The scraps drifted to the ground. The puppets drew back. Xi Guanxi stepped forward, then hesitated. “No… blood?”

Green threads lashed out at Xi Guanxi’s back. He leaped forward, then flicked a finger. A pair of puppets rushed toward Jin Xian. Snarling, she sprouted fangs and claws. Startling power erupted from her, temporarily forcing the puppets back. Using the gap, she launched at one of the puppets.

“Fourth stage? Since when?” Xi Guanxi gaped. He furrowed his brows. “Even in life, Fang Hua wasn’t—”

The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and cold burst through his body as an overwhelming sense of danger pounded through him. He jumped back instinctively.

Hui’s sword slammed to the ground, point-first, piercing the ground where Xi Guanxi had been standing seconds ago. Hui landed a second later and darted at Xi Guanxi, hand held out, a fire talisman burning brightly.

Xi Guanxi slapped his hand back. The fire talisman exploded away from him, sending a fire tabby rushing out over the field. He gestured, and his puppets pivoted on their heels and rushed in at Hui from behind.

“Zhubi! Now!” Hui shouted.

Zhubi leaped off Hui’s neck and grew to his full size in the time it took to blink. He lashed out with his long, whiplike body and threw the puppets flying.

Xi Guanxi grimaced and gestured again. The puppets froze in midair and zoomed back toward him, yanked from their backs where the string connected.

Even as he yanked, Hui stepped in. His other hand, the one without the talisman, jabbed the black dagger at Xi Guanxi’s gut.

Xi Guanxi’s eyes widened. Even compared to when Hui had dropped down from above earlier, the danger he sensed now was much more imminent. Almost invisible, a low black aura swirled around the dagger’s blade, emanating a cold aura of death. He leaped back again.

“Jin Xian!” Hui shouted.

She threw a hand out. A globule of black blood flew over the shoulder of the two puppets she fought and slammed into Xi Guanxi’s back, pushing him forward. Hui thrust at the same time. The dagger slammed into Xi Guanxi’s stomach.

All this takes some time to describe, but it all happened in a tiny moment of time. From the time Hui dropped on his sword to the moment he stabbed Xi Guanxi, only a breath of time had passed.

Black death qi poured into Xi Guanxi, tainting his qi passages. It raced through him, roaring through his body. Xi Guanxi jumped back, pushing Hui back at the same time. Hui went flying. Bones snapped. His muscles bruised. The force of the blow made him spit up a mouthful of blood, and then he smashed into the ground. Another mouthful of blood emerged from his mouth. He rolled over the stony ground, bouncing and bumping. As he rolled, he slammed the dagger into the rock and slowed himself to a halt. Even so, a full meter stretched from where he cut into the stone to where he finally stopped.

Hui coughed. He struggled to draw a breath, his chest ruined, fully caved in. Trembling hands drew a pair of Viscera Pills from his storage ring, and he instantly swallowed them. Slowly, his bones cracked and snapped back into place. He rested there, bent over, for another few seconds. Spitting another mouthful of bad blood, he finally climbed to his feet.

He gazed at Xi Guanxi, eyes cold. “Elder Brother, I naturally respect my elders and betters. However… I’m afraid I have no respect for you.”

Xi Guanxi staggered back. He clutched the wound in his stomach. His eyes flickered between green and black as he struggled against the death qi in the wound. All at once, he threw his hand down toward himself, hand shaped like a blade. Decisively, he slashed almost a quarter of his abdomen away. White bone shone where his spine poked through his flesh. His ribs appeared above, lungs laboring away. The green began to flicker stronger than the black, fighting it back.

Throwing his head back, he roared. Green light blasted from his core. Black death qi leaked out of his pores, shoved out by the qi.

Hui raised his eyebrows, curious. So there’s more than one way to handle death qi contamination! If one has a lot of qi, then they can use their excess qi to slough off the qi tainted by death qi before it can spread. It’s something like washing a droplet of dye just dropped into a bucket of water out of it by pouring out water. It won’t work if the dye spreads enough, and you have to waste a lot of water to accomplish it, but it works. A very brute-force method of combatting death qi.

He nodded to himself. Of course. Naturally, a demonic sect would have ways to combat death qi! After all, they work alongside corpse cultivators, death cultivators, and other dark cultivators who focus on death qi-based arts. It makes sense.

Hui’s eyes flashed. He gestured, clawing upward. But this Hui is ready. A coward—ahem! A well-prepared cultivator like myself never bets it all on one attack!

Xi Guanxi’s eyes widened, then flickered again. The black appeared more often, climbing into the green. He gasped, glaring at Hui. “How…”

Hui grinned. “Have you ever heard of qi seeds? I used the same principle they use to hide their qi, an extreme suppression, to hide tiny drops of deactivated death qi in my stab. The tiny drops circulate faster than actual death qi, because they don’t need to corrupt or fight your qi to move through your qi passages. You did wash some of them out, but…”

Hui shrugged, almost apologetic. “I’m sorry, Elder Brother. You will die here.”

“I… die? No!” Xi Guanxi’s eyes blazed with green light, temporarily blocking out the death qi. The flaring qi spread the death qi infected deep in his body faster as his qi passages moved faster, but the final rush of power could not be stopped by the relatively slow spread of the death qi.

Hui leaped back, startled. He flicked his hand, summoning Zhubi to his side; as Zhubi flew back, he diminished to his usual size. Even as fast as Hui could move, the sense of danger did not diminish. How powerful is this attack?

Burning his longevity, his qi, even the full power of his cultivation base, burning everything down to power, Xi Guanxi threw out his hands over him. His shadow snake withered rapidly, drying up to nothing. Green power began to congeal over his head, rushing together into a massive ball of green light. His body withered, and a powerful aura of death emanated out from him. Still he poured power into the ball.

A shiver crawled up Hui’s spine. If that’s the attack it looks like…

The ball changed shape, turning into a massive green skull. Across the battlefield, Bai Xue and Liu Baozhai parted and rushed back, each individually fleeing the skull. Sweat rolled down Bai Xue’s back. “Don’t tell me… is he planning to take us all out with him?”

“If you harm a member of the Xi clan… you will be repaid… with death!” Xi Guanxi roared.

“Dammit, this is why I don’t kill! Don’t kill, Hui! Don’t kill!” Hui shouted to himself, enraged at his past actions. Argh! There had to be another way. Another way! Some way to get out of that evil puppeteer’s grasp without dying or becoming a puppet! I don’t want enmity. I don’t need vengeance. This poor, small cultivator has made a mistake!

A hand pierced through Xi Guanxi’s chest, stabbing through his heart. He looked down. Black blood roared through his body, extinguishing his qi, fanning the death qi.

“No!” Xi Guanxi screamed. He threw his hands out. The skull began to fall.

As it fell, it withered, changing from green to black. The withered skull emanated less power, instead releasing a cold, rotten aura of death. The skull screamed, as if it itself was unwilling to die, but even so, it couldn’t battle the combined attack of the black blood and the death qi. It trembled, then turned into ashes, which drifted harmlessly to the floor. All around Xi Guanxi, the ten puppets drooped to the ground, life extinguishing alongside their puppeteer.

Xi Guanxi toppled to the ground. Behind him stood Jin Xian, her hand thrust out, claws dripping with Xi Guanxi’s red blood and her own black blood. Her eyes glowed black, a fierce, horrid black.

Hui shivered. He took a step back.

Jin Xian narrowed her eyes. “You say anyone who kills a member of the Xi clan must die? What is the Fang clan, then, in your eyes? Naught but bugs?”

She lowered her hand slowly. “Your brother killed me, in essence, the moment he made me a puppet. Now, I have returned the favor. Anyone who kills a member of the Fang clan… will die, by our own hands!”

Hui panted. He stared, disbelieving. “Jin Xian… no. Fang Hua. You were awake… the whole time?”

Dark eyes stared at Hui. Fang Hua scoffed. “Perhaps.”

Nervous, Hui took another step back. “Don’t… you…”

He bit his tongue halfway through, forcibly quieting himself. Don’t you owe me a debt of gratitude—was I seriously about to say that? No, no, no, Hui, hold your tongue! I’m almost out of talismans and injured. Now is not the time to proc a second battle!

Her eyes narrowed at him. After a second, she bowed stiffly. “Please continue to cultivate this body. Until the next time I awaken, I will serve quietly by your side as Jin Xian.”

Hui blinked. Keep you by my side? No, absolutely not! You have a will, you’re conscious, won’t you hate me? I should send her far away, somewhere…

But… but my precious body-replacement corpse! My puppet- and black blood-technique-using cultivated corpse! No! I can’t give it up!

Think about it, Hui. Fang Hua has no reason to hate you. No grudge to hold against you. You didn’t kill her, nor harm her. In fact, I even cultivated her into a death cultivator! In some ways, that’s like bringing her back to life! I’m… in a certain way of looking at it, I’m her savior! Resolve flickered in Hui’s eyes, and he clenched his fist. No. I can do it. Keep her by my side, just—just make sure I treat her well!