I didn't hesitate to rush forward, but one of Mo Yi's cronies stepped out to block my path.
"Heh," he chuckled, cracking his knuckles gleefully. "If we defeat you, we'll be able to take your place and even become direct disciples of the sect leader.'
"Let's kill him and take his place!" A second lackey agreed, coming to his side. The both of them were already conjuring qi, their hands wreathed in ghostly purple flames. Pure Yin Demonic Claws, huh? A low level technique that was practiced by most disciples.
Both cronies flanked me from opposite sides, claw-shaped qi protruding out of their hands and raking up soil. Leaves were sliced upon the slightest of contact, and a maelstrom of violence blasted the clearing to devastation. Within seconds, they reached me, their hands reared up to slash me…
…only for their eyes to bulge when I grabbed hold of their faces. Without even waiting for them to cry out in surprise, I slammed their skulls together with such force that bone shattered and blood sprouted into the air like geysers. The near headless lackeys fell together, blood still coursing out of their exposed brains.
"What the…?"
"He killed them in an instant?!"
The remaining two underlings stepped back in surprise, their mouths falling open. Mo Yi, on the other hand, didn't look surprised.
"As expected of the Peak Master. We can't underestimate your strength, can we?"
He then shoved Lan Bei Er to the ground. She coughed and tried to right herself, but he kicked her so hard she crashed into a tree. Clutching her ribs, she moaned. Mo Yi kept his eyes on me, waiting to see if I was going to react.
I didn't. His lip curled into a sneer when he realized that he wouldn't be able to use Lan Bei Er as a hostage. He understood that if he killed her, I would simply kill him after that.
If that was the case, then he would have a higher chance of survival if he worked with his two remaining lackeys to kill me.
"Form the Blood Array!" He snapped at his two friends. They nodded and spread out, already preparing talismans and relics to set up an array. Arcane runes glowed and illuminated in the air, giving the clearing a crimson tint. A blood-red sphere expanded to swallow me whole. Pushing my glasses up my nose, I observed the array without doing anything. Mo Yi cackled triumphantly. "Even if you're stronger than the three of us, there's no way you can escape from this array…"
I raised a foot and stomped it on the ground, shattering the blood-red sphere. All three disciples stared at me, their jaws hanging open as crimson fragments fell around them. The accumulated qi and runes dissipated, leaving nothing but a cool breeze.
"You call this an array?" I asked, shaking my head in disappointment. "Just what has your master been teaching you?"
"Im…impossible…!"
"Also…you guys talk too much."
"What…?"
They never got to finish their sentences. I was already behind them, my right fist drawn. Mo Yi spun around instinctively, but he still couldn't avoid my punch. I felt the satisfying crack of bone against my knuckles and watched the spray of blood before he went down.
"Mo Yi!"
"How dare you?!"
His remaining lackeys leaped at me, but I dropped to a crouch, avoiding the first Blood Crimson Slash. Then I kicked the assailant in the chest so hard that I broke every ribs and pulverized his heart. He dropped dead. The other attacker slashed at my neck but I ducked. Scraping my hands against the ground, I did a cartwheel and whirled about to kick him. He fell a few meters away with a gurgle.
Landing back on my feet, I then checked on Lan Bei Er. She was wounded, but it wasn't anything serious. I could see that she was already healing herself with her techniques. Well, the priests and priestesses of White Herb Sect were known for their medicinal techniques and knowledge. We would call them Traditional Chinese Medicine in my previous world, but I doubted anyone here had heard of such a term.
Still, it was pretty impressive. Also, she must have summoned a barrier in reflex to protect herself from Mo Yi's attack to minimize the damage.
"Are you all right?"
Even so, I couldn't help but be concerned for "my woman." Lan Bei Er nodded and rose to her feet shakily. Then she pointed in slight panic.
"Behind you!"
"Oh, don't worry about them." I raised a hand and half turned around. Mo Yi and his surviving crony immediately froze and dropped to their knees.
"Peak Master! Please have mercy on us! It was our fault for stupidly challenging you!"
"Peak Master, you're so great and magnanimous, you will surely overlook us insects, right? Just treat us as a fart and let us go!"
"We have eyes but can't see Mount Tai! We should have realized why you were chosen by the sect leader to be the Peak Master!"
There they went with those strange Chinese expressions. I was trying my best not to cringe. Man, did they really have to use the same cliché dialogue over and over again? It seemed that no matter which world I went to, people always said the same thing.
"We should never have touched your woman! Next time we see sister-in-law, we will be sure to protect her from other men!"
"I'm not his wo…"
Before Lan Bei Er could finish her sentence, I clamped a hand over her mouth and silenced her. At first she resisted, and then she suddenly remembered where she was and what situation she was in, and she fell silent. When I let her go, she put on a show and clung to my arm, clearing her throat.
"I'm his wife."
"Yes, yes, we apologize, sister-in-law!"
"We'll definitely protect you from now on!"
"Sorry for disturbing you and your wife's time together, Peak Master!"
"Yeah, yeah…" I waved them away. "Now stop wasting my time and get lost."
Even as I turned away, I could already predict what would happen. Not only were they spouting the same cheesy dialogue that I read in trashy web novels back in my previous life, I was pretty sure they were going to do the same cliché actions that every villains did.
And I wasn't disappointed.
The moment my back was turned, Mo Yi and his lackey drew daggers from under their robes and lunged at me. I rolled my eyes, wondering why they didn't use those weapons from the start. They really were failures of villains.
I should teach them how to be a real villain.
Pushing Lan Bei Er to the side and catching a glimpse of her shocked face when she saw that we were under attack, I allowed Mo Yi and his crony to stab me. Of course, I shifted to ensure that their weapons didn't hit my vitals, but it still hurt like a bitch. Still totally worth it, though.
"Got you!"
"We killed him!"
"Oh, really?"
"…eh?"
The two of them looked up at my smiling face. Then they looked down at their knife arms, which were in the firm grip of my hands. They pulled as best as they could, only for me to clamp my fingers so tightly it crushed their bones.
Their agonized screams filled the air.
"I gave you a chance and you blew it," I said, even though I had predicted that this would happen. In fact, I even planned for it. Then I unleashed my black and white qi through their bodies, disintegrating them. Nothing was left of them except skeletons, and I allowed their bones to fall onto the ground in a messy heap. Turning to a stunned Lan Bei Er, I continued to smile. "Are you all right?"
"You…you…"
I made a show of falling to my knees and groaning, clutching at my wounds. Yanking out the daggers, I collapsed and closed my eyes.
"No!" Lan Bei Er rushed over. "You…you protected me."
"Only natural," I muttered through gritted teeth. I wondered if I was going to win an Oscar for my acting. "I told you, didn't I? I fell in love with you at first sight. There's no way I will allow any harm to befall you."
"Even though you told me not to…you still sacrificed yourself to save me…"
Lan Bei Er was weeping now. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on my injuries. White qi began coalescing around her fingers and I felt warmth seep into me, knitting my torn flesh back together and sealing the bleeding. Within minutes, the pain was gone. I sat up, totally amazed by how miraculous her healing techniques were.
"What…?"
"The secrets of the White Herb Sect." Lan Bei Er forced a smile and patted her white robes. "Consider it thanks for saving me. But…that's still not enough to fully repay the debt I owe you…"
"Debt? What debt? Let's not be so calculative." I waved her words away and stood up. Apparently some weakness still lingered and I inadvertently swayed on my feet. Lan Bei Er was quick to catch and support me.
"You shouldn't move around so much so soon. You need time to fully recover."
"We don't have much time." I was happy to lean on her, but I straightened. There were still things to do. Lan Bei Er looked at me quizzically.
"What do you mean?"
"We need to get you out of here. Follow me."
Lan Bei Er stared at me disbelievingly. After all that happened, she was partially resigned to being kept here as my prisoner. Deep down, she didn't trust me, despite the show I put on for her. I didn't blame her. At the end of the day, I was a demonic cultivator. And I did lie to her, sort of. I could have dodged Mo Yi and his crony's attacks, but I didn't. I took them to buy her trust, to leave a good impression on her.
And I knew that I had to make the good impression last. There was no way I would be able to win her heart fully if I kept her imprisoned here. Perhaps she might develop Stockholm syndrome, but that wasn't the same thing as love. She would simply learn to sympathize with me and treat me more favorably, but she still wouldn't accept me because she would yearn for freedom and other things.
So I should just give her what she wanted, but that didn't mean I was giving up. This was simply part of a larger scheme. I was aware that I might fail, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. High rewards always came with high risks. I was going all in on this one.
"Follow me closely. We don't want to run into other members of my sect. I know some of the routes that are rarely used, but that doesn't mean we should lower our guard."
Some of the arrays were set up by me, after all.
We skirted past the arrays I set up – as their creator, I knew how not to trigger them. Following the route down a mountain path, I led her through an abandoned cave that nobody knew about. Even though it was so dark that we couldn't see our fingers in front of us, my glasses were enchanted. Qi glowed around he lenses and allowed me to see in the dark.
I used the darkness as an excuse to hold Lan Bei Er's hand. "You'll get lost if you don't hold onto me," I explained to her. I could feel her tensing in my grip, but she didn't pull away. That was a start, at least.
We walked on in silence for many minutes, and perhaps because she wanted to break the awkwardness, Lan Bei Er asked a question.
"Will you be all right? I mean, you…killed fellow members of your sect. Would they not…take action against you?"
"You saw what happened. They tried to kill me first. I was simply defending myself."
"Yes, that's true. But…will they believe you?"
I chuckled and tightened my grip on her hand. "They don't care. We're a demonic sect. The only thing they care about is results. If they died, it's because they were too weak. That's all to it. Nobody is going to miss their deaths. They probably wouldn't even notice that they're dead, if I were to be honest."
"The demonic sects are really…callous."
"Why do you think your orthodox sects call us demonic?"
"But you…you are different." Lan Bei Er paused for a moment. "You don't behave like a demonic cultivator at all. I mean, yes, you ruthlessly left my friends to the whims of your fellow sect members, but I suppose an orthodox cultivator would have done the same…it's not like we're immune to cowardice. Other than that, though, you…you helped me. And you don't attack other people unless provoked or attacked first."
"Well…I used to be a normal person, after all." In another life, in another world…before I ended up here.
"So are all the other demonic cultivators. Every single one of you started out as a normal person."
Such were the processes of cultivation. Normal people had two paths – orthodox cultivation or demonic cultivation. Either would allow them to ascend to immortality. However, the demonic way was filled with bloodshed, the sacrifice and slaughter of others, and other taboo crimes. They tended to be ruthless and selfish, willing to do anything for the sake of attaining power, even if it meant drinking the blood of infants or massacring entire villages to suck their qi.
The orthodox sects were supposedly on the side of justice, vowing to protect innocent people and hunt down demonic cultivators. But they were full of hypocrites, as I learned throughout my time here. Honestly, orthodox or demonic, they were just labels made up by people. It was people who define what orthodox or demonic was. There were clear boundaries, of course, but the hands of orthodox cultivators were not as spotless as they make out to be, and not all demonic cultivators were bloodthirsty monsters who indulged in slaughter.
I was just unfortunate enough to be transmigrated into a demonic sect, that was all.
By now I could see the exit of the cave. I led Lan Bei Er to it and pointed toward a trail that wounded through a forest outside the Heaven and Earth Sect's territory.
"Follow that path and it should take you to Dragon Gate City," I told her. Lan Bei Er nodded and stepped toward the trail. Before she left, she turned to look at me one last time. She then lowered her head.
"Thank you very much."
Then she was gone. I watched her departing figure grow smaller and disappear into the woods, feeling a tinge of regret. However, I knew it was for my own good.
"We'll see each other again," I promised, and then returned back to the cave. On the journey back to my little abode atop Human Peak, my mind burned with the fervor of brewing schemes.
Oh, yes…we would definitely see each other again.