"Your cultivation is decent," Su Min said calmly, glancing at the severed head rolling across the ground, its eyes frozen wide in disbelief. "But without a proper weapon... it's meaningless."
The man had reacted, but his weapon was a mere mortal blade. It hadn't mattered—Su Min had cleaved through both him and his armament in one smooth stroke.
"Kill her!!"
A bellow erupted from the surviving Demon-Slaying Division, and a group of Body Refining cultivators charged at her with roars of rage. Yet how could they threaten her? Even Qi Refining cultivators could not stand against Su Min—these few were but lambs to the slaughter.
Crack!
A flash of light—and heads rolled to the earth like ripe melons. For a long breath, the world fell into a stunned silence. Even the soldiers tasked with herding the commoners froze. Just moments ago, those so-called "lords" of the Demon-Slaying Division had looked down from their lofty perch. Now they lay scattered across the ground, dead like stray dogs. Their deaths were so swift, so absolute, that even those commoners—who had been destined as sacrificial fuel—stood stupefied, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"What's the matter?" Su Min's smile was light and teasing as she looked at them. "Waiting around to be burned alive?"
"Whoosh!"
The next instant, the square exploded into chaos. Commoners and soldiers alike bolted, fleeing for their lives. None dared linger a second longer. The surviving soldiers, realizing the futility of resistance, abandoned their posts and fled with the crowd. Their task had been to draw Su Min out with the mountain fires. Now that she stood before them, what use was there in burning anything further? In the battles to come, they would be little more than cannon fodder.
"Still not scramming?" Su Min said with a glance at the trembling officials, who had gone so weak with fear they could barely stand. She spared them no further attention, her gaze sweeping toward the approaching threat. Two putrid streams of spirit power howled toward her. In response, a blaze of brilliant crimson erupted—Nanming Lihuo answering its mistress's call.
This Heaven and Earth treasure was a bane to all things wicked and corrupt.
"You—!"
The two cultivators who had charged over paled at the sight before them: corpses littering the ground, a third of their forces annihilated in an instant.
"Be careful!" one of them barked, his voice tense. "That woman's weapon isn't ordinary!"
Indeed, Su Min's blade was a mid-grade Yellow-rank flying sword—a treasure powerful enough that ordinary weapons might as well have been made of paper before it.
Suddenly—
"Ahhh!!!"
Pained screams tore through the air—not from Su Min's side, but from among the enemy ranks. At the very moment they retreated from Su Min, the two cultivators pressed their palms against their subordinates' backs. A pale green light engulfed them as their souls were forcibly ripped from their bodies, drawn into the two Qi Refining cultivators.
"A secret soul-harvesting technique?"
Su Min's eyes narrowed slightly. Before she could act, the two enemies' auras surged explosively. In the blink of an eye, their cultivation broke through to mid-stage Qi Refining, their bodies grotesquely swelling to monstrous proportions. At once, they unleashed thick clouds of virulent green mist toward her.
"What the hell is that?"
Su Min dared not confront it head-on. Her Nanming Lihuo, while potent, was still too low-ranked to shield her completely. Her body would not withstand direct contamination. She retreated swiftly. But the two now-monstrous cultivators closed in, flanking her from left and right. In their hands, dark green spirit energy condensed into wicked scythes, swinging toward her head in a deadly arc.
~Edit and rewritten by Rikhi, Reiya_Alberich, ReiNyam~
Their coordination was impeccable. No matter what she did, Su Min could not block both strikes at once. Parry one, and the other would surely land. A single touch from their venomous weapons would flood her meridians with poison—perhaps not fatal, but certainly crippling.
Yet Su Min only smiled faintly. She had been waiting.
"Roar!!!"
With the deafening roar of a tiger, a shockwave of spiritual power burst forth—the Tiger Bone Ring unleashing its might.
"Ahhh!!!"
Caught unprepared, the two enemies staggered, their souls trembling violently. Their scythe strikes were disrupted mid-swing, the weapons themselves dissolving into mist. Their bodies wobbled, unstable. Su Min struck.
With ruthless precision, she drove her sword into the heart of the closer foe. At the same time, her free hand summoned a blaze of Nanming Lihuo blasting the second enemy flying. Though not dead yet, the second man howled miserably as the sacred flame scorched his corrupted body. Su Min ignored him.
Her first priority was the kill. With a roar, she slammed her body into the pinned enemy, driving him down. His bloated form—nearly five meters tall—was knocked sprawling. She thrust her sword deeper, pinning him to the earth, pouring all her spiritual power into generating Nanming Lihuo, which flooded into his heart through the wound.
"Wuuu—"
The monster struggled desperately, throwing wild punches. But the translucent soul figure guarding Su Min blocked his strikes—twice. By then, crimson light was already pouring from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
Boom!
With a muffled detonation, the corrupted body exploded from within, reduced to ash. Su Min exhaled lightly, a smile playing on her lips. Yet as she turned around, her smile froze. Only a retreating back remained.
The surviving enemy had seized the moment to flee. In the span of a few breaths, he had vanished thousands of meters into the distance, a tiny speck against the horizon—and still shrinking rapidly. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared beyond the distant city walls.
"So fast..."
Su Min could only sigh in admiration. There was no catching up to that.