Although Lu Xueqi didn't understand, she trusted Li Xiaoyu and sheathed the Tianya Divine Sword.
Seeing them stop, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox was taken aback, and the wariness in her eyes deepened.
"What trick are you trying to pull now?"
she asked coldly.
Li Xiaoyu sheathed the Autumn Water Sword and cupped his fists toward her.
"Miss, perhaps we can talk."
"We have no intention of making an enemy of you. We only want to know why you're consuming the lifeblood of living beings here."
"If you have some reason for it, perhaps we can help."
Li Xiaoyu's words were utterly sincere.
At his words, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox's eyes flickered with hesitation, but then turned wary again.
"Help me? You hypocrites from those prestigious righteous sects do nothing but shout for people to be killed. How could you sincerely help a monster like me?"
Her voice was filled with distrust.
"We're different."
Li Xiaoyu looked her in the eyes and spoke earnestly.
"We judge right and wrong, not where someone comes from."
"If you truly are an evil monster who has committed countless atrocities, we won't show you any mercy."
"But if you have a reason, we won't stand by and do nothing."
Lu Xueqi stood beside him. Though she said nothing, the resolve in her eyes had already made her position clear.
The Three-Tailed Demon Fox looked at the two Qingyun Disciples before her, so unlike the others, and fell silent.
She could sense none of the hypocrisy or arrogance of those so-called righteous cultivators in them.
Their eyes were clear and sincere.
Perhaps she really could trust them?
Just as she hesitated, a weak voice, brimming with affection, came from another cave behind her.
"Xiao San, let them in."
"They're not bad people."
At the sound of that voice, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox's body jolted.
The wariness and suspicion on her face instantly vanished, replaced by boundless tenderness and heartache.
"You're awake?"
The Three-Tailed Demon Fox turned and hurried toward the cave, her voice trembling.
Li Xiaoyu and Lu Xueqi exchanged a glance, both seeing the surprise in the other's eyes.
There was someone else in the cave? Or rather, another demon?
Puzzled, they followed the Three-Tailed Demon Fox into the cave.
It was much smaller than the stone chamber outside, but had been arranged with great care.
A bed of soft, dry grass lay in the center of the cave.
Another fox demon lay on the bed.
He was somewhat larger than the Three-Tailed Demon Fox, his fur silver-white and glowing softly in the dim cave.
Behind the fox demon were six enormous tails.
The Six-Tailed Demon Fox!
Li Xiaoyu and Lu Xueqi were both swept by a storm of shock.
They had never imagined they would encounter the legendary Six-Tailed Demon Fox here—the one who had stirred the world into turmoil three hundred years ago!
Yet this legendary, powerful demon was now incredibly weak.
His fur was dull, and his breath was so faint it was almost imperceptible.
A hideous, bowl-sized wound gaped in the Six-Tailed Demon Fox's chest. The flesh around it had turned black, covered in a layer of deathly pale frost that would not melt, and exuding an aura of lifelessness.
A deadly, yin-cold frost poison coiled within the wound, relentlessly devouring his vitality.
"How are you? Is your wound hurting again?"
The Three-Tailed Demon Fox knelt beside the bed, her trembling hand gently stroking the Six-Tailed Demon Fox's face. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
"I'm fine, Xiao San. Don't cry."
The Six-Tailed Demon Fox smiled weakly. He reached out a paw, wanting to wipe away her tears, but didn't even have the strength to lift it.
His gaze passed over the Three-Tailed Demon Fox and fell on Li Xiaoyu and Lu Xueqi.
"You two are disciples of the Green Cloud Sect, aren't you?"
His voice was weak, yet full of wisdom and warmth.
Li Xiaoyu and Lu Xueqi nodded. They were both deeply shaken.
They could sense that although the Six-Tailed Demon Fox before them was gravely wounded, his soul was more powerful than that of any living being they had ever encountered.
"I am Six-Tail."
The Six-Tailed Demon Fox introduced himself.
"Forgive me for the offense just now."
"She only did it to save me. She had no choice but to resort to such measures."
The Six-Tailed Demon Fox's words confirmed Li Xiaoyu's earlier guess.
The Three-Tailed Demon Fox had indeed consumed the lifeblood of living beings for a reason.
"What happened? And how did you get that wound?"
Li Xiaoyu looked solemnly at the wound in the Six-Tailed Demon Fox's chest.
He could sense how domineering the deadly, yin-cold frost poison was.
At Li Xiaoyu's question, boundless sorrow and fury flashed through the Six-Tailed Demon Fox's eyes.
Beside him, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox shuddered, her eyes brimming with deep-seated hatred.
"The Incense Burning Valley!"
she ground out, each word bitten off one by one.
"That despicable pack of hypocrites from the Incense Burning Valley did this to him!"
As it turned out, they were the last surviving members of the Southern Border Fox Clan.
Three hundred years ago, their clan—the Nine-Tail Celestial Fox Clan—had been one of the most powerful demon clans in the Southern Border.
But the Incense Burning Valley wanted to seize the Fox Clan's sacred relic and enslave their ancestors. They launched a brutal campaign against the Fox Clan, even skinning their people to make magical artifacts and forging a blood feud that could fill the seas.
Six-Tail's mother, the reigning Nine-Tail Celestial Fox, had been imprisoned deep inside the Mystic Fire Altar by a formation powered by the Incense Burning Valley's sacred weapon, the Mystic Fire Mirror, which served as its core. There, she endured eternal torment in the flames.
Through a secret art, the imprisoned Nine-Tail Celestial Fox spent a hundred years sending information to her people outside and devising a shocking plan of revenge and rescue.
Three hundred years ago, the time was ripe.
With the Nine-Tail Celestial Fox secretly guiding him, Six-Tail, the young clan leader, led the Fox Clan's elite in a desperate assault on the Incense Burning Valley.
First, they caused widespread chaos outside the valley, successfully drawing away Shangguan Ce and the other leading experts. Then, with the help of an inside agent they had long since bribed, they found a weak point in the Mystic Fire Altar's defenses.
It was a bloodbath beyond compare.
The Fox Clan paid for it with the lives of every last one of their people, surging forward one after another until they tore open a path to the Mystic Fire Altar with their own flesh and blood.
In the end, after every member of the clan had fallen, Six-Tail finally broke into the Mystic Fire Altar and seized the Mystic Fire Mirror, the core of the formation, at the very last moment.
But even then, he couldn't save his mother.
As he headed to rescue her with the Mystic Fire Mirror, Shangguan Ce intercepted him after rushing back upon hearing the news.
Enraged, Shangguan Ce unleashed the Nine Cold Freezing Thorn against Six-Tail, who was already at the end of his strength.
Six-Tail used the last of his power to escape, but took that fatal blow to the chest. The bone-chilling frost poison invaded his very core, and from then on his life force continued to ebb away.
All these years, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had taken him from place to place, hiding from the Incense Burning Valley's relentless pursuit. They had searched the world for rare medicines and elixirs, but none could dispel the domineering poison of the Nine Cold Freezing Thorn in his body.
Watching Six-Tail's vitality dwindle day by day, the desperate Three-Tailed Demon Fox had finally turned to consuming the lifeblood of living beings to forcibly prolong his life.
But in the end, that was no more than quenching one's thirst with poison: it treated the symptoms, not the cause.
And every time she consumed someone's lifeblood, it tormented the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to the depths of her soul.
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