The 3 arrows formed into a large beam of light midway through their travel, directly shooting at Lu Wuha's head, trying to exterminate him in one go. But Lu Wuha quickly spat out a cloud of blood in front of him, forming a large red shield.

The beam crashed into the shield and a deafening boom sounded out. A cloud of dust was created hid what had happened.

However, the dark laughter from the cloud did not promise anything great. "You younglings are 200 years too early to fight me!" His cackling voice filled the hall as he stepped out of the dust, his blood barrier still in place seemingly not taken any damage at all. Kou gave a grunt and quickly directed one of the attack treasures she had Xifeng get. A small dagger made out of wood, quickly it started to assault the barrier with swift strikes while Kou backed off.

She looked at Xiu Shihong and then at her other friends that had just busted in before grumbling for a moment. "Hold him off for a moment!"

She did not want to use the fan right now... but she did not feel like she would be able to beat him as she was right now. The fan was very difficult to use as it would suck almost all the energy out of her at her current cultivation.

Jumping back in an azure light streak she arrived near Shi Shi. A movement that immediately alerted Lu Wuha, with a blink of bloody light he shot towards the altar but was blocked by Xiu Shihong fully armored with the spear in hand, blocking the charging demon.

He Tian was bewildered. Why was there a demon sacrificing an old lady in his sect? His rage swelled quite a bit and while his core was still unstable he still used quite a bit of power to shoot out 20ft wide wind blades at Lu Wuha.

Li Zhi, Ning Jiao, and Wu Xiao each also reacted quickly. 2 large water jets shot from Li Zhi and Wu Xiao, while Ning Jiao stretched her hand out releasing her phoenix flames. Xifeng... having seen them for the first time gasped in the back of Kou's mind but she had no time to deal with that right now.

She poured all of her Qi into the fan, which started to glow in golden light while expanding widely. She actually was unable to stop the fan from draining her Qi! It sucked out more than 70% of her remaining Qi and she paled under the strain. It only took the time for someone to blink for all of this to happen, and Kou waved the fan at the barrier around Shi Shi.

"Don't you dare!" A shriek came from Lu Wuha! He stretched out his left hand and a blood-red drill shoot out piercing easily through Xiu Shihong's side wounding her before hitting Kou dead on. Without any resistance to put up the beam pierced right through her chest. She felt blood fill her mouth...luckily the beam had narrowly missed her core... probably because Xiu Shihong had tried to block it which shifted its path slightly.

However the wound was still there, and she felt her blood and Qi quickly draining... with a grunt she finished the wave of the fan.. before she simply dropped.

A loud bird cry was heard, powerful golden energy shoots out of the fan forming into the picture of what seemed to be a giant flaming raven sitting in a lotus flower. waving its wing once the raven looked at the barrier with open disdain.

The Golden Barrier that had lasted decades, simply shattered, the binding was destroyed and Lu Wuha let out a pained shriek, as the energy burst forth from any poor of his body. Quickly the half demonified features of his body vanished and Hei Tian's eyes went wide "Old Sect Master!!" He yelped in surprise seeing the demon transform into the old leader of the ancient cloud sect!

However... there was not much time to look at him. A bewitching and cruel chuckle could be heard from the altar, next to which Kou was currently bleeding heavily. The drained old corpse that was barely alive had absorbed the energy, rising from it.

The Woman standing there was beyond beautiful, with long black hair, almond shaped yellow eyes and red lips, skin as smooth as a baby. Even with her expression distorted by rage her beauty was enough to startle everyone in the room. She had a faint resemblance to Kou as well. There were black ears on top of her head and 6, 3 meter long tails of pure black swayed behind her.

...

Shi Shi looked down at Kou, for a moment before she flicked the girl with one of her tails, quickly transporting her to Xiu Shihong. "You take care of her." her command was filled with some kind of spell, even if Xiu Shihong did not want to she would've taken care of Kou right now. Luckily ... there was no such thing. She very much wanted to care for her friend, quickly pulling out a few pills to feed to the bleeding girl.

Shi Shi's eyes brushed past everyone present for a moment before finally resting on Lu Wuha, who had gotten up by now, his face sunken in and his eyes betraying a deeply rooted panic. However, there was a glint of resolution in them as well as he quickly struck multiple seals with his hands creating large talisman characters that floated around the room.

"No Matter! You are weak! I see it, your power is barely a fraction of what I took from you !..."

He was silenced with a chuckle before Shi Shi simply disappeared in front of him.

Instantaneous movement! It was just a legend in the Ning Empire! But it was already too late when he realized he heard a thunderous boom behind him, and then he felt something odd... something crushing, breaking...slowly he locked down, there was a bloody hand, holding a small ball of gold, nails were digging into it creating cracks.

A core? His core? His breath was halted... and the pain assaulted him, as he realized that the woman had pushed her hand through his body and grabbed his core, simply destroying all the protective measures he had just put in place... without regard, as if it was a simple thing to do.

Core Formation expert generally did not die in combat, even if someone was overwhelmingly more powerful, a core formation expert that was not trapped always should be able to get away, making it much to bothersome to hunt them down. However... here he was, defeated in a fraction of a second.

He felt a hot breath at his ear and a sweet voice. "Die for me now."

And he did, a loud crack and his core crumbled to dust, his eyes lost all light. He fell to ground and his corpse was kicked to the side.

Shi Shi looked over him for a moment before brushing her hair back and letting out a sigh. "That damnable Ning..." She mumbled as her body slowly crumbled. It had been simply too late. Her body had already been destroyed too far, even with some of her power restored she was unable to keep it together. Therefore she simply used all of her power to overstep the restrictions on this place for just a moment to cleanly and quickly kill the old bastard.

She slowly looked over Wu Xiao, Ning Jiao, Li Zhi and Hei Tian, and then at Xiu Shihong and Kou.

"I hope I can ask the juniors to take good care of her." She nodded slightly while crossing her arms in front of her chest, she intended to go with pride, as more of her body crumbled into dust, first her tails ... her legs her arms...

There was nothing to be done! The friends exchanged dismayed looks, while they could not know the whole story one had to be stupid to not understand that this woman and Kou had a family relationship and that old Lu Wuha had exploited the woman for quite a while.

Hei Tian.. still shocked .. stepped forward taking a knee... "Does...Does Senior have anything she wishes us to say to .. her?"

For a moment there was silence and then a bright cheerful smile appeared on Shi Shi's face, giving her cold beauty a refreshing and uncaring look. "Eat well and sleep well, don't trust easily. If she ever finds her way to the Monster Burrow she should go meet the Old Fox." She nodded as the crumbling of her body had reached her midrift.

However... she was left speechless as the altar suddenly exploded and a white figure appeared, a long white robe still littered with ripped talismans, a head of white hair, and even white eyes. It was Hei Mei, Hei Tian's Sister who had not been seen in quite some time, after "Apparently" going into seclusion under the sect master's guidance.

Her face was pale and without further notice she slapped one of her hands on Shi Shi's back just above the crumbling, halting it for just a moment, with her free hand she pulled out a talisman and quickly threw it on Shi Shi as well, before she pointed at Kou. This all happened in abound a second. Nobody could react fast enough, as Shi Shi rapidly shrunk down. She gasped "Soul Lock Talisman technique...Girl.. you!" But she could not finish.

Shi Shi reappeared next to Kou, she was small and transparent now but her body was actually healed! Quickly Hei Mei moved forward pushing her hand on Kou's abdomen. Shi Shi's expression was baffled, and everyone in the room was too stunned to act, only Xiu Shihong stretched her hand out, but with but a look of Hei Mei she was restrained!

The look on Shi Shi's face was not panicked only confused, as she was pushed into Kou, her soul being linked to the girl's body... she slowly felt her consciousness dim. As she heard a kind voice in her mind. "I can't do ... much more Senior, to undo the hate for my sect and clan in you... if Kou can become strong enough... she will be able to wake Senior up... please do not resent this Hei Mei for doing this. I do not wish for you to needlessly die."

Shi Shi let out a sigh. "Mh, Girl... your actions just now... have given you away, the old Ning, and the outside forces will all know now, and they are probably already hurrying here." She spoke with difficulty. "Your life will become quite troublesome now, with that legendary body of yours."

...

After the Soul link had been established Shi Shi fell asleep in Kou's Dantian, and time seemed to flow normally again. The restriction on Xiu Shihong vanished. "Who are you! What did you just do!" But before Hei Mei could even open her mouth she was swept up! A large hand of purple flames appeared and quickly grabbed Hei Mei, floating just a few steps behind the group were too old men, currently looking at each other with dismay.

One was the old man that wanted to take Kou away. The other was the founding father of the Ning Empire, he was currently holding onto the girl, his eyes showing excitement but also dismay and gloominess.

The reason obviously being the other old male here who had a helpless expression. "I won't be able to keep quiet of this Lord Ning..you know that.." He rubbed the back of his head. His name was Eccentric Ling. He had a good relationship with Lord Ning, and he was an envoy of the 9 great sects. Personally send here by the alliance. Due to some agreement with Lord Ning made many hundreds or thousands of years ago, the alliance would periodically take some promising youths from the Ning Empire and nurture them in their sect.

They always had done this and while he was far weaker than Lord Ning the two of them got along splendidly, in fact, he even had a friendship with one of his descents which was the current emperor's father.

However, now he had seen Hei Mei, a girl with a body that only appeared in the legend. He had to report this which would result in the 9 sects demanding her from Lord Ning. And while Lord Ning was a hegemon and quite powerful even he would not be able to stand up to the 9 sects for a long time.

"Ha...She is not the one I'm looking for. While it's one of the true spirit bodies, it is not the one I want. And while she would be tremendously useful, I do not wish for our agreements to become void." with some regret he flicked his sleeve handing Hei Mei over to the old man, as if she was a thing and not a person.

Hei Tian stood up "Unhand my Sister!"

Finally, their attention went to everyone else. "Oh, he is her brother? You should look into their family brother Ning, even if it's far inferior he has a pure Windessence body. Quite excellent actually, it seems brother Ning's efforts are not in vain."

They simply ignored the boy...who was powerless to do anything against it. "Unhand her" He demanded again before Eccentric Ling looked at him "Don't worry, Junior your Sister and you all will embark on the journey of true cultivation soon."

He smiled...