I Was Called A Demon

“I don’t understand you,” Xue Yaling said, walking beside the Sect Master on one of the days of their journey to the west.

“What exactly are you failing to understand?”

“Well, there’s only two options for you being here. Either you’ve genuinely been controlled by Bianca, in which case the only way I can see that happening is if she fucked you a thousand times before I found you two,” she stated, though she failed to elicit much of a reaction from Huang Su, “Or you’re simply playing along with her.”

“Does it matter to you?”

“Yes, it does. Or rather, even if it didn’t matter in the slightest, I want – no, need – to understand why a Sect Master has chosen to accompany us. I want to understand you, I want to understand her, and I’d like to understand… well, the more, the better.”

“Xue Yaling, aren’t you?”

“Hm?”

“You wrote A Guide to Cultivation, did you not?”

“… fuck, I wasn’t expecting someone like you to have heard of it.”

“I read it, too. I read every single book added to the Phoenix Sect’s libraries, though most don’t leave enough of an impression for me to recall them in their entirety.”

The kitsune blushed just a little, looking away for the first time in their conversation, “Heh, I guess I left a bit of an impression then.”

“The book was clearly written by an amateur, someone who had never cultivated to the realms they described, filled with errors and mistaken assumptions… and yet, it had a lot of insights amongst those errors. If you had gone over your writing and corrected most of those errors, I would’ve had no difficulties in recommending your book to the younger disciples.”

“I… well, thank you. The book was indeed rather rough, but I have been attempting to improve ever since. I will publish a second edition, or a whole new book, after I have gathered up enough additional information. Truth be told, Bianca and Song Ming have been very informative and educational so far due to their particular unique properties,” the kitsune said, “Bianca, especially, is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.”

“… Mistress is indeed unique,” Huang Su agreed after a while, annoyingly refusing to switch her form of address – and thereby not confirming either theory – and added, “I would appreciate your efforts a lot more if I didn’t know how exactly you plan to acquire some of your results, as your books have doubtlessly helped thousands.”

“Putting aside how those little comments, I did intend to assist everyone in the Planar Continents, the Western and Eastern ones alike…” the kitsune said, “It was quite the dream back when I wrote it. I thought I would be able to do so much as a kid.”

“It’s still not impossible, you know. As a kitsune, you’re guaranteed a longer life even if you were unsuccessful in cultivation, though it doesn’t look like that’s something you need to be worried about. Therefore, you have plenty more time than we do in order to study and learn. One day, perhaps your educational material and techniques will be universally known and used as references,” Huang Su said, “Considering how slowly our understanding of the world changes, it should be rather easy, provided you summarise and explain things well enough.”

“Well, I’d like to think I’m good at that, though, yes, refinement on my previous attempt is certainly needed…”

They went quiet for a while as they walked, departing from the woods and into a more open field for a portion of their journey. They needed to go quite far from the Phoenix Sect to reach the shared borders of the Dancer’s Abode and Long Shiyi’s Warband, and then they would employ movement skills to cross that region as quickly as possible to minimize the eyes that spot them, reaching Rong Village and taking a boat from there.

Then, they’d go towards Heart’s Core Town, and from there it would be up to fate.

If the Reaper’s Grave proved to be empty, or sufficiently empty for them to be able to capture it, then they would head towards it and claim it as quickly as they can, establishing a foothold, taking over the defensive array and setting themselves up quickly enough that the other factions wouldn’t be able to say no.

They would agitate them no matter what, given that the territory of the Reaper’s Grave wouldn’t have remained empty if there wasn’t some competing desires for other factions to take it, leading to the current stalemate. Thus, they would need to settle in quickly enough to not be an easy target.

After that, they would need to avoid the ire of factions that weren’t interested in the land itself, but were more concerned with the return of the reapers, which was easy enough as long as they didn’t decide to start using every skill in a reaper’s repertoire. If Huang Su remained with them, she would be able to vouch for them, and if not, Xue Yaling was rather confident in being able to persuade the world’s powerful about her intentions being very, very different from what the Reaper’s Grave had been advocating for.

Her continued work on creating the cock manifestation dual cultivation technique was perhaps the easiest way to do it, since there would be countless women that would love to make use of such a thing. Those women would then understand very, very well that she didn’t care for killing people in the same way that the reapers did, but was more interested in letting all the more people make all the more life.

However, there was no guarantee that things were as quiet here as she had heard from her sources in the eastern parts of the continent. With the Heart’s Core and the Exarch’s legions separating the two halves of the land, some news were rather slow, and the information that was kept quiet by the factions wouldn’t reach little old her unless she was going out of her way to seek that information and those secrets.

Thus, the Reaper’s Grave might already be occupied, in which case the Lotus Grave Temple was the only option they really had.

There were, in truth, countless downsides to attempting to attack any of the temples. It was something that Xue Yaling wanted in order to put Bianca on a certain path, but it was difficult for her to do this now that the woman had come up with something more reasonable.

However, if the plan to take the Reaper’s Grave proved unsuccessful, she did have a slight chance at accomplishing this, but then the challenge would be twofold. For one, they need to successfully defeat at least a hundred monks at a minimum of the third realm, with Huang Su doing the absolute minimum since it was obvious that this woman would not be driven into a killing frenzy unless her whole sect was being threatened by the monks.

Then, even if, by whatever miracle, they won, they’d need to somehow keep the lands that the other sects would inevitably desire. Unlike the stalemate of the Reaper’s Grave, this would be a star opportunity for the Rising Carp Sect to claim a foothold near the southern edge of the Heartlands, which would enable them to trade with… whatever those people down there had to offer.

It was way too cold for her to go there without some good purpose, and generally, the items of the south lacked enough value to stand over the centre and north sufficiently for her to commit each and every item to memory.

“So, I shouldn’t expect to get any straightforward answers from you while we’re on this journey?”

“Why would you expect me to do so? You should have the intellect to know that if I was trying to hide something, I wouldn’t just reveal it directly.”

“… Yeah, I know. It tends to work on Bianca, though.”

“She is young and inexperienced, afraid of the world around her. Of course she would give up if you pressured her. However, I would suggest that you don’t attempt to pressure her while I am watching, and especially not while I am not watching. I will protect Mistress from such things, no matter what.”

The kitsune sighed, but ultimately she had to let this go. While she had some strength in their group prior to the Sect Master joining, she was now incredibly weak by comparison. Furthermore, both Bianca and Song Ming had caught up to her in realm, meaning that she had no direct advantage over them either, at least without using some of her artefact shards.

With those, it entirely depended on if they recalled their function and remembered to use them, but then again, this was all hypothetical and meaningless.

She had no reason to go against her current companions when they presented such fascinating research material, nor did she expect to have the opportunity to fight against anyone on Bianca’s side without Huang Su getting involved.

Instead, she focused on her dantian, where the shards she had already integrated were located. The Aureate Sword’s shard was subtle even in her eyes, a small piece of immortal gold that allowed her to manifest its full power on the outside. On the other hand, Anathema was much more notable, and allowed her to absorb more energy at all times, energy that she had been putting to use.

It might not have shown in her cultivation, but this is because she was employing it on the third shard, Nocturnal Aegis. The broken shield that was forever whole proved quite troublesome to integrate, to the point that she started working on the Butcher’s Cleaver at the same time, and both were currently holding up her progress. However, the two would almost certainly give in at the same time, and this would allow her to rush ahead with her cultivation thanks to all of the energy she’d put into them already.

After that, she decided that she would work on the Unrestrained Mark, a peculiar shard that seemed to be part of some larger symbol. She didn’t know where it came from nor what the person that made it was thinking, but she was able to understand that it could do something rather fantastic – reduce the innate conflicts between different elements, skills or types of energy.

It was extremely useful for her, as she effectively retained her previous cultivation base even after switching to the Domain of Shards. Furthermore, it would allow her to cultivate a greater variety of skills without any issues.

That alone made it a rather amazing item, one that even a Sect Master would fight over, but it was even more fascinating after the changes made by the previous owner of the shard. They had affected it to the point that it could capture the essence of a skill for a short while, letting it remain active while another was used. In other words, she could activate two conflicting abilities at the same time.

How such a thing came to exist was entirely beyond her, but if Bianca’s unusual abilities were any indication, there was a chance that this was the remnant of some otherworldly item. If it was, then she would definitely need to study it further, but so far, there didn’t seem to be anything exceptionally abnormal about the shard itself.

Perhaps the destruction of the item also dispelled the most unique aspects of it, allowing the rest to interact with the world more normally, or perhaps her hypothesis was incorrect, and this was instead the remnant of some skilled and incredibly mighty cultivator that sought to break some of the world’s rules and ended up accomplishing it, at least for a time. She couldn’t be sure of the truth either way, and unless she encountered someone that was familiar with the unbroken Unrestrained Mark, it would likely remain that way.

For an item to exist, be broken, get refined by a cultivator of the Shard half-archetype, then be lost again until it ends up in a bag of shards seen as being entirely useless by the people offering them, took quite a bit of time.

 

“Bianca, there is something ahead of us,” Huang Su said, “Several cultivators in the second realm and two in the third. You should be able to handle them as a group without me, so, would you like me to step in?”

“We should be able to handle them? In that case…” Bianca looked to Xue Yaling, looking her over for a moment, then nodded, “Alright, let’s do it. Everyone, if we’re attacked, then split up the enemies and handle them on your own, or hold out until someone else is done with their fight. Though, if we don’t have to fight, then-”

Huang Su interrupted, “They look to be bandits. They’re preparing for an ambush, all but one has a weapon out, and two have poison on their blades.”

“Alright, maybe no peaceful solution possible. Be prepared to fight from the get-go.”

Whether by luck or by some unseen deeds on Huang Su’s part, their journey had been mostly peaceful up to this point. Bianca didn’t recognise the different parts of the forest very well, so she wasn’t sure if they had yet returned to any spot that they had previously been to, but they were almost certainly a good part of the way to the Dancer’s Abode, although they weren’t going to be stopping there this time.

That this was the very first attack upon them after all this time was rather surprising, but she wasn’t going to be complaining about it too much.

If she had wanted some action, she’d be getting it in the figurative bedroom, fucking Song Ming with her cock – or without, if she so chose – and she had no desire for combat. Nevertheless, if they were going to attempt to siege the Reaper’s Grave, they would definitely need to get a little more experience with their own abilities.

Bianca would need it most, given that she was not from a world where fighting like this was commonplace, but Song Ming needed it as well, since her skillset had changed quite a bit since her switch in cultivation techniques. Then, Xue Yaling, Yu Juan and Han Rushu were the least in need of such things, although the Dancer might’ve been enjoying a peaceful life back at the abode and therefore need a little practise to loosen up.

Still, she was way better off than Bianca ever could be, at least in her normal state.

“You know what? Huang Su, which ones have poison?”

“An archer in the back, and a warrior in the front, on the right,” the Sect Master replied, though she had fallen behind compared to the rest of them as to avoid entering the fight, “Why do you ask?”

“I’m quite tough, so I’m thinking I could take them. This would let me get the poison away from everyone else, and therefore let everyone else be safer.”

“… Your skin should be able to resist the relatively ordinary weapons that group is using, assuming they choose to attack,” Huang Su eventually agreed, “Let me withdraw, then. If anything does go wrong, I will be able to save you.”

With that, she disappeared in a flurry of flaming feathers, and not long after Bianca picked up on the signs of those bandits herself. There were prints in the dirt – faint but obvious when she let her spiritual perception go over them – and there was a convenient clearing up ahead, where there would be room for plenty of attackers to surround a smaller group.

If Bianca was able to see that, then more experienced bandits were sure to do the same, and perhaps notice even more opportunities to catch them off guard. Therefore, she prepared and started to circulate her energy in preparation for a fight.

The others did the same as they emerged into the clearing, and it was then that was able to spot a faint glint in the distance, a sign of the metallic weapons used by their sudden opponents.

“Attack!” Bianca decided to shout out, as it was obvious that they were going to be in danger if they didn’t act first. There was a small chance that the people around them would want to ask them questions before letting them go, but she didn’t really want to take that risk when their lives were on the line.

She hadn’t told the others what she planned, which is perhaps why it was so effective that none of their foes reacted in the time it took her to bring out her sword and channel her energy into it.

Perhaps she was already thinking about their potential lethal intent. Maybe she had considered her views of bandits from fiction and perceived them as bloodthirsty killers. It could be that she simply was in a killing mood that day, some sadistic impulse hidden underneath her typical appearance being brought out in a single swing.

Either way, the amount of crimson lightning upon her weapon was rather immense, and the moment she swung it, she could hear panicked cries from the other side of the clearing.

An enormous wave of death surged from her weapon and crashed into the trees, the sound of wood cracking and breaking reverberating throughout the forest as everything was painted crimson for the briefest of moments.