The man's survival instincts flared. He twisted his torso at the absolute last fraction of a second, attempting to deflect the blade with his crossed daggers.
Shllrrk.
He was too slow. The weapon bypassed the heart but pierced cleanly through the left side of the man's stomach, protruding from his back in a spray of dark, poisoned blood.
"GAAH!" the assassin shrieked, his power instantly dropping by half as his core meridians were ruptured.
But the sheer, berserk rage of the Tier-3 pill kept him standing. With a bloodcurdling roar, the assassin dropped his daggers and grabbed the blade of the katana with his bare hands, ignoring the flesh-searing heat. He pulled himself forward along the blade, using his overwhelming Da Dou Shi weight to crush Yoriichi.
Yoriichi's knees violently buckled under the immense, crushing pressure. His boots sank inches into the mud. He was trapped. If he let go of the sword, the man would crush his skull. If he held on, he would be overpowered.
'I am out of options,' Yoriichi thought, his highly enlightened mind instantly calculating the odds of survival. 'If I reverse the flow of my Dou Cyclone and combine it with the ultimate expansion of the Sun Breathing, I can detonate my internal meridians. The resulting blast of solar energy will incinerate us both at point-blank range.'
The odds of him surviving his own self-detonation were fifty-fifty at best. But looking past the struggling assassin, knowing that Xiao Yu was standing behind him, it was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make. As long as this man died and his family was safe, his life was a cheap price to pay.
Yoriichi closed his eyes, preparing to forcibly rupture his own Dantian.
CRACK!
The sound of rapidly freezing ice echoed like a gunshot.
Yoriichi's eyes snapped wide open.
Shooting past his shoulder was what looked like a thick, glowing rope of solid ice. It was Xiao Yu's azure whip, but the water Dou Qi had completely mutated. It was now a terrifying, sub-zero construct of jagged frost.
The ice-whip lashed out like a striking viper, wrapping tightly around the assassin's right arm, coiling from his shoulder all the way down to his forearm in an absolute, unbreakable grip.
The sheer, unnatural cold of the primordial ice instantly induced severe frostbite, turning the man's flesh black and brittle.
"What—?!" the assassin gasped, his blood-rage shattering as the agonizing, freezing pain registered.
Before the man could even process the attack, Xiao Yu violently jerked her arm backward.
Because the flesh and bone had been flash-frozen to the point of brittleness, the immense back-pull of the whip, combined with the razor-sharp scales of ice, acted like a guillotine.
SNAP. SCHLICK.
The sound was horrifying. The assassin's right shoulder snapped cleanly out of its socket, and the frozen forearm was completely sliced off by the tightening ice.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
An ear-piercing, bloodcurdling scream of pure agony tore from the assassin's throat. Blood sprayed from his severed stump, instantly freezing into crimson icicles before it even hit the ground. He released his grip on Yoriichi's blade, stumbling backward, clutching the ruined, bleeding hole where his arm used to be.
Yoriichi fell to one knee, pulling his katana free, gasping for air as the crushing pressure lifted. He looked past the screaming man.
Standing in the frost-covered grass was a girl who looked both entirely different, yet achingly familiar. Her silver hair, tinged with soft pink at the tips, floated wildly around her face despite there being no wind. Her pink-red, slitted eyes glowed with a feral, majestic dominance, radiating an aura of absolute coldness that belonged to a mythical beast of legends.
Xiao Yu had awakened.
She did not pause to admire her handiwork. Driven by the fierce, protective, and highly aggressive instincts of her lineage, she lunged forward. She raised her blood-stained ice whip, aiming to completely snap the screaming assassin's neck.
Seeing the terrifying "monster" descending upon him with lethal intent, the pain and shock violently snapped the assassin back to reality. The berserk haze of the Blood Rage Pill wore off, leaving only pure, desperate terror.
'I am going to die! These siblings are absolute demons!'
Desperate to survive, the man fumbled frantically inside his robes with his remaining hand. In his urgency, he knocked his spatial ring off his severed finger, letting the priceless storage artifact fall unheeded into the mud. He didn't care. He pulled out a small, blood-red parchment—a rare, incredibly expensive Blood Evasion Talisman.
He crushed it in his palm.
"I will remember this!" the assassin shrieked, coughing up blood as the talisman activated.
A violent swirl of crimson light enveloped him. Just a fraction of a second before Xiao Yu's ice whip could sever his head, the man turned into a streak of bloody light, shooting up into the sky and fleeing into the depths of the Abyssal Trench at a speed far beyond normal human limits.
He was gone.
Xiao Yu's whip cracked loudly against the empty air where the man had just stood.
Seeing her prey escape, the feral, primordial instincts within her bloodline roared in frustration. She let out a sound that was half-shout, half-growl, her pink-red eyes narrowing as she prepared to channel her Dou Qi into her legs to chase the streak of light into the dark forest.
"Sister, stop!" Yoriichi's voice rang out, harsh and commanding.
But Xiao Yu turned deaf. The ancient bloodline was fiercely possessive and highly vengeful; someone had dared to hurt her brother, and they needed to be hunted down and torn to shreds. She bent her knees, preparing to launch herself into the treeline.
Yoriichi knew that chasing a wounded, desperate Da Dou Shi into unknown territory was suicide, especially with both of them running on fumes.
Ignoring the burning pain of the Mark and the bleeding gash on his thigh, Yoriichi pushed off the ground. He blurred forward, intercepting her path.
As Xiao Yu leaped, Yoriichi caught her from behind. He wrapped both of his muscular arms tightly around her waist, locking her firmly against his chest, planting his boots into the mud to anchor them both.
"Let me go!" Xiao Yu screamed, her voice carrying a strange, resonant echo.
She thrashed violently in his grip, fighting like a wild animal. The sheer, freezing temperature radiating from her skin bit into Yoriichi's bare forearms. She threw her elbows back, striking his ribs, desperate to break free and finish the hunt.
Yoriichi did not let go. He tightened his grip, absorbing the violent lashing, enduring the freezing pain without a single word of complaint. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, ignoring the icy silver hair whipping against his cheeks.
"Yu," Yoriichi whispered softly, his deep, calm voice vibrating directly against her skin. "It is over. He is gone. We are safe. You protected me. It is over."
He repeated it like a mantra, grounding her feral instincts with the unshakeable, profound warmth of his own presence, holding onto her until the storm within her finally began to break.