"What… what are they trying to do?"
At that moment, countless fearful eyes turned toward the city gates. Over the past few days, officials in grim uniforms had been sweeping through the streets, rounding up the old, the weak, the sick, and the homeless with brutal efficiency. Now, under the cold command of a few Body Refining demonic cultivators, this ragged, terrified crowd was being herded like cattle, their cries ignored, toward the edge of the wild, overgrown forests.
"This is…" The steward of the merchant guild felt the blood drain from his face as he watched the grim procession from his high window, his knuckles white as he gripped the sill.
Though Southern Frontier City was a place of inherent chaos and lawlessness, it had somehow survived as one of the last bastions of a rough, desperate order. But the scene unfolding now sent a cold, sickening chill through the heart of every onlooker. It wasn't just the steward, everyone in the city, from shopkeepers to street urchins, found their horrified gaze drawn to the grim procession at the forest's edge, a sense of dread settling over them like a shroud.
Deep within the forest, Su Min had spent the last several days in silent, deep meditation, conserving her strength and harmonizing with the life around her. But on this day, her eyes suddenly snapped open, her tranquility shattered.
"What is that?"
She blinked, her spiritual sense stretching out like a net. She could feel the three Qi Refining cultivators and their Body Refining minions, their auras just as dark and oppressive as before. But something was different today, a new, unsettling texture in the air.
"So many faint life signs… what are they doing?"
She frowned, her brow furrowing in concentration. While she had awakened the forests immediately around her with the power of the Verdant Wood Vines, her influence only covered a few neighboring mountain peaks. The treacherous, spirit infused terrain kept ordinary people out naturally, but the actual distance from the city was not that great. Her spiritual sense could just barely cover the entire area between her mountain and the city walls. Yet, tiny, weak presences, like a sparrow beside an eagle, could easily escape her notice if she wasn't specifically looking for them, their spiritual signatures too faint to register against the background noise of life.
Sensing that something was terribly, horribly wrong, Su Min moved. In the next breath, she was in the air, her form a blur, and the entire forest around her seemed to shudder in response to her agitation. Then, an eerie, mournful wail echoed through the trees, a sound that seemed to come from the wood itself.
Sickly green flames, reeking of evil and profound misfortune, erupted in three separate locations at the forest's periphery. Though they were called flames, they did not consume wood into ash. Instead, anything they touched withered slowly, the color draining from leaves and bark, as if the very essence of life was being devoured by a ravenous cold.
Soul Devouring Evil Fire.
Su Min's eyes narrowed in cold recognition. This was no natural phenomenon, nor was it a treasure of Heaven and Earth. It was a wicked, forbidden sorcery, a foul flame ignited by using human souls as its kindling. The fire itself wasn't even hot to the touch. Anyone foolish enough to touch it would feel an unbearable, bone deep cold, because it didn't burn flesh, it consumed blood, marrow, and the soul itself. To fuel and sustain such an inferno required an enormous, monstrous sacrifice of innocent lives.
"Three groups, one in each direction," she murmured, her voice as cold as winter ice. "You dare to divide your forces before me? Then none of you will leave this place alive." The decision was made in an instant, her path clear.
Tracking the foul, unmistakable energy, she swiftly pinpointed the three intruders' exact locations. Since they dared to set her mountains ablaze with this abomination, she would take the fight directly to them. As for the Soul Devouring Evil Fire, with the sacred Nanming Lihuo protecting her body and soul, she had nothing to fear. Compared to its pure, divine, blazing power, this wretched witch fire was nothing more than a guttering candle against the full, brilliant light of the moon.
At the foot of the mountains, screams of pure agony tore through the air.
"Aaaagh!"
"Please, no! Have mercy!"
The captives, those who had been dragged there by force, twisted in unspeakable agony. Their bodies were wreathed in the ghostly greenish flames, yet their clothes did not burn. Instead, their flesh and blood withered visibly before the horrified crowd, their skin pulling tight over bones, their forms shrinking. In less than a minute, they would crumble into dust and nothingness.
Meanwhile, the Body Refining cultivators, their faces blank and utterly expressionless, moved with robotic efficiency, tossing fresh, screaming victims into the burgeoning blaze. As long as the original fire source was maintained, the Soul Devouring Evil Fire would continue to spread endlessly, a self perpetuating engine of death.
"Spare us!"
"Grandfather! No!"
Behind the merciless executioners, waves of terror and raw grief swept through the mass of onlookers. Most of the victims were the elderly, those deemed useless, and their families wept and pleaded, utterly powerless to help, held back by a line of armored soldiers. Just days ago, these old folks had been struggling to survive in the city's alleys. Now, they were being used as living fuel, their lives extinguished for a tactical advantage.
"My lord, shall we start with the refugees first?" the local magistrate asked, his voice strained and pale as he addressed the aloof, terrifying commander of the Demon Slayer Division.
The magistrate was no good man, but these were still his people, the tax base and foundation of his limited power. To him, sacrificing the refugees, the unstable, rootless elements, was the only option he could stomach. If the fire needed fuel, better it be them than the established, productive townsfolk.
"Is this the so called 'immortal' you all speak so highly of?" the Demon Slayer commander sneered, ignoring the magistrate's question entirely as he scanned the tree line.
Though Su Min's name was barely a whisper in the Great Wei Imperial Capital, here in the borderlands, she was a living legend. They spoke of a divine fairy residing in the mountains, kind hearted and breathtakingly beautiful, who could cure any ailment with a wave of her hand. Countless desperate people had sought her out over the years. If she was in a good mood, she would heal even those without one of her precious spirit bamboo tokens. Her reputation for compassion had only grown as she unconsciously pursued her path of salvation.
When the imperial envoys heard these tales, they had not dared to charge directly into the monster infested forests. Instead, they chose this cowardly, indirect attack, setting the foul fires from three directions to burn her out, to flush her into the open like a hunted animal. All the while, they mocked the weeping, helpless masses.
"What kind of 'immortal fairy' hides in fear like a coward?" one of the Body Refining soldiers jeered, kicking a lump of dirt. "She is nothing but a fraud! A story for children!"
BOOM!!
A crimson orb of fire, pure and blazing with sacred intensity, hurtled down from the heavens like a vengeful falling star. It slammed directly into the heart of the largest Soul Devouring Fire, the holy flame meeting the profane. The green fire sizzled and writhed, snuffing out in an instant, vanquished by a superior power. Without its primary source to sustain it, the nearby green flames flickered weakly and died, leaving behind only patches of withered, grey earth. This was no ordinary fire, and so its destruction followed no ordinary rules. Su Min's method was simple, direct, and overwhelmingly effective.
"Save us, Fairy Immortal!"
"Please, save us!!"
The bound captives who remained, seeing a glimmer of divine hope, cried out with all their remaining strength, their voices hoarse with pain and desperation. It did not matter if they were refugees, beggars, or commoners, in that moment, they all saw the descending Su Min as their only salvation, their sole chance to live.
"You—!"
The Demon Slayer commander's face twisted with fury and a flicker of shock. He had originally been a mere Body Refining cultivator, forcibly elevated to the Qi Refining stage by the Demon Queen's corrupt power just for this mission. His cultivation was unstable and hollow, like a rotten tree given a glossy coat of paint, lacking a true foundation. Su Min, in stark contrast, was a genuine Qi Refining cultivator who had broken through by her own merit and accumulation. Even for the most talented, that process usually took a full decade of arduous work.
And yet, here she stood, impossibly young, serene, and utterly terrifying in her focused intensity.
"The wails of the people… I hear them."
Su Min did not even spare the fuming commander a glance. She spoke calmly, her voice cutting through the chaotic din with an unnatural clarity. In that moment, a spectral, roaring tiger spirit surged from the ring on her finger and into her body—White Tiger Possession. There was no visible change to her appearance, but the air around her crackled, and her strength and speed multiplied dramatically, a contained power waiting to be unleashed.
It happened in the blink of an eye—
Boom—!
A deafening sonic boom cracked the air, the sound of air being violently displaced. Su Min had already closed the distance, standing directly before the stunned commander before he could even register her movement. Her spiritual sword gleamed with a cold, hungry light as she swung it down in a simple, devastating arc without a hint of hesitation or flourish. Most women of the sword favored precise thrusts and elegant, intricate strikes. Su Min's style was different, it was vast and overwhelming, an unstoppable tide of pure, concussive force.
The commander barely had time to raise his own inferior weapon in a panicked, desperate block.
CRACK—!
The sound was sharp, clean, and final. His blade, and the neck behind it, were sliced clean through as if they were made of paper. His head toppled from his shoulders, his expression frozen in a mask of shock, before his body crumpled to the scorched earth.