Shi Yue kept his eyes closed like a child until screams and noises made place for nothing but the dry heaving of someone who wanted to throw up but couldn’t.

The white-haired cultivator looked at the ground and picked up the sword hilt that had been left behind. He had never heard of a sword spirit vanishing like this, but then again, this was Xie Yi they were talking about. He kept the hilt and walked over to his beloved, who was heavily leaning against the wall.

“One down”, Shi Yue tried to soothe him. Ignoring the blood that tainted his clothes as he touched Xie Yi, Shi Yue pulled him into a soft hug. “One down forever. It’s alright. There’s still so much time left.”

He did not mention that it was unknown what price Xie Yi would have to pay for the chance to kill this one. Xie Yi knew it himself and did not regret it - he had a feeling that this price would be paid after his death, and that it would not be half as terrible as it sounded.

On this day, three people paid a heavy price.

A tainted man paid with his life for his arrogance.

A cultivator paid with some of his time after death in return for vengeance.

And a being that did not belong to this plane at all paid with his status for his willfulness.  

Shi Yue looked at the remnant of the corpse that looked as if it had been thrown to a pack of hungry wolves. He knew that Xie Yi would have liked to torture this person, but Xie Yi was not that stupid. Strong and dangerous enemies had to be killed immediately, all wishes of revenge aside. Indulging in these feelings would only lead to mistakes and more than a few dangerous people had gotten their chance to escape and regain strength when someone had wanted to take their time torturing them.

“Place the last bombs, Ah Yi. We already know there aren’t any more elders here.” Shi Yue cooed in the softest tone he could muster, stroking Xie Yi’s hair as the heaving slowly died down. “We’ll go home. It’s enough now.”

Once Xie Yi was safe with Mingtian, Shi Yue could still try to get to the canyon and see if they needed help, but he was too worried about his beloved to let him go on his own.

The lives he was endangering did not register inside his head. Either way, he himself was too spent to be helpful before he rested, so he might as well accompany Xie Yi for at least part of the way.

Xie Yi’s eyes, glazed over from the shock of everything that had happened in mere minutes, moved to Shi Yue. His bloody hands reached out for Juxian’s hilt, hugging it into his arms. Shi Yue stroked his head once more before taking the bombs.

“Tell me where to place them.”

Xie Yi’s voice was unsteady, and Shi Yue wasn’t sure if it didn’t have to do with the fact that his spiritual sword was broken.   

He hurried to place the bombs before lifting Xie Yi like a princess and running back down the stairs.

He honestly didn’t feel up for activating the original bomb or running, but he had to. Gritting his teeth, Shi Yue activated the bomb placed next to their way out, and began to run down the path.

Even once outside the mountain he did not stop until he was sure a possible landslide wouldn’t catch them.

Not much later than when he had stopped, the earth rumbled.

Looking over his shoulder, Shi Yue could watch and feel the vibrations of where the bombs blew up one after another, breaking apart structures needed to keep the building standing within the rock. Now that these were falling, part of the mountain crumbled down.

Dust was whirling up like another wave and Shi Yue paled. He fixed Xie Yi in his arms and continued to run as far as his breath allowed him to.

… Far away, the cultivators of the Demonic Sect withdrew as if on command.

Had Juxian been allowed to give his comment on the plan to burn the canyon, he would have told everyone not to do it without being sure they could do it in one strike. That, however, went far beyond what he was allowed to do, and so he had kept quiet.

The second elder looked at the warrior with a pleased face. The one before him was one of their strongest cultivators, and someone willing to do even more than the elders to gain strength. The main reason why he didn’t overthrow the elders was that, to say it bluntly, he was rather stupid and wouldn’t be able to get this far without them.

“Do you have no headache at all?”

“Nothing.” The man shook his head and looked down at the three flowers he was carrying. They tilted into his direction, lovingly, cuddling against his chest.

The seed in his pocket was too light for him to notice, but he knew it was there with a certainty that was creepy.

“Fascinating”, the elder whispered. They knew that the flowers were deadly, but they had never expected them to be… not quite flowers.

Halfway through the fight, the Demonic Sect had noticed the bombs blowing a convenient path to what the sect had long realized was some sort of central plant. If they had this, maybe, they could breed the flowers as they pleased.

So they had sent this one cultivator there.

And, according to his story, as he had avoided some falling bombs and approached the huge flower, something had jumped into his face and crawled into his mouth. Despite his terror, he hadn’t felt it right afterwards, and the huge flower wilted, leaving a seed behind.¹

He had grabbed it and hurried back.

According to the elders, nothing was wrong with him except for a short pulsing in his head he had felt. The greatest difference was likely that the flowers had begun to tilt towards him, and that he could somehow tell where the seed was.

Once they had what they wanted, the second elder saw no reason to waste any more resources. He had given the call to retreat at a moment where the sect had been pushed back a bit. Now it would look like they had retreated on their own, and once these spiritual sects had burned down the rest of the canyon, no one would notice the missing large plant at all.

Satisfied, the second elder patted the shoulder of the man before going on a distance. “Well, I will join with the others now. You will do as planned, yes?”

The man nodded.

That he was being treated as a possible danger the elder didn’t want near him, he didn’t notice at all.

When the elder joined back with the others, he noticed them missing one but none of them said anything. In the first place, they weren’t friends.

When a scout came back, bringing them the information that their home was destroyed, the curses of the Demonic Sect could be heard all the way to the heavens.

Ultimately, though, they were adaptable like cockroaches. If one place was destroyed… They’d simply move to another.

And so they left the spiritual cultivators behind, tired, exhausted, and carrying their dead back home while those who were in the best state continued to burn down the canyon with empty eyes.