Why is she going in the direction of the village? Is she insane?

Liu Ying was beginning to wish that he had just told the old woman to go away the moment she knocked on the shrine door. Most problems could be avoided by not opening the door to them in the first place, although he supposed he could attribute his dangerous curiosity to being the God of Mystery. It also could have easily been the other way around, but he had no time to dwell on chicken-or-egg scenarios. Jielong was hot on his heels and he needed to redirect her before she reached the village and had access to more mortals.

Swerving around a tree, Liu Ying switched directions and began to run eastbound. It was significantly darker and more crowded with trees and shrubbery, so he had no choice but to summon a bit of spiritual energy into his palm to light the way. His powers in his mortal form were markedly weaker but usually sufficed under day-to-day circumstances that didn’t involve running from a possessed one-armed girl with the intent to kill.

Something zapped at his heels and sent him sailing in the air for a moment before he crashed down to the ground, heart lodged in his throat.

Liu Ying scrambled, arms and legs looking for purchase to push himself up and keep going, but a swift kick delivered to his side rendered him temporarily immobile. A girlish grunt sounded above him, seething.

“What are you?” Jielong interrogated, “Your spirit is sealed.”

Instead of granting a response, Liu Ying flipped himself around and used a short burst of spiritual power to send the girl backwards into a tree. Her legs held her fast, although the feral look in her clouded eyes deepened.

“No use for you, then,” she spat.

Liu Ying had met Jielong once before, what felt like a lifetime ago but could have been around one hundred and fifty years, when he stopped her from plaguing a market town. She was known as the Broken Heart Demon and was normally summoned in the wake of vengeful ex-lovers, spiteful spouses, or even in cases of split friendships, but that was where her strength lied – being summoned, being wanted. Revenge was powerful in all its forms, and mortals tangled themselves in it until they were fully consumed. What was ironic was that Jielong was unfaithful at heart, and would very easily turn around and kill the person who summoned her in the first place, but that didn’t stop her from being highly sought out and wrecking havoc within every opportunity she was granted.

At the time, she had been seizing the spirits and then consuming the physical bodies of the graverobbers that had summoned her with the intent of having her create more victims for them to steal from, only to have it backfire. The mess she had left behind was grotesque but telling – with so little regard to concealing her actions, he’d been able to trace her whereabouts with the help of Zhou Hui and expel her back into the Demonic Realm, weakened and spiteful.

He would have found it amusing that Jielong couldn’t tell who was beneath his mortal skin, if she hadn’t suddenly turned her back to him and disappeared back where they had come from.

Shit, she’s headed for the village… I wonder if Duan Baozhai at least had the decency to alert someone so that they can pray for help.

Liu Ying sat up and rubbed his forehead as he tried to think. In all of his years of traveling, something like this had only happened a handful of times, where he was located somewhere with demonic activity that needed to be quelled. Of course he had thought about stripping from the mortal form in order to protect innocent people, but he had been lucky enough not to have to each time.

The first time, he’d been passing a village suffering from sandstorms caused by a fledgling camped outside of the village, waiting to stake its claim on deceased spirits. Liu Ying had been prepared for a fight he wasn’t sure he’d win. At the time, his spiritual reserves were so low that he might as well have been a mortal. Fortunately, Han Chuanli – the God of Wind, had been called upon to attend to the people’s suffering and he made quick work of the fledgling while Liu Ying watched behind a well-placed boulder. He’d always watched Han Chuanli with admiration. An immensely talented martial and elemental god, the way he moved was so graceful that he looked to be one with the wind he commanded. They’d been close friends prior to Liu Ying’s disappearance and he yearned to reach out and pinch his cheek hard the way they often did to each other, but instead watched him ascend back to the heavens with nothing but an empty feeling in his chest.

Other times, either a cultivation sect had been close enough to rise to the occasion of helping people in need, or heavenly deputies came down to assist.

Liu Ying wondered if this would be the time he would be forced to help. He stood and began making his way to the village, arguing with himself the entire time. If he did this, he would have to leave so immediately that no one would be able to tell which way he went. There was no way he could get caught by someone from the Heavenly Realm, lest he wanted them to be on his trail again, like they were many years ago. Anxiety was filling his chest with every step he took.

Should I just leave? I’m sure once people see Jielong, they’ll immediately start praying and something will happen. No one will even be able to tell I was in Ludong. But… what if it’s too late? What if no one comes fast enough to save them? Their blood will be on my hands.

A sharp, distant scream stabbed the night air.

The sound spurred him on like a whip. He hurried to the village with nothing but harsh breaths and aching legs, and found the roads almost deserted. People had packed into their homes and peaked out of their windows as he passed. The main shrine in the village had its doors sealed shut and lanterns taken down.

Liu Ying walked down the common road, head on a swivel for any strange sounds or movements.

A light tapping sound on one of the windows he passed commanded his attention. A man he recognized as one of the adjacent stall owners from where Duan Baozhai was selling fish was motioning at him wildly to enter the home. Liu Ying bowed his head in gratitude but waved him off. A look of bewilderment washed over the man’s pale face as he watched him continue down the road.

Suddenly, a small, dark figure zipped across the road ahead of him and disappeared in between two buildings, sounds of panic emitting from them.

Liu Ying took off after them. In the unlit, smokey alley between what looked like an abandoned home and a tea house, he nearly ran into several of the walls that formed sharp corners and eventually led into another wide, vacant dirt road. The figure he’d seen dash along was now paused up ahead, alongside another, slightly taller one with gray hair.

He released a sound of frustration when he caught up to them.

“What is this?” he demanded. The smaller of the two jumped and turned around, a look of pure terror on his young face. The boy couldn’t be any older than seven years old and wore clothes that were closer to rags than robes, not hugely unlike the ones Liu Ying wore. He was clutching Duan Baozhai’s arm, who was attempting to shake him off and cursing under her breath. “Did you snatch up a child as well while you’re on your crime spree, old lady?”

“Watch how you speak to your elders!” she snapped, finally tugging her arm from the boy’s grasp, “This little urchin followed me! I don’t even know who he belongs to.”

“Nainai… I’m scared. I s-saw a girl without an arm…” the boy gulped, trembling from head to toe.

“Go to your house! Your parents are probably worried sick. Do you even know where you live?”

He shook his head, strands of hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. “I lost ma when everyone was running…”

“Why make it my problem then?”

The boy looked moments from bawling. The poor child probably thought he’d find comfort and protection in the arms of a maternal old woman, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Liu Ying said brusquely, pulling the boy aside and preparing to berate her further, but was interrupted by Duan Baozhai gasping and taking a sudden step backwards.

He whipped around to see Jielong in the deceased girl’s body slowly moving towards them. Her clouded, nearly stark white eyes glowed against the darkness and her bloodied sleeve flapped in the wind.

The boy let out a whimper and hid behind Duan Baozhai, who was too stiff with fear to scold him. Liu Ying braced himself in Jielong’s direction, shielding them.

“H-Here…”

Something was slipped into his hand – the hilt of a dagger. He carefully tucked it into the back of his sash with as minimal movement as possible. “Of course you’d have this… Were you planning on using it on me as soon as I had my back turned?” he whispered.

“Maybe,” Duan Baozhai hissed back, “Shut up and focus, boy.”

Jielong stopped several feet away from them, a snarl on her lips. “You again… I have no interest in you. I want the spirit of that who summoned me. It’s a wretched thing dipped in sin and oh, how I love the taste of bitterness…”

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“You’d bite the hand that has fed you?!” Duan Baozhai lashed out before shrinking back behind Liu Ying.

“More than bite,” Jielong said, revealing her bloodied teeth, “Maim. Sever. Kill. Consume.”

“This is your own fault and your own doing,” Liu Ying said curtly over his shoulder, “You summoned a demon of this capacity to do your petty bidding and failed to seal it. Shouldn’t I just feed you to her, take the boy and run?”

Duan Baozhai was eerily quiet, only the sound of her shaky breath in the air. After a moment, she spoke, “In your position, I would. Although, I don’t think you’re as miserable as I am.”

Liu Ying would have scoffed at her attempt to pull at his heartstrings if Jielong hadn’t taken a step closer. If it were down to his morals, he wouldn’t be above sacrificing the murderous old hag in order to get the boy to safety, but as a god, things were different. Despite no longer adhering to his godly responsibilities, the strict code of conduct was ingrained into him, and that meant that he would have to do everything in his power to help the mortals that depended on his protection from demons. Any god known to be purposefully neglectful or malicious in that regard usually had to answer directly to the Emperor of the Heavenly Realm.

In response to the threatening stance, Liu Ying pulled the dagger out from his sash and held it out. Jielong looked at it long and hard before her eyes fell onto him, a crooked smirk forming on her lips.

“What are you?” she repeated, “I can’t access your spirit but you wield a lowly dagger? A cultivator down on his luck, perhaps?”

“Tremendously.”

The smirk widened as she took another step forward. “Do you lie?”

“Does it matter?”

“Give me what I want and it won’t.”

A hazy smoke began to emit from Jielong’s hand – demonic power. Liu Ying was all too familiar with it to know that the dark matter was faint, transparent and even weak. Occupying the body of a deceased mortal must have been putting a hindrance on her powers… had Duan Baozhai at least had enough foresight to summon the demon in a way that she was limited to possessing a mortal form? But if that was the case… Jielong was only confined as long as the bidding was not yet complete. There would be no other reason for her to be severely restricting her power.

Liu Ying glanced at Duan Baozhai over his shoulder. Her face was blanched but otherwise unmoving except for the trembling downward curl of her mouth.

“What is left of your bidding?”

Duan Baozhai’s eyes darted between him and Jielong for a moment before she answered, “To possess the witness.”

“The witness… You intended that to be me. To what end?”

Jielong replied for her, “To unfurl a convenient story to the village elders and effectively absolve herself and her husband of any suspicion. Now, I’m unable to complete the bidding… and I’m stuck in a rotting corpse unless you step aside and allow me to sink my teeth into aging flesh…” Her voice began to garble towards the end and the veins in her gray face became more pronounced.

Liu Ying intercepted her before she could fully lunge at them, propelling himself forward quick enough to snatch handfuls of her sleeves and tumble to the ground. A sharp, terrified cry from the boy pierced their conjecture of grunts and sounds of bodies hitting the dirt road.

Fiercely grappling at him with clawed nails, Jielong slammed him down with an inhuman force and lifted her hand in preparation to strike him. Blood was pooling from her gums and lips, trailing down her chin and dripping down onto his robes. The air was punched out of his lungs, but the sight of the impending attack forced him to yank in a deep breath and use the dagger to slice at her arm before it could descend down on him. She released a wet, guttural sound from around the blood in her mouth and Liu Ying took advantage of the distraction to heave himself upwards and shove her off of him.

She fell to her side with a thud, blood spilling from her wounds freely. Liu Ying pushed himself up on sore legs and took a few steps backward, intently watching the demon on the ground.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the boy clutching Duan Baozhai’s robes while he hid his face in them and the old woman standing frozen in place, like two stone statues.

“What are you two still doing here?!” he barked.

Duan Baozhai made no movement to leave and before Liu Ying could turn towards her to yell again, Jielong lifted her head and pierced him with the milky film that coated her eyes. The look was jarring, almost animalistic, and served enough of a diversion that he had barely noticed that she had outstretched her hand towards him in a split second.

The dark smoke that encircled her hand materialized into demonic power. An intense flash of burgundy light lit the road and collided with Liu Ying’s chest before he could even brace himself. His vision blurred as his body came tumbling to the ground in a cloud of limbs and dirt, gliding against the gravel. Once his body reached a halt, he laid motionless for a moment, attempting to catch his breath despite how his chest burned with each mouthful of air.

Short, uneven footsteps walked towards him. “Your own bitterness surrounds you like an aura… I wonder if the old bitch made you a witness purposefully so that I’d be distracted from her. Like hanging a slab of meat in front of a starving wolf…”

Liu Ying cursed under his breath. I could send her sailing back into the Demonic Realm in mere moments in my original form. But… He lifted his head and looked at Duan Baozhai and the boy, who had peeked out from behind her, eyes big, scared, and tinged with concern. What a fucking mess…

Jielong kneeled down an arm’s distance from him and murmured so that only he could hear, “The way you looked over at them just now… your eyes suddenly look familiar. If I didn’t know any better… I would say I’ve met you before.” A drop of dark red blood fell from her chin when she grinned. “Are you stuck in your form as I am stuck in mine?”

“Shut up.”

“The amount of energy I used on you would have instantly killed a real mortal, cultivator or not. Do you think Duan Baozhai knows that? Do you think your secret’s out?”

Liu Ying released a shaky breath that felt like it was full of embers. “If she did, she’d have kicked the boy aside and ran. Then you’d truly be stuck in a rotting corpse.”

“The moment they move, I will kill them.”

He looked at her, paling in a matter of seconds. Blood and whatever was left of his spiritual energy rushed to his head and limbs so quickly that he might have staggered if he had been standing.

“If you are who I think you are,” Jielong said, grin widening, “This will be interesting. I will send your regards down to Black Ember Cove, if my guess is correct.”

It took an exorbitant amount of effort to keep his expression controlled despite how her words formed a violent storm inside of his body. He couldn’t grant her the satisfaction of knowing that she had guessed right, nor that the mention of Black Ember Cove filled him with an insurmountable fear and dread.

Liu Ying’s hand tightened around the dagger as his limbs stiffened, preparing to launch himself at Jielong again, perhaps this time with a well-aimed slice at her throat. Her eyes caught the subtle movements instantly. She pushed herself forward first, forcing a knee into his stomach with a growl while her hand wrapped around his wrist holding the dagger. Within seconds, demonic qi pulsated from her grip and traveled up his fingers, palm, and forearm like every inch of his skin was being pricked deeply by fine needles. Sensation was failing him, and soon, his hand could no longer form a strong enough hold around the hilt, and the dagger had barely fallen to the ground before Jielong snatched it.

“Sit pretty and watch,” she spat.

The dagger shot out, and before Liu Ying knew it, an explosion of pain was erupting from the palm of his hand from where it laid pinned to the ground with the silver blade piercing straight through it. The scream that tore from his throat made Duan Baozhi and the boy both jump from where they stood.

Jielong straightened and turned towards them, qi still emitting from her hand in tufts of smoke.

She was entirely too fast in her movements – there was no time to deliberate or watch for her next move. Liu Ying pulled in a scathing breath and felt his spiritual energy flood both his arms before he lifted his uninjured one and pointed it towards Jielong’s back.

A gentle, white glow began to surface over his skin. Before he could release the strongest burst of power he could summon, a harsh clash sounded from where Duan Baozhai and the boy stood. Then, a strong, blinding light coming from over their heads inundated their surroundings. It descended down on them with a sudden gust of cool wind, circling and pulling in different directions like a storm, lifting the dirt and gravel from the road.

Liu Ying shielded his face with his free arm. He could still hear the whistling wind around him, pierced by sounds of both astonishment coming from Duan Baozhai, and loud cursing coming from Jielong.

Once the commotion died down, Liu Ying lifted his head, bewildered.

What… ? Is that… ?

Two figures stood between the demon and mortals. One of them was slender, graceful, and regal-looking in all his green and silver robes, while the other was tall, broad-shouldered and wore heavy armor. Han Chuanli and Xu Qiang…

The Gods of Wind and Earth had been close ever since they both ascended to godhood within a few years of each other. It hadn’t been a coincidence, everyone knew. They both came from very affluent families in the eastern region of Donghe and Xu Qiang had been close friends – rumored to be more – with Han Chuanli’s eldest sister. While she only had enough interest in cultivating in order to become head of the sect, plans for Han Chuanli had been bigger. Not only had he shown a great deal of promise from a young age and was a child prodigy, he was talented enough to ascend at the young age of twenty. The fact that Xu Qiang, who, while also strong and talented but not nearly as much of a fast learner as the God of Air, managed to ascend only four short years later, didn’t require the God of Mystery’s input to know that he had assistance. While this was sneered at by some, the truth was that a person would not ascend to godhood if it wasn’t written in their destiny. If it was pushed along to happen sooner, Liu Ying saw no harm in it, but it did serve as a fun button to press whenever Xu Qiang was being particularly rude to him.

As both of them had been gods now for nearly five hundred years, their strengths and competences were about matched, and this could be seen by how well they complemented each other during battle. Even if only one god was necessary to complete a task, they would somehow manage to find out how to make it a two-person job. But, in this case, they shouldn’t have been there at all. Ludong was firmly within Zhou Hui’s territory and he was protective of it. The only reason Liu Ying could think of was that Zhou Hui was occupied with something more dire, but… What could be more dire than saving a village?