"Do you all think you've lived too long as humans, that you've become capable of doing something so utterly inhuman?" Seeing their satisfaction, Chu Lian spoke through clenched teeth. Yet her words drew no reaction from the people before her.
"Where is Xiu'er? Tell me! If you don't, I'll bathe the entire Li family in blood today!" She could sense that Xiu'er was in the small building behind them, but she couldn't pinpoint the exact location.
It was as if something was deliberately blocking her perception, making everything hazy and unbearably frustrating.
Yet her arrival and her words were completely ignored by the group gathered together. They were busy arranging corpse after corpse into various shapes, then dismembering them. It was as if they couldn't hear her at all, or didn't even know she had come.
"Damn it!" The corpses they were playing with were exactly the "servants" Chu Lian had seen outside. Yet the trace of spiritual awareness she had left behind told her those servants were still there, unconscious and unmoving. They had definitely not been brought here.
Then there was only one explanation—the ones at the entrance were fake, and these were the real ones. They had been replaced. That would explain why those so-called members of the Li family had such low quality, even lacking basic judgment.
The "living" group—who knew what they were made of? Perhaps human, perhaps something else, perhaps even another race entirely.
And these dead ones were the true servants of the Li family. Whether they had died tonight or long ago, one thing was certain—they had suffered endless torment before death.
Because every single one of their faces was twisted in extreme terror, as if they had seen something horrifying, and had died in agony under that fear.
Before them burned a bonfire. Each time a body part was thrown into the flames, the fire would grow stronger, and within it, countless distorted human faces could faintly be seen wailing in agony.
"Why be so stubborn? The Li family has never interfered with you. As long as you stayed out of this matter, everything would be fine. Why insist on sticking your nose into this?" It seemed that Chu Lian's growing presence finally made them react. One of the men lowered his head and sighed as he looked at her furious expression.
"So you think no one should know about what you're doing? What kind of logic is that? Do you really think you're some supreme rulers who can do whatever you want?" Chu Lian let out a cold laugh. These people—were they the real Li family?
Not servants. Not expendable pawns. But the ones who truly controlled the Li family and decided its future.
"Whatever we do is the Li family's business. It has nothing to do with you, and even less with your Chu family. By interfering, you have already disrupted our ritual. Even if your mother is Li Mingxue, you should still understand reason. We respect her, we fear her—but that doesn't mean we feel the same toward you."
The man stopped what he was doing and pointed a long blade stained with human blood at Chu Lian. His hollow eyes stared at her as he spoke expressionlessly.
"A ritual? You call this inhuman madness a ritual? Hah, what a joke. I'll ask you one last time—where is Xiu'er?" Chu Lian's eyes were filled with icy killing intent. She had no interest in continuing this conversation. All she wanted was to know where Li Xiu'er was.
"Heh, you're looking for that useless girl? She's in the small house behind us, undergoing the ritual. As long as it succeeds, she won't be useless anymore. She'll become a great benefactor who sacrifices herself to save the Li family. We'll definitely treat her well in the future..."
Hearing Chu Lian ask again, a strange smile appeared on his face—cold and sinister. When he reached the words "treat her well," he suddenly paused, stared into Chu Lian's eyes, and then burst into laughter. "Hahahahaha..."
"Actually, that won't be necessary. Because she'll become a corpse—a corpse for us to manipulate at will. Her soul will be eternally bound to the Li family, serving as nourishment for future generations. Everything she has will be sacrificed for the Li family's revival. She is a great person—one who willingly gives everything for our resurgence..." The more he spoke, the more crazed he became, as if indulging in an addictive poison that he couldn't escape.
"Damn you..." Chu Lian stopped listening. Gripping her blade, she charged forward, intending to break through by force.
She had confidence—because she could sense that the strength of those before her had suddenly dropped by several levels. The strongest among them was only at high Earth rank—and there was only one at that level.
The rest hovered between peak Spirit rank and high Spirit rank, their auras weak. They were no match for her.
"No, no, no—we won't let you pass." What had been a one-sided conversation suddenly changed. As Chu Lian moved to break through, everyone around her stopped what they were doing, slowly stood up, and looked at her with unmistakable killing intent.
"You may be able to kill us, but we're not just going to let you toy with us. Our strength has dropped significantly, yes—but we can still stop you." By "you," he meant not only Chu Lian, but also Chu Chu, Kurosaki Satsuki, Hiyori, and the arriving Inori.
The girls had arrived shortly after Chu Lian, but had remained silent, watching her exchange with them. Now that it had come to a fight, they were ready.
"Lian, go inside. We'll hold them off. Just deal with the Earth-rank one." Inori's voice sounded beside her. Chu Lian nodded slowly. Blue-green light flared in her eyes once more. Around the man who had been speaking, a thick aura suddenly formed, as if trying to block her killing strike.
But after everything she had gone through, her experience far surpassed what it once was. Seeing that aura, she didn't hesitate at all. Raising Cold Beauty, she activated Teleport and appeared right in front of him, slashing down again and again.
Her first strike seemed to signal the start of chaos. Everyone unleashed their abilities, no longer caring whether this place would be destroyed—fight first, worry later.
"If one slash isn't enough, then two. Three. Four. Five!" This was Chu Lian's first time since the battle in Miami that she had faced an opponent with such a powerful aura.
Aura—this mysterious ability—could be considered one of the natural counters to the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. As long as aura existed, even if one saw the lines of death, it wasn't guaranteed that the target could be killed instantly. One had to first cut through the aura before harming the person protected by it.
Yet aura also recovered extremely quickly. As long as there was sufficient energy, it could even be maintained continuously. Even if Chu Lian used the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception to "kill" the aura for a brief moment, a new layer would regenerate almost immediately.
If she failed to kill her opponent within that window, all her prior efforts would be wasted. How could she not know how troublesome such an ability was?
Because she herself was also using aura—repelling all enemies around her while locking onto the strongest one as her sole target. Eliminate the leader first, and the rest would be easy.
Clang... With a single strike, the aura was split apart. Just as she moved in to follow up, her opponent threw out a shield. By the time she shattered the shield, his aura had already mysteriously regenerated. The speed was astonishing—even faster than the dragons she had faced before.
"What the hell is going on?!" The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception had already been active for seven seconds. She had cut through his aura four times, yet each time he blocked her follow-up attacks with his blade or shield, and the destroyed aura would instantly recover. There was simply no opportunity to kill him.
"Absolutely not!" Chu Lian was not someone who gave up easily. The more troublesome her opponent was, the more determined she became to defeat him—no matter how difficult it might be.
Clang... Once again killing his aura, Chu Lian seized the moment. Using Teleport, she appeared directly in front of him, her blade Cold Beauty slashing toward his neck.
"Naive." The man raised his shield and smiled faintly, as if speaking to an acquaintance—but his eyes were cold.
"You're the naive one." A slight smile curved Chu Lian's lips as she shook her head, then turned and moved behind him, retrieving the Cold Beauty she had already swung out. She didn't even bother looking at him again.
"Naive..." A line of blood appeared from his waist to his left shoulder. He shook his head and murmured those words again. Now, it was indeed he who had been naive.
"My Teleport doesn't just move me—it can move my weapon too. I always thought putting objects inside someone's body was too cruel, so I never used it. But for people like you, who no longer deserve to be called human... I feel no burden at all." As she spoke softly, she pulled Cold Beauty from where it had been embedded in the ground.
Indeed, after mastering Teleport, Chu Lian realized she could do what Shirai Kuroko did—placing objects directly inside another person's body. But she had always found such actions too cruel and avoided using them.
This time, however, after witnessing these people, she felt no hesitation.
Of course, she hadn't gone overboard. When he used his shield to block her attack, she simply redirected Cold Beauty—bypassing the shield entirely and striking his body directly, splitting him in two.
"I'm going to save Xiu'er. Be careful." Even though she was deeply worried about Li Xiu'er, Chu Lian couldn't ignore the safety of the girls who had followed her into danger.
Now that she had killed the strongest Earth-rank opponent, the remaining twenty or so were all Spirit-rank—well within the girls' ability to handle. Although their progress was slowed due to aura, there shouldn't be any real danger.
"Big Sis, remember to bring Xiu'er back whole. We'll be waiting." Chu Chu was surrounded by Lia, making use of her ability to fly as she summoned lightning from above to deal with five or six enemies at once. Although she had to restrain herself from using large-scale magic—worried it might damage the small house—it wasn't a problem, right?
"I will..." Chu Lian looked at the others. Seeing their firm nods, their complete trust in letting her go alone, she felt not only gratitude, but also an even stronger resolve.
No matter what—for herself, and for them—she would save Xiu'er.