Within the crimson mist, Ning Xian's figure was like a solitary boat.
She struggled to hold on, her cold face stained with blood.
Every burst of sword qi was weaker than the last.
The wound on her left shoulder, torn by a ghost claw, leaked threads of black energy, eroding her flesh and what little spirit power she had left.
More of the evil malevolence sensed her weakened aura and swarmed from the depths of the roiling blood mist.
A skeletal beast, stitched together from withered bones and resentment, lunged at her. Ning Xian severed its spine with a weak burst of sword qi, causing it to scatter across the ground.
But the shattered bone fragments exploded into a cloud of baleful energy.
Ning Xian dodged to the side, but a trace of the energy still grazed her cheek, leaving a bloody trail.
Immediately after, several invisible resentments attacked from behind. Relying on instinct, she twisted her body, her sword qi barely managing to deflect most of them, yet one still pierced her right calf.
"Ugh..." She let out a muffled groan as her knee buckled, nearly causing her to fall.
Blood quickly soaked through her pant leg.
Her vision had already begun to blur, and the blood mist wavered before her eyes.
Junior Brother... is still inside.
Can he hold on? Is he injured too?
She knew she couldn't last much longer.
Her spirit power was nearly exhausted, and her injuries were steadily worsening.
But... she was supposed to die anyway.
In this life, she had been merely lingering on the brink of death.
Waiting for the final reckoning to arrive, or to quietly rot away in some deserted corner.
And yet... she had met Fang Xuan.
That person whose eyes shone so brightly when he smiled, who would shamelessly mooch food, and who would provoke her with an innocent expression.
How foolish.
What did someone like her have to offer that was worth it?
The sword qi gathering at her fingertips dissipated once more, and a trace of baleful energy grazed her waist, leaving a trail of blood droplets.
The pain made her vision go dark, and she stumbled, gripping a bamboo stalk that had been charred black by the malevolence to keep from falling.
The taste of blood rose in her throat.
She still had one last resort... by burning what remained of her origin blood essence and even detonating the spirit bone that was slowly reforming, she might be able to unleash one final burst of power to tear open this restriction barrier or... heavily wound the core of the malevolent entity.
But if she did that, even if she didn't die, she would be completely ruined.
In the end, this life... could be considered something he picked up.
Without that pill of his, she might have died quietly on that day.
Now, it would be fine to give it back to him.
It was just that... for some reason, her heart felt a little heavy.
It wasn't a fear of death.
Death was no longer a foreign concept to her.
It was just a bit of a regret.
She suddenly remembered a time from long, long ago.
She was a little girl then, following the elders of her clan to a mortal town.
At a street corner, an old man carried a straw bundle stuck with strings of sparkling things.
Candied hawthorns.
Many children gathered around, noisily asking to buy them.
Their parents smiled as they took out copper coins.
Little Ning Xian would stand at a distance and watch for a long time, her fingers quietly twisting the edge of her clothes.
She had never seen them before and was curious; those red fruits coated in a transparent sugar shell looked like... they should be sweet.
But no one asked her if she wanted any.
The elder who brought her out only urged her to move faster, saying that those who practice cultivation should not indulge in worldly appetites.
Later, she never thought about candied hawthorns again.
Cultivation, becoming stronger, revenge, darkness... these filled her life.
Until this moment, within this deadly blood mist, that string of sparkling candied hawthorns clearly surfaced in her mind.
She still hadn't tasted one.
But Fang Xuan seemed... to quite like eating those messy mortal snacks.
The fried cake from last time, he had eaten it with such relish.
If they could get out, she would buy him another string. Would his eyes shine brightly again, just like that day...
When he smiled, he looked quite good.
He looked much better than this blood-red world.
A faint, blurry curve appeared at the corner of Ning Xian's mouth, almost invisible.
In this life of hers, which had struggled on the verge of death for over a decade and was saturated with pain and calculation... the last lingering thought was actually a string of candied hawthorns she had never eaten, and a person she wanted to see smile again.
How pathetic.
Her consciousness grew heavier, and the crimson before her eyes intensified.
She struggled to keep her eyes open, looking into the distance, even though she could see nothing.
Just then, the blood mist beside her suddenly churned violently, and a frigid malice far exceeding anything before locked onto her.
The main body of the malevolence.
It seemed to have sensed the extreme weakness of this intruder and abandoned its struggle with the other difficult bone to pick.
The thick baleful energy condensed into a hateful ghostly mask that let out a sinister laugh.
Then, it lunged down toward Ning Xian.
It was over.
The last bit of spirit power faintly condensed at her fingertips, not to resist, but out of instinct.
.......
But immediately after, there was the heavy sound of a sword blade cutting through the air.
In Ning Xian's blurred vision, a tall figure had already stood between her and that ghostly mask.
Fang Xuan stood with his back to her, the black longsword in his hand cutting deep into the pouncing ghostly mask of malevolent energy.
The sword hummed incessantly as the black and red spirit power clashed violently.
Although the black sword had blocked most of the impact from the malevolence, the aftershocks were still intense.
Fang Xuan’s arm was instantly covered in blood, but his figure remained unmoved, enduring the full force of the shockwaves.
"Puff!"
Fang Xuan felt a sweetness in his throat, and a mouthful of blood finally couldn't be suppressed, overflowing from the corner of his mouth and dripping down his chin.
A few drops happened to land on the back of Ning Xian’s powerlessly drooping hand.
'Whatever, I'll keep the act up for now.'
.......
Ning Xian just stared blankly at the few spots of piercing crimson on the back of her hand. Why was he... being such a fool again?
"Fang Xuan..." she called out softly.
Fang Xuan did not look back.
He had to focus all his attention on the malevolent entity before him now, or he might slip up.
Although building favorability this way might have a strong aftereffect.
But there was no other way; leaving the Qingyun Sect as soon as possible was the only way to be safe.
.......
The ghostly mask, blocked by the black sword, let out an even more furious roar, and the crimson baleful energy of the entire restriction barrier surged wildly.
Fang Xuan's eyes were cold, and the aura around him suddenly surged.
The vast ocean of spirit power within his body was no longer held back.
"Boom—!!!"
The violent spirit power swept out like a hurricane, and the crimson baleful energy was actually forced back, scattering more than half of it.
A clear area briefly appeared above the entire courtyard.
The pale moonlight was able to spill down again, illuminating the messy battlefield below and Fang Xuan's blood-stained figure.
The ribbon tying his hair had broken at some point, and his jet-black hair, no longer bound, flew wildly in the aftershocks of spirit power and the night wind.
The malevolent entity also seemed to be stunned for a moment by this sudden explosion, but it immediately became even more frenzied.
It saw that Fang Xuan had consumed a huge amount of energy with that move, while its own baleful energy was nearly infinite.
It would see who could last until the end!
Even thicker dark-red baleful energy surged from the depths of the restriction barrier, refilling the cleared area and condensing into countless hideous ghostly claws that attacked Fang Xuan from every angle.
Fang Xuan swung his sword to parry, destroying the incoming attacks, but his steps began to grow heavy, and his breathing became labored.
The black sword remained incomparably sharp, cutting through the malevolence like stalks of grain, but his own spirit power was depleting at a visible rate.
Every swing of the sword brought about a large-scale annihilation of baleful energy, but it also made his face turn a shade paler.
Finally, in a moment where he seemed exhausted and his sword swing slowed slightly.
Several strands of baleful energy seized the opportunity, instantly coiling around him like venomous pythons.
Then, more malevolence surged from all directions.
In the final instant before the vortex of baleful energy completely closed, swallowing his figure, he pushed Ning Xian out.
In that last moment, she only had time to look back and see a dark red so thick it couldn't be dispersed, completely swallowing that blood-stained figure.
"Fang Xuan..."
She cried out his name as she fell at the edge of the restriction barrier.
She tried to mobilize even the slightest bit of her spirit power.
But...
There was nothing.
Her dantian was empty, her meridians were parched and aching, and even the strength to lift a finger seemed to have been drained away.
Only on the back of her hand, those few spots of his blood that had already cooled, still retained a heartbreakingly faint warmth.
Rate on N.U.
