Chapter 78: Chapter 77 – Lower. Your. Blade.

  “Then who’s going to defeat us, if not you?” Boss Bao asked.

  Long Di pointed to where the bandits surrounded the disciples. “Her.”

  When Boss Bao turned around, what he saw sent a chill down his spine.

  ****

  The group of bandits stood petrified as a terrifying darkness swallowed them.

  In their midst quietly floated a cauldron of darkness. It was black, but not the same black as Long Di’s cauldrons. This particular black was a deep chasm, a void that was unfathomable in nature. It was a stain in space, something that escaped the boundary of everything around it.

  “B-Bo- Urkh!” One of the bandits stared into space in fear. One could see a thin film of darkness covering his eyes.

  This was the case for every single bandit who surrounded the kids. Once their eyes were covered, the darkness creeped like cracks outwards, making it appear as if their eyes were rotting.

  “Aaaahhhh!!!”

  Blood-curdling screams rang out in the air as the bandits lashed out in fear and panic!

  “W-What the heck is going on!? What are you doing to them!?” Boss Bao didn’t know what to do, but he could almost feel the fear that his men were under.

  “I’m not doing a thing,” Long Di advised indifferently. “Like I said, it’s her.”

  Boss Bao followed Long Di’s line of sight and saw within the midst of the disciples a figure that avoided his perception entirely. But she shouldn’t have because… she was beautiful.

  Her skin was a pearl white that emitted a soft glow. Her hair was like an ethereal mist, possessive of substance. A few strands naturally fell that curled all the way down as it cradled her face.

  Her eyes, however, were the sole feature that changed. Where in the past she had small dots of light within, as of now it was pitch black.

  Apart from Long Di, no one else was aware of her presence. It was like she wasn’t even here. Even the disciples that she was in front of didn’t realise she was there until Long Di specifically referenced her.

  Boss Bao looked at her and though she was incomparably beautiful, at the same time, she struck a soul deep fear in him as he looked into her eyes.

  “J-Junior-apprentice sister Shen Ling?” Feng Yu trembled as she called out her junior sister’s name.

  Shen Ling turned to Feng Yu. Her face was expressionless, and Feng Yu flinched back in fear at what she saw. However, the same fear that assaulted Boss Bao and his men didn’t affect her.

  Not long after, however, Shen Ling turned her full attention to Boss Bao, who was still petrified.

  She took slow steps in his direction, causing him to frantically and continuously shrink back.

  “Wha-What the hell are you!?” Tears filled Boss Bao’s eyes as the little girl approached him.

  Long Di watched the entire scene with interest, though his face didn’t reflect it. “What is happening right now?” He asked under his breath.

  ‘Inconceivable.’

  “What am I missing here Destiny?” Long Di asked.

  ‘She’s actually…’ The Destiny Scale paused for a second to process what Long Di just said. ‘M-My name is not Destin…’

  “You’re getting off-track here, Scaley. What is this? Why is Shen Ling so unsuck-ish all of a sudden?”

  ‘…’

  The Destiny scale had to take a minute for itself to recover from overexposure to Long Di. When it felt that it was in a good place, it continued.

  ‘The cultivation method I gave her is called the Abyss Scripture. She has actually managed to not only decrypt a fraction of the first part of the scripture, she has also managed to execute the technique hidden within it. I cannot stress how incredible this is. She is a prodigy.’

  “Y’kno, I can fanboy about her too if you tell me something about all this,” said Long Di.

  ‘Nice try.’ The Destiny Scale wasn’t going to fall for such an obvious ploy.

  Long Di was speechless when he heard this. “It just dawned on me that you seem to know what fanboying is. HOW? And WHY?”

  As Long Di and the Destiny Scale bickered about the important things in life, Shen Ling finally appeared right before Boss Bao.

  Her robe was gently swaying in the wind, making her look even more like an immortal fairy.

  “P-Please leave me alone. I’m sorry!” Boss Bao was a sorry mess at the moment. Snot tears and all sorts of calamity poured down his face as he begged for her to spare him.

  Suddenly, Shen Ling flashed a smile at him. In any other setting, this would be a blessing to all those who saw it, but not this time.

  This was obvious in Boss Bao, who, instead of being enamoured, widened his eyes in horror once more.

  Crack!

  Boss Baos’ body started to corrode by what appeared to be cracks of darkness. At the same time, something that looked like tears of darkness flowed from Shen Ling’s eyes.

  As the drops fell, they evaporated into a smoke of inky blackness mid-fall. Shen Ling was literally crying darkness.

  ‘No!’

  Long Di only heard the Destiny Scale’s cry for a second before it shuddered. It then shone with a bright divine light that illuminated Boss Bao for a fraction of a second.

  Whoosh!

  Before Boss Bao could issue a scream, the divine light wiped out his existence, along with the darkness that corroded him.

  The light then enveloped Shen Ling. The tears she cried disappeared before she fell unconscious.

  Long Di moved instantly and caught her before she touched the ground. He laid her down gently as he watched her sleeping figure.

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  “What did you just do?”

  ‘… I saved… her. Since you wa… wanted to keep her. Please warn h… her to never use that second ability, or w… what she truly is will… will be exposed. She… is not what we thought her to be.’

  Long Di knew that something was wrong and instantly turned around to see the Destiny Scale flickering.

  “What’s going o-”

  ‘Give this… to the kids, once you’re done with… them.’ The Destiny Scale ignored Long Di’s question and pressed three orbs into his body.

  “Why are you a failing light bulb right now?”

  ‘I apologise… in advance for your… divinity…’

  After saying this, the Destiny Scale disappeared into his body. He received a final piece of info from it before it went quiet and no matter how Long Di called out to it, he received no response.

  Long Di then looked to the spot where Boss Bao disappeared before he stared at the three bandits in the distance who were on the ground with whit foam coming out of their mouth.

  “This is… irksome.” Long Di said.

  He took up Shen Ling in a princess carry and made his way to where the cannon fodders were. As he passed by the disciples, he instructed, “Follow along children.”

  Tie Lang, Feng Yu and Jia Yan tagged along in silence. When they arrived where the bandits were lying, Long Di turned around to face them.

  “I never expected you to be able to beat them, but the thing that helped you guys did. Due to a hiccup, whatever plan it had kinda fell through. But know this, I do… kinda not uncare for you guys.”

  Feng Yu was the first to react. “Is this your own misguided way of saying that you… care for us?”

  Long Di’s expression didn’t fluctuate in the slightest. “Take out your weapons.”

  The disciples hesitated when they heard this command.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Jia Yan was the one who asked this time around.

  “You are going to kill them,” replied Long Di.

  “But why!? They can’t fight back anymore!” Feng Yu cried out.

  Long Di shook his head, “they’re not good people and you need to get over this if you’re serious about cultivating. I am sorry that this needs to be a thing, but we don’t have time to dilly or dally. So please kill them for me.”

  “But senior brother Long, do we really have to kill others to cultivate?” Tie Lang asked in fear.

  “It’s not that we have to kill others to cultivate, but others will kill us to do so. It looks like your teachers have been holding your hands a bit too much. However, you can’t run away from this anymore.”

  “There has to be another way.” Jia Yan shook his head.

  “Take out your weapons.” Long Di ordered them once more.

  “Long Di, we’re obviously not ready for this.” Feng Yu felt she had to speak at this point. “Maybe another time.”

  “Take out your weapons.” Long Di closed his eyes as he advised them once more.

  “We can’t-”

  “TAKE YOUR WEAPONS!” Long Di exploded at this time. His expression didn’t change, but his voice rose for the first time in a long time.

  Feng Yu, Tie Lang and Jia Yan stared at him, frozen. This was the first time they saw Long Di like this.

  “Take. Them. Out.”

  Shing!

  Hearing Long Di enunciate each word this time around, they didn’t dare to disobey.

  “Stand above a bandit right now.”

  At this moment, Long Di exuded a will that they couldn’t refuse. So they took their place above a bandit each. Their frenzied breathing was a testament to their being alive.

  “Now,” Long Di spoke once more. “If you wish to end your path of cultivation right here, then you can put your weapon back in your ring and forget about advancing. You may not want to kill others but they want to kill you. I need you to do this because when the time truly comes when you HAVE to do it, you will hesitate and more often than not, it will cost you your life. Don’t allow this defining moment to end in your cowardice, I have scars of fear that you can’t even imagine and I wish it on no one. This will allow doing what must be done to survive the future. I need you to live, so lower. Your. blade.”

  Hearing Long Di’s speech, the three kids threw away their inhibitions and allowed their blades to fall upon each bandit in succession.

  The darkness that covered their eyes had receded so the kids could see the light of life leaving their eyes.

  “This is much worse than I thought it would be.” Feng Yu whispered as the sword fell from her hand.

  “Big brother Long Di, I-I…”

  “It’s okay,” Long Di displayed a rare moment of care as he patted Tie Lang’s head, though the latter was older than him.

  “Come on. We’re done here.” Long Di took off in another direction.

  “Where are we going?” Feng Yu asked in a subdued tone.

  “Somewhere where we can recover from all this ”

  Long Di couldn't deal with the drama that would come from telling them outright that they were heading inside a volcano.

  He would cross that bridge when he got to it. Which was a lot closer than he'd like it to be.