Volume 3, Chapter 46 – The Hunt (Double-Length)

“Mm?” Hannah and Han Yuanfeng were both stunned by Bai Xiang’s departure; only Xiang Xian knew how heavy the burden on her shoulders truly was.

The life and death of over a million people, the interception line spanning two great states, and all those aberrant monstrosities currently being spawned in huge numbers—Bai Xiang had to account for all of it.

Just deciding to “merge the Circuits” wasn’t enough—this had been her proposal. If she couldn’t handle the mess that followed, then she could forget about ever properly meddling in government or personnel affairs again.

She’d have to hand authority back to Zhang Xianzhi early and stick to using her martial talents. That was the proper path.

This really wasn’t the best time…

Quietly sensing the qi-force still converting inside her, Xiang Xian felt deeply helpless.

On her first day in Zhennan, she’d thought she could finally rest for a while, so she’d agreed to Bai Xiang’s suggestion to switch over to the path of qi.

The lower your cultivation, the easier this kind of switch was. Lian Feng, for example, had needed less than a day to convert. But even with Bai Xiang guarding her, Divine Fetus–realm Xiang Xian had taken two hours just to get “started,” and transforming all of her vast demonic power over would still take slow, grinding work.

As a direct result, her combat strength had plummeted. At a time when manpower was badly needed, she couldn’t fight at full power.

If not for that, how could she have possibly let Bai Xiang handle the “urban-legend Demon Pool” herself?

The fact she hadn’t shown a hint of weakness when she killed Liang Yu didn’t mean that incident hadn’t shaken her.

It was because she’d been shaken, because she had something to compare to, that she could feel just how precious that white-haired girl’s goodwill that night at Qizhou University had been—the one who’d tried so obliquely to remind her, “There are new methods that can cure illnesses”…

Back then, she’d flatly declared those things to be demonic arts and demonic swords, and yet Bai Xiang had dared hint at them anyway.

And we’d barely known each other at the time, hadn’t we?

An outer Aspect as cold as ice, a heart-aspect blazing hot.

As long as you treated her sincerely, you could win her trust, her concern, her protection…

That kind of emotion—after the seventeen years since Bai Nianchan’s death, after Song Ruhua, Guo Rongzhi and the others had grown up—Xiang Xian hadn’t felt it in a very long time.

So I can’t just let Xiang’er be the only one doing all the work, either.

Staring at the two “researchers” in front of her, Xiang Xian silently firmed her resolve.

She couldn’t fight during the conversion process, but she still had other talents she could use.

“Hannah.” She fixed her gaze on the lizard-woman and shifted into a different, icy tone. “You know this thing so well. Does that mean you also contributed to the development of ‘Shenli’?”

You’re coming to pick a fight with me now ?

Hannah’s heart clenched. She was just about to trot out an excuse when she heard Xiang Xian say, “Your heart rate has gone up over twenty percent compared to earlier.”

“Don’t panic. Think it over.”

“I’ve got plenty of time to wait for the truth.”

Why does it feel like… the master is even scarier than her disciple?

Under Xiang Xian’s cold stare, Hannah couldn’t help shivering a little.

When Bai Xiang had first been unsure whether to let her live and might have killed her at any moment—even then her eyes hadn’t been this terrifying.

Because Xiang Xian’s were the eyes of her own kind.

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The eyes of a researcher, someone who specialized in a single path and had gone mad for it.

If I lie and she catches me, she’ll definitely dissect me. She might even keep me conscious when she takes my brain out to study…

“I did participate,” Hannah changed her tune and told the truth, trying her best to sound sincere. “But I wasn’t the only one, and I wasn’t the lead, either, since the owner of that thing is ‘Koehler Research Institute’ and I was employed by ‘Laidi Life Sciences.’”

“What’s the difference?” Xiang Xian raised a brow.

“They’re two completely separate systems. Koehler doesn’t belong to our company,” Hannah explained. “My guess is that they struck some sort of deal. Our company paid a price to rent it from Koehler.”

“Why not buy it outright?”

“Because Koehler sent people to supervise us when we were developing ‘Shenli.’” Hannah bared her teeth. “They were extremely arrogant, told us to ‘be careful,’ said that if we screwed it up, we could never afford the compensation.”

“You didn’t tell her any of this before, did you?” Xiang Xian narrowed her eyes, lifting her chin. She folded her arms beneath her chest and lightly stroked her chin, just like a lazy cat watching a gecko.

“Looks like we’ve got a lot to talk about. That’s excellent—it’ll keep me from getting bored during the experiments…”

Hannah said nothing.

She didn’t dare say anything.

“Since you’ve been reasonably honest, we’ll set aside, for now, the crime of helping develop ‘Shenli’ and thereby endangering countless citizens of Great Yu,” Xiang Xian went on, then shifted the blade of her words. “That doesn’t mean we won’t pursue it later. You understand me, don’t you?”

“I do.” Hannah nodded at once. “I’ll do everything I can. Whatever you ask, I’ll answer. I won’t dare hide a thing!”

Xiang Xian nodded as well, then let her gaze fall on Han Yuanfeng.

Han Yuanfeng: !?

Wait, what’s this got to do with me ?

He was dazed, but faced with a Divine Fetus cultivator, his survival instinct kicked in hard. He immediately raised his hand. “I won’t leak any secrets, not even to Red Dust Dao! I swear it by the Heavenly Dao!”

“All right then.” Only then did Xiang Xian let him off, dusting off her hands. “Everyone pick out a protective suit. Let’s start by cutting this thing open…”

Han Yuanfeng finally let out a breath, regretting coming the moment Xiang Xian had called.

A lizard monster, some research-lab Yaosui contaminants, plus that Divine Vein demon they’d raised to death earlier…

The Red Dust Sword emphasized tempering yourself in the mortal world; the deeper your emotional experiences, the faster your cultivation grew. But if he kept poking his nose into this kind of secret, Han Yuanfeng really was starting to freak out.

My dear Dao Lord, why did you have to shove me into this tiger’s den…

Elsewhere, Bai Xiang had just found the newly returned Bai Zhuqing, planning to ask her about the situation in Chilong.

Everyone had been assigned a different task. Xiang Xian was to sit in Tingyu Tower and hold the dojo. Guo Rongzhi and Song Ruhua were patrolling Zhennan to deal with Demon Pools. Xia Ran, Leng Qiu and the others were coordinating with Yu He as scouts in several directions outside the city.

Bai Zhuqing’s job was to watch over the refugees and logistics in Chilong Circuit.

It wasn’t hard work. With people like Huang Qian and Zhang Daoming taking the lead, moving troops around for protection wasn’t something that would ever fall to her.

Bai Xiang’s original intention had been to give the little girl some experience, let her see how ugly people could get when disaster loomed. But Bai Zhuqing rushed up to claim credit the moment she saw her. “I already did what Auntie said and cleaned up all those rebellious traitors!”

Hm?

Bai Xiang blinked. “You did it yourself?”

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“Of course!” Bai Zhuqing’s brows danced with excitement. “I’m way stronger than before now! I’m telling you, Auntie, I can shoot light orbs now. They’re really fierce—if they touch metal, they can shred it…”

…What?

Bai Xiang was completely dumbfounded. For once, her face genuinely looked blank.

Did her cultivation go off the rails?

Once she snapped out of it, her expression hardened. She grabbed her little sister’s wrist in one go, ignoring Bai Zhuqing’s yelps of “Ow, it hurts, it hurts!” and used the Vibration Art to probe her internal state.

“I’m fine!” Bai Zhuqing shouted. She circulated her qi-force, and from the palm of the hand Bai Xiang was squeezing, a tiny orb of light suddenly popped out.

Calling it a “light orb” wasn’t quite right; it was more like condensed white mist, hovering there in a semi-transparent clump.

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes at the little orb. It looked unimpressive, but its surface was rotating intensely thanks to the qi-force being circulated, strands of interwoven sword-Qi wrapped within it.

She couldn’t tell, for the moment, what this counted as.

A personal, exclusive qi-force trait?

Or a developed application of qi-force?

“Show me.”

Letting go of her sister, she gave a simple command.

“Let me see how strong it is.”

Bai Zhuqing perked right up. She stepped back a few paces, drew her wooden sword, and held it in both hands. First she mimicked Bai Xiang’s usual practice by forming a hand seal, then thrust her sword straight at empty air.

She’d thought it would just be a normal thrust, but when the tip reached full extension, half a foot of pale mist sprayed out, extending the blade out of nowhere.

Oh…

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes.

In a real fight, that trick would be nasty.

And Bai Zhuqing wasn’t done yet. After a few more sword moves that spat white mist, she sheathed the sword and stood straight, raised her left hand to her lips, and puffed out another breath of white mist—like the vapor you breathed in winter.

This mist was half a zhang long. Bai Zhuqing lowered her head and blew it toward the concrete floor, and at the far end it drilled straight through.

She flicked her head, and the mist turned into razor-sharp sword-Qi, carving grooves straight into the ground.

The last remnants of the mist condensed into a “mist orb” which began circling around her, nimble and free like a hummingbird.

No need to ask—this condensed “mist orb” obviously had even greater cutting power.

With its small size, high speed, and lack of any fixed form or pattern in how it was launched, it would be incredibly hard to defend against.

Relying on her spirit-soul ability, Bai Xiang had absolute control over her inner body-scape. She tried having her sword-Qi imitate her sister’s qi-force.

Inside her body, it was fine at first; the sword-Qi obediently compressed into a round sphere. But the moment it left her mouth, it stopped listening. The sword-Qi ball began darting around randomly, rammed straight into Bai Zhuqing’s little mist orb, shredded it, and then dissipated by itself.

Bai Zhuqing had just been enjoying controlling her little mist orb. Seeing this, she immediately pouted. “Auntie…”

“Just make another one,” Bai Xiang said, unconcerned, though in her heart she’d already reached a conclusion.

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This had to be a personal, exclusive qi-force trait.

You’d need an absurd, monstrous sensitivity to and control over qi-force to pull this off.

She herself couldn’t.

Her control over qi-force was very strong too, but that control was cancelled out by her qi-force trait.

Her qi-force trait was “sharpness,” which made her sword-Qi too violent.

Condensing it into larger, more general shapes—like sword-Qi dragons or sword-Qi tigers—was fine. But compressing it into tiny spheres to move around nimbly was very difficult.

This qi-control method could be called “Sword Orb.”

“Not bad,” Bai Xiang acknowledged her sister’s achievement.

“Even if you came upon it by accident, it still counts as creating a new Dao art. From now on, you’re the founding ancestor of the Sword Orb lineage.”

She didn’t feel it was any great pity. Given how violent her own sword-Qi was, she had no need to condense Sword Orbs.

The Sword Orb’s advantage lay in its agility, in sword moves as free and unfixed as a wild horse.

But Bai Xiang?

If I press down with one sword head-on and you can’t block it, then you can’t block it. Why would I need all that fancy stuff?

So she didn’t care, and was simply happy for her sister.

“It’s just a shame you don’t know Jade Spirit algorithms,” Bai Xiang added, shaking her head. “Otherwise, one Sword Orb splitting into two, two into four, four into eight… That would make for an exhilarating battle. The way you’re using it is far too conservative.”

This is conservative?

Bai Zhuqing’s jaw practically dropped.

But Xiang’er sis’s description was so tempting!

She couldn’t help imagining herself commanding a thousand Sword Orbs, unmatched under heaven. Eyes shining, she said, “I can learn Jade Spirit algorithms!”

“Work at it,” Bai Xiang said, ruffling her hair.

Bai Zhuqing’s mind was meticulous, her affinity with Jade Spirit algorithms not low. Otherwise Xiang Xian wouldn’t have singled her out at a glance, even asking Bai Xiang’s opinion later about teaching her “basic algorithms” first.

She hadn’t gotten anywhere with them before because she’d been too restless and impatient. But now that she had a Clear-Heart Formula tailored specifically for her, in theory that road no longer had any obstacles.

Once she was sure Bai Zhuqing’s cultivation hadn’t gone awry, Bai Xiang told her to rest up while she could, then left Tingyu Tower herself and went to report to Bai Shengju.

“Your idea is a good one.” After listening, Bai Shengju was very approving. “Using the demon disaster to merge the Circuits—we’re standing on the side of righteousness with that. Even the Qianyu Palace can’t find fault with it.”

“The question is how to hold the line.”

“The aberrations of Nanshan number in the millions. Even if the Sword Lord descended in person, he couldn’t kill them all. We can’t afford to have our supply lines fail again.”

“That’s what I was thinking too.” Bai Xiang nodded. “Grandfather is exactly right.”

Bai Shengju’s gaze was full of affection, especially moved by the fact that, even with her current status and position, she was still willing to come consult him, even deliberately stepping back to let him propose ideas so she could agree with him.

“I know your temperament,” he said gruffly.

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“You definitely already have a plan.”

“Out with it—what do you want to do?”

Bai Xiang’s expression immediately grew solemn. “I plan to go bring in the villagers and townsfolk.”

In the fortress-city plans, these people were invisible—just the flesh and blood to be ground up for civilization. If she brought them in, she’d also acquire a huge amount of grain and seed, maybe even large herds of livestock. It was absolutely a good deal.

There was another point: Jiang Lai was currently monitoring the demon tide to the north. The “cellphone Demon Pool” had made Guo Rongzhi suspect he’d already died, so Bai Xiang also planned to swing by and check on that. Only she could handle this.

Because she had endurance.

Long-distance flight consumed a lot of energy; not everyone was as inhuman as she was—flying all the way to the Jing River and still chopping out a “Creation Qi Tribulation” with her sword.

Bai Shengju naturally had no objections and fully supported her decision.

“Once you’ve decided, you need to move fast,” he urged her.

“If anything looks wrong, come back immediately.”

“And remember, this world doesn’t rest on your shoulders alone. Don’t try to carry everything yourself.”

Bai Xiang saluted, took her leave of Bai Shengju, and on her way out she also exchanged a few words with Bai Lianzhou, telling him to be extra vigilant during this period and pay special attention to infiltrating Demon Pools. Then she shot up into the sky and sped away, shrinking to a tiny dot in just a few breaths.

Flying high and heading north, Bai Xiang kept an eye on Zhennan below her as she went, and saw that in the short time she’d been away, several new refugee camps were already going up.

I have to hurry.

She picked up speed, slicing past drifting scraps of cloud, and in one breath she made it to the Nanluo Mountain Range. She landed on the peak of the tallest mountain and looked off into the distance.

“Awoooo!”

Right on cue, a pack of wolf demons burst from the jungle. The leader walked on its hind legs, its massive upper body reared upright, and in its hands it swung a thick wooden club, charging at Bai Xiang with murderous ferocity.

Bai Xiang was about to draw her sword, but on a whim she changed her mind. She simply opened her mouth and exhaled a stream of condensed white mist. From three zhang away it pierced straight through the wolf demon’s brow, then looped around its body and shredded it into a pile of bloody mush.

She followed the same procedure for the other wolf demons, then focused on observing the blood-mud’s reaction.

The wolf demons had been contaminated by the Blood Sea. Even after being reduced to mud, they still twitched and writhed, struggling for a full ten seconds before finally melting apart and losing all signs of life.

“How vicious,” Bai Xiang muttered, shaking her head.

Even shredded into paste, they could still move. Imagine how many bullets you’d need to waste on something like that.

She made up her mind: if the demon tide really was headed for Zhennan, she’d definitely have to lure them into looping around twice, buy as much time as she could for this side.

Just as she was about to continue north, an image suddenly flashed through her mind.

It was Elend’s final memory.

In that memory, she’d received a set of documents and followed their instructions to open contact with Bai Xiang.

And at the end of that document, it had also noted: they had built three hidden safe houses in the Nanluo Mountains. Dr. Evan might be holed up in one of them.