Lu Na had fallen asleep, holding her arm. Nugua’s words gave her a fevered dream where she saw this large half snake, half woman grabbing her and then chomping her in half. Her lower body sprouted a snake’s body and she had an insatiable hunger for human flesh. She attacked Sun Ren who was forced to stab her with her daggers and sword.

That’s when Lu Na woke with an abrupt start. There were stars in the sky and odd sounds came from all around. She thought she was still in her bed at home, but then realized she was sleeping on the grass. The crackling fire next to her was very warm.

“Calm down Na Na. You have a fever. Drink this.” Sun Ren pressed a water skin to her lips.

Lu Na drank in large gulps.

“Good, you’re awake. I'd take my offer to help your arm before it becomes worse. It’s only one month of your life for the rest of your life,” Nugua said.

“What? What are you talking about?” Lu Na said.

“Hey brawny monk, tell her.”

“Amituofo. Your spirit is correct,” Hen Li said. “Without an actual doctor, your arm might become worse. The reason so many summoners have survived despite crippling attacks is because they use their spirits to heal their injuries. We know of the costs.”

“Was it worth it? Your hair turned gray,” Lu Na asked.

“If I didn’t, I would be dead right now after my Bifang Niao went crazy. And yet, I’m still here.”

“And I’ve used my spirit to heal my injuries all the time,” Sun Ren said. “How do you think I survived all those brawls when we ran from the Wintersweet Sect?”

“How many months did your spirit take from you?” Lu Na felt guilty. If Sun Ren didn’t risk her own life protecting her, she wouldn’t have had to use her spirit to heal her injuries. She was killing her best friend.

“It’s nothing a little rest and a lot of pills won’t fix. As long as you have the money, you can fix anything,” Sun Ren said. “That’s how Hen Li is still alive. Remember, he told us about all the pills he took after his incident.”

That made sense. Lu Na hadn’t thought about that. And if it was money, then she had plenty. Even if she didn’t count her father’s wealth, Uncle Chen had been selling her inventions for a lot of money. She was sure that she’d have quite an amount by now.

“Then fine spirit, heal me,” Lu Na said. Intense pain bled through her mind fog and really woke her up. “Why does it hurt more?”

“That’s because I have been using a little bit of my technique to suppress the pain. But now that I’m healing you, I can’t keep that up,” Nugua said. “Tell the other two to distract you. This is going to hurt a bit.”

“Sun Ren, what happened to the bandits?” Lu Na asked.

“I originally wanted to kill them, but the monk stopped me,” Sun Ren said.

“Amituofo. Life is too precious to take mindlessly,” Hen Li said.

“Whatever you say monk. How about you go rest? I’ll take first watch and take care of Lu Na.”

“Amituofo. Very well. Maybe we can talk more about this tomorrow.” Hen Li walked over to a tree farther away.

“Do you want some food? I still have some of the travel food from the village,” Sun Ren said.

“That would be nice.” Lu Na sat up and felt a jolt of pain going through her arm. “Nugua said she was going to heal me and that I need a distraction from the pain.”

Sun Ren passed over a white bun to her.

“Well, if you want some distraction, I can tell you we’re making good time. We should get there in a little under three days of travel if we don’t have any other issues.”

“That’s good. I think Nugua told me we had six or seven days left before the hairpin ran out of energy.” Lu Na took a bite from the bun, chewing really slowly while trying to forget the sharp pain radiating in her arm. “Would you really have killed those bandits?”

Sun Ren sat down beside Lu Na.

“Without hesitation. I’m not as noble as the monk or the righteous summoner sects. I don’t believe in giving your enemy a second chance.”

“But aren’t you afraid of being sent to jail? Killing others is a capital offense.” A sharp jab shot into her arm. Lu Na took a large bite of the bun to stop herself from screaming.

Sun Ren patted Lu Na on the leg.

“Sorry, but since you haven’t trained in summoner arts, this is going to hurt a lot more than normal.”

Lu Na took a deep breath while trying not to choke on the bun simultaneously.

“How do people go through this?”

“Most people don’t. Only summoners can use this technique and only with enough training. Whatever your mother did to bind your spirit to you must have taken a lot of expertise. Your spirit is very experienced.”

“If only my mother gave me a bit of that experience before she left me.”

“There, that should do it,” Nugua said. She sounded tired. “I’m going to sleep now. Do nothing with the arm for a while.”

“Nugua fixed my arm,” Lu Na said. She felt the arm and it was tender at spots, but the shooting pain from before was gone. At most, she would only have a few bruises. Being a summoner was powerful. “If spirits are so useful, why don’t more people become summoners?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Sun Ren frowned.

“It’s about power and talent. Most people are like you. They have little talent with the summoner arts and have little to no spirit energy to power their spirits. The only way would be to ingest a lot of spirit energy pills from birth in order to build that capacity. But you have to be very rich to do that. That’s how many summoner sects build their inner disciples.”

“Do you think Hen Li was like that?” Lu Na asked.

Sun Ren shook her head.

“That monk is a monster. There are no amount of pills that could produce someone as powerful as him. And as for power…”

Sun Ren looked past the tree line.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Na asked.

“Trouble. This is why I kill my enemies. The bandits are coming back, this time with more men. Can you walk?”

Lu Na nodded and got up. She grabbed all their packs.

“How can you see them?”

“I’ve got Baihu patrolling around us. She saw them coming toward us with torches. Lu Na, I’m going to need you to carry most of our packs as we run. I’m going to run interference so they can’t surround us.” Sun Ren got up and kicked the monk. “Get up. It’s time to run again.”

Hen Li opened his eyes.

“Amituofo, what’s going on?”

“The bandits have come back.”

“Amituofo, let me talk with them. They will listen to reason.” Hen Li got up with his staff.

“They’ve come with swords this time. I don’t think they’re here to talk. Take Lu Na and run. We’ll meet up in Qingxizhen outside of Shi city.”

“I didn’t expect them to take our mercy and repay us in retribution.”

Sun Ren squinted into the night.

“Whatever the case is, protect Lu Na. Got it?”

“Amituofo, leave her to me.” Hen Li led Lu Na away.

Lu Na looked at her friend. She knew that Sun Ren was going to kill any bandit she met.

“Wait, take these wards. The green one is the spirit wall wards while the yellow are the earth wall wards. These all contain null metal so they should be very strong.”

“You should keep them for yourself. I know how hard these were to make,” Sun Ren said.

“I need you to live as well. Otherwise, this trip was not worth it.”

Sun Ren smiled as she took the wards.

“I’m going to live. These bandits are going to regret coming back. Now go with Hen Li.”

Lu Na hurried to catch up to Hen Li. The forest wasn’t as thick as the one they entered earlier with the monkey king, but it was still very dark. No matter what happened, she hoped that Sun Ren would survive.

Sun Ren took off her hemp tunic and hung it on a nearby tree branch, revealing her black Sun family tunic. She checked all her hidden daggers and her waist sword. The next part was her least favorite. She grabbed a handful of soot from the campfire and masked her face as much as she could.

Jade-like beauty would only reveal her to her enemies that much quicker. It was a sentiment that she heard from her sifu over and over during their training.

Sun Ren set up the spirit wall ward right in front of the clothes, hoping that it would distract the bandits long enough for her to run away as a last resort. Not that she would need it. The bandits weren’t summoners. They were barely skilled with the weapons they held.

She would show them what true terror was, and this time, she would leave no survivors.

Sun Ren dashed north west of the bandits. Baihu had found them coming straight at them from the south in a wide line. They were hoping to surround them.

“Where are they?” she whispered.

“They’re headed toward the campfire really slowly. It seems they’re wary of Hen Li,” Baihu said.

That was good. That would give her time to take them down one at a time.

Baihu had split into three small fox pups to track the bandits. Sun Ren could see through Baihu’s eyes. It tired out her spirit so much that she couldn’t fight alongside Sun Ren, but that’s what her training was for. In a fair fight, she’d win every time because she never fought fair.

Sun Ren stayed low and sprinted toward her first two targets. Their bright torches lit the path for many feet ahead of them. It was two men holding short swords. They wore brown tunics and scarves on their heads.

Sun Ren had to crawl a few feet toward them before popping up and cutting the man’s throat. She turned and plunged her dagger into the other man’s chest while covering his mouth to prevent any noise. Two soft thuds afterwards, she was already onto the next two.

“Sun Ren, there are twenty-six men in total headed toward the campfire,” Baihu said.

Twenty-four now. Sun Ren stayed low and crept up toward the next target. It was a group of four this time. This was going to be harder.

“Divide and conquer,” Sun Ren whispered. It was time to use a tactic she developed with her spirit.

One of Baihu fox pups howled next to the group of four. It wasn’t the same throaty howl of an adult fox, more of a whiny howl. But it got their attention as the four turned toward the sound.

Sun Ren threw one dagger after another at the four men. Only two hit home into their chest. The other two spooked when they saw the injured men groan and drop to the ground.

“Who’s there?” one man called out.

Baihu rushed the other man, chomping her jaw on his leg. The man yelped while trying to kick Baihu off.

Before the other man could turn, Sun Ren had shoved a dagger up into his head before tackling the other man. She thrust her other dagger into the man’s chest. At least, that was the plan.

The man bucked Sun Ren off before she thrust down, cutting his arm. He cried out.

Sun Ren got up and charged him, forcing him to backpedal. He fell over his dying friend and joined him shortly after when Sun Ren thrust a dagger into his chest.

Sun Ren was covered in blood. Her breath was ragged. She got up and crawled over to another tree for cover.

“They heard you. They’ve stopped,” Baihu said.

This was not good. Sun Ren was exhausted and she still had twenty more men to kill. She took out a pill and swallowed it.

“You can’t keep eating those energy pills. They will kill you,” Baihu said.

Better dead later than now. Sun Ren had to move before they surrounded her position. She sprinted north again and climbed a tree. It would give her some rest and a vantage point to look at these bandits for herself.

“We have a problem. They’re summoners,” Baihu said.

Sun Ren looked down and saw six people summon their spirits. That changed the game. The only advantage she had was that none of the spirits looked like they were wood type spirits. Being surrounded by so many trees, she would be found in a second.

“They saw the bodies. They’re now on high alert. I’ve already lost one of my clones. No two. The third is running away,” Baihu said.

Sun Ren clenched her left fist and reabsorbed the third clone. She felt her body feel lighter. Luckily, they were only clones, or else Baihu would be seriously injured right now from all those attacks. But that meant she only had one third of her usual strength.

“We should run. You’re outnumbered and they have summoners. They will also be more wary now, so they’ll search the area slowly. It would give you enough time with my help.”

Sun Ren considered it for a moment. She would like nothing more than to run and meet up with Lu Na. But she couldn’t allow these bandits to continue their evil deeds, especially after she let them go the first time. Besides, she had more help than usual. She took out her Lu Na’s earth ward. It was time to make it interesting.