“Reporting.”

The young man returned and bowed to the great elders. This time, he was visibly nervous.

“What is it?”

“I have done as instructed, however, the guardian formation seems to have been restored and is now acting as a barrier preventing anyone from exiting the sect.”

“What?!”

“Th… That isn’t all. It seems the guardian formation has disabled the teleportation formations. They are no longer operational.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. Elder Han reported it himself.”

“So they’ve caged us in… Do they really mean to eliminate us all?” The great elder’s face went pale at the thought. “Tell me. Where is the centre of the bounding formation?”

“It seems to be the library, Sir.”

“The library? Why there of all places?”

“Reports say that a masked individual has forcibly taken position in the library. Witnesses say he has taken all of the books and scrolls into his personal spatial artefact. Even those protected by defensive formations. He is currently…” The young man couldn’t believe the reports himself. “He’s… well, he’s…”

“Spit it out! What is he doing?”

“They say he’s flipping through a few of the books and taking notes…”

“…”

“That is all. Your instructions?”

“We must break that formation. Have all of the disciples get into ranks. We elders will channel their power into ourselves. Then we’ll see if these intruders can keep us here.”

“Yes sir!”

The young man disappeared to execute his orders and the three great elders exchanged troubled glances.

“I hate to say I told you so.”

“This is hardly the time for that. Come, we must head for the library. Our first priority is to destroy that formation.”

“I’ve already sent word to the others. They should be joining the battle any moment now.”

“Alright, to the library!”

All of a sudden, the elders heard an explosion and when they turned to its source, they saw a cloud of dust, which quickly faded revealing a gaping hole in the wall and a young woman standing in front of it.

“Found you!”

Without a moment’s delay, that young woman dashed forward, leaving a ring of scorched earth where she had been standing. In the blink of an eye she had already placed herself between two of the three great elders. When they finally adjusted to her movement, they could see her hands rapidly approaching their faces. They instinctually activated their defensive treasures, but they were slightly too late. The delay between their thoughts and the activations of their treasures proved to be deadly. Just as the thin screens of their defensive barriers manifested, the young woman’s palms glowed orange and released two explosions, shattering the partially-formed shields. With nothing standing in their way, her hands clamped onto the faces of the two great elders and they found themselves flying through the air, colliding with several hard surfaces along their paths.

The third great elder watched as all of this happened. She had moved far quickly for him to respond. Before he knew it, the young woman had jumped through the new cavity she had created by throwing the bodies of his allies through the walls, and, while still in mid-air, she extended her right hand, fingers outstretched.

“Gravitation!”

From the cloud of dust that had been created by the impact, a body emerged, flying uncontrollably towards the young woman. As it reached close, she clenched her fist, cocked it back, and launched a devastating fist technique, landing squarely on the elder’s face.

“Phoenix’s Descent!”

With a shockwave and a blood-curdling scream, the elder was sent hurtling back towards the ground. But his troubles weren’t over. Far from it. Before that young woman landed from her jump, she had executed the same sequence twice more, flinging the great elder back and forth like a yoyo made of broken bones and mangled flesh.

***

“She’s a demon! How can there be such a violent woman?”

The great elder was profoundly impacted by the display he had just seen. The worst part of it all was that there was a giant smile plastered all over that young woman’s face. She was taking delight in the brutality. If he lived past this, he was sure her crazed, fiendish eyes would play a starring role in his future nightmares.

“Wait, Auntie Yimin. I can’t see anything if you’re moving so fast!”

From out of nowhere, another young lady ran into the room from one opening and out through the other, following the path that the other had taken. She had a youthful glow to her, unlike the other one, who seemed to have more of a mature aura. The great elder had experienced a variety of different women and had come to prefer this youthful vibrancy over maturity. And on top of that, she didn’t have that crazed look in her eyes. Instead, she conveyed a look of innocence. 

Even now, he was thinking of how he could sate his desire, and, not willing to let her just walk past, he used his Blood Palm technique, shooting it towards her unprotected back, probing to see if she was also hiding her strength. If not, then he didn’t see any reason to let a perfectly fine specimen out of his grasp. She had delivered herself to him, after all.

“Don’t drop your guard, Xiaoli.”

A young man’s voice came and the great elder watched in shock as his Blood Palm was cut in half, dissipating harmlessly before it could hit the young lady. He turned his gaze and saw that it was the young man who had called out the elders surnamed Zhu. He had managed to accurately target the Blood Palm without taking a single step away from his original position.

***

“If it isn’t Little Jing’er.” Zhu Fan landed gracefully on the ground not too far from Jing’er. “You’ve grown.” 

“Mm.” Zhu Ning landed silently next Zhu Fan, his arm resting on his shoulder. He had a casual smile on his face as he tilted his head and extended his arm. “You were only this tall when I last saw you.”

As he examined Jing’er’s aura, Zhu Fan’s eyes opened wide. “Already in the minute realm? Congratulations.”

Zhu Ning focused on the residual energy from the pillar of light which had now faded. “Is this sword intent? You really are a little genius, Jing’er. Neither we nor your father were able to learn this.”

The two stood in silence as Jing’er did the same.

Zhu Fan frowned. “What? You’re not going to say anything?”

“I’m not one to interrupt a man’s last words.”

“Oh?” Zhu Ning clapped his hands loudly as he chuckled. “Do you really think you’re too big to get punished? What would your father say if he heard about this?”

“Dead men don’t speak.”

Both Zhu Ning and Zhu Fan opened their eyes wide. “He died? How?”

“You know very well. He died the day he became a demonic cultivator. It was the two of you who killed him.”

“There’s that Zhu Clan narrow-minded thinking.”

“He was the same person, and we’re the same uncles Fan and Ning that you remember.”

Jing’er remained silent.

“So, your father told you about what we did? Did he tell you that it happened before we became demonic cultivators?”

“It’s true that we crippled his cultivation, but that was because we were jealous of his talent and potential. Do you know what it’s like to be ignored by your parents in favour of your younger brother? You wouldn’t.”

“We, the elder brothers, were still stuck in the transcendent realm when our younger brother, five years our junior, surpassed us, shuttling straight towards the minute realm. Out of jealousy, we stunted his growth, preventing him from reaching his potential.”

“Things were great from then on. Our parents started to treat us equally, and no one in the clan saw us as any less than our brother once we caught up with him.”

“But it was short-lived. With our brother crippled and Yimin in the state she was in, our generation failed to produce a minute realm cultivator, leaving us without a successor for the clan leader position.”

“Regretting our choice, we went out to look for a way to help your father regain his ability. That’s when we stumbled upon the inheritance of a demonic cultivator.”

“In no time at all, both of us had managed to break through to the minute realm. It’s unbelievable that a lifetime of effort can be surpassed by something as simple as theft.”

“Of course, we didn’t keep this from our brother. Why would we? It was better if we all thrived.”

“We confessed our crimes and introduced him to the demonic path. And unlike what he may have told you, we didn’t force him into it. He chose it of his own will.”

“And even after becoming demonic cultivators, none of us turned our backs on the Zhu Clan. We aren’t the traitors you think us to be.”

Jing’er took a deep breath and shot a sharp glare at his two uncles.

“You say he chose it of his own will when you were the ones who pushed him to desperation.”

Zhu Fan smiled. “If it’s fair to say that we pushed your father to desperation, is it not also fair to say that fate did the same to us? To be born average while your younger brother is special. That would drive anyone to do certain things they otherwise wouldn’t.”

“The difference between your thinking and mine is that I do not try to absolve my father of his crimes. Whether he was pushed into desperation or not, ultimately, when given the choice, he chose to do evil. The same stands for the two of you. You chose to do evil. For that, you must face justice.”

“What evil did we do? Taking cultivation from a few random strangers? Come on. We’re family. There’s no need to let something so trivial come between us.”

“Be reasonable, Jing’er.”

Jing’er pointed his swords at his uncles.

“We of the Zhu Clan are champions of justice. If we turn a blind eye to evil simply because of our relation to the perpetrator, then we aren’t fit to judge anyone. My father has already paid the price. It’s time you do the same.”

Zhu Fan sighed and stepped forward. His skin started to turn dark red and the veins underneath turned black.

“It’s a shame it had to come to this, Jing’er.”

The same happened to Zhu Ning as he also stepped forward.

“Truly a shame.”

***

“What’s the situation?”

Three other elders appeared in front of the great elder who had been waiting for them.

“Good, you’ve come.” The great elder breathed a sigh of relief internally. “Things are dire. We need to destroy the core of this formation at the library before the teleportation formations can come back online.”

“What’s the status of the others?”

“I can’t say, but it looks like we’re being beaten back pretty bad. This attack is beyond what we can handle. Our only hope is to escape before it’s too late.”

“To think a day like this would arrive.”

“That’s enough talking. If we stay still too long, we may just say our last words here.”

“Right. Let’s hea-” The elder felt a sharp pain through his chest, causing his words to be cut off. He looked down to his chest and saw a blade sticking out of it. When he looked back up, he could see the looks of horror on the faces of the other elders, and before he could say anything else, he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

What was interesting about it was that even before it left his field of view, he saw it spontaneously combust. In fact, his entire field of view was overtaken by flames before he could even rationalise what he was seeing.

The other elders immediately took their distance when they saw what was happening, and behind the falling ashes that used to be the body of their ally, they could see a young man clad in flames. He was emitting an intense heat and even the dagger in his hand started to melt away.

One of the elders sighed and shook his head.

“Well, looks like we’re all going to die.”

The other wasn’t so pessimistic. He turned to the grand elder, urging him to leave.

“We’ll handle this. You disable that formation!”

The grand elder could feel the severity of the situation weighing down on his shoulders. If he didn’t manage to disable that formation, they would all die where they stood.

“Stay alive, you two.”

The grand elder left and the young man did nothing to stop him. That in itself was disconcerting. No matter how hard he tried to think positively, he could only see one possible outcome for all of this.

‘Is this really the end?’