Volume 2, Chapter 97 – Slaughter (Two-in-One)

Two streets away from No. 1 High, Chilong No. 3 High stood here.

Dusk was closing in; it should have been dismissal time. But the vast campus was eerily quiet, no after-school chatter at all—only, every so often, a piercing, miserable scream.

Listening to those screams, hiding in an empty classroom, Le Ying and Mao Xu both felt awful.

They had no idea what was happening. They just assumed Bai Xiang’s experience at No. 1 High was being replayed here, and as they trembled, they forced themselves not to imagine what lay beneath those screams.

After a while, the screams died away. Le Ying carefully craned her neck to peek outside, but there was still no one in the corridor.

Like No. 1 High, No. 3 High was located in the urban district. Unlike the sprawling, sparsely populated education city in the suburbs, land here was expensive, so schools built their main teaching blocks in a squared “hui” shape. It saved space, and the open courtyard in the center could double as a second sports field.

From the corridor outside her own classroom, Le Ying saw no one—only a few horrifying, mangled corpses. But when she stared at the opposite corridor, she could directly see several blood-soaked skeletons wandering back and forth.

Wasn’t this exactly the same thing Sister Xiang had gone through!?

She yanked her head back in at once, clutching her small chest as her breathing turned heavy, feeling her whole body seized by terror and refusing to obey her.

“Don’t panic.” Mao Xu was curled up under a desk, the glow of his phone screen lighting his calm face. “The signal and internet still haven’t been cut. The school forum is flooded with cries for help. We’ll definitely be rescued.”

“Did you call the police?” Le Ying asked.

“A long time ago. But the line’s busy, no idea why.”

“Maybe other people are calling too.” Le Ying forced herself to think in a more optimistic direction. With a sigh, she sat down. “Let’s hope they get here soon…”

“Mm?” At that moment, Mao Xu’s expression shifted slightly. In an even lower voice he said, “They might not be coming.”

“Mao Xu?” Le Ying jolted, eyes wide as she looked up at him.

“The demon outbreak isn’t just at No. 3 High. It didn’t just hit the junior and senior divisions.” Mao Xu’s voice was trembling too. “It’s hit the entire Dao City… I checked all the school forums. They’re all full of posts begging for help!”

How could this be happening?

Panic crashed over Le Ying. Off the top of her head she could remember more than ten primary, middle, and high schools. Each one had thousands of students—didn’t that mean over ten thousand people were affected?

“More than that.” Mao Xu bared his teeth. “It’s not like every school was as ‘unlucky’ as us, with no class dismissed when the demon outbreak started.”

No. 3 High really was special. The teachers were always trying to catch up with No. 1 High, so every day they competed to finish later—put simply, if No. 1 High didn’t let out, we didn’t let out either! They had to make the students study a bit longer than them.

Because of that, when the demon outbreak fully exploded, not a single class had ended yet. The iron gates at the entrance naturally hadn’t been opened, which effectively locked all those monsters and weird things inside the campus.

For the teachers and students of No. 3 High, that was of course a disaster. But from another angle, it also kept the filth from getting out, stopping the demon outbreak from contaminating the outside.

But not every school was like No. 3 High. At many schools, the main gates were already open when the outbreak began. In some, the demon chaos appeared directly among the crowd streaming out through the gates, instantly throwing the surrounding streets into turmoil.

Mao Xu’s hands were shaking as he held his phone. He pushed up the glasses he’d only started wearing recently and stared at several photos of streets shot from high above. The roads were splattered with blood, and everywhere, ferocious skeletons were chasing down fleeing crowds.

This was an unprecedented catastrophe!

The thought flashed through his mind.

Each school was like a radiation source, rapidly spreading contamination through the entire Dao City. Did Chilong Circuit have that many police to respond?

Mao Xu didn’t know how many people the Inspectorate had, but no matter how he looked at it, it couldn’t possibly be enough. So that only left the Chilong Army to pin their hopes on.

But… it had already been half an hour since this started. If they were really going to deploy the Chilong Army, could they really be this slow?

Mao Xu actually had a worst-case guess he hadn’t told his older sister, Le Ying—that he suspected the entire Chilong Circuit might already have been abandoned.

Why were the starting points of the demon outbreaks all at schools? Why were they spreading outward with schools as the centers?

If he hadn’t been warned, he might never have figured it out. But Bai Xiang had warned him not to take the Marrow-Washing Pills, and he immediately thought of those gifted pills as the problem.

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That was just too vicious, wasn’t it?

Taking advantage of schools being managed in large clusters, exploiting that institutional gap to poison them!

Was it Yaoxian Dao?

Judging from the information he’d gathered from all the forums, there was no sign of the Chilong Army coming to anyone’s aid. Had the Roads Directorate decided the contamination was already impossible to cleanse, and resolved to abandon Chilong Circuit?

Ever since the system of the Thirty-Six Circuits of the Nine Provinces had been established, Mao Xu had never heard of a Dao City being overrun by demon oddities. He really doubted his own guess. He’d rather believe he was just too naive, too ignorant, making the situation sound far worse than it was.

“Let’s go out.” Le Ying suddenly said.

Now it was Mao Xu’s turn to stare. “Are you crazy?”

“Hiding here is just waiting to die, isn’t it?” Le Ying shook her head. “Those things have monstrous strength. Class doors can’t stop them.”

When she’d looked at the opposite corridor earlier, she’d seen some of those blood-soaked skeletons suddenly smash open doors and burst into classrooms for no reason at all.

She didn’t know if it was because someone had made a sound inside to draw them, or if they naturally did this kind of probing on their own. But she was really worried about the bandmates she’d gotten separated from, and she was determined to go look for them.

“I don’t want to go.” Mao Xu crawled out from under the desk with a helpless look. “But… you’re my big sister, and I’m the man, aren’t I.”

With those skinny arms and legs of his, saying something like that would usually just sound comical. But right now, Le Ying was deeply moved—she knew her little brother was staking his life to go risk it with her.

Boom!

Suddenly!

A thunderous crash erupted from the middle of the classroom!

Both of them jumped, whipping their heads around, just in time to see a young child in an orange Daoist robe come crashing down from the ceiling, riding a chunk of cement. He hit the floor in a squat almost like he was using the toilet, then slowly stood up.

“Two idiots.” The child opened his mouth, but what came out was a sharp woman’s voice. “You never stopped to think why the skeletons haven’t come here.”

On his back, over his orange robe, was strapped a long sword with a silver guard. His eyes were ice-cold and ruthless. The moment Mao Xu met them, he felt like he’d fallen into an ice cave, and without another word, he grabbed Le Ying and bolted for the door.

But the moment they yanked open the iron classroom door, they froze and shrank back in terror.

As if keeping pace with them, a female Daoist stepped through the doorway. She, too, wore an orange robe. Her lapels were lazily cinched with a waist sash, revealing a generous expanse of pale, smooth cleavage.

“Where’s the little cutie going~?” The female Daoist also had a sword on her back. Her long black hair hung loose down her shoulders as she smiled, eyes narrowing, fixed on the boy. “I like that coolheaded analysis of yours… You’re not going to live much longer anyway. Want big sis to help you become a man before you go?”

“Pah!”

Le Ying stepped in front of her little brother. “You demonic slut! Doing something like this… Yujing won’t let you off!”

“Yujing…” The female Daoist’s mouth twitched. She exchanged a look with the child Daoist, and the two of them tilted their heads back and burst out laughing.

Sure enough, they weren’t afraid of making noise and attracting the skeletons.

Mao Xu’s eyelid twitched.

That meant the two of them were very likely the ones behind the skeleton Demon Pool—perhaps they even had the power to control those demons!

This question was way beyond exam scope. What the hell were they supposed to do?

“What are you laughing at?” Le Ying shouted furiously. “What’s so funny!?”

“Because Yujing abandoned you a long time ago,” the child Daoist said softly. “Do you think a city the court really valued would casually approve something like the ‘Marrow-Washing Pills’? The level of so-called scrutiny was a joke…”

“That dog emperor doesn’t care in the slightest whether you live or die.” The female Daoist flicked her hair back. “And you’re still hoping he’ll come save you… How is that not hilarious?”

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“No way!” Le Ying’s face went deathly pale in an instant. “That’s impossible!”

“Enough nonsense.” The female Daoist kept her gaze on Mao Xu, who was frowning, deep in thought. “You were bait to begin with. Now that you’ve drawn us out, whether you live or die really doesn’t matter.”

She pointed lazily at Le Ying. “Zhisheng, you want the girl?”

“Then the boy’s yours.” The child Daoist jerked his chin. “Make it quick… I just got word from Luo Hong—something’s gone wrong in the northern district.”

“What else could go wrong?” The female Daoist frowned. “Isn’t Uncle Chen holding the line over there?”

“He’s gone dark,” the child Daoist said. “No idea what’s going on yet…”

Before he could finish, his face suddenly changed. He swiftly raised the Eight Trigrams disk hanging at his chest, holding it up like a shield in front of him.

Clang—!

The others only heard a metallic crash as the disk erupted in a spray of golden-red sparks, forcing Zhisheng to stumble back step after step until he smashed through the wall behind him, leaving a human-shaped hole.

Wh—

The female Daoist hadn’t even seen where the attack came from. She froze for a heartbeat, then her face also changed wildly. She yanked out her sword and slashed up to her right, only for the blade to collide midway with an invisible barrier of air. Two forces ground against each other in midair with a shrill screech—then she lost her footing and was blasted away, feet leaving the ground!

Boom!!

Another human silhouette was smashed into the wall, and a heartbeat later, two streaks of white light appeared in the outer wall of the classroom.

Sunlight was streaming in through sword cuts, pointing straight back like beams, revealing where the attack had come from.

Mao Xu and Le Ying’s vision blurred, and then another horizontal streak of white light carved across the outer wall. The upper half of the wall collapsed inward with a crash as a figure swept in from midair and landed in the classroom.

“Sis!” The two of them cried out in delight. The newcomer was their elder sister, Bai Xiang!

For some reason, the instant they saw Bai Xiang clearly, all the misgivings in their hearts, all the restless anxiety, were pressed down.

It felt like as long as she was here, everything would be solved.

That was the kind of trust they had in Bai Xiang!

“Madwoman!”

Before the shock could settle, the situation flared up again. Bai Xiang had barely landed and hadn’t even steadied herself when, right behind her, a young Daoist leaped in through the gap as well, drawing his sword in a fury and charging at her.

“Clang!”

Bai Xiang raised Feixiang Heaven. The two longswords crossed in midair, golden-red sparks leaping again and again, but they couldn’t force Bai Xiang back even a single step.

“She has divine strength!” Zhisheng suddenly darted back in through the hole, drawing his sword as he pointed at Bai Xiang. “All together!”

Clang, clang—!

He and the female Daoist lunged at Bai Xiang almost at the same time. Bai Xiang knocked aside the young Daoist’s sword, twisted her wrist to change the direction of her force, and swept Feixiang Heaven up from the lower right toward the upper left in a “peak-lifting, rending slash.”

Savage sword qi roared up from the floor. The two orange-robed cultivators instantly felt a storm of sword wind blast into their faces and had no choice but to abandon their offense for defense, crossing their blades in front of them—only to be blasted away again.

“She flew here from the northern district!”

The young Daoist finally caught his breath. As he rushed at Bai Xiang again, he shouted a reminder to his companions, “Her demon power… drain her!”

He was knocked flying again as soon as he got close, but the other two’s eyes lit up.

Yes… Bai Xiang had arrived so fast, she must have flown here from the northern district.

They didn’t know why she suddenly had the cultivation of the Core realm, but no matter how you stockpiled power, over that kind of distance, her energy should be nearly spent, right?

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“Clear Waters, grant your blessing; gods and demons, lend your power!”

Zhisheng raised two fingers against his sword as he chanted, then snapped his eyes open and fixed them on Bai Xiang. “Go!”

Crash, crash!

The windows shattered as a horde of blood-soaked skeletons smashed through the panes and the back door, scrambling and crawling over each other in their haste to pour in, all charging straight at Bai Xiang.

The female Daoist didn’t stay idle either. First she flung out two arcs of deep violet sword qi at Bai Xiang, then hastily dug out a tiny jade gourd from the pale ravine of her cleavage. She pulled the stopper and tossed it into the air, muttering nonstop under her breath.

The little jade gourd looked very much like some kind of “magical treasure,” but it didn’t swell in size with the wind. It stayed as small as before, and as she chanted, it began to pour out water in an endless stream. The water coalesced in midair into six water dragons that roared toward Bai Xiang.

“Pact of Clear Waters, will to cover the heavens!”

The young Daoist also raised his sword straight up, as if taking the lead for the other two. From the purple mist billowing behind them surged a yellow wave of water; three torrents merged into a single giant breaker, sealing off Bai Xiang’s last route of retreat.

“Sis—”

Seeing this, Le Ying tried to charge forward, only for Mao Xu to grab her, sending them both tumbling to the floor. The view before them was blocked by a mess of things, and they could no longer see Bai Xiang at all.

Whoosh—

But the three Daoists still weren’t finished.

All three leapt up at once, riding the surging waves of their attacks as they shot toward Bai Xiang, clearly intent on not giving her even the slightest opening.

Fools.

Bai Xiang gathered her spirit-soul into her eyes. Looking again at the skeletons swarming toward her, she could faintly perceive a subtle, almost intangible connection threading through each of them.

She lifted Feixiang Heaven. Her natal sword seemed to sense what she was about to do and couldn’t help but let out an excited hum.

What’s she trying to do?

The three Daoists all looked puzzled.

But a second later, their faces changed drastically—without Bai Xiang seeming to do anything in particular, every bloodied skeleton suddenly went limp and dropped to its knees before her. The reeking blood and flesh clinging to their bones peeled free as though made solid, pushed by something invisible into blurred human faces, one after another streaking through the air and boring into the sword in her hand.

What the hell was that?

She’d dispelled the corpses tainted by “Shenli” with a single move?

“Fire!” the young Daoist shouted, and all three of them formed seals at once as incantations flowed from their lips, calling yellow waves of water to erupt in midair in roaring flames that crashed into the six water dragons.

Water and fire collided, throwing up massive clouds of steam.

“Wind!” the Daoist cried again. The three of them changed their hand signs and incantations, and the yellow waters surged into a howling gale, trapping all the steam and mist in a sphere around Bai Xiang.

Then Bai Xiang stepped out.

The white fog didn’t affect her at all. Her golden eyes were cold as she gazed at the three of them, qi-sha roaring, rapidly condensing into a phantom behind her.

Qi-sha was formless, and should have been impossible to see with the naked eye.

But the classroom was so cramped, and the steam and purple miasma so thick, that the background perfectly outlined the invisible qi, letting the three see her external aspect clearly.

How was this possible!?

All three Daoists stared in sheer horror, because drifting behind Bai Xiang were… human spirits of resentment?

Every one of them looked young, teens at most. These… these were the students killed by “Shenli,” weren’t they?

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They weren’t stupid. They instantly connected this to the sight of the blood skeletons turning into human faces and getting sucked into Bai Xiang’s sword just now, and a chill shot up their spines.

What the hell was this… Were those tales of demon sorcery actually real?

Bai Xiang swept her sword in a horizontal arc, stirring up a ferocious gale of killing qi. The swarm of wraiths billowed forward with it, wrapping around the female Daoist on the far left.

“What is—ah! Aaahhh!!?!”

At first, the female Daoist had no idea what was happening. But she soon started screaming as countless tiny cuts opened all over her body, as if each vengeful soul was a strand of sword qi slowly carving her up piece by piece.

“You—!”

Zhisheng had just turned his head when he saw Bai Xiang appear in front of him in an instant. He hurriedly raised the Eight Trigrams disk to defend, but…

Pffft—

The sword point pierced straight through the center of the Eight Trigrams disk, through his heart, out his brow, and out the back of his skull.

Bai Xiang stared coldly at him and released all restraints on Feixiang Heaven. The sword began to tremble and scream, sucking out every drop of the child Daoist’s blood and even his spirit-soul, leaving nothing behind. Visually, it was like watching a living person shrivel into a dried corpse.

What even was this!?

Seeing this, the young Daoist spun around and bolted. He’d just flown out through the gap when a bolt of violet lightning struck him from above, slamming his charred body out of the air.

Thud!

He struggled to his feet, only to see a pair of white boots step into his vision.

“It wasn’t me…”

He tried to lift his head.

“It was the Prince who insisted—”

Pffft!

Her sword punched through his skull, nailing him firmly to the ground. Bai Xiang once again drained him to a husk, then pulled her sword free and looked toward the sports field.

There were still a few blood-soaked skeletons wandering there in a daze.

And elsewhere in the school as well, there were definitely remnants of “Shenli” lingering.

All of these were huge hidden dangers. She had to find a way to clear them out.

Closing her eyes, Bai Xiang held Feixiang Heaven upright before her chest, taking up a pose like a sword salute.

Kra-boom!!!!

Violet lightning crashed down, linking with the sword blade. The Shenming peal suddenly swelled a thousand, ten thousand times over, becoming an invisible shockwave that swept out, nearly enveloping the entire No. 3 High campus.

Every bloodied skeleton froze at that moment and turned to face Bai Xiang’s direction. One after another, they collapsed bonelessly to the ground as the resentful souls bound to them slipped through corridors and classrooms, streaming between the trees, converging and merging, before finally diving down from the sky into the raised blade of Feixiang Heaven.

Her spirit-soul power was skyrocketing.

Bai Xiang opened her eyes, her golden pupils looking even more eerie and inhuman.

She knew this was definitely not the proper way to break through into the Core realm along the path of qi.

But it didn’t matter.

She was confident she could control this power.