The interior of the cave was dim and cavernous — far more spacious than Lin Xiao and his men had expected.

The moment they entered, a stench far more overwhelming than what had greeted them at the entrance hit them full in the face, assaulting Lin Xiao and his men’s senses with brutal force and making one feel close to retching.

More horrifying still: at the bend just past the entrance lay a small mountain composed entirely of the accumulated remains of animals and humans — a heaped mass of white bones, deeply unsettling at a single glance. On closer inspection, mixed in among them appeared to be the broken bones of children as well.

Proceeding deeper into the cave, one could see at the northeastern corner a great flat stone a little over a zhang in width. Its four corners had all been worn smooth and shiny, clearly from someone lying or sitting in meditation there over a prolonged period.

Two figures lay motionless on the stone, clearly badly injured. The long, smeared trail of blood left by something being dragged was faintly visible beside them.

The young woman in red who had vanished earlier was crouching beside the two of them. In her right hand she held the golden bells she had earlier worn around her neck, and she was bent forward examining something closely.

“Tan Qi! Brother Wang!” Seeing the state the two men were in, Wei Bo and the others’ eyes reddened at once, and they rushed to the two men’s side.

Both Tan Qi and Wang Xingzhi lay with eyes tightly shut, their faces a dark, ashen blue. Their chests still rose and fell in shallow, intermittent motion, but their breath had become so faint it was almost imperceptible.

Seeing their companions — men with whom they had shared wine just that evening — reduced to this state in the blink of an eye, the blood surged furiously in Wei Bo’s chest. He roared, and in the same motion drove the blade in his hand straight toward the young woman: “I’ll kill you for this, demon woman!”

But a sword flashed in from the side with lightning speed and blocked his blade with a resounding clang.

“Young master?” Wei Bo was both startled and furious. “Why are you stopping me from killing this demon woman?!”

“It was not her!” Lin Xiao replied in plain, economical words. He withdrew his sword, stepped forward, and began to examine Tan Qi and Wang Xingzhi’s injuries.

The young woman turned her head and gave Wei Bo a cold look. “Fool,” she said icily. She searched at her waist for a moment and produced a small jade gourd.

Then, under the astonished gazes of Wei Bo and the others, she uncorked it and tipped out two deep crimson pellets.

“Give these to them immediately,” she said. “If you wait any longer, the demonic poison will invade their heart veins and not even an immortal could save them.” She passed the pellets to Lin Xiao, who stood beside her, then rose to her feet and asked Wei Bo, who was beginning to show signs of dawning comprehension: “What about the Daoist?”

Before Wei Bo could reply, they heard Lin Xiao answer in a measured, unhurried tone: “Chang Rong and the others have him restrained. He is most likely outside the cave at this very moment.”

The young woman gave a nod. “Not entirely foolish,” she said, and began walking in great strides toward the exit. As she moved, the golden bells in her hand struck against each other, filling the air with a soft, ringing chime.

Hearing those words, Lin Xiao’s hand paused for a fraction of a second in the act of feeding the medicine.

Wei Bo had not expected this young woman to dare speak with such condescension even toward their young master. He blinked in astonishment, and the hostility he had only just begun to temper toward her came surging back up in a single sharp wave.

At that moment, a commotion erupted at the entrance, and Chang Rong and his men shoved the Daoist inside.

The Daoist had been bound up like a sticky rice dumpling, and was still shouting at the top of his lungs: “That demon woman clearly caused all this havoc — why do you have hold of me?! Could it be that you’re all as deluded by feminine wiles as your master — utterly besotted?! You bunch of scoundrels! Release me at once!!”

Then he turned his head and caught sight of the young woman walking toward the exit. His eyes went red, and his cursing grew even louder: “You, you creature! Have you not already killed enough people — and now you want to lay the blame for your evil on my head?! I’ll fight you to the death!”

Still shouting, he lurched as if he would charge headfirst into her — but Chang Rong seized hold of him, leaving him to glare at the young woman with the blind fury of a caged beast while his legs continued thrashing and kicking helplessly.

The young woman fixed the Daoist with a cool, penetrating gaze. “I thought that drawing a Six Harmonies Formation around the outside of the tent would be enough to prevent you from harming innocents,” she said in an icy tone. “It seems I underestimated your cultivation!”

She said this, and her expression hardened. Her left hand formed a hand seal. Slowly, her right arm rose, raising the golden circlet — and she made as if to shake the bells that hung from it.

Chang Rong’s eyes went as wide as copper bells.

The young master had only told him to capture the Daoist, without explaining the reason. Chang Rong had originally assumed the Daoist was the demon woman’s confederate — the two of them playing a clever double act to gain his group’s trust. But could it be that this demon woman was also a Daoist? In that case — in that case, what was the story with that Daoist?

Lost in his thoughts, Chang Rong raised his head to look in Lin Xiao’s direction — and was startled to find Lin Xiao staring fixedly at the sword in his own hand. The sword was blazing with brilliant light, its blade vibrating in a deep, resonant hum as though responding to the young woman’s bells.

Chang Rong’s heart gave a sharp jolt. He had barely opened his mouth to speak when, without warning, the Daoist beside him gave a violent lurch and wrenched himself free.

Then the Daoist let out a strange, harsh cry, and the ropes binding him snapped apart all at once.

In the instant before anyone could react, the young woman’s bells shot free of the circlet, transformed into three golden fireballs, and streaked like meteors toward the Daoist with tremendous force. She cried out in a commanding voice: “Demon! Show your true form!”

The moment the fireballs made contact with the Daoist’s chest, they transformed into three fire dragons, which wound their way up along the Daoist’s body, coiling around him from all sides.

The Daoist appeared to be in tremendous agony. A terrible, gurgling rumble rose from somewhere deep in his throat.

He looked at the young woman with seething, venomous hatred, his complexion deteriorating by the second. In the next instant, his neck twisted suddenly to the side — and his head separated from his body, rolling with a spin to land at Chang Rong’s feet.

Chang Rong thought he was seeing things. He rubbed his eyes again and again, staring down at the ground, looking and looking once more. He wasn’t mistaken, was he? That perfectly round thing with the dead-fish stare staring back up at him — could it possibly be… the Daoist’s head???

He stared at the Daoist in horrified disbelief — and watched as, from the place where the Daoist’s head had been, a vivid, phosphorescent green triangular serpent’s head burst forth. The serpent’s body was over a zhang in length, and it shot up to the ceiling of the cave in an instant.

Meanwhile, the three fire dragons conjured by the young woman clung to it like a shadow clings to a form, wrapping relentlessly and inseparably around the serpent’s body.

“What — what kind of creature is this?!” Chang Rong stared at the massive serpent, swallowed several enormous gulps of saliva in terror, then remembered something and sprinted to Lin Xiao’s side. “Quickly! Protect the young lord!”

Wei Bo and the others had been briefly paralyzed by the sight before them, momentarily unable to react, but they were well-trained men at the core — at Chang Rong’s shout, they snapped into action at once, forming a tight protective formation around Lin Xiao.

But the sword in Lin Xiao’s hand was growing more and more restless and agitated, like a warrior who has encountered a great enemy and is burning to charge to the front line and enter the fray.

Lin Xiao gazed at the sword in his hand, his expression complex. He still remembered the day his imperial grandfather had bypassed his father to place this sword in his small hands, laughing as he said that the sword could slay demons and vanquish evil spirits — that it would protect his grandson and see him safely grow to adulthood.

Everyone present that day had taken it as an old emperor’s whimsy. No one had believed a word of it.

Afterward, he himself had simply used it as an ordinary sword and had never perceived anything remarkable about it.

Only because it was mingled with the tender reverence he bore for his imperial grandfather had he treasured and guarded it so dearly, never letting it leave his person.

Since entering the mountain, this sword had sounded itself several times in warning. And now, in the wake of the demon Daoist revealing his true form, it was stirring again in this way. Could it truly be a divine sword with the power to slay demons and vanquish evil?

While he was turning these thoughts over in his mind, a tremendous crash erupted from ahead. Lin Xiao raised his head and saw the great serpent — caught in the grip of the three fire dragons, twisting its body in agony — sweeping its thick, massive tail back and forth in wide arcs, scattering all the remains from the pile of bones on the cave floor.

The fetid stench inside the cave intensified. The young woman kept her eyes locked on the great serpent, her lips moving in a continuous, low murmur. Sweat was sliding from her temples without pause, and the color was draining steadily from her face.

It was plain enough to Lin Xiao and his men: whereas the young woman had held the upper hand at the start, the gradual depletion of her strength meant that she was now clearly beginning to show signs of faltering.

The enemy was clear; their own side was clear. By this point, what reason was there to stand by and watch?

“Move—” Lin Xiao raised a hand in signal, gathered his breath and his sword, and swept toward the great serpent. Chang Rong and the others drew their blades in unison and charged forward right on his heels.

Yet Chang Rong and the others’ blades struck the serpent’s body and rang off as though striking diamond — not so much as a single spark was struck.

“This—” Chang Rong’s expression changed drastically. He saw the great serpent’s tail coming to sweep him off the ground like a rag — and then a sword drove in from an oblique angle and cleaved at the tail with full force.

The blow had not severed the tail at the root, but it had carved open a deep gash through which flesh flew and blood poured. The great serpent shrieked in pain, pulled its still-convulsing tail back in with a snap, and cast its crimson eyes toward Lin Xiao before plunging its body downward in a strike aimed directly at him.

Lin Xiao’s earlier conjecture was confirmed: this sword was truly extraordinary. He saw the great serpent had opened its gaping maw and was bearing down on him right before his face, and without another moment of hesitation, he swung the sword at the enormous serpent’s head.

The young woman’s cultivation was nowhere near sufficient to contend with this thousand-year-old serpent. She had relied solely on the rare and precious spiritual treasures she carried on her person — and on seizing the initiative by striking first while the great serpent was still disoriented. In terms of raw endurance, how could she possibly measure herself against a serpent of a thousand years?

And so after three exchanges, her strength was gradually giving out. She was forcing herself to hold on purely through a single thread of her vital breath.

Now, with Lin Xiao joining the battle with his divine sword in hand, she gained, without question, the most powerful backup she could have hoped for. Her spirits lifted sharply — and all three fire dragons flared brighter in response.

“Strike its fatal point!” She saw that Lin Xiao was still locked in combat around the serpent’s head and neck — landing blow after blow, all drawing blood, yet none reaching the vital center. Anxiety crept in; seizing a moment between breaths, she called out in a clear, carrying voice to warn him.

Lin Xiao was keenly sharp of mind. Hearing this, he immediately offered an opening as bait, lunging toward the serpent’s eyes. The serpent could not evade in time, and its great body lurched to the side, exposing the dark greenish-black scales of its underbelly.

Lin Xiao’s heart leapt with sudden joy. He was just about to drive his sword into the serpent’s fatal point — but as the tip closed in, the great serpent, faced with the blade almost upon its body, summoned from nowhere a surge of almost supernatural power, and with a tremendous backward leap managed, just barely, to evade the thrust.

“Not good — the demon creature is trying to flee!” Chang Rong and the others saw the great serpent wheel its head around and begin driving its massive body toward the cave entrance in flight. The men scrambled ahead to reach the opening first, planting themselves there to block the serpent’s path.

The serpent had been cultivating for many years and was long capable of ascending to the skies or burrowing into the earth. Under ordinary circumstances, its speed of movement would be nothing like the sluggish, labored pace it showed now — but the three fire dragons unleashed by the young woman were still wrapped tightly around its body, searing its flesh until it was scorched and raw, causing it grievous suffering. Lin Xiao had furthermore stabbed it in multiple places across its body, and although none of those wounds had reached the vital organs, blood was flowing ceaselessly and its strength had long since been sapped by more than half.

And now even these few foot soldiers dared to come and block its way — sheer arrogance beyond their means! Furious and incensed, it flung open its enormous gaping jaws, intending to swallow Chang Rong whole.

Chang Rong watched the serpent’s head — wide as a large basket — bear down straight toward him, the fetid stench washing over him so thickly he could not stop retching.

He let out a great battle roar, swinging his blade in a reckless, wild flurry as a show of bravado, while his heart wailed silently: My life is over!