610 Small Victory

[POV: Wu Yong]

Lai Lan's head was gone.

A messy hole had been punched through his chest, leaving his body standing for a brief moment before it finally collapsed. Blood continued dripping from what remained of his neck, while pieces of flesh and bone were scattered across the burning shoreline.

Wu Yong stared at him. Her mind struggled to make sense of what had just happened. Then her knees gave out. She collapsed onto the ground. Only then did she realize that she had suffered the same injuries.

A hole had been punched through her chest.

Something had torn through the left side of her skull. The attacks had arrived at almost exactly the same time. Her survival had been nothing more than instinct. At the final microsecond, some primal sense of danger had forced her to tilt her head away.

That tiny movement had saved her life, though barely. Half of her face had become a bloody mess. The left side of her skull had been torn open, and brain matter spilled down her cheek.

Wu Yong gritted her teeth.

“Damn it...”

She immediately tried to heal. Her demonic qi surged through her body, attempting to reconstruct her ruined flesh and regenerate what had been destroyed. However, nothing happened. Wu Yong's expression changed. There was something inside the wounds. Divine power was interfering with her regeneration, burning away the flesh she tried to restore before it could properly form.

“Holy power...?”

Her voice trembled with disbelief. She had been shot by an exploding projectile. Whatever was inside those bullets had been enough to hinder her immortality. Wu Yong's instincts screamed at her to move. She waved her staff.

Dark gas erupted from the infernal core.

It spread rapidly, swallowing the surrounding shoreline in thick clouds of poisonous miasma. Her own qi mixed into the gas, making it even denser and more difficult to see through.

If the enemy was relying on sight, this should make it difficult for them to aim.

Wu Yong immediately dove to the right.

Two projectiles arrived simultaneously. They passed through the space where she had been standing a moment ago. Wu Yong glanced toward where they landed. The sand had been blasted apart. The grit and fragments of stone had partially melted into glass. Her expression became grim. There had been no spiritual fluctuation.

Unlike Wu Yong's techniques, which carried an unmistakable spiritual presence, these projectiles were almost entirely physical. Their lack of qi made them frighteningly difficult to detect. Whoever was firing them had deliberately removed every trace that could betray their approach.

Wu Yong needed to get away immediately. She pushed herself forward, but her limbs refused to cooperate. She stumbled, and then she fell.

“Why...?”

She tried to stand again.

Her legs barely responded.

Her motor abilities had been severely compromised. Whether it was the damage to her brain or whatever power had been infused into the projectiles, her body was no longer responding properly to her commands.

Wu Yong could only crawl.

That was when she heard a beautiful voice. Someone was singing. It was a llullaby meant for a demon.

“Sleep now, little monster, close your eyes,

"Let the crimson moon descend from the skies.

"Lay down your claws, forget the night,

"And drift where there is no dawn or light.”

Wu Yong's heart lurched.

The hellfire suddenly began dying. So did the poisonous gas. It was as if some invisible force had simply poured water over both phenomena, extinguishing them without effort.

Wu Yong's vision cleared.

Beneath the fading hellfire, she saw her. A blonde woman with long ears stood calmly amid the destruction. She held a harp in her hands, her fingers moving gently across its strings as she continued singing.

“Dream of the stars, dream of the sea,

"Dream of the place where you once were free.

"No need to fight, no need to flee,

"Just close your eyes and sleep with me.”

Wu Yong's tears began falling. She didn't understand why. She wasn't afraid. At least, she didn't think she was. The song simply resonated with her existence. It reached somewhere deeper than her soul, somewhere beyond reason and instinct. Her body became completely still despite every instinct telling her to run.

She couldn't move. She couldn't even properly think.

The song had bound her.

Footsteps approached. A slim man walked beside the blonde woman. He carried a strangely shaped weapon in his hands. Wu Yong could tell it was a weapon. It was not because she recognized its design, but because of the killing intent. It came from both the weapon and its wielder. The man raised it.

Wu Yong's eyes widened. She tried to move, but nothing happened. The woman continued singing. The man's finger rested against the trigger. The weapon fired. Two projectiles crossed the distance almost simultaneously. One struck her heart. The other pierced her brain.

Wu Yong's body jerked.

The song continued, her vision faded, and the last thing she heard was the gentle lullaby that had put a demon to sleep.

…

..

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[POV: Lai Lan]

Far to the south of the He Nation, hidden deep within a desolate mountain range, a lone wolf opened its eyes.

Moonlight filtered through the mouth of the cave, illuminating the creature's bloodstained fur. It stared toward the night sky for several seconds before throwing its head back.

It howled.

The sound echoed through the mountains.

Soon, the wolf began thrashing.

Its claws dug into the stone beneath it as its body twisted violently. Its fangs sank into its own chest, tearing through fur, flesh, and muscle. Blood sprayed across the cave walls as it continued ripping itself open, ignoring the pain. Its claws dug deeper. Its fangs tore wider.

Eventually, the wolf's jaws clamped around something inside its chest, seeking Its heart. With a violent pull, it ripped the organ free. The wolf's body convulsed, and then it swallowed its own heart.

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The transformation began.

Bones snapped.

The wolf's spine bent backward with a sickening series of cracks, each vertebra stretching and rearranging itself. Its forelegs elongated as the joints twisted in unnatural directions, while the muscles beneath its fur tightened and tore themselves apart.

The creature's muzzle split.

Its jaw cracked down the middle before slowly retracting into its face. Fangs pushed backward into the gums as teeth reshaped themselves into something closer to human dentition. Its ears shrank and folded against its skull while the bones of its face compressed, stretched, and rearranged.

Fur began falling away in clumps.

Beneath it, new skin emerged.

Not all at once.

The fur peeled away as if something beneath it were forcing its way outward. Human fingers pushed from the ends of its paws, each digit growing longer as claws retracted into newly formed nails.

The wolf's hind legs snapped upright. Its pelvis twisted. Its entire body rose.

Blood poured from its open chest before flesh slowly crawled across the wound, sealing it layer by layer.

A man's silhouette eventually stood where the wolf had been.

Or at least an approximation of one.

His body was tall and lean, though patches of fur remained scattered across his shoulders, arms, and back. His face retained several distinctly lupine features, particularly his nose and eyes, while his ears remained pointed and covered in short fur.

Lai Lan flexed his fingers. He rolled his shoulders, and then he grinned.

“Still works.”

This was merely one of many secret techniques he had developed. They were based on world force. His siblings had always underestimated this particular path.

They were pretentious pricks who believed their supremacy lineage made them inherently superior. They could tap into quintessence. If not that, then aura. If not aura, then the more fundamental laws of the universe like fate, providence, misfortune, causality, and countless other forces that governed existence.

Compared to those things, world force seemed crude, simple, and lacking in sophistication. Lai Lan didn't care. He had spent countless years refining it precisely because nobody took it seriously.

“I wonder if Wu Yong survived.”

He scratched his cheek.

“Eh. Probably not.”

His siblings might not think very fondly of him. They considered him a buffoon, an idiot who relied on brute force and possessed little ambition beyond eating and fighting.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Lai Lan didn't mind their misunderstanding. In fact, he preferred it.

It was an image he had deliberately presented to them for obvious reasons. People were easier to manipulate when they didn't realize they were being manipulated. A fool was rarely watched. A fool could wander wherever he wanted. And a fool could hear things that people would never say in front of someone they considered dangerous.

Lai Lan stretched.

Unfortunately, resurrection wasn't free. His stomach growled. He glanced toward the forest.

“I'm hungry.”

He left the cave. It didn't take long for him to find prey. A large beast was drinking from a stream several miles away, completely unaware of the predator approaching from behind.

Lai Lan pounced. The beast barely had time to turn before his claws tore through its neck. He dragged the carcass into the undergrowth and began eating.

There was nothing elegant about it.

He tore flesh from bone with his teeth, swallowed mouthful after mouthful, and devoured nearly everything that could provide energy. His body absorbed the beast's essence, slowly replenishing the enormous reserves consumed by his resurrection.

By the time he finished, only scattered bones remained.

Lai Lan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Much better.”

There was a reason resurrection spells were considered extremely high-level techniques. They were difficult to acquire, difficult to master, and even more difficult to use. A Ruler of Laws could accomplish resurrection by drawing upon the laws themselves, reconstructing existence through principles that mortals could scarcely comprehend.

Those beneath that realm weren't so fortunate.

They had to pay the price themselves, whether they were energy, essence, blood, or soul. Anything capable of sustaining the reconstructed body could become fuel. Lai Lan had just consumed enough to restore what he had spent.

“Time to go back.”

He needed to talk to Nongmin.

More importantly, he needed to think of an excuse. After all, he had basically gotten Wu Yong killed. Of course, it was Wu Yong's fault.

The dumb woman had been far too eager to please their father. She had taken Nongmin's orders and decided to “interpret” them differently, apparently believing that hunting early was the right choice.

"The early bird gets the worm, huh? Except nature isn't really that accommodating."

Lai Lan had accompanied her specifically to rein her in. He hadn't expected her to die there. He certainly hadn't expected both of them to be ambushed by enemies capable of killing immortals before either of them could properly react.

That had been the real lesson. The champions chosen by the Supreme Bearer were not to be underestimated.

Lai Lan returned to their base some time later. He walked through the corridors casually, his expression carrying the usual foolish grin he wore whenever he was around his siblings.

When he reached Nongmin's office., Lai Lan paused outside the door. He had been planning to play the fool. A little shrug here. A stupid smile there. Maybe blame Wu Yong's recklessness and make himself look as harmless as possible.

Then Nongmin spoke from inside.

“How do you intend to make up for your mistake of getting our comrade killed?”

Lai Lan stopped.

His hand remained suspended inches from the door. The smile disappeared from his face. For the first time since returning, he hesitated. How did Nongmin know? Lai Lan hadn't reported anything yet. He hadn't even entered the room. He had no idea how Nongmin had known what he was about to report.

“Huh?” Lai Lan blinked, letting out a small and awkward laugh. “Comrade? Killed? Nongmin, what are you talking about? I just got back. I haven’t even had time to sit down yet. Did someone report something weird again? You know how people like to exaggerate things.”

He stepped inside without waiting for permission, shoulders slouched, eyes half-lidded in the same lazy, harmless way he always wore when around his siblings.

“I mean, Wu Yong’s fine, right? She’s strong. Annoying, but strong.” He chuckled, almost sarcastic. “There’s no way she’d die just like that. If anything, she probably scared off whatever idiots tried to ambush her.”

"I was there."

"Excuse me?"

"I followed the two of you. I was there."

"..."

Lai Lan didn't feel particularly smart right now.

…

..

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[POV: Tian Mei]

If Tian Mei could be painfully frank with herself, she could have stayed a little longer.

She could have fought just a bit harder while waiting for Mai Duyi and Anna to arrive. With three immortals against two, they would have had a reliable numerical advantage, and there was a good chance they could have eliminated both Lai Lan and Wu Yong before the situation became any more complicated.

But that would have required her to gamble.

In the end, prudence won over pride. Tian Mei retreated.

When the fight was over, she decided to swim back to shore. By then, her damaged eye had already regenerated completely. The wound had been serious, but restoring flesh was considerably easier than repairing the internal damage she had suffered.

Her organs still ached. Her qi circulation was slightly disordered. It would take a little longer before she fully recovered.

Waiting for her by the shore were Mai Duyi and Anna.

Mai Duyi immediately walked toward her. “How are you doing?”

“Perfectly fine.”

Tian Mei answered without hesitation. She then bent forward and vomited. Her stomach emptied itself onto the sand.

Tian Mei wiped her mouth and straightened herself. “See? Perfectly fine.”

Anna's expression became complicated. “Are they really that strong? You ended up like this after fighting just two of there people.”

“They're strong, but not overwhelmingly so."

It wasn't like fighting with Senior Sister Ding Cai or even Lord Hei Mao where all hope seemed lost. If she had her way, she'd be fighting them fair and square two-to-one in the basis that there would be no interference.

"When Lai Lan attacked me, I deliberately feigned a defensive posture so I could retreat. I still took an internal injury in the process. His claws were coming straight for me. But because I suddenly moved forward while retreating, he had to adjust his attack. He changed from a claw strike to a palm strike.”

Tian Mei smiled faintly.

“That was exactly what I wanted.”

She had dispersed the force of his palm strike through her body, allowing herself to be thrown backward.

It had been an extreme expression of softness and lightness. Rather than resisting the impact, she had accepted it and turned the attack into momentum, using the enemy's strength to create distance. Had she miscalculated even slightly, the palm strike would have shattered her organs, but it worked.

“I made it look as though he had sent me flying.”

Tian Mei glanced toward the sea.

“In reality, I was using his strength to escape.”

There was another reason she had been willing to take the risk.

“Nongmin was watching the fight.”

Mai Duyi's expression changed.

Anna's eyes narrowed. “He was there?”

“Yes. I could tell with my eyes. If he interfered a little earlier, I don't think I would come out intact from that fight.” Tian Mei's voice became more serious. “I noticed him from the clouds. He was using a spell formation to hide.”

She had sensed his presence even while fighting.

More importantly, when she retreated, she had not stopped watching the battlefield. She had kept an active watch on both the enemies and Nongmin simultaneously. She couldn't afford to ignore him.

“If I stayed and fought while Nongmin was waiting for an opportunity, I would have been giving him exactly what he wanted. Information about the extent of my powers. I don't know what he was planning, but I wasn't willing to find out, especially when I didn't have the initiative.”

She looked toward the distant flames.

“We'll deal with them another time.”

For now, Tian Mei had made her choice.

She had survived.

That was enough.