Tying up loose ends

Mo Chen had barely hidden himself inside the rock when Gu Diao reached Jiang Jiuyao and her companion.

They're far too fast! Mo Chen was secretly alarmed.

There were fifteen or sixteen Gu Diao in this wave, drawn over by the aftershocks of the battle. Each gave off an aura at the second or third layer of Qi Refining.

Their cultivation might not have been high, but their numbers were overwhelming.

Jiang Jiuyao and the old prince had failed to break through all the restrictions. Their feet felt heavy, and even their Flying Swords wobbled.

These dozen or so Gu Diao were low-grade beasts, roughly at the first or second layer of Qi Refining. They had failed to claim any of the feast in the city and did not dare go near the Twin Crane Sect, so they had followed the firelight instead.

The old prince swore, channeled his Spiritual Power to raise his Flying Sword, and swept it into a silvery-white curtain of blades before him.

The Demon Beasts were about to attack. With a little time still left, he had to prepare a defense.

Before long, the first Gu Diao slammed into the sword curtain. Half its head was sliced clean off, and it twitched through several turns in midair before falling.

His first strike had succeeded, and the old prince felt a surge of joy. But before he could celebrate, three more pounced from the flanks almost simultaneously.

Alarmed, the two activated their Protective Aura.

The next instant, sharp claws tore three gashes through their Protective Aura.

Their bodies were far too powerful!

Jiang Jiuyao clearly had more combat experience. With a series of flicks of her fingers, she conjured vines as thick as an arm to bind several gu eagles surrounding her, then seized her flying sword and cut off one beast's head.

Mo Chen peeked out from behind the gray rock with half an eye, quietly watching the scene.

Go on, keep chasing me. You chased me for half the damn night. Where's all that swagger now?

With their cultivation, the two should have had the upper hand against a dozen low-level Demon Beasts. But they had already spent most of their Dharma Power resisting Mo Chen's talismans. Trapped within the Wind-Binding Restriction as well, their Flying Swords had lost much of their speed and force, leaving them visibly scrambling.

After restraining several more Gu Diao with vines, Jiang Jiuyao opened her mouth and spat out a ball of flame.

The flame split into four, turning into fiery lotuses that landed on the Gu Diao's heads.

The four beasts' heads promptly burst into flames. After several shrill screams, everything above their necks was burned to charcoal!

Six of the sixteen gu eagles had been killed, their mutilated corpses strewn across the ground. Yet nine remained alive, and the smell of blood only drove them into a greater frenzy. Their attacks came faster and faster.

The elderly prince was the first to falter. After seven or eight successive claw strikes, his Protective Aura finally shattered.

The phantom sword curtain severed one Gu Diao's left claw, then lost all its strength. The beast's right claw tore a palm-sized chunk of flesh and skin from his thigh.

Reeling from the pain, the elderly prince formed a sword seal with his left hand, bringing his Flying Sword sweeping back.

Although his sword pierced straight through the Gu Diao's skull, he was grievously wounded himself. Its sharp claws had torn his lower leg clean off, and blood gushed like a spring.

The elderly prince had just been about to inspect his injuries when two more Gu Diao flew at him, one from the front and one from behind.

He split his sword into three phantom images and dispatched the Gu Diao in front, but he clearly had no way to deal with the one behind him.

"Fellow cultivator, save me!"

Jiang Jiuyao saw this and formed a spell seal. The tree trunks on either side transformed into vines under the influence of her Spiritual Power and bound Gu Diao.

Then she raised her hand and struck with her sword, splitting Gu Diao, which had attacked from behind, in two.

Before the elderly prince could enjoy his reprieve, Jiang Jiuyao was already struggling to keep up after saving him. A Gu Diao beside her seized the opening and tore her right arm clean off...

Before long, the sounds of slaughter in the mountain forest gradually faded.

Jiang Jiuyao's Green Vine tightly bound the last Gu Diao's neck. The middle-aged man mustered his final shred of Spiritual Power, driving his Flying Sword down through its skull.

Gu Diao crashed to the ground, twitched a few times, and finally lay still.

The corpses of more than a dozen Gu Diao lay scattered across twenty zhang of ground. Demonic blood flowed down the mountainside in a gruesome torrent!

But the two cultivators were in an even more wretched state. The elderly prince's legs had been forcibly torn off by Gu Diao's sharp claws. Both severed legs lay in the grass three feet away. His face was white, and more breath left him than entered.

Jiang Jiuyao knelt amid a pile of Gu Diao corpses. Having her right arm torn off by one of them had already been miserable enough.

Yet another Gu Diao had lashed her left shoulder with its tail before dying. The flesh along her entire left arm had been ripped open, leaving it dangling by a small scrap at her shoulder, dripping blood.

After one bloody battle, one had lost both legs, and the other both arms.

They made quite a pair.

"What a coincidence. One without arms, one without legs. How does that count as a whole person?"

Mo Chen stepped out from behind the gray rock.

"You... you didn't leave!"

Mo Chen crouched before the elderly prince and spoke slowly. "Old prince, do you still recognize me?"

"I'll remember you even in death. That lowly... book-copying wretch from back then..."

The last word caught in his throat as Mo Chen shoved the toe of his shoe into his mouth.

"Lowly what? A lowly clerk, is that it?"

Mo Chen slowly rose, then planted his boot on the prince's face.

"Say... fellow cultivator, have you ever heard of a spell called Mighty Strength?"

The elderly prince shuddered all over, his pupils quaking.

"Don't kill me... I have Spirit Stones... I have cultivation methods... I'll give you everything..."

His pleas seeped out from beneath the sole, but Mo Chen could not be bothered to answer.

We're already mortal enemies. If I let you live, next time I'll be the turtle caught in the jar.

Mo Chen naturally understood that principle.

With a sharp crack, the prince's features were crushed into an indistinct mass of bloody flesh.

Mo Chen turned to look at Jiang Jiuyao.

Jiang Jiuyao half-knelt amid the pile of Demon Beast corpses, her face filled with terror. The cultivator before her had already surpassed anything she could comprehend.

"Ever since then... you've been ageless and undying, haven't you?"

Mo Chen did not answer.

"Senior Jiang, I don't kill my benefactors."

Jiang Jiuyao's right eye suddenly lit up. "You... you won't kill me?"

"I won't."

Mo Chen sounded sincere. "Back then at the Wenyuan Pavilion, you looked down on me, but you did give me a copy of the Black Turtle Breathing Method. Without that cultivation method, I couldn't even have achieved Qi Drawing into the Body, much less stepped through the gates of the immortal path. I've always remembered that kindness."

Jiang Jiuyao's lips trembled violently. "Thank you... fellow cultivator. I know you must have your reasons, and these past years can't have been easy for you. If you don't mind, I can still..."

Sword light flashed!

The Red-Tailed Sword flew from Mo Chen's sleeve, circled lightly around Jiang Jiuyao's neck, then flew back to hover at his side.

Jiang Jiuyao's expression froze. Then her head slid from her neck.

Mo Chen put away the Red-Tailed Sword and let out a soft breath.

"I lied."

"I kill my benefactors too!"

"Back then, when you examined my spiritual root at the Great Qian Academy of Letters, you knew perfectly well that my dantian had a greater affinity for fire- and earth-aspected spiritual energy. Yet you deliberately gave me a water- and wood-aspected cultivation method. You even said I'd never reach the Qi Refining Third Layer in my entire life. You were clearly making a joke of me, hoping to watch me spend my whole life trapped by a method that would never get me anywhere."

Cultivators were even more cruel!

Of course Mo Chen knew that.

A mortal, a petty clerk with aptitude as poor and insignificant as an ant's, dared dream of a chance at immortality?

Fine, here's a cultivation method. Spend your whole life running in circles at the threshold. Now that's entertaining.

"Anyone who knows the secret of my longevity must die!"

Mo Chen raised his hand and pointed at the two Storage Bags, drawing Jiang Jiuyao's and her companion's bags into his possession.

Rather than inspect them immediately, Mo Chen conjured two fireballs to burn away the traces, then quickly hid again.

After all, with the Monster Uprising underway, he had to hide deeper to avoid being detected by Demon Beasts with higher cultivation.

After disposing of Jiang Jiuyao and her companion with a few brief exchanges, Mo Chen spotted an even larger wave of Demon Beasts flying toward the rear mountain from the Twin Crane Sect.

He hurriedly burrowed into the earth again and only stopped once he had pushed his aura-concealment technique to its limit.