“I must say – you two are rather impressive!” A tall and athletic young man, around twenty years of age, said with a wide grin.

His clothing was slightly torn and he had few superficial wounds, mostly burns, but it was nothing compared to the two girls of similar age dozen yards further away. One of them had a deep cut on her thigh while the other held her bleeding right shoulder with her left hand and, while the first one was still tightly grasping her sword, the second had dropped her weapon during the last exchange and it lie next to the person on the ground.

Last night they managed to find this small lake in the middle of the forest and decided to camp here for a few days. It was a nice, picturesque place until they got sneak attacked. In the beginning there were two assaulters, but the girls managed to decapitate one. The price they payed could be considered acceptable and being the Core formation stage cultivators they would fully heal their wounds in few days, but the problem was that the second guy was still there and he seemed to be much stronger that the one they managed to kill. Earlier he rather quickly disposed of the flaming beast that was escorting the two ladies, but while he was busy, they managed to deal with his companion.

“Sigh, Sully has only himself to blame for underestimating you, so don’t feel bad for killing him.” The young man said while playfully kicking the head that lie nearby closer to its owner’s body.

“How can you behave this way?! He was your friend!” The girl with the wounded shoulder angrily shouted, seeing the decapitated head getting kicked, but the other one couldn’t care less.

“The two of them are from the corrupt path – why would you expect them to behave reasonably, Alice? Let’s focus – we need to defeat him … otherwise …” Fan Yun glanced to the side where her phoenix died few moments ago.

Of course, it wasn’t a real phoenix, only a rank six fire cormorant, but it was gifted to her by her dad when she only began to walk and became her closest friend while growing up. Despite it not being able to fly, the bird that looked something like a dark, six foot tall goose had surprising combat abilities, especially after reaching rank six when it actually learned to use its innate ability to transform Qi into fire. It was said that cormorants would finally start flying upon reaching rank seven, but unfortunately this particular one, similar to most of its kin, was not destined to experience that – it died while protecting its master.

“Corrupt path … that’s a quite derogatory term to use while speaking of your husband, don’t you think?” The remaining guy said while still widely grinning, “But I forgive you, I’m not petty … Why don’t we introduce ourselves first? It would be only proper before we begin our wedding ceremony. My name is Cooke … you’re Alice, right? And what would your name be, my dear?”

Cooke’s tone was polite and even kind, but the perverted way he licked his lips made shivers run down the spines of the two girls.

“I’d rather die!” Alice hissed and picked up the sword with her left hand, ignoring the stinging pain in right shoulder. Obviously the weapon was rather useless in her current state, but she intended to go down swinging.

“Don’t worry, you will!” Cooke smiled back, “But on my terms, of course. Don’t even dream of blowing up your cores – while your damned fire penguin tried to keep me busy I set up the formation … see those flags around the perimeter? Why do you think it took me so long to kill it?”

For a Core formation stage cultivator blowing up their core was the last resort and at the same time their strongest weapon. The blast could easily take lives of multiple opponents of similar level, but Cooke obviously knew that and took precautions. From what it looked like, he had the ability to defeat them from the very beginning, but gladly let his buddy die in order to later have his way with both girls alone.

“Damn pervert!” Alice hissed, while trying to figure a way out, but nothing apart from buying time came to mind.

Now they could only hope either her brother or one of their other friends from the Golden city would show up since it was obvious she could not trust the other participants – there was no telling how many from the corrupt path had infiltrated the entrance exams.

Either Fan Yun had a similar train of thought or she actually broke down, because the next moment she completely ignored Cooke and began to scold Alice.

“I blame you! It’s all your fault!” She barked at her friend.

“How is it my fault?” Alice was stupefied, not being able to guess if she was supposed to play along or defend.

“If you hadn’t had this moronic idea of following Kevin to the War Academy, nothing like this would’ve happened!” Fan Yun complained, “You’re not in love with him, so why did you have to do it? Were you too bored in the Golden city? Was your life too good? Couldn’t you just have a vacation in one of the mortal realms? Why come to this damned place and look for adventures?”

Actually her point was valid and all of what she complained about Alice had already heard from her parents, brother and at least a dozen more people. But even though Fan Yun was her friend, she didn’t have to tag along for the ‘real’ adventure that apparently was the first and the last one they were going to experience.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Then why did you come? Wasn’t your life as a runemaster’s apprentice equally comfortable? Weren’t you looking for some action too?” Alice retorted.

Cooke was about to slip in a remark about the ‘action’ the two girls were about to get, but apparently they were too flared up and forgot about him.

“Action, my ass! You left me with no choice!” Fan Yun angrily said and immediately grimaced in pain. The wound on her thigh was still there and kept bleeding even though she tried to ignore it. That didn’t quench her anger though, “Because you decided to run off, Claude had no other choice, but to follow you! ‘I have to protect my little sister!’ he said, ‘I have to take care of her!’ he said … that damned moron! How could I let him go alone – what if he meets someone here and marries, and has children, and whatnot?! Men are so simple and stupid!”

“You’re in love with my brother? That’s why you decided to join the War Academy?” Alice’s eyes widened in revelation, “Does he know?”

“No! Not yet!” Fan Yun barked back, “And it’ll stay that way until …”

“It’ll stay that way forever.” Cooke finally had enough “From now on you two will be my wives till death do us part … uhmm … probably till sunset. No need to try to commit suicide by biting your tongues off, I’ll do you while you bleed out and while your bodies are still warm anyway, so …”

The two girls felt their hair stand on end, but what happened next made them blank out. While Cooke was talking, something attacked him from above, something fast and quick. It came down like a rock and under the attack Cooke’s head exploded first and then his body turned into a large, red puddle. His innards along with blood splattered the surroundings and colored the two shocked girls in disgusting layer of gore, but in the puddle that was once Cooke there lie something that vaguely resembled a person, mostly because of the clothing and the footwear though.

“Urghhhhhhh …” A gurgling sound coming from the pile of blood and meat returned the two friends to reality.

“What the f…” Fan Yun blurted out and stepped towards the spot, only to immediately grimace in pain.

“Looks like elders were observing the third stage of exams after all!” Alice happily said, “I guess they threw another one from the corrupted path over here and killed both of them in one go! Three kills for the good guys!”

Then she carelessly sat on the ground and tore off the remaining clothing that covered her wounded shoulder. After taking out a bottle of water from her ring, she began to wash it while making similar pained expressions to Fan Yun.

“You better take care of your leg. If you want to woo my brother you can’t have an ugly scar in that place.” Alice happily continued. A thought of her friend being in love with her brother amused her to no end.

“Hmph! I don’t have a scar in ‘that’ place! My leg is injured!” Fan Yun snorted, but followed the advice. It was not that hard to get rid of a scar even if she got one, but a thought of passing out in wilderness from blood loss was too scary. Especially since they had no clue if there were more people from the corrupt path taking part in exams.

It took quite a while for them to take care of their wounds, but even after bandaging themselves both realized they were covered in Cooke’s and their own blood. That led them to washing themselves in the lake and then reapplying bandages again. When they were finally done, Fan Yun got up and limped towards the pile of flesh that was still emitting gurgling sounds now and then.

“Let’s see what elders have sent us.” She said.

“I’m not touching that!” Alice said in disgust, but her friend looked back at her in confusion.

“Aren’t you alchemist? You’ve dissected insects and beasts for years!”

“So what? Don’t tell me you don’t think it’s disgusting!” Alice said.

“Mhm.” Fan Yun agreed. They passionately argued a short while ago, but everything was already forgotten.

She picked up a branch and began to poke the pile of gurgling meat.

“What are you looking for? Let’s go!” Alice said, still wrinkling nose in disgust. The Cooke’s innards that splattered in surroundings smelled like a toilet that hadn’t been cleaned for years and the only thing she could think of was to get as far away from this place as possible.

“This is a survival exam, right? We need to take a look what these two have left behind.” Fan Yun said, “Cooke had a spatial bracelet … oh, here it is!”

She picked up the bracelet with the branch, carried over to the lake to wash. Afterwards she threw it to Alice, who clumsily caught it with her left hand, and went back to poke around the pile of meat again.

“I must say, these guys are really good equipped.” Alice said after checking the contents of the bracelet. The space inside was not that big, maybe large enough to fit a couple of crouching people, but it was neatly packed with formation flags and different weapons, “What about the other one?”

“It doesn’t look like he has anything, maybe a ring I can’t find?” Fan Yun said.

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” Alice asked.

“You don’t want to know …” Fan Yun said trying to suppress nausea, but then her face lit up, “I think I got it! This one has an amulet … looks old … not a typical spacial treasure, I must say … they aren’t too practical … f*ck! Can’t you just die?! It’s so disgusting!”

The pile of meat kept making weird sounds and sometimes even moved, thus she smacked it with the branch. Then finally managed to fish out the amulet and, after tearing the chain went back to the lake to wash it. Afterwards she focused on the amulet in order to inspect the contents, but could only shake her head in regret.

“Sigh … this guy is a complete pauper.” Fan Yun said, “Apart from cheap alchemy supplies and a couple immortal spirit stones he only has water and a bit provisions. The space inside is surprisingly big though … an interesting runic formation. If we were home I’d ask grandpa about it. Unfortunately it’s useless for us now …”

Then she limped over to Alice, said, “Let’s go!” and threw the amulet aside.

Her friend nodded and got up, intending to leave, but then froze, her eyes widening in shock.

“This … it can’t be!” Alice stuttered.