"Your cultivation is decent," Su Min said calmly, her gaze briefly following the severed head as it rolled to a stop in the dirt, its eyes frozen in a permanent, wide stare of shock. "But without a proper spiritual weapon to channel it... it is meaningless."
The man had reacted with the instinctive speed of a Qi Refining cultivator, but his sword was a mere mortal blade, a piece of finely crafted steel utterly outclassed by true spiritual power. It had not mattered in the slightest. Su Min had cleaved through both the man and his inferior weapon in one fluid, unstoppable stroke, the difference in their arms as vast as the difference in their strength.
"Kill her!!"
A furious, desperate bellow erupted from the ranks of the surviving Demon Slaying Division soldiers. A group of Body Refining cultivators, their faces contorted with a mix of rage and fear, charged at her in a disordered mob. Yet how could they possibly threaten her? Even a genuine, if hastily made, Qi Refining cultivator had just fallen in a single, effortless blow. These few were nothing but lambs rushing to the slaughter, their bravery born of ignorance.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
A flash of cold, precise light, and heads tumbled to the churned earth like overripe fruit from a shaken tree. For a long, suspended moment, the world fell into a stunned, deafening silence. Even the soldiers tasked with herding the commoners stood frozen, their minds struggling to catch up to the brutal reality before them. Just moments ago, those so called "lords" of the Demon Slaying Division had looked down upon them from a position of absolute, terrifying power. Now they lay scattered across the ground, dead as common strays, their power proven to be an illusion. Their deaths were so swift, so absolute, that even the commoners who had been destined for the sacrificial fires stood stupefied, their own terror momentarily forgotten, unable to process the sudden, violent shift in their reality.
"What is the matter?" Su Min's smile was light, almost teasing, as she looked at the paralyzed crowd, her voice cutting through the silence. "Are you all waiting around to be burned alive?"
Whoosh!
The next instant, the square exploded into a wave of pure, unthinking chaos. Commoners and soldiers alike broke formation, scattering in a blind panic for their lives, tripping over each other in their desperation. No one dared to linger a second longer in the presence of such decisive power. The surviving soldiers, seeing the utter futility of any resistance, abandoned their posts and fled with the crowd, discarding their weapons and armor. Their only task had been to draw Su Min out with the mountain fires. Now that she stood before them, calm and deadly, what was the point of burning anything further? In the real battle that had just begun, they would be less than cannon fodder, their lives worth less than the dirt beneath her feet.
"Still not scramming?" Su Min said with a dismissive glance at the small cluster of city officials who were trembling so violently they could barely stand, a dark puddle forming at the feet of one. She spared them no further thought, her focus already shifting, her senses stretching out. Her gaze swept toward the horizon, where two putrid, recognizable streams of spiritual power howled toward her location like vengeful ghosts, their auras boiling with renewed fury.
In response, a brilliant, cleansing crimson light erupted around her, a protective halo of fire, the sacred Nanming Lihuo answering its mistress's call without hesitation. This Heaven and Earth treasure was the natural bane of all things wicked and corrupt, its very presence a purifying force.
"You—!"
The two cultivators who had just arrived skidded to a halt, their faces paling from rage to shock as they took in the scene, the corpses of their comrade and his guards littering the ground, a full third of their forces annihilated in the blink of an eye before they could even intervene.
"Be careful!" one of them barked, his voice tight with sudden, sharp tension. "That woman's weapon is not ordinary! It is a true spiritual artifact!"
He was right. Su Min's blade was a mid grade Yellow rank flying sword, a true spiritual treasure that had been tempered and grown with her. Before it, their own conjured weapons might as well have been made of paper and twine.
Suddenly—
"Ahhh!!!"
Pained, gurgling screams tore through the air, but they did not come from Su Min's direction. They came from within the enemy's own ranks. At the very moment they recoiled from Su Min's display of power, the two Qi Refining cultivators spun with practiced, horrifying speed and pressed their palms directly against the backs of their own closest subordinates. A sickly pale green light engulfed the hapless Body Refining soldiers, whose eyes bulged in betrayal and agony as their souls were forcibly ripped from their bodies and drawn into the two commanders, consumed as fuel.
"A secret soul harvesting technique?" Su Min's eyes narrowed slightly, her expression turning grim and cold. She had read of such despicable arts.
Before she could close the distance to intervene, the two enemies' auras surged explosively, a violent, unstable wave of power that distorted the air around them. In the blink of an eye, their cultivation broke through its previous limits, forcibly elevated to the mid stage of Qi Refining. Their bodies grotesquely swelled, muscles bulging and skin stretching taut and shiny until they stood as monstrous, hulking figures, each nearly twice their original size. Immediately, they unleashed thick, rolling clouds of virulent green mist directly at her, the poison so potent it killed the grass where it touched.
"What the hell is that?" Su Min muttered, recoiling on instinct.
She dared not confront the poisonous cloud head on. Her Nanming Lihuo was potent, but its flame was still young, its rank still too low to guarantee her complete protection against such a concentrated, vile toxin. Her physical body, for all its refinement, would not withstand a direct contamination. She retreated swiftly, creating distance in a blur of motion. But the two now monstrous cultivators closed the gap with shocking, brutal speed, flanking her from the left and right, cutting off her angles of escape. In their enlarged hands, dark green spiritual energy condensed into wicked, serrated, glowing scythes, which they swung toward her head in a deadly, perfectly coordinated pincer attack.
Their coordination was flawless, the result of a shared, twisted mind. No matter how she moved, Su Min could not block both strikes at once. Parry one, and the other would surely find its mark. A single touch from those venomous weapons would flood her meridians with a corrosive, spirit devouring poison. It might not be instantly fatal, but it would certainly cripple her, leaving her helpless.
Yet, facing this certain doom, Su Min only allowed a faint, cold smile to touch her lips. She had been waiting for this moment, for them to commit fully to their attack.
"Roar!!!"
With a deafening, spiritual roar that shook the very air and rattled the teeth of those still fleeing in the distance, a visible shockwave of pure mental power burst forth from her. The Tiger Bone Ring on her finger flared with a pale light, unleashing its full, soul scorching mental assault directly into their minds.
"Ahhh!!!"
Caught completely unprepared, their focus entirely on their physical attack, the two enemies staggered as if struck by a physical maul. Their souls trembled violently within their stolen, bloated bodies. Their perfectly executed scythe strikes faltered mid swing, the weapons themselves flickering and dissolving into insubstantial mist. Their swollen bodies wobbled unsteadily, their concentration and the delicate control over their unstable power shattered completely.
Seizing the microscopic opening, Su Min struck like a viper, her movements a study in ruthless efficiency.
With cold precision, she drove her flying sword straight through the defenses and into the heart of the closer foe. At the exact same time, her free hand shot out, palm open, summoning a concentrated, baseball sized blast of Nanming Lihuo that slammed into the chest of the second enemy, sending him flying backward with a concussive force. Though not dead yet, the second man howled in pure misery as the sacred flame seared his corrupted flesh, the holy fire causing his unstable energy to sizzle and pop. Su Min ignored him for now, her focus absolute.
Her first priority was securing the kill. With a fierce, guttural roar, she slammed her body into the pinned enemy, using her momentum to drive him down. His bloated form, now nearly five meters tall, crashed to the earth with a ground shaking thud that sent cracks through the soil. She leaned all her weight onto the sword, pinning the monstrous body to the dirt, and poured her spiritual power into the blade, generating a torrent of Nanming Lihuo that flooded directly into his heart and core through the wound.
"Wuuu—"
The monster struggled desperately, throwing wild, powerful punches that could shatter stone. But the translucent, snarling figure of the White Tiger spirit guarding Su Min materialized just long enough to deflect two of the blows, its spectral form flickering with the strain. It was all the time she needed. By then, a fierce crimson glow was already pouring from the monster's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, the internal conflagration reaching its peak.
Boom!
With a muffled internal detonation, the corrupted body exploded from within, consumed utterly by the sacred flame and reduced to a smoldering pile of blackened ash and splintered bone.
Su Min exhaled a light breath, a smile of genuine satisfaction playing on her lips as she felt the surge of power from her Path of Slaughter. Yet as she turned on her heel to face her final foe, that smile froze. Only a retreating back remained, growing smaller by the instant.
The surviving enemy had used the precious distraction of his comrade's violent death to flee without a second thought for honor or vengeance. In the span of a few heartbeats, he had already covered thousands of meters, a tiny, shrinking speck against the vast horizon. In the blink of an eye, he vanished beyond the distant, hazy city walls, his escape route pre planned.
"So fast..." Su Min could only sigh, a mix of frustration and grudging admiration coloring her tone. There was no catching up to that speed, not without preparation. The hunt was over for now.