--- (POV – Cai Gengxin) ---
She opened her amethyst-coloured eyes and looked around into the endless dark fog surrounding her. She elegantly stands up and looks around with curiosity as to what's going to happen next.
She sees a figure appear deep within the clouded fog, rushing towards her. The closer it got the more she could see, and by the time she could see the entire figure it was already only a few meters away.
Her hands readily moved as she withdrew her sword from her storage ring and prepared herself for the incoming attack. The figure fully appeared in front of her with a long two-handed sword in its hand.
The figure was a middle-aged man with rough features, cracked and worn skin with scars littering his face and some short stubble for a beard. The two-handed sword came swinging across, causing her to back up a few meters to exit its range and prepare herself for a counter attack.
Although she prepared herself for a counter attack, that was her body's automatic response after the training she went through with Fen Chang and the other girls. This doesn't however stop her hands from trembling slightly, as she looks at the person in front of her with panic and shock.
She worriedly manages to speak up. "How... How are you still alive?"
A memory appears in her head. Blood splattered everywhere, and a body falling to the ground with chunks of flesh soaring through the air. Above the body was a woman with some drops of blood running down her clothes and face.
Her purple eyes showed panic, as she had a sword in her hand with the last few running droplets of blood running down to the tip. The body on the floor looked exactly like the man standing in front of Gengxin, while the woman with panic after having taken a life was Gengxin herself.
After remembering the man who now stands in front of her once again she hurriedly raises her sword to block, as the opponents large blade swung down again.
She struggles to keep her ground as the large sword towers over her, and she is forced to take a knee to keep up with the force the sword is producing. A voice filled with sorrow and anger spoke out from the man. "I wanted to live! I had a family! You are too weak to kill me!!!"
The force of his sword increased making her sword start to bend slightly, with a few hidden stress marks and hairline cracks were left on the blade, barely visible but deadly to a warrior who needs their weapon.
She uses her Qi to forcefully push back the man so she can regain her breath and make a counter attack. Before that could happen however a glistening piece of metal came thrusting out from her right with a long pole attached to it.
She managed to barely dodge the attack by moving her head, before using her movement technique to create small tornados around her feet. She slid across the ground, almost like she was ice skating.
She hurriedly looked around and saw more people appearing from the mist each armed with weapons, and each muttering the same sentences over and over.
"I wanted to live!"
"I had a family!"
"You are too weak to kill me"
Each sentence plucked a cord on her heart as each of these people lost their lives to her blade. There where many people surrounding her, all charging forward with their weapons drawn and each preparing their attacks.
All of a sudden, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She looked down and saw the tip of a long dagger piercing through her stomach. She reached down to stop the blood, while a small figure walked around her side appearing in front of her.
It was a small girl, no older than 8 years old. She had beautiful black hair and seemed perfectly healthy. Her hands however where covered in blood from where she stabbed the dagger into Gengxig and her face showed anything but a childish or remorseful expression.
A creepy expression of a mix of euphoria and madness was showed on the young girls face. The face burned a hole inside Gengxin heart as she remembers.
The memory showed Gengxin and the others roaming a burning camp with the bodies of dead bandits surrounding them. They soon reached the largest tent and entered without hesitation. In the middle of the room was a large chair with multiple dead naked women surrounding it.
Sitting on the chair was a man with a savage look, as he wore beast skin and had an endless lustful look in his eyes. Tied to a pole near by was a young girl, who had tears in her eyes while she was bound and gagged.
It showed Fen Chang giving the order for Yan Yin to step forward and proceed to engage in a fight with the man. While the rest left to go and kill off any survivors Fen Chang and Gengxin stayed and checked on the tied up young girl.
They undid her binds and gave her words of comfort, before Fen Chang turned his back to check on Yan Yin's fight. The moment he turned his back, the young girl reached for something before lunging forward with a sharp dagger now in hand.
Gengxin watched in horror as the young girl who she presumed innocent rushed at her lover and master with a knife, intending to kill. Her emotions of love and worry flooded her and she quickly brandished her sword and swiftly chopped off the leading arm of the young girl.
Screaming in pain, the young girl had a manic and bloodthirsty look as she looked at the both of them. Chang quickly realised whats going on, after seeing the expression that a young girl should never know.
He without hesitation and under the horror of Gengxin who was now fully conscious severed her remaining arm and both legs. Not knowing whats going on and in shock over the horror of seeing the young girl being near tortured she rushed to his side, begging him to stop.
He looked at her straight in the eye and said "Do you really think I am so low as to treat an actual young girl like this just because they tried to kill me? I would at least gather information first, instead of taking immediate action.
Calm your mind and take another look at this thing's expression. Does that look like a young girl to you? Look directly into its eyes and tell me how you feel."
Hesitantly she took another look at the girl and stared directly into her eyes. 'Evil. I see nothing but evil looking into those eyes. Evil shrouded by madness and rage. No hint of good within them. They look just like the eyes of those evil cultivator's master kills or those bandit leaders who have slaughtered thousands of innocents. Those are not the eyes of a child!'
"M…Master whats going on? Why do I feel nothing but evil, madness and rage? There are no hints of remorse or anything other than evil? Is this really a young girl kidnapped by these bandits?"
The young girl on the ground started to laugh in a raspy tone, similar to that of an old deranged man. "Young girl kidnapped by bandits? You stupid bitch. I told you that as an excuse to lower your guard. I am Cui Guiying, also known as the child butcherer which was given to me after my most magnificent slaughter of that whole village, including the orphanage."
Chang cuts him off addressing Gengxin, filling her in on words she would understand. "You won't know his name or nickname as he is presumably someone from this empire. He is some small-time killer who is tooting his own horn to sound more menacing. Its likely that he is some run down bandit leader who stumbles across an evil technique that allows him to transfer bodies.
Is that right mr trash bandit leader?"
"Fuck you. How dare you call the magnificent me a run-down bandit leader. During my prime, I ruled over this land as a bandit king. If it wasn't for you and this bitch I would rul…"
"Yeh, yeh. I get it. So shut up will ya, I don't wanna keep hearing the yappering of some old deranged foggy. Wheres the bloody technique that you used? In your storage ring? Hidden somewhere secret? Did you have that big guy over their shove it up your ass?"
Chang had enough of his antics and rambling and went straight to the point of finding out about either where the technique was or how he transferred bodys.
"How dare you do…"
"Alright ive had enough of this." Chang reaches down and enslaves the spirit of the old man residing within the young girls body and forcefully has him tell the location of the technique and its origins.
After sorting out the technique he removes the slave seal on him and asks Gengxin to kill him. Although reluctant due to how the man looks, after he started spouting how he killed children, including the one he currently resides in, she slashed off his head.
Since then her heart got a little colder, but a sense of regret for the child who previously resided in the body was left within her heart. For a few days this caused her many nightmares but over time with councling from Chang and the others how the girl was already dead and the old man was the only thing left, she got over it.
Now facing the same one who caused her painful nightmares once again, her heart is in turmoil. A cute voice sounded from the young girl, polar opposites to her expression. "Why did you kill me? I was forced to say those things in fear of my life yet you still kill me? Why? I wanted to live. I wanted to see my parents again."
Her sword lowered as regret started to rise up within her. Regret for not trying another way. Regret for killing a child. The other people surrounding her are still rushing in but she has lost all will to resist as she was only able to think one thing.
'I should atone for their deaths with my own.'
Fen Chang and the others where completely out of her mind, as she never even thought of them but only wished to rid herself of this regret of killing. She was stationary, ready to die.
That was until a white spirit appeared by her side speaking directly into her mind. "Thank you! Thank you for killing that horrid man who took over my body. Thank you for preventing that person from committing even more horrible things with my body.
There is no need to feel regret for killing. Even as a child myself I understood that death was a part of life. After witnessing my whole village be slaughtered and my brothers and sisters in the orphanage being killed for fun. I understood a simple fact of life right there and then. "The weak die while the strong live". Killing and death is a part of living, and the stronger you are the more you are going to live and encounter death and killing."
Gengxin spoke back. "Why do you forgive me? I killed you and killed all these others."
"Because that's life. I got killed because he was stronger than me, and he got killed because there was someone stronger than him. I am not the one who needs to grant you forgiveness, its yourself that needs to."
Like a bomb went off within her head, she remembered the times she killed and how weak she was when younger. She steeled her heart remembering how hard she trained to be strong and stay near Changs side.
"Killing is a part of life and I should deal with it. If I wallow and regret after every life I take, I will never be able to keep up with the other girls and stay by his side. I would be nothing but a hindrance, wallowing in self-pity."
Resolution in her eyes she started into the shocked eyes of the girl in front. "I killed you because you where an enemy."
Gengxin raised her sword and slashed down with new found vigour. The girl panicked as she had no weapon, and because of that the sword slashed straight through her, from the left collar bone to the bottom of her right hip.
With one enemy down, she readied herself for the others incoming. A battle ensued, with over 40 enemies all attacking a single lone female. Although the numbers aren't in her favour, the female slid around attacks and countered with her sword cutting them down like grass blades.
Tired and exhausted mentally, Cai Gengxin was thankful when the trial ended after all of the people where killed. Without even knowing about her surroundings, she joined the hug that was happening in front of her, and fell asleep within the embrace of her lover and sisters.