Tiger Mountain God

The resistance of blade entering flesh came clearly through her palm.

Warm blood splattered across her cheek.

Pei Changqing's eyes widened round with shock.

No matter what, he could not understand why the girl before him had attacked him.

"You..."

The word caught in his throat, and there was no sound after that.

The light in his eyes quickly faded.

Jiang Yuechu's hand around the hilt trembled violently.

The thick stench of blood filled her nostrils, and her stomach churned.

She had killed someone.

She had killed someone with her own hands.

Even though she had seen death countless times online in her previous life, typing more fiercely than anyone else behind a keyboard.

When a life had truly ended at her own hands.

The crushing weight of morality, the spraying blood.

Everything was grinding against her modern sensibilities.

"Tsk."

The tiger demon stood frozen as well, tilting its tiger head as it examined Jiang Yuechu.

"I thought that while you humans are nothing but food, you at least possess some loyalty toward your comrades and affection for your kin. I never expected you to be so cold-blooded."

It shook its head, its tone full of contempt, as though it had even lost interest in attacking her at once.

It likewise could not understand what benefit this girl could gain by killing a man who was already about to die.

Did she think that would make it show mercy?

Just then.

The writing on the ancient scroll in Jiang Yuechu's mind suddenly changed.

[Killed a String Hearing Realm creature. Obtained twenty years of cultivation.]

Her mind was forcibly pulled back to this wilderness strewn with corpses.

That was right.

This was not the time to think about such things.

Right and wrong, morality, conscience...

Before she could even survive, they were all empty words.

She let go with one hand indifferently.

With her other hand, she pulled the saber from Pei Changqing's chest with all her strength.

Pfft.

Blood sprayed again, staining her clothes red.

No matter what.

This was her only chance to live!

The next instant, she hesitated no longer.

She did not know how much cultivation she needed to seize even a sliver of hope.

Twenty years?

Thirty years?

Or even with a hundred years of cultivation.

Would she still be nothing more than a slightly stronger ant before this tiger demon with its bizarre divine powers?

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.

At that moment, the twenty years of cultivation she had just gained poured entirely into her body.

Above the wilderness, the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the withered grass and corpses a bleak, blood-red hue.

The running girl was slight of build, and the saber in her hand reflected the evening glow.

As though it were ablaze.

Seeing this, the tiger demon stopped thinking and abruptly opened its bloodstained maw.

"Roar—"

The roar swept up sand, stones, and dead grass from the ground.

Though it looked imposing now, it had actually suffered serious injuries in its initial battle against that squad of Demon-Suppression Guards.

If not for its innate divine power allowing it to escape disaster, it would already have become another dead soul beneath their blades.

Even so, it was not something a helpless little girl could provoke.

The tiger demon raised its sharp claws and viciously slapped down at the charging figure, carrying a foul wind with them.

Jiang Yuechu stared fixedly at the enormous claw descending upon her.

The saber in her hand had become incomparably heavy.

Twenty years of cultivation.

All entrusted to one strike.

She knew nothing of saber techniques. She merely poured that tyrannical power into the blade.

Following an instinct to survive, she swung it horizontally.

A flash of steel.

A line of blood burst forth.

Human and demon crossed paths.

Jiang Yuechu staggered several steps before dropping to one knee.

The saber flew from her hand and stabbed into the mud some distance away.

She suddenly opened her mouth and spat out blood, while bloody threads seeped from all seven of her orifices.

Those twenty years of cultivation had come quickly and gone just as quickly, consumed completely in an instant.

The tiger demon remained in its claw-swinging posture, frozen in place.

The wind blew, and the wild grass swayed.

As though it, too, had become a spectator to this fight and was terrified by the deathly silence.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Pfft.

The massive tiger head rolled to the ground.

"Hah... hah..."

Jiang Yuechu gasped for air.

She had survived.

The instant that thought arose, weakness crashed over her like a tide.

[Killed a String Hearing Realm creature. Obtained one hundred years of cultivation.]

[Unrecorded demon detected. Consume cultivation to record it?]

The words on the ancient scroll appeared again in her mind, but she had no strength left to examine them closely.

She forced herself to try to stand.

But it felt as though every ounce of strength had been drained from her body. She could not even move her fingertips.

Record it?

What did that mean?

She lay on the ground with her cheek pressed against the dirt, truly having no mind to think further.

Forget it.

Things had already come to this.

Where would she find the time to study it?

"Record it."

The moment the thought fell, the ancient scroll before her moved without wind and actually floated in midair.

It traced its shadow and fixed its demon form.

The next moment, the cultivation on the panel began draining away at a rapid pace.

In the blink of an eye, more than half of it had been consumed.

Across the scroll, strokes raced like dragons and snakes, sketching a lifelike white-browed tiger with hanging eyes.

When the final stroke fell, the tiger on the scroll seemed to come alive, its eyes glowing with a dim red light.

[Successfully traced Tiger Mountain God's shadow. Received a gift from the demon.]

[Fierce Tiger Swift Blade (Mastery)]

Boom—

A surge of power poured back from the scroll, instantly filling her body.

Her weakness and injuries from moments ago were swept away.

She even felt more comfortable than she ever had before.

At the same time, countless insights into saber techniques, forms, and methods of exerting force appeared in her mind from nowhere.

After the time it took to burn an incense stick.

Jiang Yuechu slowly rose to her feet, her face full of disbelief.

Her slender fingers now contained inexhaustible strength.

She walked over to the saber embedded in the mud and reached out to grasp its hilt.

It fit her hand perfectly.

As though these hands had been born to wield a blade.

So this was the true use of cultivation.

Directly consuming cultivation only exchanged it for a momentary burst of power, making it terribly inefficient.

Only recording demons was a sustainable path.

With a thought, the panel unfolded again.

[Host: Jiang Yuechu]

[Realm: String-Hearing Initial Realm]

[Martial Art: Fierce Tiger Swift Blade (Mastery)]

[Cultivation: Twenty-five years]

[Recorded Demon: Tiger Mountain God (Shadow Trace)]

"String-Hearing Initial Realm?"

"What exactly does Shadow Trace... mean?"

Jiang Yuechu fell into thought.

Could the String-Hearing Initial Realm be this world's cultivation system?

And Shadow Trace...

Did it mean that what she had gained was merely the tip of the iceberg of that tiger demon's divine powers?

If she continued consuming cultivation, could she advance this Shadow Trace further?

She glanced at the mere twenty-five years of cultivation remaining.

Tracing the shadow alone had consumed a full seventy-five years.

Who knew how absurd the cost of the next stage would be.

Forget it.

For now, it was better to save these twenty-five years of cultivation for emergencies.

Having thought it through, Jiang Yuechu calmed herself.

She turned and walked toward the corpse that still retained some warmth, then silently crouched beside it.

She reached out and gently closed his staring eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"If there comes a day when I've killed enough demons and gathered enough cultivation, perhaps I can find a way to rebuild your body and give you back your life."

"Of course, don't get your hopes up too much."

"In a world like this, I don't even know how long I'll live."

"Maybe one day I'll come down and keep you company. If we meet in the underworld then, don't beat me up..."

But in this world where demons ran rampant.

When someone reached the point where they had no control over their own fate, it no longer mattered whether they could bear it or not.

Tiger Mountain God