A Choice Befitting the Hidden Moon Sect

"Come closer."

Her voice was calm, as if even at this point, she remained utterly composed.

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"There is still a Demon-Suppressing Golden Needle at my waist. I want you to take it out and stab it into her brow."

Xu Yuan drew a breath and was about to step forward when the suppressed yaksha suddenly struggled to raise its head and looked at him.

"No, don't listen to her. That slut's spiritual power has already run dry, yet she still dares order you around. If I were you, I'd seize her magical artifact, snatch her storage pouch, and roam free through the mountains from now on. Why would you still need to live by the looks on others' faces?"

As if afraid Xu Yuan would be unable to make up his mind, that abomination continued to egg him on:

"If you're afraid I'll turn on you after you kill her, I can swear an oath to the Demon Ancestor right now. Or if you think killing her would be a waste, I can help you subdue her and turn her into a human puppet. You can enjoy her however you please."

As the red-skinned yaksha watched Xu Yuan draw nearer and nearer, its words became increasingly urgent. It flung out all manner of promises, any one of which would have been enough to shake an ordinary outer mountain disciple to the core.

No, for a disciple of the Hidden Moon Sect, any one of them would have been enough to make them betray friends and kin—even sell out their own family.

Yet Xu Yuan seemed not to hear a word. He crouched beside Rong Ling, his gaze sweeping over her face before he took out a golden needle.

The yaksha's terms truly were tempting, and it even dared swear an oath to the Demon Ancestor—proof enough of its sincerity. But that was only relevant if he lived long enough to enjoy any of it.

From the moment the iron token had brought him here and he had seen Rong Ling, he had known he had no choice.

For someone who had climbed so high within the Hidden Moon Sect—anyone who thought she would trust another person without taking precautions was a complete pig!

Someone like Rong Ling had dared summon Xu Yuan here, so she must have been prepared for him to turn on her or simply flee.

And if she had somehow made no preparations, then she would rather rot in the wilderness herself than let someone else pick up the advantage.

This was not Xu Yuan maliciously speculating about the human heart. It was a reasonable judgment based on the Hidden Moon Sect's overall environment. Even though he had only been here for a month, he already understood the Hidden Moon Sect and its people far too well.

That's right, friend—hurting others without benefiting oneself, sweeping the snow from one's own doorstep onto another's. That was the Hidden Moon Sect.

He dared guarantee that if he so much as entertained a stray thought or turned to leave, Rong Ling would drag him down with her even if she were to die the very next moment.

With the golden needle in hand, Xu Yuan stepped forward. A corner of his kasaya magical artifact showed itself. The yaksha tried to struggle again, but the golden light suppressed it, rendering everything it did futile. It could only watch helplessly as Xu Yuan drove the golden needle into its brow.

It was as though chanting filled the air. A violent boom erupted where the needle entered, and golden light instantly pierced through the yaksha's body. Looking at the frail youth before it, perhaps even in death it could not understand that what had defeated it was not some immensely powerful will, but Xu Yuan's clear-eyed acceptance of the Hidden Moon Sect.

"You truly are a clever man."

Rong Ling's voice sounded behind him. Supporting herself with her still relatively intact left hand, she rose to her feet and slowly moved toward the yaksha's corpse.

"Elder Sister, when you lured me beyond the sect gates and tried to turn me into a yaksha, did you ever imagine this day would come?"

Just as Xu Yuan thought she would put the corpse away with a storage artifact, he saw her actually throw herself onto the yaksha's body and open her mouth to bite into its neck.

She sucked down the abomination's blood in huge gulps. The sound of her swallowing made Xu Yuan's scalp go numb.

After consuming so much blood, Rong Ling's eyes actually began to open slowly, revealing the same scarlet red as the yaksha's.

Then she tore off the yaksha's arm. After gnawing all the flesh from it, her originally severed arm began to grow back. Yet it was equally scarlet, with backward-growing scales covering it.

After finishing the arm, she began eating its leg. By the end, Rong Ling had devoured more than half of the yaksha's body, exposing even its internal organs to the open air.

Watching from the side, Xu Yuan could no longer tell who was the Daoist and who was the demon.

With a flick of her hand, Rong Ling packed the remaining food into her storage pouch. She stretched lazily, paying no attention—or perhaps simply not caring—about her current appearance. Instead, she delighted in the fact that the cultivation bottleneck that had remained unmoved for so long had finally begun to loosen.

Narrowing her eyes, Rong Ling suddenly erupted with surging, formidable spiritual energy. In an instant, every abnormal change on her body vanished. Aside from her tattered clothing, she seemed to have become that powerful Deacon Rong Ling, the inner mountain prodigy, once more.

"Daoist disciple Xu Yuan, tell me—should I kill you?"

Rong Ling teased Xu Yuan as the aura around her seemed to turn into a sharp blade pressed against his neck.

But before Xu Yuan could answer, she suddenly smiled first. "I told you already, there are not many people in the Hidden Moon Sect who keep their promises as faithfully as I do. Since you have completed the task, I certainly will not make things difficult for you."

With a wave of her hand, the iron token that had fallen to the ground flew into her palm. Spiritual power surged over her hand as she inscribed a character onto it.

[Rong]

"Take this. From now on, I'll come find you whenever I have something for you to do."

Rong Ling tossed the iron token to Xu Yuan, then pointed at a cave some distance away.

"That is the cave dwelling of this drought ghoul yaksha. There are still some spiritual treasures inside. You may gather them yourself. As for the way back, simply follow the route we took here."

After leaving those words behind, Rong Ling suddenly transformed into a streak of escaping light. Just as on that day, she vanished without a trace in an instant.

Only after three more breaths, once everything had truly ended, did Xu Yuan finally take a deep breath and slowly sit down on the ground.

"Fuck, that was way too thrilling."

If he had made even a single wrong choice just now, he would likely already have been separated from his head. Dealing with this pack of ferocious fiends truly allowed no room for the slightest carelessness.

Holding the iron token in his hand, Xu Yuan examined it for a few moments before tucking it close against his body. With this thing, he would probably have some protection in the outer mountain.

He walked toward the cave dwelling Rong Ling had pointed out. In truth, it was merely a deep pit, roughly three zhang long and two zhang wide, reeking all around of sour rot and stench.

Enduring the foul odor, Xu Yuan relied on his exceptional eyesight to search the "cave dwelling." At last, he found a small fruit tree in one corner.

Who knew how this spiritual fruit had grown? In such an environment, it had somehow borne two bright-red spiritual fruits, each the size of an infant's fist. With a sweep of his hand, Xu Yuan plucked them directly.

After putting away the two spiritual fruits, Xu Yuan searched all around the cave dwelling again. He really did find a few more things—a chipped longsword.

As he touched the longsword, a piece of information suddenly appeared before Xu Yuan's eyes.

[Item: Damaged Mid-Grade Magical Artifact Longsword]

[Status: Unusable]

[Current Traits: None]

[Traits That Can Be Added: 0/1]

[Selectable Traits: Sturdy (White): It'll do in a pinch; it can still cut a melon. Cost: one hundred taels of gold

Emergency Repair (Green): After some patchwork repairs, this sword can barely be used. Cost: three low-grade spirit stones and one piece of refined black iron ore.]