Claire sighed helplessly and set down the sword she had been carrying over her shoulder angrily, then burst forth with Dou Qi. In the end, she still cleared the path.
After the endlessly long path was finally cleared, everybody arrived at the cave's entrance.
Brandishing the sword with a grunt, Claire's powerful Dou Qi directly expelled away the pile of stones. With a loud bang, all the stones were sent flying. Instantly, light appeared.
Just as light started seeping in, Claire immediately set up a barrier. Next, arrows rained on the barrier, clamoring. They were ambushed at the barrier just as expected.
"Fly, children!" Claire suppressed the resentment in her heart and spit out these two words viciously. Before everybody could understand what they meant, Claire had already chanted a spell, giant golden flames rapidly enlarging into giant fire balls from each hand!
Claire threw it abruptly. Miserable shouts sounded. Sure enough, they saw a few people screaming as they were flew up into the air.
"Those, Claire, those people are sailors." Summer said weakly.
"Their soul has already been engulfed, the soul inside their body is the person from the Hua clan. Once the Hua clan person's soul leaves the bodies, the bodies will become undead. Letting the proud soldiers of the empire's corpses become undead would be their greatest insult," Camille said softly. He smiled, but his eyes were completely ice cold.
"Yes. Killing them would be the best way to free them." Jean looked ahead, his gaze resolute as he said these words in a low voice.
Summer fell silent. Among these people, only she was not very familiar with death.
Claire didn't waste any breath as she brandished the Azure Ripple sword and rushed forward. She used her spiritual power to fiercely attack the soul hidden in the sailors' bodies.
Li Yuewen sat down leisurely, watching Claire's performance. The sailors' bodies were too weak after all. Even if someone took over their body, the strength level would still be the same. Claire could easily finish them off by herself.
Soon, Claire finished. She carried the Azure Ripple sword, her face dark as she walked back. Only then did the people resting stand up.
"The souls of those people are now gone," Claire said faintly. Shouldn't the person using the magic be close because they're controlling bodies?"
"Yes! Quick, to the boat!" Li Yuewen realized, leading them as she ran ahead.
"The person can't control too many sailors, they must have controlled some while subduing the others, and they wouldn't have killed everybody because they needs to sail back!" Li Mingyu frowned as he explained, following Li Yuewen closely from behind.
Sure enough, once everybody had rushed back to the boat, the boat was strangely quiet. Inside the boat, they found the captain and sailors all tied up tightly.
After they untied each person, they said in disbelief what they had seen, saying that their comrades who they had been with all the time suddenly went against them. After they tied them up, they went off the boat with weapons.
But Claire didn't listen to them. Instead, she went directly to the lowest level of the hold of the ship. That was the only place they had never set forth in! Everyone else followed Claire from behind and also descended.
From inside the hold of the ship where wine was stored, there was the audible sound of restrained coughs, very obviously attempted to be suppressed. Claire sneered coldly, kicking the door open. In the dusky room, it was hard to see. Claire casually released a fire ball to illuminate the room and saw young man with pale complexion at the corner, clutching his stomach as he tried to stifle his coughs. The vivid, dark red blood showed that he had suffered heavy injuries.
"Hua Nantian!" Li Yuewen called out in surprised. Evidently, she knew their name.
"You actually came here to kill us alone." Li Mingyu's eyes flashed coldly as he said this in a low voice.
"I alone am enough." The young man named Hua Nantian said coldly, sneering.
But just as he finished speaking, his face was hit forcefully without any warning! Directly knocking him down, making him incapable of getting up.
Everybody's mouths were wide open as they froze, seeing this scene. Claire had kicked Hua Nantian in the face and was now stepping firmly on his head.
"You alone are enough? Then what are you doing right now? Right now you are being stepping on by me, spitting blood, being trampled on uselessly." Claire's gaze was as cold as a millenia of glaciers, her voice even more unfeeling and terrifying.
Everybody was frozen, shocked. They had never seen Claire this way before.
"If you don't have the strength, then don't spew bullshit! Strength is what defines the right to speak." Claire's cold voice echoed in the room. Everything, everything was fake. Only strength was real. Once you have strength, everything you say becomes the truth! Your actions will all be righteous! Therefore, you must become strong! Become strong!
While being stepped on underfoot, Hua Nantian glared hatefully at Claire, his gaze completely filled with hostility and unwillingness.
Claire icily glared at the person being stepped on underfoot by her and smiled coldly. "Don't look at me with that gaze. You hate me? You don't have the right to hate me! If you want to hate anything, hate that you are too weak. If you were stronger than me, then the person being stepped on underfoot would be me. On the other hand, I would definitely not hate you. I would only hate how weak I was, that I had no way of beating you. Or, I would hate my conceitedness and my impudence, declining to work with others, wanting to gain glory myself and rashly act on my own."
Everybody just stared vacantly at Claire. The Claire before them was very unfamiliar, very foreign. But she emitted an indescribable charisma. What was it? But nobody could put their finger on it.
Astonishment and hate flashed through Hua Nantian's eyes. Evidently, Claire had accurately hit his weak point. He had come to kill the Li siblings for own glory for himself, but he didn't expect that there would be someone with spiritual power. Even more so, he didn't expect that their spiritual power would be so strong!
"Let me live, I'll pay for what it's worth." Hua Nantian said with difficulty.
"Is your life worth a lot of money?" Claire smiled coldly, stepping down harder.
"The Li clan should be almost bankrupt. I'll pay five million gold coins." Hua Nantian said from underneath Claire's foot with difficulty.
Claire turned and saw Li Mingyu and Li Yuewen's expressions change slightly, awkward and angry. Claire understood that Hua Nantian wasn't lying. It seems the Li clan had truly declined quite a bit.
"Let me ask you a question." A cruel smile appeared on Claire's lips.
"What?" Hua Nantian could only feel that the foot over his head was feeling more and more heavy.
"When you kill people and they beg for their life or suggest that they can pay for how much their life is worth, what do you do?" Claire said gently and softly. "If you lie, your death will come quicker. Don't forget, my spiritual power surpasses yours by far. I can feel every spiritual wave of yours, I can even feel the faintest trace." Claire's unfeeling voice made one's heart shudder.
Hua Nantian gulped, then said with difficulty, "I… I would still kill them."
"That's just how it is." An ice cold smile appeared on Claire's face. She slowly raised the Azure Ripple sword, slowly and gently piercing Hua Nantian's chest, smiling enchantingly, her movements graceful. It was imprinted deeply into the hearts of everybody present.
Hua Nantian's pupils enlarged greatly, his bulging eyes bloodshot and disbelieving. The average looking girl before him was actually so composed when taking people's lives, so graceful.
"You can't do it yourself, what gives you the right to unreasonably request for someone else to do it? Is it that only your life is a life and other people's aren't?"
A heart shaking chilliness slowly filled the entire room.
Instantly, everybody was puzzled. This was the radiant girl from before? The girl who had promised to always protect that commoner and the girl before them who cruelly took someone's life were the same!
It wasn't a misperception, this kind of contradictory behavior was from the same girl!
Blood splurted, curving into a strangely beautiful arc. It also splurted onto Claire's face, but it was as if Claire didn't feel it as she slowly sheathed her sword and turned around.
Camille was smiling like the spring wind just as before. He walked forward, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and carefully wiped the blood on Claire's face, his movements natural.
No one knew, but the Dark mark on the back of Claire's hand turned deeper.