They had been fighting for hours.
Meiya eyed Tian Yu like an eagle as they swarmed the enemy location. Pulling the hood over her head fearlessly, she rained her blows on the guard demons. Her movements were swift and agile. Combined with Yuwu's magic blasts, most of the enemies were lying at their feet in a mere half hour.
"Their leader is a bit tricky," she said to Tian Yu as he sheathed his magically-enhanced sword. Zansanji had claimed a number of lives from the Ghoul Clan. It was remodeled after the legendary sword of Archmage Chen Ye which he had used to sever the three seasons from the Fanyin Valley after the death of his lover. The fragments of the said sword had been collected by the DongFeng couple following his death, and buried in the earth where Donghua Dijun planted the sapling.
"Can you confirm if they are the Ghouls who are responsible for the Deathwalkers' attacks recently?" Tian Yu asked.
"Definitely. Access to the Sky Kingdom Spy Network across all the mortal worlds, integrated with the Miaohua Mirrors of all the worlds, that's what an imperial assassin benefits from. The Taichen Palace spent almost twenty thousand years developing this, and one of the reasons is to defend against an enemy way more powerful than the Miao Luo of the past."
"Miao Luo?"
"She was the demon queen that caused the Dijun and his wife to be separated for 50 years, until she came looking for him. Dijun placed the needs of the Four Seas and Eight Deserts, and the Realms all over his own romantic love. When the Queen of Qingqiu found out, she was furious. She waited for him for 90 days, and spent the rest of the time looking for him. She wouldn't leave a single nook and cranny in the Realms unsearched. And when she found out the truth from his steward, she blasted everyone who tried to stop her in her flurry. Just a blast of wild energy, and before they could stop her, she managed to get into that small portal that Dijun was fighting Miao Luo. Anyway, they won, but with Dijun promised the Queen that no such thing would ever happen again, and thus he set up the Spy Network. But with the recent sighting of the Mark of the Ghouls heading towards Yuqi, the Queen is concerned that history might repeat itself. I, together with my cousin and another spy, were called by Dijun and restored to our former positions." The assassin pronounced each word seductively with her hands on her pics.
"History?" Tian Yu repeated in surprise. "Did something happen before?"
Meiya cleared her throat. "Ask your relative, Xiangli Jielu. She was the one who was sent to the mortal realm in the past to be a spy for them. Her memory was sealed to prevent her from revealing any of Heaven's secrets to the enemy, but a spell was placed inside her body to notify the Heavens of what she found out. They sent a bird to follow her and ensure she succeeded in her mission. Anyway she did return with much valuable information, and the threat was subsequently eliminated before it got out of hand. She was almost tempted and corrupted by that evil. Such a lucky girl to still have her life. Evil can take different forms."
"What about the Mark of the Ghouls? What have you gathered about it? Do you think we can stop it before it destroys the world?" Tian Yu asked.
"The Mark?" she laughed. "Do you seriously believe that the Ghouls have returned? Or did you over-exaggerate the situation to the Queen? She's known for overreacting to what was told to her. When the Queen panicked, the Dijun had to appease her by calling back all the Spies. Fortunately I happened to be passing by to look for my sister, otherwise..well, ha-ha-ha."
Tian Yu looked puzzled. "Do you mean what I saw was wrong? I sensed it.. there was something about the evil.." As much as Tian Yu knew he must have misjudged the threat to be a lot more serious, he was unwilling to accept the truth. As a rookie immortal but with ample cultivation from Su Moye, he would often overestimate his enemies from time to time. He had overused a lightning bolt to deal with a 3,000 years old enemy, that he was stronger by five times, just because he was not used to his new, heightened senses of danger detection, he would often overuse his powers in dealing blows to the enemy. His opponents had been lucky that none of them suffered a serious concussion from overuse of his powers, although one did end up in a coma for about a month after he used his thunder blow on the victim. Meiya had undoubtedly caught wind of this finding, and was overwhelmed with laughter. Noticing the discomfort in his facial expression, she quickly switched the topic.
"The only concern is that my sister was missing. She is the connection to the stone that the demons and ghouls were after. It's complicated, I don't know how to explain it. I didn't want to cross the Ghoul Clan actually, in the fear of beating the grass and alerting the snake (chinese idiom) but recently, I received a tip-off that they have my sister. So that's why I was seeking your help to get into the area. I'm sorry, I should have told you earlier."
Tian Yu shook his head. "It's fine. Let's just get it over with."
They stormed deeper into the den, where they reached a smaller room with the doors guarded by a pair of ghoul guards. Yuwu's swarming lightning arrows took care of them, but they needed a key to open the doors. While Meiya picked the of the doors, Tian Yu searched their corpses to find a magic token needed to enter the room and found on the body of one of the guards, the scroll belonging to the immortal scholars that Donghua had declared perished.
"The scroll," he showed to Meiya. "Is it possible that the Ghouls have anything to do with the two scholars that were said to be killed?"
"I told you, you didn't believe me." She cast him a smug look. He promptly ignored her. "You've been at it all morning. Are you trying to get something out of me? You know, I DO have a wife, after all." With his experience as a mortal and being single for the three years that he and Zhi Xun had been separate, he had become an expert in recognising all the signs that a woman was interested in him. The assassin was definitely flirting with him.
"Hmmm," the assassin said coquettishly, "nothing wrong with some fun once in a while." She laid her hand on his shoulder and flashed him her most captivating look. Tian Yu ignored her and attempted to shake off her arm but she held fast. All of a sudden, she turned around swiftly. "Someone is watching. Be on your guard." She fired a few arrows towards a corner, and watched as they rebounded, finding nothing. Tian Yu was glad that her attention was diverted from him, and they continued onward stealthily.
"Actually, you don't need my help in this, do you?" he said solemnly. "What is your purpose in getting me into all this? To think I left my wife at home because I was concerned that she would be hurt. She's going to be so mad that I locked her up and didn't let her come with us," he said crossly. "I know Xiao Xun. She's never going to give me any peace of mind. She's so jealous. Don't get me started on the time she wouldn't talk to me for a week because a female customer in the shop fluttered her eyelashes at me!"
"Hmmm," the assassin said with a dark smile as she unlocked the doors coolly, "we can be discreet, you know. I've seen so many men like you, charming, yet play so hard-to-get. Unfortunately for them, I took just a few seconds to unveil their true nature." She kicked open the door, and the people inside her fell to the floor like skittles at Yuwu's energy projectile spell. "Nice one, Yuwu."
She eyed him amorously. "Be wary," she said. "Don't kill him unless we have to. I need the whereabouts of my sister." The leader was up next, and the two cousins took turn to bombard him with their skills, until they ran out of mana respectively for further attacks. It was Tian Yu's move. She watched him, and asked, "One more chance. Yes or no? Discreetly."
"No," he said, and in his frustration, he threw his sword ahead, and watched as it fought its way through the crowd, piercing each ghoul one by one in a straight line without stopping, and to his shock, it ricocheted and pierced the leader right into the chest when a ghoul turned around and caused its direction to divert. They hadn't anticipated this move, or the fact that the Ghoul Lord hadn't put up a fight. The ghoul didn't go down immediately. He laughed and laughed, muttered a sentence and then fell, evaporating into black foam-like droplets.
Tian Yu could not believe his ears. The last words that the Ghoul Lord had said before falling had translated to 'I have her, and I will never tell you where she is'. This situation had been so common in dramas, that he could not believe it was real. Meiya found no signs of her sister being held in the area, but Tian Yu was left frozen by the Ghoul Lord's words. "He's dead!" Meiya shouted. "Now, where do we have leads to know where she is?"
"She?" Tian Yu asked. "He was looking at me. So are you sure he was referring to your sister?"
"If you're worried about your wife, you can always call upon your clairvoyance spell," Yuwu suddenly said. From the time they had been dealing with each other up to now, he hardly spoke. Tian Yu lost no time in casting the mentioned spell, and to his surprise he found the house empty. Zhi Xun was gone, but the spirit guarding his wards had not alerted him of anything different from the scene, or of any intruders. The only valid explanation had to be that someone more powerful had captured her. How did the Ghoul Lord catch her when they were fighting with the Ghouls for 4 hours straight?
"Sorry, I have to go," Tian Yu said, and teleported back to his home. The cousins followed suit. Inside the house, he found his wards still activated, but the door and bathroom door had been opened. Either it had been Zhi Xun who had deactivated and reactivated the wards, but he knew that she didn't have the password to exit the house. A paper lay on the table in ugly, scrawny handwriting. 'Come to the Hill Spring now if you want to see your wife one more time', it said.
At the same time, the assassin heard the band around her wrist vibrate. "It's my sister," she said.
.........................................................................................
Zhi Xun lounged in the round rattan chair in the living room, as the handsome demon sat on the rug enjoying pistachios. "Do you think he will fall for it?" she asked, referring to the ransom note she had left in their house.
"You're borrowing a sword to kill someone, aren't you?" Yan Hangeng said. "But first, how did you get caught by the Ghoul Army, and how did you escape their clutches?"
"I'm not killing him, I'm just making him worried," she said. "He locked me inside the house, but he forgot that the password was my birthday. My former birthday. I went straight to the Ghoul Army and asked them to capture me. I wanted to see him worried, just for once."
"That I understand, but why didn't you wait for him to arrive then, if you're capable of killing them?"
"Him? He allowed that woman to touch him!" Zhi Xun muttered in anguish. "Look at the way she looks at him when I'm not around! So what's wrong that I borrowed the Ghoul Lord's mouth to tell him that his wife is in their hands?" She recollected the events that had happened, and how she had pretended to be captured by the Ghoul Clan, eventually escaping when the demon barged his way in. At the same time, her husband had appeared with the cousins, and she had overheard their conversation. So she had decided it was payback time for him, and she would hide for two days and watch him get worried for once.
"Okay, okay, miss. I'll go along with your plan. But what about the dreamstone? It's already been infused with the souls of the two unlucky scholars. We need to find Meiyun. She's the one who can unlock its true power," the demon said, fondling the stone that he had just retrieved from the Ghoul Lord's treasury.
"I promise you that we will find her as long as you help me with my plan," she said firmly. "And after that, you are free to do what you wish with the girl."
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The demon stared at her. She was lovely, sensual and determined. But most important, she was really going to get back at her husband for locking her up, while he was with the seductress.
ns 15.158.61.17da2
