The Blade of Earth 10

“I need to go. Don’t answer the door for anyone until I return, and rip this paper in case of an emergency,” I said as I rapidly drew another talisman. She looked fascinated by my glowing finger, enough to distract the urgency of my tone. 

Too bad I didn’t have the time to tease her while explaining how it worked. Before she could even say anything, I was moving near my full speed. I hoped that the reason for it was because Sophie had managed to extract some important information that she wanted to share, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t the case. 

I doubted Sophie ripped it for anything but a pure emergency.  

It was fortunate that Lana’s house was in the suburbs, near the outskirts of the town, meaning I didn’t need to be concerned with cameras for long before I started moving at full speed. 

Mere minutes later, I was near the cave. The signs of fighting had been easy to discover, making me revisit the decision to leave her alone. I had been planning to return, but with the clandestine nature of our prisoner’s operation, I expected them not to notice his disappearance for a while more. And, considering the great distance between the car and the cave, I expected them to spend even more time to find the cave, confident that I would have returned soon. 

A big mistake. 

The cave had two bodies, our prisoner, dead with a jagged stab wound, the other downed with an impressive number of gunshots, still holding the jagged blade in question. I spent a second examining the second intruder.

I put my hand, examining his meridians and the remnants of the essence, ignoring the sense of disgust that rose in me. The disgusting state of their essence was the reason that the demonic cultivators were truly reviled even more than their preference toward mass murder. As much as it rankled to me, they weren’t the only group of cultivators that killed mortals … but demonic cultivators went a step forward, and devoured their essence, not only damaging the souls of their target — which was an unacceptable crime — but also driving themselves to madness in the process with their tainted essence. 

A touch was enough to confirm that he had been a demonic cultivator, just like his garish weapon implied. He was merely at the first stage of the Essence Gathering, likely still toxicated with his power, explaining how he had been killed. 

However, the footsteps suggested he wasn’t the only one, merely the first, so I left the cave, closed my eyes, and focused on discovering their location. It took a while for me to discover Sophie’s location, which was farther than I expected her to move since I had received the alert.

She didn’t alert me the moment she had been under attack. Stubborn and brave. 

Also, quite stupid. 

She was lucky that I had to deal with allies who had made much more spectacular and monumental displays of stupidity, so I didn’t care much about the situation before I started moving forward. Also, she was lucky that it looked like none of her pursuers were cultivators. It looked like they had only one demonic cultivator as a part of their group, who decided to move first, confident in his power. 

Alerting Sophie just in time. 

As I moved, I started to come across bodies. Four, I counted, two who had been dressed in the same dark suit that the agent had been wearing, the others wearing ordinary clothing. An interesting mixture, but I didn’t stop examining, it because I could see blood gathered in several spots where it didn’t make sense for the attackers to stop. 

Sophie was wounded. 

“Stubborn girl,” I lamented even as I moved forward. I could still feel her presence, which was quite distinct due to the special nature of her aura, but the closer I got, the more I could see her life fleeting. 

Soon, I reached a hill. She was behind a cover, bleeding, while three gunmen surrounded her, attacking her position, two dressed in ordinary clothing, one wearing a suit. “Die for us,” one of them cried, the maddened edge impossible to miss. 

A failed demonic cultivator, I realized. It wasn’t surprising to see them around the actual demonic cultivators, as while demonic techniques had a lower threshold for success, actually reaching the Essence Gathering stage was still the exception other than the rule unless the disciples were selected and raised carefully, particularly in a spiritually poor planet like Earth.  

Not that demonic cultivators cared about the low success rate. From their perspective, they had unlimited cultivation resources, and they cared more about the mentality of the candidates — sadism, violence, and a desire to do everything for immediate power — than their potential. 

The madness of the gunmen was enough evidence. The third one, wearing the suit, looked put together, and didn’t display any sign of madness, but he also wasn’t surprised by the maddened actions of his allies, showing he was used to it. 

I took it all at a glance before ignoring, it for one simple reason. Sophie has been already wounded and was barely able to hold on. I could have taken one of them prisoner, but their success in finding the cave suggested they had a method of discovering the location of their members. Either through some kind of blood resonance, or a technological method that I didn’t know. 

Either way, I wasn’t in the mood to bother with prisoners, not when I had already discovered their likely locations. Instead, I raised the blade I had picked from the thrift shop, closed my eyes for a second, and focused on one of my favorite techniques. 

Ethereal Blade of Air. 

It was a simple technique, one that had been taught to the Outer Disciples, but it was when I had managed to learn it in Major Accomplishment stage in less than a year, that I had gained the right to compete for the Inner Disciple position. 

Almost all Inner Disciples abandoned such techniques once they had access to better ones, but when I first rose, I lacked the resources to apply for a better technique, and I continued to use it longer, raising it to the Perfection stage before I could get a more powerful technique. 

Still, despite having far stronger techniques, I continued to use Ethereal Blade of Air, because it was perfectly silent, delivering excellent sneak attacks. And, under the current circumstances, it had one more advantage. 

It consumed almost no Essence, meaning it would leave no clue for the others to discover. 

I let out my breath, right on the blade of my knife before I flicked it, and three near-invisible arcs left my weapon, killing all three of my targets at the same time.

“I-impossible,” Sophie stammered as she watched my attack, her eyes wide. 

“Everything is possible, honey,” I said even as I stood in front of her. “But we have more important things to discuss, like the fact why you have waited too long to call.” 

“I …” she said, her voice suddenly thick. “I don’t know. Arrogance, maybe. I didn’t expect them to come in such force, then panicked…”

“Well, we can talk about it later,” I said. 

She chuckled as I said that, which I didn’t understand until her next words. “It’s a pretty bad lie,” she said. “I have been in enough firefights to know what a punctured artery wound looks like. Even if we were in a hospital, it’s too late,” she said. 

“Oh, really,” I said even as I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to focus on my Essence. I was even worse in healing than in formations, but it was just a clean wound, delivered by mortal weapons, with no pesky essence sticking to the wound and damaging the soul. 

Making it much easier to heal. However, before I could start to heal her, she grabbed my hair, which surprised me. The kiss that followed, gentle and lingering, surprised me even more. “It’s good that you arrived,” she whispered. “I appreciate a goodbye kiss.” 

I opened my mouth, ready to tell her that it was not the end, but her finger landed on my lips. 

“You don’t have to say anything. It was my arrogance,” she whispered. “But, it’s a pity that I won’t be able to see if your magic abilities extend to the bedroom.” 

“Oh, they do, but it’s not magic,” I corrected her, and she chuckled listlessly, her eyes already closed, preparing herself for darkness. Too bad for her that I had no intention of allowing it. I kept my hand on her wound as I carefully let a small part of my Essence enter and  enhance her body’s natural recovery, the wound wasclosing. 

A few seconds passed, which was enough for the wound to start closing and the blood to regenerate. 

“Warm…” she whispered. “I feel warm.” 

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I know. That’s how we know healing works.” 

Her eyes popped open in shock, and she gazed down, only to see her wound recovering her real-time. The realization that she was alive hit her hard, and I could see tears gathering in her eyes. I decided to distract her. 

“It looks like you’ll be able to test my supernatural skills in bed, after all,” I said. 

Just like that, tears were gone, replaced by blush, followed by anger, the artificial kind that she forced herself to cover up her shy reaction. “Shut up. I didn’t say that!”  

“Understood,” I chuckled as I took a step back, my hands raised in surrender. 

Teasing her was fun.