Black Eats Black

Xiao Fan staggered out of the living forest, the skin-crawling sounds of writhing and the bubbling of boiling digestive fluid echoing behind him.

The soles of his boots had been corroded almost beyond recognition, and the bottoms of his feet burned with pain, yet his instinct to survive drove him onward without daring to stop.

After running for who knew how long, utterly exhausted, he finally collapsed beside a stream.

Huff... huff...

Xiao Fan gulped down great breaths of air as he lay on his back.

Pitch-black clouds blanketed the sky like boulders suspended overhead, pressing down so heavily that one could barely breathe.

"This is fucking rotten luck..." he muttered, examining his injuries.

The savage wound across his chest had stopped bleeding, but even the slightest movement made him bare his teeth in pain.

Worse still, he could feel the newly converted spiritual essence within him churning restlessly. It was clearly not yet stable.

He forced himself to sit up and looked around.

The stream murmured on, while the distant outline of Golden Glow Mountain appeared especially eerie beneath the shroud of dark clouds.

The escort convoy's destruction, those mysterious and vicious bandits, the abducted noble... everything had happened too quickly. He had not even had time to sort out his thoughts.

"Wait, that noble..."

Xiao Fan suddenly remembered something and, enduring the pain, rummaged through his tattered clothes.

In the inner pocket against his body, his fingers found something smooth and warm!

It was a lustrous white jade pendant, carved with intricate cloud patterns.

Before being taken away amid the chaos, that "noble" had slipped it to him.

The situation had been critical then, so he had casually stuffed it into his clothes and nearly forgotten all about it.

The jade pendant gave off a faint glow in the pitch-black night. Xiao Fan leaned closer and found that the glow seemed to be flowing toward the southeast.

"Eh?"

He changed angles and turned the jade pendant, yet the direction of the flowing glow still pointed southeast!

Could this jade pendant have a spell sealed inside it? Xiao Fan studied the smooth jade in his hand, analyzing it inwardly.

Just then, the glow's direction began to slowly shift, subtly veering east, then south.

Xiao Fan suddenly understood. "It's guiding me! The target is moving through the mountain—it's the noble!"

What should he do? Save him or not...

He was about to rise and give chase, but hesitated.

Those bandits were fierce and powerful. Even if he caught up alone, he would only be throwing his life away.

But if he did not save him, that "palace noble" was clearly someone of extraordinary status. He had vanished while under Xiao Fan's escort—how could the imperial court simply let it go? Even if he jumped into the Yellow River, he would never wash himself clean of blame.

As a gray-robed G-rank operative, he was already one of the peripheral people Shadow Pivot Court used to take the blame. If he returned empty-handed, not only would he certainly die, but his family would be implicated and punished by association...

After thinking it over again and again, Xiao Fan suddenly gritted his teeth. I can't just stand by and watch someone die. Besides, this is my first mission outside. By sentiment or by reason, I can't back down.

"I'll follow them first and take a look!"

With that thought, he no longer hesitated and set off in pursuit along the direction of the jade pendant's glow.

Xiao Fan clutched the jade pendant as he sped through the mountain forest, its glow winding around his fingertips like drifting fireflies.

Every hundred paces, he stopped to confirm the direction while remaining alert to every movement around him.

Gradually, the jade pendant's flowing light began to dim. Xiao Fan inwardly cried out in alarm—this likely meant the noble's life force was draining away!

Xiao Fan immediately lowered his body and, using the dense woods and undergrowth for cover, crept up to a high slope.

Firelight flickered below. More than a dozen fierce bandits sat around a campfire, while beside them, a slender man lay unconscious, tied to a tree trunk with hemp rope.

It was the palace noble!

"Hey, Seventh Brother, that commotion in the mountains just now... could it have been a Night Eclipse? It sounded like it came from the convoy's direction!" A hoarse voice rang out, tinged with lingering fear.

"Fuck! It definitely was! Even from this far away, that ghostly wailing scared the shit out of me!" The man called Seventh Brother took a swig of liquor to calm himself.

"Good thing Third Brother was wise, and we moved fast enough!" another voice said fawningly.

"Fifth Brother, did you clean up the tail?" asked a steady-voiced man with a scarred profile—Third Brother.

"Don't worry, Third Brother! We didn't leave a single survivor! Besides, the Night Eclipse came. Forget survivors—even iron-forged corpses should have melted into pus by now!" Fifth Brother declared, thumping his chest.

"Ah... these days, the Night Eclipses are getting fiercer and fiercer. It's getting harder to make a living. If this keeps up, we'll have to start doing this business in daylight..." someone complained.

"Exactly, exactly..."

So they really weren't ordinary mountain bandits! They acted ruthlessly and with tight organization—there had to be someone pulling the strings behind them!

Xiao Fan held his breath and focused, using a martial artist's keen hearing to gather information.

He quickly recalled the earlier clash: the enemy had at least three ninth-rank Qi Refinement Realm martial artists, two ranked sorcerers with bizarre techniques, and that "Third Brother," whose aura was deep and steady—he was undoubtedly an eighth-rank Iron Bone Realm expert!

Charge in head-on? Ten lives wouldn't be enough to fill that grave!

"Third Brother, do you still have any Red Crystal Candles on hand? How about we light one? I'm scared..." a timid bandit said, hunching his neck.

"I do, but use them sparingly! We've run into Night Erosion several times in a row—how could we be that unlucky?" Third Brother frowned, clearly pained at the thought of using this life-saving item.

"Heh, the client doesn't look short on money! She'll have to reimburse us double for all the Red Crystal Candles we use tonight!"

"That's right! She needs to pay extra too! This job is fucking cursed!"

Just as the bandits chattered away, haggling over the price, a sultry female voice, sweet enough to drip with water, suddenly drifted out from the shadows of the dense forest:

"Tsk, tsk, tsk... Is Third Brother trying to jack up the price on the spot? Aren't you afraid of ruining your reputation if word gets out?"

The moment those words fell, the bandits all drew their blades warily. The scar-faced man at their head rose to his feet. "Oh, so it's you! What, miss? You don't trust us brothers and came to inspect the goods yourself?"

From the shadows, a graceful figure slowly emerged.

The hood of her broad black cloak concealed most of her face, revealing only the lovely line of her jaw and a pair of vivid crimson lips.

Ignoring the scar-faced man's question, she walked straight to the bound noble and extended her slender fingers, clad in black gauze gloves. Gently lifting the other party's chin, she examined them closely.

Seeing the woman's voluptuous figure, the bandits immediately harbored wicked thoughts. Some especially brazen ones even whistled. "Heh heh, is the miss lonely at night and looking for us to ease that loneliness?"

A burst of laughter erupted...

"Hahahaha... Exactly! What respectable woman comes crawling into the woods in the middle of the night if she isn't aching from loneliness?"

"Seventh Brother! Look at this bitch—oh, that little waist... oh, those big..."

"Tsk, tsk, she's got more kick than the top courtesan at a brothel! Brothers, we're in for a treat tonight! Hahaha..."

For a time, all manner of filthy obscenities splashed forth like sewage.

Up on the slope, Xiao Fan frowned deeply as he listened, secretly thinking that this woman was probably doomed.

If a woman fell into the hands of these men in the middle of this desolate wilderness, her fate was easy to imagine.

But to his surprise, the woman in black did not seem angered at all. She merely curled her lips slightly and laughed softly. "Mm... the scent of dragon blood. She truly is a descendant of the Ji Clan."

Dragon blood? A descendant of the Ji Clan? The words shook Xiao Fan to the core. So the noble from the palace being escorted by the convoy was actually a member of the imperial family?!

She really was someone very valuable... If not a prince or a princely heir, then an imperial prince.

Having confirmed it, the woman in black turned toward Scarface Third Brother. Her crimson lips parted, her breath fragrant as orchids. "You gentlemen have done a fine job. This little woman has one last question. As we agreed beforehand, only Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know, and I know. Not a single whisper of this must ever leak out..."

The intoxicating fragrance so close at hand had already set Scarface Third Brother's heart racing. Egged on by his brothers, his blood surged and his courage swelled. He suddenly seized the woman's slender wrist and yanked her into his arms, a greedy, twisted lecherous grin spreading across his face.

"Heh heh, we brothers understand the rules! Don't worry, miss! The only ones left who know about this are us brothers! We've handled things so beautifully—shouldn't the miss... properly 'reward' us brothers?"

He deliberately stressed the word "reward," his meaning plain for all to see.

"A reward... Of course I'll reward you properly." The woman in black placed her delicate hand upon the scar-faced man's shoulder, her voice enchanting.

Driven wild by her teasing, the scar-faced man seized her wrist and pressed her beneath him, revealing a greedy, twisted grin. "Then I'll just..."

Before he could finish—

Pshhk—!!!

A cold flash, like a venomous snake flicking out its tongue, sliced across the scar-faced man's throat!

The lecherous smile on Third Brother's face instantly froze, replaced by utter shock and bewilderment.

His head silently parted from his neck, while scorching blood erupted skyward like a fountain!

Only when the headless corpse crashed to the ground did the bandits snap out of their daze...

The woman's upper body was now dyed crimson with blood. She twirled the dagger that had somehow appeared in her hand and laughed coquettishly. "Does Big Brother like this little woman's reward?"

"Third Brother!"

"You crazy bitch, you're trying to silence us?! Watch me—"

Swish, swish, swish...

Several threads too fine for the naked eye to catch swept through the bandits.

In an instant, more than ten bandits were beheaded at nearly the same time!

Up on the slope, Xiao Fan's scalp went numb! A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head!

He had not even seen how she made her move. She had instantly killed more than ten hardened bandits, including Third Brother, who was at the eighth rank of the Iron Bone Realm... This woman's strength was absolutely above the sixth rank!

Untouchable! She was simply on a completely different level!

The thought of saving anyone was instantly crushed to dust.

Xiao Fan held his breath, his body stiff, wanting only to slip away without a sound...

However, at the very instant that thought arose—

A warm breath, mingling a cold, secluded body fragrance with a thick scent of blood, brushed lightly over his earlobe without warning...

"Eh? Where did this little tail come from?"

Those bloodstained crimson lips had somehow already pressed against Xiao Fan's ear!

Holy shit!!!