter's remains. Her eyes were wide, tears spilling from them, and she looked at the pile as if she were dreaming, as if she hadn't just seen her younger daughter die. But her body moved on reflex. She pulled herself with her one remaining intact hand toward the remains of her daughter. When she arrived, she began touching the pile, as if she thought her daughter's remains would merge together again, that she would be revived like Liu Xing.

  As she began to choke on sobs, she looked toward Ye Xuanming, pleading for that demonic miracle to happen again, but what she saw was a cold and calm expression, as if he were indifferent to the world.

  At that moment, she realized that Su Nian, her lovely daughter, was thoroughly dead. Unlike Liu Xing, there would be no miracle to revive her. While tears streamed from her eyes, she began to cackle, her mind thoroughly broken. The only accompanying sound was the clangor of the fight not far away, and her newfound sisters wisely shut their mouths, as if they thought even screaming and mourning would bring their demise.

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  The only one who was howling was Liu Xing.

  ***

  Liu Xing was howling with rage, hatred, sadness, and regret, convinced that he was a complete failure.

  His bare body was covered in wounds inflicted by the demonic cultivators surrounding him. His hands were bruised and bloody—this time with his own blood. His body was a canvas of open wounds and blood, with black ink clinging to him. Pain permeated his entire being. Liu Xing was being beaten badly in this fight. While his gun was strong, it could not break the demonic cultivators' formation. And while his lightning blade was strong—even reinforced with stable qi—it was not his stone blade. It had shattered several times from his opponents' attacks.

  Yet, even with his body coated in mud and blood, the most painful wound was in his heart. It felt as if his heart was being beaten and stabbed and cut and burned, again and again. Howls and growls and shouts had not stopped coming out of his mouth, and tears streamed from his eyes, making his blurry vision even blurrier.

  As Liu Xing summoned his shield to intercept a slash aimed at his neck and rolled to the side to dodge a giant fist made of blood, his eyes glimpsed the remains of two people he had known. One was the headless corpse of Qing Lian, while the other was the piled remains of Su Nian. Qing Yuan, that little, smart, and wise kid who had been forced to grow up so fast, was dead too. No corpse remained of him. He had been forcefully reverted into a pill and consumed by Ye Xuanming.

  Three of the people he had decided were his, and whom he had promised to protect, were dead. And all of this, all of these deaths, were because of his own incompetence.

  "Bastard!" Liu Xing shouted as he kicked a fireball shot at him, sending it flying high into the air. He swung his lightning blade to the right, deflecting a sword slashing at his feet, while at the same time shooting six bullets toward his targets. Three were aimed at demonic cultivators, while the rest targeted blood projectiles shot toward him.

  The man with the brush—Hua Beifeng, the strongest and most annoying of them—swiped his brush in the air, sending a tsunami of ink crashing toward him. Seeing this, Liu Xing gritted his teeth as he cycled the potent qi inside his body to strengthen his Lightning Cloak Technique and jumped high into the air.

  As he rose, he shouted in frustration. All of this had happened because he was too weak, too slow, and had wasted too much time. If he had killed those spirit beasts faster, he reckoned all of this could have been avoided. If he had dealt with that mark inside his consciousness faster, perhaps they would have already arrived on the far island and been in hiding. He also thought that perhaps, if he had been more ruthless and could suppress his remorse and guilt, he could have made a stronger example that would have made the Jin clan afraid to cooperate with these damn demonic cultivators.

  "Die!" Liu Xing pulled his trigger rapidly, sending a barrage of Exploding Fist Bullets around him. And yet, that damn Hua Beifeng created a shield made from ink, and all the demonic cultivators hid behind it, and the explosions could not destroy it. Still, this attack finally gave Liu Xing a chance. He summoned his shield, rotated his body, kicked it with all his might, and launched himself toward Ye Xuanming.

  Logically, Liu Xing knew what he was doing was futile. After all, he had already died once. Attacking Ye Xuanming at that moment was foolish. Yet his emotions were urging him to attack, and he gave in to his impulses.

  "Ye Xuanming, I vow that I'll kill you! No matter what happens, I will kill you!" He swiped his lightning blade toward the man, and he willed the blade to extend more and more, until it was long enough to touch Ye Xuanming.

  Ye Xuanming looked at him as if he were seeing a disgusting maggot. He swiped his hand toward the approaching lightning blade, and when the blade and his hand met, his blade shattered like glass against stone. Liu Xing aimed his gun and was about to pull the trigger, but the man said, "Enough playing around, all of you."

  At that exact moment, a giant ink snake burst from the ground right below Liu Xing. Its maw was wide open, and it was about to swallow him whole. Seeing this, Liu Xing gnashed his teeth as he summoned his shield and kicked it, launching himself to the side. When the snake closed its maw, his shield was inside it, but he dismissed it and summoned it again behind him, intending to launch himself toward Ye Xuanming again.

  "I am in a hurry. We need to go," Ye Xuanming stated.

  "I will not let you go!" Liu Xing shouted.

  Ye Xuanming didn't react to him. Instead, he beckoned toward the black snake, and suddenly, a swirling blue portal formed inside its mouth. It approached Ye Xuanming as well as Fang Ruxue and the others, its mouth opened wide.

  "No!" Liu Xing shouted.

  Ye Xuanming replied calmly, "In your rage, you have become blind, and this blindness will be the death of you." Then, he pointed up. Liu Xing looked up too, and in the air, a black cloud made from ink had formed. From that black cloud, a giant bat with its mouth wide open had emerged and was shooting toward him.

  Liu Xing gritted his teeth as his mind shouted at him to move, but the bat was too close. He was indeed blinded by fury and didn't realize the swift attack, and the only thing he could do was swing his lightning blade toward the bat while at the same time trying to pull the trigger. However, before he could do all of that, the bat came, swallowed Liu Xing whole, and then chomped its jaws shut. Its razor-sharp teeth bit into him, and blackness threatened to swallow him deeper into the embrace of death once again.

  Liu Xing was thoroughly defeated.

  keep the lights on.