I Was Called A Demon

As far as Bianca remembered, the Dancer only had a few distinct skills that she had demonstrated so far – or perhaps ever. She hadn’t taken the time to learn their names, but the rough idea was that all three would plunge the target into a certain level of dream or mirage.

One would simply make it hard to follow the Dancer’s movements, another could create a phantom that would distract a foe for as long as it avoided close scrutiny, and the third would directly send the target into a dream. The three were very effective against opponents susceptible to them, but against more bestial entities, such as the hungry nest, the wildlife they’d encountered on the road, or Han Rushu, it would prove little more than a momentary distraction before they picked up her – figurative, on most other days – scent.

Therefore, even though Bianca hardly understood the specific workings of any of these abilities, she was curious to find out how the Dancer intended to use these against her foe.

Yu Juan delved deeper into the tunnel, and although it was rather dark in there, Bianca could faintly make out the outline of an entity hanging in the middle of a larger room, a pulsing thing that beat like a heart, a mass of tendrils and vines that entwined into a single vaguely spherical form. There was a faint, crimson glow from within, and it illuminated the floor beneath, revealing the faint mist that coated it.

The entirety of that chamber looked to be moist – wet, even – from whatever substance the entity was producing, the poison that Xue Yaling had warned them about some time ago.

Yu Juan took out a sword, took another breath, then approached the nest, taking slow and steady steps forward, although she was obviously guarded against any potential threat, her sword at the ready and her stance lowered, ready to stand stably against any threat.

For a while, it seemed as though the hungry nest might be asleep – if such a thing was even possible – but then Bianca noticed movement behind Yu Juan, the roots on the tunnel side bulging out and forming into some sort of cocoon. A faint membrane spread between the roots, and the shape of some creature soon appeared within, just barely able to be glimpsed through the membrane.

It was hardly necessary to use such means, however, as the cocoon opened up and the roots receded after only a few seconds, leaving behind a large creature that looked like some kind of ape. It had two legs and two huge arms, using both to stand, a creature made of roots and leaves that looked to be slightly taller than Yu Juan.

However, it was significantly bulkier, and if those roots translated to a similar amount of muscle, it was guaranteed to have far greater physical strength than the lithe dancer.

This made Bianca worry a little, but then she recalled that if there was one thing that a cultivator who’d been forced to exclusively use spiritual perception wouldn’t fall for, it would be an ambush. Indeed, the moment that the giant ape-like monster tried to charge her, Yu Juan jumped aside and unleashed her energy, causing numerous phantoms and mirages to appear around her.

They were faint, barely visible in the crimson-tinted darkness of the tunnel, but they seemed to affect the monster to a minor extent, as it stopped a few steps short of her and performed a wide sweep with its arm, as though trying to strike her.

‘I guess the skill isn’t purely effective on intelligent life, since this seems to generate an actual image out in the world… Though I doubt that the hungry nest will struggle here. If this thing is like most cultivators, it will probably use spiritual perception, or at least look from multiple angles to figure out where she is, or perhaps…’

The roots all over the tunnel and the inner chamber might’ve acted as sensory organs of sort for the nest, as it would explain why the area was quite so humid, as all of the hungry nest’s… emissions might’ve been radiating into the open air.

‘I really hope these things don’t need to, uh, crap, or anything like that. Thinking about it, most of the creatures I’ve seen never really do that, so… huh, I guess I like this aspect of the world quite a bit,’ Bianca got a little distracted and contemplated all kinds of things, coming back to the real world once she remembered that she was supposed to at least try to protect Yu Juan if she was in danger.

After the initial swing from the ape-like monster, Yu Juan didn’t stand still and let it attack again, instead coating her sword in her energy and swinging at the extended arm as it swung in front of her.

Her blade hit the root and bark-like surface of the creature, not quite bouncing off yet clearly failing to make a significant dent, as the ape-like entity promptly took this opportunity to swing the other arm, raising it high in the air and bringing it down with immense speed. Yu Juan had no choice but to withdraw, performing some kind of strange movement skill that, in an instant, allowed her to replace one of the mirages that had been summoned behind her.

The ape struck the ground, causing the earth to rumble, and in the next second Yu Juan vanished again, this time appearing nearer to the bark monster’s side. Rather than slashing, she concentrated her energy on the tip of the weapon, stabbing forward towards one of the gaps in the roots.

It certainly penetrated deeper in this time, but as she tried to remove the sword, it appeared to be stuck amidst the roots, giving the monster a chance to turn and attempt to hit her yet again.

Although flustered, she used her movement skill again, expending yet another mirage, and allowed Bianca to figure out how her ability worked. From the looks of it, rather than a free movement ability like Bianca’s own, this one utilised the mirages that Yu Juan’s other skill created, and it used them up to replace her for a brief moment.

‘She’s skilled with dreams, so I wonder if that applies to dreams as well somehow… I haven’t got a clue if that’s something that would make sense, but I could imagine it being super useful,’ she thought, not realising that her mind had shifted to ponder all this properly, without blocking it all out like she usually did.

While Bianca took it all in, Yu Juan released her energy again and manifested more mirages, using them as a distraction to dash forward and grab her sword, desperately trying to pull it out. Even from afar, it was obvious that it took a lot of effort, but she just managed it before the ape attacked again.

‘Hm… When I gave my energy to Song Ming, it caused her physique to change, almost… corrupting it. I’ve also managed to influence Yu Juan’s mindscape a bit, and she relies on the power of dreams, so…’ Bianca suddenly had an idea, and turned to Huang Su, “Hey, can I try out something? I’m already helping her with my energy and warding off the influence the Cult of Terror had on her, so, you know, it might not be so bad-”

“It should be safer, given that your energy is counteracted by that of the Cult of Terror, and it does look like she might need it…”

Indeed, while Yu Juan was able to evade most strikes from the ape with ease, she couldn’t do much harm to it, and it didn’t look like the hungry nest wanted to just keep playing with her. The wall in the back of the nest’s chamber bulged out and manifested another creature, some kind of spider that had a number of blazing eyes akin to the red glow from the depths of the hungry nest.

“Alright, cover me in case I fuck something up…” Bianca said, and charged in, using her movement skill to clear the length of the tunnel in a second or two, arriving behind Yu Juan and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Bianca!”

“I have something I can try, but I will need to give you more of my energy. Are you alright with that?”

Yu Juan thought about it for a moment, but the root and bark creatures were determined not to give her a moment of peace. Both of them arrived before her at once, the spider leaping in from the back while the ape simply turned away from one of the mirages, and both swung at them.

Without even thinking, Bianca thrust her other hand forward and released the Abyssal Shield, a barrier of smoke bursting out and blocking the strikes, wavering only a little.

“If you think it will help… go for it!” Yu Juan seemed hesitant at first, but she accepted after ‘staring’ at the smoky barrier in front of her.

Bianca nodded, and with the hand that touched Yu Juan, she channelled all of her energy into Yu Juan, performing some kind of simplified dual cultivation technique – she wasn’t sure how it worked, exactly, but what she could tell was that it was working.

As her energy poured into the Dancer, she got the Dancer’s energy in return, but her mixture of crimson and darkness overwhelmed the stream of dream-like light that flowed towards her. It flooded into Yu Juan, and for a moment, she got a glimpse of that nightmarish mental landscape once more. The countless terrible figures at the edges of her vision attempted to encroach again, preventing Yu Juan’s mental equivalent from recovering as well as Bianca would’ve hoped.

With her energy returning to the mental landscape, overflowing within it, Bianca was finally able to make a larger difference. The region around Yu Juan’s exhausted figure cracked and was filled with a violet light, surging out from the ground in misty wisps and faint beams, covering what looked like a metre in diameter before Bianca began to run low on planar energy.

Luckily, it seemed to be enough to make a true change, as the very moment before she gave up, the eerie violet light changed, and crimson sparks began to emerge, letting her pull back and withdraw from the mental domain. The final moment allowed her to spot Yu Juan’s mental self begin to rise from the ground. The same crimson sparks appeared around her, crackling crimson electricity appearing at her fingertips.

It didn’t take long to see the change. She couldn’t track the exact rate of demonic corruption – although she was sure that she had to have inflicted some of it onto the poor Dancer in this process – but she could see those same crimson sparks flash around Yu Juan for a moment.

The Dancer turned to face her, breaking free from her grip and disrupting the Abyssal Shield, but there was a difference in her ‘gaze’. Although she could hardly see it beneath the blindfold, the faint ember-like shade that typically shone through was even fainter, and now a different shade appeared to occupy the centre of her eyes.

Just in case, Bianca wasn’t going to try and peek beneath the blindfold, but it may be safer, at least for her. If her corruption behaved in a similar manner to that of the Cult of Terror, then it would only induce a different form of harm on the person viewing Yu Juan’s eyes directly.

“I… Bianca, I feel like I’m… it’s like I’ve got enough energy to walk after being confined in bed for years! What did you-”

“The hungry nest is still there, so you may want to take care of it first.”

“But… no, my energy feels different, like… P-please guard me, just in case!”

“Mhm, of course,” she nodded without hesitation, since she had already confirmed that the Abyssal Shield was sufficiently effective.

The Dancer turned back to the two root creatures, her sword in hand, but as her energy poured over the blade this time, the dreamy mirage that previously coated it was mixed in with crimson arcs of lightning. They were faint at first, but as Yu Juan adjusted her footing and ‘stared’ down the enemies, the lightning grew more vivid, albeit still illusory.

She took a breath, then charged at the spider-like entity, right into the path of one of it’s attacks. Of course, just as it was about to hit, she performed another substitution with a mirage, letting her appear at the side of the two legs that had been thrust towards her previous location.

Lifting her blade, gripping it with both hands, she channelled more energy towards the edge than ever, slightly mimicking Bianca’s own skill, whether deliberately or by accident. As her dream-like mist gathered in one space, it thickened further, crimson intensifying, until the moment she swung the sword.

That moment sounded – and felt – like thunder, a crimson shockwave composed of countless arcs of lightning suddenly erupting the moment that she began her strike, scorching parts of the root-filled tunnel black. However, most of the energy remained concentrated on the edge of her sword, a crackling crimson flame burning at the edge as it struck one of the spider’s limbs and flared up, cutting into it as though the roots were little more than soft butter.

In just the same way, it went through the other limb that got in the way, and crashed down all the way to the floor, cutting even into the roots that covered it. The root spider made some kind of hissing noise and recoiled, while the ape appeared to become hesitant to act, giving Yu Juan the moment she needed to both extricate the sword from the ground and to be amazed at her deed.

“I… I did it?! I did it! Mistress, I did it!” she spoke with child-like glee, beaming with a smile wider than any Bianca had ever seen on the Dancer, “My energy… it’s like my dream now has your explosive power!”

“Hah, that’s good… I had no idea what I’d accomplish, but- right, root things!” Bianca drew her own blade and faced the ape, which had turned to her after it gave Yu Juan a long stare, “I’ll take care of this one, you handle the nest and spider!”

“Yes, Mistress!”

Although she said that, Bianca was in a strangely good mood. The Dancer’s energy had mixed in with her own, so she felt a little more free than usual, and she still had plenty of creative thoughts to spare, and the current situation prevented her from getting distracted. If she had, she might’ve tried to dismiss these ideas again before she became too comfortable with the world, or to observe how her other side simply seemed to think those kinds of ideas more freely…

‘I can attack with any physical motion, but why does it have to be a kick or punch? Surely I can just… shove my energy out there, let it be all red and crackly, and… ah fuck it, at most it’ll be seen as a battle cry or something,’ she though, lowering her sword and letting her energy gather near her front.

Without realising it, there was a smile on her face.

‘Three, two, one…’

She pushed her upper body forward while letting out a roar that, even from her perspective, came out surprisingly intimidatingly, but what mattered more was the crimson energy she’d been gathering. Indeed, it surged out along with her movement, ending up as a tidal wave of crackling energy that struck the ape-like entity before her harder than a truck, knocking it back and exploding, making an even bigger mess of the place that Yu Juan’s attack did.

Bianca’s power was able to obliterate the roots and even reached the hungry nest to her side, causing it to tremble and quake. As the crimson glow cleared, she was able to see that half of the ape’s body had been evaporated in the blast, and while it was attempting to recover, roots and vines growing out to replace what was destroyed, it was nowhere near fast enough to make a difference.

Using her sword this time, Bianca unleashed another crimson wave, slicing the remnants of the ape in half, then used her movement skill to appear besides Yu Juan to block another entity that the hungry nest spawned.

“I’ll let you have the kill on the nest! If we spend too long here, it’ll just spawn more and more of these things!” she said.

“Ah, of course, Mistress… You’re so wise today!” the Dancer said, and while Bianca was happy to take the compliment, it did forcefully bring up the subject in her mind.

As such, she had no choice but to confront it.

‘I am… awfully understanding of this stuff at the moment… did the Demon Queen take over while I wasn’t looking?’ she asked herself, although it was bad enough of a question that she felt tempted to facepalm, ‘No, obviously not, but… something fishy has to be happening, I’m sure of it!’

She wasn’t sure in the slightest, but she found it easier to believe that she was in the moment, rather than risking her reality unravelling around her.

Yu Juan clearly didn’t know about her inner turmoil, as she was more concerned with her own task of taking down the nest. Without the creatures surrounding it, the nest had relatively little defensive measures of its own, so the most important part was simply inflicting enough harm to take it down. Like before, the Dancer directed her energy to her blade and focused it near the tip, though before swinging, she also let out a vast burst of dream-like mist that coalesced into numerous additional mirages.

They didn’t mimic Yu Juan’s movements perfectly, but even now that Bianca’s been distracted, she could tell what the Dancer was going for.

‘I wonder… could she just explode them, if they’re made up of the same energy?’ Bianca thought, ‘Fuck, no, why does all this seem so easy when I just think about it? Was it… was it always this simple?’

Yu Juan dashed in and thrust her sword forth, and the mirages accompanied to a certain extent, so that when her hit reached its peak speed, the eruption that followed shook the earth from its intensity. All of the mirages exploded in the same moment as her sword pierced the outer… layer of the hungry nest, crimson crackling all over, nearly blinding even Bianca, who was used to such things by now.

The energy that had gathered at the tip of the Dancer’s sword erupted within the nest, and it tore the monster apart, roots and bark flying everywhere, some kind of red-tinted clear fluid splattering all over the place.

The other entities few apart, returning to mere roots, instantly being covered in dirt as this little cavern had partially crumbled as a result of the massive explosion. Many chunks of dirt and stone fell from above, luckily missing either of them, and although the rumbling ceased quickly, it still worried Bianca.

“Let’s get out of this place before the ceiling comes down on us… oh right, does it have a core or something?”

“Yes, Mistress, I can locate it, just put up a shield over me,” Yu Juan nodded, running over to a chunk of the hungry nest’s remains, rummaging through them while Bianca approached and raised a weaker state of the Abyssal Shield to cover them.

In no time at all – likely thanks to her spiritual perception – the Dancer was able to pull out a small object that had an aura of energy around it, and the two immediately flew the area after that, escaping the tunnel in time. There was no grand collapse behind them, not right away, but it still felt like it was best not to wander back in.