Chapter 36 Even If the Price... Is My Own Life

"Splendid sword!" Tang Qianxue could not help but exclaim.

Qu Ziyao’s hand moved as swiftly as her blade, which struck with ferocious power, piercing straight through Ming Tu’s skull and erupting from his sneering mouth.

Yet, before Tang Qianxue could feel a moment of relief, Ming Tu’s head began to tremble. In the next instant, his head and neck twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees with an unsettling snap. Qu Ziyao found herself locked in the gaze of two blood-red eyes, burning with malevolent hatred.

Qu Ziyao’s breath hitched, but she did not hesitate. With a flicker of movement, she reached Tang Qianxue’s side, grabbed her arm, and urged, "Go!"

"Agh—!"

*Rumble!*

The shriek that tore through the air transcended the realm of spiritual sense attacks. Wherever the sound reached, cliffs shuddered, leaves were stripped from branches, and birds and beasts fell dead. Qu Ziyao’s face turned deathly pale; she had only enough time to shield Tang Qianxue with her own spiritual sense before the demonic sonic wave struck. She let out a muffled groan, shutting her eyes instinctively as thin trickles of blood began to flow from her ears.

Seeing this, Tang Qianxue grabbed her, panicked. "Are you alright?! You don't need to worry about me, I have a Grade Three protective spiritual treasure..."

"It cannot block this," Qu Ziyao whispered, reopening her eyes. "This is a spiritual sense attack; your treasure won't hold. If I hadn't shielded you, someone of your cultivation level would have been obliterated by that single roar."

Qu Ziyao had already assessed the strength of their opponent: Early Foundation Establishment.

That was the true menace of evil cultivators. Their arts were not of the orthodox path; they were strange and treacherous, requiring time to discern their weaknesses. Before that, a single misstep meant suffering grievous wounds—or losing the power to fight back entirely.

*Thud.*

The two women turned at the sound. Ming Tu’s body had collapsed to the ground. However, they felt no sense of relief. The roar from moments ago was clearly not his final death throes. A spectral shadow, which Tang Qianxue had seen once before, began to drift slowly out of the corpse. Within that shadow were hundreds, thousands—no, countless more shadows!

In that moment, Tang Qianxue finally understood: those vengeful spirits were not coming from Ming Tu’s mouth, but from within his very being. He was, in essence, a collective vessel for the resentment of the dead.

"I worked so hard to acquire this body, and you have ruined it..." Ming Tu rasped. His face was no longer contorted and terrifying, but every word he spoke seemed infused with a jarring, piercing demonic resonance.

"But no matter," Ming Tu laughed. The shadowy figure had no distinct form, yet one could easily imagine him curling his lips into a sinister grin. "Once I torture you to death and harvest your souls into my body, this flesh will serve as a fine new shell!"

As he finished speaking, hundreds of vengeful spirits gushed out from him like a liquid tide, clawing and screeching as they surged toward Qu Ziyao.

Qu Ziyao, blood staining her cheeks and her face pale, felt a resolve in her violet eyes that had never burned so bright. She did not move her feet, but her sword struck out a thousand times in a heartbeat! Just as Xiao Lin had said, even for a Golden Core expert, one could not guarantee quantity, force, and speed all at once.

But in this moment, her speed alone was enough to shatter evil!

"Ah..."

The screeching stopped abruptly. The spirits, which had swarmed forward in unison, were extinguished in an instant by Qu Ziyao’s blade!

"Go," Qu Ziyao said without looking back. "Do not stay here."

Tang Qianxue hesitated for a moment before speaking. "He is not the only one. There are other evil cultivators here." She trusted that speaking the truth would not shake Qu Ziyao’s resolve, whereas hiding it would only hinder her judgment.

"I understand," Qu Ziyao replied. "Go to the flying shuttle. Do not wait for me."

Tang Qianxue said nothing more. She took a pendant from her robes and forcibly pressed it into Qu Ziyao’s hand. The moment she touched it, Qu Ziyao realized it was a Grade Three protective artifact. She accepted it.

"You must come back alive," Tang Qianxue pleaded, biting her lips until they bled. She hated her own powerlessness.

"I will!" Qu Ziyao nodded firmly.

The two women set aside their past grievances as if they had never existed. Tang Qianxue turned and fled, refusing to be a burden.

Seeing this, Ming Tu seemed triggered. "Self-sacrifice again? You of the righteous path abandon your natural instincts—you deserve to be annihilated!"

Qu Ziyao did not change her expression. She spat slightly, then pointed her shimmering sword at Ming Tu. "Foolish," she said coldly. "I protected Tang Qianxue because I am a disciple of Sword Mountain; it is my duty. I did not refuse the treasure because I wish to survive; that is my instinct. How is this 'abandoning nature'? You are the ones who are treacherous and perverse, yet you claim others are wrong. That is why your demonic path is something that cannot see the light of day..."

"Shut... up—!"

Ming Tu unleashed a deafening wave of demonic sound.

It was at that moment that Qu Ziyao moved. Even with a Grade Three artifact, she could not withstand the full impact of those vengeful spirits. But as an Early Foundation Establishment cultivator, Ming Tu would certainly not waste his spirits needlessly. That meant his back was his only blind spot!

Taking advantage of his distraction, Qu Ziyao blurred behind him. Since their sparring match, she had grasped some of the essence of Xiao Lin’s "One Sword"—the necessity of total abandonment.

Sword intent, spiritual sense, emotions... she poured everything into this single strike!

She was a hair’s breadth away from piercing Ming Tu’s core and scattering his soul when, suddenly, the unexpected occurred. A figure appeared, as if they had anticipated everything. Even more shocking, this person caught Qu Ziyao’s full-force strike with nothing but a bare hand!

*Clang!*

The sound of metal striking metal echoed. The sword blade sank deep into the palm, but it did not sever the hand.

Before Qu Ziyao could recover, a whip-like kick struck her waist with the speed of the wind, sending her flying dozens of meters until she was embedded deep into the stone wall. Thanks to the Grade Three treasure, she remained uninjured, but her heart sank. The newcomer’s aura was far stronger than Ming Tu’s; there was no doubt he was a Mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator. Her plan to eliminate Ming Tu first had failed.

Yin Huaizi stared at Qu Ziyao with a sinister gaze for a moment before saying to Ming Tu, "Go deal with the others. I will play with her."

"Very well..." Ming Tu nodded grimly. He had almost been decapitated by this woman! But since Yin Huaizi had spoken, he would leave. Even as fellow evil cultivators, Ming Tu felt a trace of fear toward Yin Huaizi.

However, just as he turned to leave, a flash of sword qi struck the ground before him. He spun around to see Qu Ziyao hovering in the air, her beautiful eyes cold as she stared at him. "You dare!"

Yin Huaizi laughed. "Since you say so, Ming Tu, stay. This woman... seems to want to play with both of us."

"Hahahaha," Ming Tu roared with laughter. Though he said nothing, his laughter was filled with mockery of her overestimation of herself.

In reality, Qu Ziyao’s hand, clutching the sword, was trembling slightly. She knew that what she was about to do was truly reckless. With her cultivation and her mastery of the Way of Space, no one could keep her here if she chose to leave. If she stayed, the others might not escape safely. Reason dictated that she preserve herself to seek revenge another day.

She could think of a thousand reasons to justify her survival. But every one of them vanished the moment a certain figure appeared in her mind.

What she hadn’t told Yue Suxian was that she had dreamed of Xiao Lin every night. Perhaps it was because the sword he had swung at her contained his integrity and his path. Or perhaps, because she had defeated him, she found herself unconsciously imitating him, drawing closer to him.

In short, when she thought of Xiao Lin, she realized that defending the justice in her heart at any cost was not as terrifying as she had once imagined. This was not for duty, but because she did not want to lose to that person again.

She had lost the duel, lost in cultivation—but she refused to lose her heart’s resolve.

That was all.

Even if the price... was her own life.

With that, a silver light, more intense than ever before, erupted from Qu Ziyao’s eyes. A dozen spatial gates manifested around her!

"Open!"

In the next instant, a dozen figures fell from the sky. As they realized what had happened, they turned and stared deeply at the purple-haired woman in the center of the arena.

This woman had actually moved them all to safety, just to protect them...