Shen Qing edged back half an inch, sending loose stones pattering down from the cliff.
Xiong Ba saw that she meant to kill herself and immediately stopped.
If such a prime beauty fell and splattered into pulp, his heart would ache for a long time.
"All of you, back the hell up!"
After barking at his men, Xiong Ba took two steps closer, his spiked club resting on his shoulder.
"Little bitch, I'm in a good mood today."
"How about this? I'll give you a chance to live."
He slapped his chest and split his mouth in a wide grin.
"As long as you beat me, I'll let you both down the mountain right away. I won't stop you!"
Shen Qing tightened her grip on her saber.
A pack of lies.
Let me down the mountain?
Let me carry out news of the Zhao Clan's rebellion?
Did he take me for a three-year-old?
Yet she was tempted all the same.
For no other reason than that Xiong Ba's gaze was truly disgusting.
Even if she died, she had to slaughter this beast first!
"Young miss, you mustn't..."
Uncle Fu clutched his bleeding left shoulder, his voice worried.
Shen Qing reached out with her left hand and gently patted his shoulder.
She moved half a step closer and spoke quietly.
"Uncle Fu, I'll do my best to draw the fight into the crowd."
"When you spot an opening, run down the mountain. Don't worry about me."
Uncle Fu's expression changed drastically, and he shook his head desperately.
"Young miss, this old servant would never..."
Before he could finish, the figure beside him had already darted away.
Shen Qing pushed off with her toes, gripped her saber in both hands, and cleaved down at Xiong Ba's head.
Hum!
A white blade of saber Qi half a zhang long flew free of the edge, shooting straight at Xiong Ba's face.
"Just what I wanted!"
Rather than alarm, delight filled Xiong Ba.
With both hands, he swung his two-hundred-jin spiked club in a full arc and smashed it down at the saber Qi.
Crack!
The saber Qi shattered with a crash, scattering into specks of light that filled the sky.
The tremendous recoil numbed the webbing of Xiong Ba's hands and drove him back several steps.
Now!
Shen Qing changed her footwork and charged diagonally toward the bandits.
The bandits had never expected her to change direction so suddenly, and they fell into chaos.
"Holy shit! She's coming at us!"
"Stop her!"
Just as Shen Qing was about to plunge into the crowd, the sky above her suddenly darkened.
"Where do you think you're going!"
A furious bellow exploded in midair.
Xiong Ba leaped high, his spiked club whipping up a vicious, howling wind as it smashed toward the center of Shen Qing's back.
Shen Qing's hair stood on end. She sank at the waist, twisted her hips, and forcibly turned herself around.
Xiong Ba split his mouth in a savage grin.
"I've been waiting for you!"
He turned his wrist, sweeping the spiked club sideways with its momentum.
Shen Qing's heart sank. With no time to dodge, she could only hold her saber across her body.
Clang!
Shen Qing felt a force that could topple mountains and overturn seas crash into her blade, sending her flying backward off the ground.
After landing, she slid a full three zhang before barely managing to shed the force.
Her organs churned like rivers and seas. A sweet taste rose in her throat, and a trickle of blood spilled involuntarily from the corner of her mouth.
Xiong Ba grinned viciously and advanced one step at a time, his spiked club on his shoulder.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. So this is all a Second Rank Qi Gathering Realm expert amounts to."
Shen Qing propped herself up with her long saber, her chest heaving.
"Despicable!"
"This all ends here."
Xiong Ba reached his enormous, fan-sized hand toward Shen Qing.
He had already thought of more than a dozen ways to torment Shen Qing, guaranteed to leave her caught between ecstasy and agony.
Watching the approaching hand, Shen Qing suddenly grasped her saber's hilt in both hands and raised it high above her head.
She slowly closed her eyes.
Not far away, Uncle Fu was rushing toward her. His face went pale at the sight.
"No! Young miss, stop!"
That was the Shen Clan's ultimate inherited secret art!
Xiong Ba also sensed something wrong.
Shen Qing's imposing presence was surging wildly.
He retreated half a step, gripped his spiked club tightly with both hands, and brought his full attention to bear.
Shen Qing's expression flickered between light and shadow, and the surrounding air grew heavy and oppressive.
Wisps of white Qi drifted from the top of her head, following her arms to coil around her long saber.
The saber trembled violently, giving off waves of humming.
Within a few short breaths, a loose lock of hair over her forehead turned silver-white.
Shen Qing's eyes snapped open, and her sharp cry rang across the mountaintop.
"Moon-Destroying Slash!"
Her long saber cleaved down with fearsome force.
A crescent of saber Qi a full five zhang wide burst into being out of thin air, plowing through everything in its path like an army razing an enemy's stronghold, sending broken rocks flying.
Xiong Ba's eyes bulged, and his scalp prickled.
There's no dodging this strike!
With a wild roar, he poured the full power of his Qi and blood into his arms and swung his spiked club to meet it head-on.
Boom!
The saber light swallowed Xiong Ba completely.
Violent waves of air swept outward. Several nearby bandits were torn into pieces on the spot before they could even scream.
Xiong Ba flew backward and slammed heavily into the ground, throwing up a skyful of dust.
He lay motionless on his back, a wound so deep it exposed bone laid bare across his chest, its flesh curled outward in a horrifying sight.
The mountaintop instantly fell silent. Every bandit froze where he stood.
Pfft!
Shen Qing could hold on no longer and violently spat out a mouthful of blood.
The long saber in her hand clattered to the ground, and her body crumpled.
Uncle Fu hurriedly caught the swaying Shen Qing.
At the sight of that glaring lock of silver hair over her forehead, his eyes instantly reddened.
"Young miss, why did you have to do this!"
The Shen Clan's Moon-Destroying Slash was a genuine Earth Rank martial art of unparalleled power.
But unleashing this move came at an enormous cost: it required burning away one's lifespan.
Shen Qing leaned in Uncle Fu's arms and spoke weakly.
"Just a few years of life. As long as I could slaughter that beast, it was worth it..."
"Was it?"
A rough voice suddenly drifted over eerily from nearby.
Shen Qing and Uncle Fu stiffened all over and abruptly looked up.
There, in the pool of blood, Xiong Ba pushed against the ground and shakily climbed to his feet.
Even more astonishingly, the hideous wound across his chest had already stopped bleeding!
His formerly feeble presence was now climbing at a shocking speed!
In the blink of an eye, that imposing presence broke through some barrier, becoming several times more powerful than before!
Xiong Ba looked down at his hands, then threw back his head and burst into utterly unbridled laughter.
"Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!"
As he laughed, two tears actually squeezed from the corners of his eyes.
"Who would've thought? Who would've fucking thought that one trip to death's door would let me break straight into the Second Rank!"
At those words, the surrounding bandits first froze, then erupted into deafening cheers.
"The chief is mighty!"
"Congratulations on perfecting your divine skill, Chief!"
Shen Qing and Uncle Fu's expressions changed drastically, and they staggered back several steps.
A breakthrough in the midst of battle?
How was that possible!
Shen Qing stared fixedly at Xiong Ba, her mind utterly blank.
The strike she had bought by burning her lifespan had not only failed to kill him, but had instead helped him break through his martial bottleneck at the brink of death!
A bitter smile touched Shen Qing's lips.
Fate really was fucking unreasonable.
Xiong Ba stopped laughing and looked at Shen Qing, his face full of malice.
"Little bitch, you never would've imagined it, would you? That I'd have a day like this!"
He spread his arms, feeling the breeze on the mountaintop, his face glowing with triumphant spirit.
"I, Xiong Ba, started practicing martial arts at five and killing at eight!"
"I entered the First Rank at twelve. At fifteen, I went into the mountains alone with a saber. By seventeen..."
Suddenly, a voice came from a bluestone boulder to one side.
"So what if you were seventeen?"
Startled, Xiong Ba whipped his head around.
A youth in a long blue-green robe stood proudly atop a three-zhang bluestone boulder, his hand resting on the saber at his waist as he stared coldly over.
Deathly silence filled the scene.
Only the mountain wind sobbed as it blew past.