Xiani finally made it to the epicenter of the black tornado, just in time to witness the cultivator stabbing the wolfgirl through her heart. As life left her, one final explosion of dark force occurred, blowing the man who killed her several meters away….and silence followed.

She was too late to repay her debt and save that person.

However…

She could still sense the heart amulet, the accursed device meant to artificially produce literal demonic cultivators, still tethered to that yaren girl. But how? Her body was clearly, already dead…..

So what was it tethered to?

The answer to that question made Xiani’s heart rate accelerate rapidly.

—It’s a soul, it’s got to be a soul.

Somehow, somehow, this wolfgirl had a soul. She didn’t shatter into tiny bits of energy upon death, her qi retained identity after the death of the body, the amulet is still tethered to her soul, and that means, and that means….

She took a deep breath to calm down.

Xiani was usually a very stoic and quiet person. She was drilled into submission by the late Wen clan, and even after her comrades in the Remnant broke her brainwashing, a certain level of introversion remained within her character.

She continued obediently walking the wide road paved for her by her new family, without question, and with relatively little doubt.

And now, she was about to stray off that safe path, in the name of a feeling she buried and locked away many years ago.

The name of that feeling was ‘ambition’. And with it, came its twin sister - passion.

However, it would do her no good to lose her cool at this vital moment. Hiding the amulet behind her back, and nervously switching it from one hand to the other to avoid burns, she approached the victorious cultivator.

Busy searching the body of the vanquished girl, he failed to sense her approach until she was almost upon him. Suddenly he tensed up and turned around towards her, his hazel eyes scrutinizing her with disbelief and hatred.

“Yaren…you can control qi?”

“Excuse me, I’m a bona fide human” Xiani answered, and bowed elegantly.

Unfortunately, it looked like the man was in no mood for pleasantries. Her greeting was answered by a barrage of ice projectiles…

…which were blocked by an ice wall that sprung up right in front of her.

Xiani’s qi reserves were, frankly speaking, quite depleted after she already burned through them when retrieving the amulet earlier today. The man looked pretty high level, and she wasn’t sure if the way she was now she’d be able to beat him, even utilizing that secret weapon the Remnant provided her.

Fortunately, there was no need for such extreme measures. All she had to do is wait a little bit, distract him long enough, and the problem would solve itself soon enough.

Not waiting for the situation to escalate, she threw him the heart medallion.

Frankly speaking, she was feeling quite relieved of not having to have her fingers burned by its blazing hot surface anymore. A quick glance at her hands was enough to tell her she’d need some bandages soon….

Seeing the amulet, he immediately abandoned his search of the wolfgirl’s corpse, and jumped on it like a hungry dog who was thrown a piece of fresh meat. This certified her suspicion that he was, indeed, looking for that item specifically.

“Human, know that I am not your enemy. I believe we can provide ample assistance to each other….”

Not paying her any attention, he picked the object up, only to grimace and drop it shortly afterwards.

Good, let him play around with it some more.

“I’ll have you know that there is another amulet similar to this one….” she started cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction to such revelation. However, he was busy utilizing his ice powers trying to cool the amulet down and didn’t pay attention to her bait.

Hells eternal! Ice! Xiani couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit. The heat of the amulet was spiritual in nature - no exposure to mere ice would be able to affect its temperature. As long as it was tethered to the current owner, its temperature will remain high for as long as it’s being actively utilized.

Could it be this man wasn’t aware of even this much?

“You can continue ignoring me as long as you want, so allow me to just think out loud. Let’s start…you’re not wearing any sectarian robes, which leads me to the conclusion that you were here incognito. Even I didn’t sense your presence when I scouted this camp earlier today, which leads me to believe you were actively suppressing your life energy. And now you’re desperately trying to obtain a powerful and cursed item that’s by all means considered abominable by humans of the middle kingdom, despite not knowing its basic functions…might I be right to assume you belong to some kind of shady and secretive organization on a hunt for such objects….”

That last sentence finally worked, and he finally looked at her again.

That’s right, look here, not there….

“Rabbit….” he started, his voice raspy and tinted with hostility, even as he clearly undertook an effort to appear unfazed “….you did something to this amulet that made it rather difficult to pick up, didn’t you?”

“From my point of view, it seems like you simply don’t understand what exactly you’re dealing with…” she forced a smug smile and taunted “someone set you up for this ungrateful job!”

He shrugged and answered through his teeth.

“No matter…”

Suddenly, the amulet levitated up, and begun circling around his head like a halo.

Not good. If he took off now, the entire plan would collapse….

Fortunately, it seemed like he was planning to remove her first, as another barrage of elemental projectiles was shot in her general direction. This time, they were not composed of ice, but flame!

“Oh, so you’re a multi elementalist, too? You must be considered a genius among your peers!”

Just as Xiani was, long ago. But it hardly did her any favors.

……..

Chen Mengyao knew that his job now was done, but he wasn’t the one to leave loose ends.

He didn’t know what the rabbit woman was playing at, and he didn’t care. His only goal was to eliminate her quickly, and then return to miss Bai, victorious.

This soul modification device is supposed to be the key to their victory in the upcoming war against the Wuyun sect. A secret weapon meant to tilt the scales in their favor and pave the way to a new age of justice. Although the existence of such artifacts was abhorrent, in this particular situation, they didn’t have the luxury of choice and end justified the means.

It was troublesome enough when they failed to find it in Lan Caolu’s possession. It was a wedge in their plans when it turned out that failure of the old master, in a bout of dementia, irresponsibly passed it on to some random servant a day before his demise.

But all is well that ends well…

After sending a decoy of tiny fireballs in the rabbit girl’s general direction, he circled from the side and jumped at her from an angle.

He could see it…time seemingly froze…the split second of his blade cutting through her silhouette…

And then it just slashed through thin air and bounced off the ground.

His opponent was standing two meters away, unscathed. She tilted her head, fake curiosity painted on her face.

“Are you fine? Are you under the influence of some alcoholic brewage? Did you suffer blunt trauma to the head? I’m right here~”

Her needlessly flowery choice of vocabulary and passive combat attitude gave him an ample window to analyze the current situation.

There is no way something was wrong with his senses. His thought patterns seemed pretty logical, as well. His sense of balance was good, and making a few slashes through the air, he confirmed that his sword-aim didn’t falter, either.

Therefore, there was no way he would have missed the mark. Thus, the logical answer is, this woman possessed some secret technique that allowed her to evade his blade.

Since he didn’t know what that technique was, caution was advised. Although it pained him to do so, he decided to give up on fighting her and leave this place immediately.

He turned westwards and jumped….

…pain shot through his abdomen, and he rolled on the ground eastwards…

——What?

He was truly confused. Did she moved faster than his perception and hit him before he could make his move?

As he stood up, he frantically searched for the amulet. That hit broke his focus, and he lost mental control over the levitating object.

There it was- lying on the carcass of a Garlizard, and slowly burning through its scales with a rather unpleasant, hissing sound.

Although the idea was a bit morbid, he resolved to pick the hot amulet with his bare hands and run for it. Hopefully, he’d be able to find a good healer soon enough for whatever burns he was about to sustain…

As Chen Mengyao cautiously approached the medallion, he didn’t take his eyes of the rabbit girl standing a dozen steps away for even a second. However, she didn’t make a single suspicious move, and by all means, it seemed as if she was willing to let him take it.

“You’re going to let me have it?”

“That’s why I informed you already; I am not opposed to you being in possession of this object….in fact, I believe it to be in my best interest for you to hold onto it”.

He gritted his teeth as he picked the amulet up, the burning hot surface burning his skin as soon as it came into contact with it. Was it just his imagination, or was the amulet even hotter than before?

“And don’t you dare let go of it…” she added.

And what could possibly be the meaning of that remark?

Then he realized. As impossible as it was, a freak thought, born out of instinct, and defying rational thought, was born in his head.

And then he died.

…….

Xiani was breathing heavily. That last attack took away the last remains of her qi reserves and left her as depleted as if she was a regular human. If she was to use her powers now, qi deviation would have followed.

However, in this particular situation, being completely spent worked in her favor.

It didn’t make her a particularly interesting target.

Unlike her opponent who, in the unseeing eyes of the undead, was blazing like a sun in the middle of the night…not to mention being in possession of a demonic artifact that was actively drawing that particular soul towards it.

The strength of risen corpses was directly proportional to their power when they were still alive, and several times multiplied. The poor human cultivator stood no chance and was now being devoured alive by the very person he killed a moment ago.

The spectacle was both morbid and unpleasant, but Xiani resolved herself to wait until the end of it, keeping a safe distance of course.

It was a little known fact, even among the cultivators, that the reason why undead thirsted for qi is that it allowed them to temporarily regain their human consciousness. Perhaps it was because the amount of qi required for that was enormous and far greater than whatever average people, the usual victims of risen corpses, carried within them.

However, an adult cultivator, and quite powerful at that, should do the trick.