The person standing before An Fei had long since expended the majority of his spiritual essence, causing his reserves to diminish below his minimum threshold. Given the prolonged wear and tear imposed onto his core being, the cultivator found himself unable to produce much strength, albeit it was regardless more than sufficient to completely crush a mortal girl with ease.
Thus, regardless of how his body screamed of emptiness and a plea for rescue, the cultivator of the Haunted Buddhist Sect raised his sword with a menacing glare.
“Hand it over! Otherwise, I won’t let your soul reincarnate!”
The dim lighting of the room caused his vision to be slightly impeded, but the cultivator was still capable of discerning the outline of a young girl’s figure. With the imagination of a starved mind quick at play, he could envision the shapely and slender curves that were hidden beneath the linen coat, and desire lit his heart aflame.
He was a cultivator of the Haunted Buddhist Sect, after all.
Desires were meant to be fulfilled and sated, for only a satisfied soul could sustain itself in the long and arduous path of enlightenment.
“Hand what over?”
A soft reply brushed past the tips of his ears, causing the man to gulp loudly in response. Though his vision made out to him that the mortal female standing before him was average in appearance, the voice was intoxicating to the soul, bringing forth endless waves of fulfilling content…
In the span of his frustrated intoxication of dreams and delusion, the cultivator had completely forgotten that the young girl before was not speaking in Bei Tang’s language, and nor was he…
“Hand over the Shadow Blighting Pearl, and this Esteemed Young Master will let you off with a… a slight punishment! Otherwise, don’t blame this Esteemed Young Master for being rough with you!”
An Fei’s lips tugged at the grotesque statement hurtling from the cultivator’s lips, and the twin butterfly swords were gently tugged from their sheaths. A faint glare of steely light echoed through the darkened room, but was quickly disguised underneath another wave of lilting words.
“This… this pearl or bead or whatever… I don’t have any relation to it! If the Esteemed Cultivator requires, then he may take as he wishes!”
Another vivacious gulp boomed throughout the room, and the male cultivator began to take confident strides into the darkened space. With each step, the fantastic reality of him pushing forwards in his conquest of luxury and desire seemed to morph into a tangible existence…
The young girl lay in wait, crouched behind a large wooden table laden with various fruits, vegetables, and shreds of bread. Grasping the twin butterfly swords with the right clenched in a reverse grip, An Fei constantly tracked after the cultivator’s booming and confident footsteps, until they were just a meter away from the table –
Bang!
With a solid and swift push, the lightweight wooden table was knocked off its legs and blasted towards the cultivator consumed by his desires, bringing forth a barrage of plates and somewhat stale articles of food.
The man had only started to unravel the crux of his desire and insatiable lust, when his shin was struck by an indomitable pulse of agony.
“Argh! This mortal girl!”
A pained howl escaping his lips, the man sank to his knees, his arms reflexively coiled around his right shin. The cultivator’s mind smoldered with rage as he tightly grasped onto his sword, and began to scan the room with a ruthless gaze.
“I know you’re there! Come out, before I truly get angry!”
His enraged and frightful calls for battle were answered with silence, prompting the man to raise his sword into a preparatory stance. The moment he gestured for the remaining strands of spiritual essence to coalesce onto his sword, a shiver ran through his heart.
It was a brief and faint scream of terror, one that was quickly ignored by the machine that was logic –
Shu!
“Urgh!”
A man’s pained cry echoed throughout the room, and the steel sword dropped onto the wooden planks with a resounding crash. Soon after, there was a second dull thud and moments afterwards, the door was slowly opened while dispensing a hearty creak.
An Fei stepped out with her back pinned against the cold brick wall, and her fingers ensured that the door was opened to a minimal degree.
Once she had fully emerged, the young girl spun on her toes and broke into a fierce run, her figure disappearing into the alleyway the instant the door slammed shut.
“Who dares!?”
Just as An Fei counted to fifteen in her mind, a series of enraged roars echoed through the Grace Street, and five shadows swept overhead as they leaped from roof to roof in search of the perpetrator. Concealing herself in the shadow of the buildings below, the young girl began another staring war with the floating black sphere.
“Drop it, or I’ll cut it in half!”
“You won’t be able to cut it in half – your physical strength is far too weak, and the mortal world will automatically defend against divine essence.”
“This sword can break the scales of a jiaolong in this world, do you want to give it a try?”
An Fei raised the menacing blade of a butterfly sword as she mimicked a swing, her expression cold and detached. The heavenly dragon continued to sigh over and over, playing with the Shadow Blighting Pearl and the young girl as though teasing a cat with a feather brush.
“Of course, the butterfly swords in your hands can cut through the strongest of material in this world, much less any world. However, what effect will that have? Would they truly believe that a mortal girl can crush a… a cultivator’s artifact?”
Xilong’s words of consolation were answered with another spitting call of scowls and frowns, and An Fei huffed as she turned her gaze towards the maze of small alleyways and corridors encased in cobbled stone. The young girl returned the butterfly sword to her sheath and slowly ventured into a random corridor, all the while never permitting her vigilance to waver.
“Can you make it lose its appearance, then? It’s quite suspicious of a mortal girl to be followed by a floating sphere.”
“Why would I even bother transforming such useless garbage into an Immortal Object? Xiao Fei, where do you even find value in this thing – one that not even the majority of mortals can find any use in?”
An Fei argued with Xilong as she continued to make her way through the alleyway shrouded in darkness. With both swords extended to cover her front and back, the young girl took slow and cautious steps.
She would move when the only transmitted sounds were that of ambient noise and the busy scouring of the cultivators above. In doing so, An Fei managed to reduce her presence to the limit without utilizing the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> – fulfilling both her agreement with the heavenly dragon as well as evading the peripheral scanning of the Haunted Buddhist Set’s cultivators.
From their clumsy performance, An Fei could only surmise that their perceptive techniques could only determine the presence of the Shadow Blighting Pearl by disregarding vertical distance.
When the sphere was directly below or above, they resulted in diverging conclusion that threw the cultivators into disarray…
…was how she hoped the transpired events were undergoing as of the moment, and An Fei was assuming the circumstances to be as such. The young girl carefully stepped from the exit of the alleyway and behind a large mansion that belonged to a domestic, secular organization or familial clan.
“Search! The mortal girl can’t have gotten far!”
“A mortal girl dared kill Brother Jang? Since when was that possible?”
“Other than the deadly effects of the Morning Star Temple’s signature technique, how else would have Brother Jang fallen at his state? Regardless of how drained of spiritual essence a cultivator may be, the only method to kill a cultivator in such state involves spiritual artefacts – and mortals can never employ spiritual artefacts!”
Overhead, the silhouettes of the cultivators continued to ravage the rooftops and hearts of civilians below, and refused to abate for hours. Though they lacked the manpower to monitor the other streets, dominating the rooftops of Grace Street was nothing difficult.
Moreover, the Shadow Blighting Pearl’s distinctive aura allowed for them to narrow the range of their search, which then increased the number of shadows flickering over An Fei’s head.
The cultivators realized it, and the young girl also realized her circumstances. Without further delay, An Fei shattered all approaches of slow and steady navigation, instead breaking into a full-blown sprint.
“The artefact’s moving again! The main road towards the far end of the street!”
Five exhausted cultivators howled as they raced forth, leaping off of their difficultly secured rooftops with deep breaths. Soon after, the silhouette of a small young girl could be spotted wading through the sea of civilians, leaping through and diving through the living mass.
“Don’t let her escape – and definitely don’t let her approach the Morning Star Temple’s temple maiden!”
The leading figure of the five cultivators instantly discerned An Fei’s current plan after a brief glance at her trajectory. With a fearsome scowl plastered onto his countenance, the cultivator swung from the roof and dropped towards the cobbled stone ground, breaking into a swift spring.
The moment he neared the fleeting silhouette, the steel sword was drawn and thrown, its deadly tip reeking of vile, black energy that spelled misery and pain.
