Chapter 931: A Strange Bitch, A Strange Guy, A Strange Guy (16)

The Heart-Eating Demon looked down at his own chest.

Just to the left of his solar plexus, between the ribs, a horizontal split had torn open—his top already soaked through.

“......!”

His mouth worked soundlessly, but no breath surged up from his lungs, so no voice came out.

And then—THUD.

The Heart-Eating Demon collapsed right where he stood.

The enemy who had looked like he could spam qi shots forever... went down.

Yeah. I cut his heart. So he should die.

Thinking that, Qing’s legs suddenly went slack, and she dropped to the ground.

Both shins angled outward from her knees as she slapped her generously padded butt down hard onto the earth—and the instant she did, something hot and metallic surged up from her stomach.

Blood reflux.

Qing didn’t bother hiding it—she let it spill straight out.

Originally, the reason a martial artist swallowed their own blood was to keep the enemy from reading their condition.

But this was far too much to swallow, and it felt like it would keep coming up again and again. If she forced it down and it slipped into her airway, that would be a much bigger problem.

Besides—

this wasn’t a situation where she could spare attention to hiding anything.

Her right hand, still gripping the sword, trembled violently.

She couldn’t control the shaking in her muscles and tendons. The moment she relaxed even slightly, it would turn into a full cramp—a disaster people called a muscle seizure.

Just keeping her muscles from twisting into knots felt like walking a tightrope.

And it wasn’t just her body.

The spiritual flow—the “cosmic mystery” of internal power—had twisted badly too.

An internal injury.

The channel running from her lower abdomen to the center of her right palm felt shredded, stabbing with pain like needles flowing through it.

Ah. I won’t be able to use my right hand for a while.

There was no helping it.

Back in her hometown, if some desk-bound worker whose only exercise was breathing suddenly performed the greatest gymnast’s routine in history—spinning one turn, two turns, four turns, then splitting flat after a triple-level high jump?

Muscles would tear to ribbons, tendons would snap and curl, and their heart and lungs wouldn’t keep up—overload would crush their breathing and heart until they blacked out and hovered at death’s door.

At least Qing’s body had already surpassed human limits—and even her channels exceeded the Harmonization Realm.

So the fact her arm hadn’t exploded off, and was only hanging on in a shredded state... was, in its own way, impressive.

Mm. Still not a bad trade, right?

If I seal my right arm for a while and I killed one Blood Cult arch-demon... yeah. That’s fine.

If someone heard her inner thoughts, they’d curse her as the biggest highway robber under heaven—shameless beyond belief, with not a speck of conscience.

An arm, as long as it wasn’t literally torn off so she’d have to make some pathetic excuse about leaving it in the future, would heal slowly with rest.

A dead man, on the other hand, stayed dead forever.

Ugh—ugh—BLEGH.

After coughing up blood about three more times, it finally stopped rising.

Qing shifted Moonlit Night to her left hand, stabbed it into the earth, and forced herself up using it.

To someone watching, it might look ridiculous—her right arm was shredded and the channel tied to it was twisted up, and yet she was flailing around like someone with a fever.

But if you work through pain and don’t show it, nobody acknowledges it.

When your body is wrecked and agony is surging, you’re supposed to play it up just enough so people know.

Then they say, “Wow, so-and-so’s hurting but still working hard,” and your evaluation goes up.

Showing it was an important part of social life.

And above all, it made you feel a little proud. A little tragic and heroic.

...Wait. The Marriage-Alliance Procession—what happened?

Is the princess safe?

I hope the Eight Banners escorts are safe too.

But first—

Qing planted Moonlit Night into the ground with a firm, small THUNK.

Then she raised her intact left arm, pressed her thumb against her index finger, and extended it gently forward.

The first thing she had to do now—

was a kill check.

In the martial world, miracles happened with absurd frequency—where an enemy you “left for dead” came back later as your nemesis.

After all, hadn’t that “Yu Ryang”—the daughter of the Heart-Eating Demon—been “parboiled” and cooked evenly all over, and yet she was supposedly alive and well?

One mistake was enough.

If he might revive, then she had to mince the corpse and cut off the head.

DEEEEEENG—!

A Buddhist temple bell.

A thoroughly shameless attempt to crush a dead body with a martial art that imitated the Buddha’s hand.

The instant the invisible strike slammed down—

BOOM—into the Heart-Eating Demon’s “corpse”—

a groan of pain burst out.

“URK!”

At the same time, the Heart-Eating Demon jerked upright.

No, what the hell—revival? Actual revival? At the Transcendent Realm do you just get extra lives, and then your cutscene plays and the next phase starts and you unlock new moves?

Qing instantly ripped her sword free and leveled it at him.

The Heart-Eating Demon—blood dribbling from his mouth—still forced out a laugh.

“Heh... you vicious bitch. Trying to crush a corpse. Is that the handiwork of someone who calls herself righteous?”

“I was going to mince you up so wild animals could eat you easier. And you’re laughing? What—embarrassed you got caught playing dead?”

“I thought you had no fear, but you were the most fearful bitch in the world. Why go to such trouble when you could just cut my throat? If you’d done that, it would’ve ended cleanly.”

“I knew you’d do this, so I didn’t go close.”

As she answered, Qing’s eyes kept raking him with sharp, cold precision.

His top and bottom were soaked in blood.

About three chi from the left of his solar plexus, a clean horizontal tear exposed the wound inside—

and his pants... the middle was cut open in a round shape, like the convenient front opening on men’s long underwear back home—ugh, I can’t look.

“What was that move just now?”

“Questions go to me first. How are you alive?”

Somebody might pound their chest and scream about why she wasn’t charging in right now—

but for a martial artist, advance and retreat were life-and-death decisions.

To do that, you had to constantly think, measure, and judge your opponent.

Can I beat him head-on? Even if I win, do I win clean, or do I have to give up an arm and a leg and accept becoming crippled? Or can I absolutely not win—and the best I can do is talk and salvage my pride?

Is he bluffing, pretending he’s fine? Then I should attack immediately.

Or is he preparing a last-ditch burst, or mutual destruction? Then I just need to stall until he collapses on his own.

Or his condition might be worse than it looks—then I should run without looking back.

Qing was sizing him up.

Back home, she’d call it checking the angle.

At the same time, it bought her seconds to patch her internal injury as much as she could and prepare for whatever came next.

And the Heart-Eating Demon was doing the same thing.

When both sides wanted the same thing, even in a fight to the death, conversation sometimes happened.

“How am I alive? A difficult question. I’m alive because I’m alive.”

“I cut your heart.”

Qing snapped it out sharply.

He had internal power massive enough to keep spamming qi shots without tiring, so she’d judged it impossible to pierce bone and aimed beside it.

She had driven the blade cleanly between the ribs just beside the solar plexus—

she should’ve shredded half the left ventricle.

The Heart-Eating Demon answered as if it were nothing.

“I moved my heart for a moment.”

“...What, your heart is a finger or a toe? You can just move it?”

“It worked, so it worked. If my heart had torn, would I be standing here? It’s not even a hard trick—did your master not teach you? Though watching your mouth, you must’ve been a rotten disciple even to your own master.”

“Say something that actually makes sense.”

“Believe it or don’t—that’s on you. My turn, then. What was that strike?”

“Oh, that? The Ruyi Staff. No, the Ruyi Sword. This sword might look like a sword, but it’s carved from a Ruyi Staff, you know? When I tell it to extend, it extends. Yours can’t extend anymore even if it wants to.”

As she said it, Qing realized.

Why would he answer honestly? This wasn’t some truth game.

Moving your heart, my ass. He probably sensed it and twisted his torso in time.

The heart was protected by the breastbone—so if you stabbed beside it, twisting your torso was enough to slip it.

“Hm. A Ruyi Sword... It doesn’t look special, but if such a treasure exists, it should naturally be mine—”

The Heart-Eating Demon flinched and stopped mid-sentence.

Because he saw Qing’s stance.

This time she stood at a slant with her right shoulder forward, holding the sword in her left hand—pressing the blade against her heavy breasts for balance—its tip aimed at him without the slightest shake.

They’d been “talking.”

But it was time bought to control internal injuries and prepare the next move.

The Heart-Eating Demon had to patch a completely punctured left lung.

Qing only had to untangle the knotted qi in her lower abdomen.

Of course she would be faster by a few steps.

“Still got one more shot left, you know? This time I’m going to stab the right side. You dodged the heart, but your left lung is wrecked, right? If you lose the right too, what—are you going to breathe through your skin? Skin breathing? I mean, your face kind of looks like it could pull it off. Like a toad.”

“You can’t even lift your right arm. You think you can land a hit? If you lose both arms, will you fight with your mouth next? Your mouth is sharp, I’ll give you that.”

That was why Qing was being careful.

If she landed it, she killed him. But if he dodged—and both her arms turned into rags—then she couldn’t even run.

Lightness skill needed your arms to drive speed. If you tried sprinting with both arms glued to your sides, you couldn’t properly run.

“Fine,” Qing said. “Come.”

The Heart-Eating Demon smiled as he spoke.

But Qing had been born a natural old-man killer—gifted with an absolute knack for reading old men’s emotions.

In that smile, she read it.

Anxiety he couldn’t fully hide.

Fear.

A wobble.

This bastard—he’s shaking.

You’re dead.

Qing’s lips curled up for real.

And then—

her lower abdomen swelled with a sudden POP of pressure.

Compressed internal power detonated in a single surge, pushing outward—

the prelude to Nine Swords of the Lone Sword, Seventh Form—

That was the moment—

“Mm. Sorry to cut in, but.”

A mild, almost casual voice slid right into Qing’s ear.

There was no special emotion in it, and the content was so anticlimactic it sucked the air out of the room.

Inside Qing’s mind, the sharpened killing intent she’d been forging—pure venom—shattered into pieces.

“Oh? Brother Yu, you’re badly hurt, aren’t you? Didn’t I tell you you ought to polish your technique a bit? If you only trust your internal power and blow it up, you’ll end up taking a blade from a bright young junior like this. Hah—this was close. If it were a little worse, your heart might’ve been cut. But why are you bleeding this much—oh! Good heavens...!”

A man dropped down right in front of the Heart-Eating Demon, acting familiar as he inspected the wound.

Then his gaze fell to the lower body—where the pillar had been cut—and he jumped back in shock.

“No, what—was it cut? It was cut? My god. Brother Yu, you... you became... an eunuch? Brother Yu is an eunuch? Brother Yu, an eunuch! How—an eunuch!! You can’t have children anymore!!”

In his voice, Qing heard fear and pity—

and, very faintly mixed in...

delight.

Hope rose in her chest.

Okay. They’re not that close.

“Ahem. Well, Brother Yu has already had a child, hasn’t he? Even if it’s only a daughter, he can bring in a son-in-law. The line won’t end, so don’t take it too hard.”

The intruder said that, then looked at Qing.

And his eyes brightened—

not a flash, more like a sparkle.

“Huh. Just what kind of method did you use to turn Brother Yu half into a corpse? Truly impressive. I’m not flattering you—I’m genuinely shocked.”

It was the gaze of someone so curious he couldn’t stand it.

A kind of passion proportional to that curiosity—eyes shining with innocent excitement, like a boy who lived to explore.

Qing carefully opened her mouth.

“Um... Plunderer Demon? Do you... know him?”

“Oh, Brother Yu? Didn’t I tell you before? I have an acquaintance in Manchu lands, and he’s been grinding his teeth at you. To be honest, you were a bit much. My nephew nearly died. I heard his skin was peeled off, and he couldn’t lie down or sit, and he screamed even when the wind blew.”

Plunderer Demon answered calmly.

Qing’s heart dropped.

...No. No way. It can’t be.

“Um. Sir? The acquaintance you’re talking about—do you know he’s a Blood Cult arch-demon? The kind of bastard who eats people’s hearts like it’s nothing?”

“Oh, that? Of course I know. There are plenty of good training methods—choosing to eat hearts is shameful and wretched. It’s ugly. Hard to even call him a martial artist. A disgrace of an older brother, isn’t he?”

“......”

Behind him, the Heart-Eating Demon ground his teeth—just once—like he’d heard this kind of insult too many times to care.

Plunderer Demon looked unbothered as well, like he hadn’t said anything out of line.

So Qing spoke again, quietly.

“Then... could you step aside for a second? I’m trying to do a good deed for the world here and kill a Blood Cult arch-demon...”

“Oh. That’s going to be difficult.”

“...Uh. Why?”

“Because,” he said, like it was casual chatter, “didn’t I tell you? I belong to an organization.”

And then, with the same mild, ordinary tone—

“I’m Blood Cult too.”

Qing’s face—still wearing the sweet, polite smile she’d forced onto it—froze like a specimen.

No, seriously.

What the hell is this now.