I couldn't stand there frozen in shock so immediately I went to help.
It was instantly obvious who had the worse wound, at least outwardly, but there wasn't much of a reason to go to her first when we had only met twice. Not only that, considering who was in the room it was obvious who the ones that fought were.
Ying'er shouldn't be the aggressor, there's not much reason for her to be so hostile to some random woman she's never seen before. Yi Feng on the other hand shouldn't be able to even injure Ying'er with her cultivation, but I guess unexpected things can happen.
I took a good look at Yi Feng for a moment just to make sure she was really immobile at the moment.
She was still as immobile as when I saw her a second ago, but she was still breathing, even with that weapon lodged in her. Slowly the blood that exited her trickled down and began to soak her entire set of robes, drenching her in her own blood.
The sword lodged into her chest was slowly being tarnished by her fresh crimson blood as the handle was pointed downwards towards us. Soon that sword would become the very dam that'll block her blood draining even further from her.
Her arms were sprawled out to the side without a tinge of energy to move them. When I looked into her eyes I felt they were occasionally going back and forth from dulling to shining as if she was at the very door of death. But all the while her eyes were focused on Ying'er, that is until I appeared and languidly she looked towards me and lingered before returning her gaze to Ying'er.
Even with the lack of emotions being expressed by her I could feel a sense of hate towards Ying'er.
I soon reappeared kneeling next to Ying'er and reached out for that injured hand she was covering. At the moment I couldn't see any damage inflicted to Ying'er at all. There was no blood dripping and no missing body parts as of yet, the only thing I could affirm was that Ying'er was currently in pain.
I saw her eyes dart to me with a bit of wariness, but soon became relieved as I saw her tense body physically relax. As I spoke I could hear a hint of pain in her voice
"D-darling…"
"Come on Wifey, let's have a look at it. Move your hand."
She looked at me with a bit of hesitation as she slowly uncovered her hand. Soon I could see a small laceration that began from webbing that connected the index and middle finger down to the knuckles, but that probably wasn't the cause for her worries.
The part which induced our distress happened to be an asymmetric patch of darkened skin and flesh that looked like it was still writhing as we spoke.
Carefully, I brought her hand up towards me for a closer inspection. The wound itself was fine, it was a clean and easily healable wound by itself, but considering that she hadn't done so clearly, whatever was currently contaminating the flesh was preventing her.
I grabbed a hold of her forearm as I injected my Qi into her for a more detailed look and closed my eyes to concentrate. I started at the mid-point of her forearm and from there I made sure to inspect the path I was taking towards her wound just in case there was any spread of that darken material hidden under the surface of her skin.
Along the entire path of her meridians I found nothing which meant that it most likely hadn't been able to spread past that contaminated flesh. Finally I reached the site of it, Ying'er was doing a good job at suppressing the contaminated, but it doesn't seem like she could fully rid herself of it.
On the other hand that black mass seemed to be trying it's best to break through Ying'er defense with parts of it jutting out trying to find a weak point in her defense. At the same time I could start to feel a certain kind of heat being produced from that black mass.
I felt something that was familiar from this heat, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the moment. I had experienced something like this before, but I couldn't remember it right now.
Even if I couldn't fully remember it I still remember a few parts. Whatever was giving me this feeling I had only ever experienced once and it was somewhere within the mid-points of my younger cultivation days.
Parts of it started coming back to me. It was a person I had fought against at the time, their control over it was even greater than what was being seen now. That person wiped out an entire joint expeditionary force I happened to be a part of at the time, but I only really remember the aftermath at the moment with several dozen high ranking cultivators engulfed in a translucent black flame.
And the monster responsible for it was simply floating in the air. The crackle of her wicked laughter rang out amidst the charring and burning corpses below. Her silhouette was the focus of the night sky as she held quite an unusual weapon, a scythe.
I was only 1 of the 7 others who happened to survive that onslaught, though I occasionally still have contact with 2 of them. Luckily before she could finish all of us off right there and then a man appeared out of nowhere his abilities and her abilities seemed to cancel eachother out as they then flew away to take their battle elsewhere.
As I recalled a few memories I heard Ying'er grunt in pain once more and decided to let go of her. At the very least for now it looked like it wouldn't be spreading so I took out a bandage from my ring and wrapped her hand up.
At this moment I could finally hear the slightly hurried steps of someone rushing down the steps into the basement.
"W-what happened?! Yi Feng are you alright?! Oh my god, you've lost so much blood! Don't worry, let me stabilize you for now!"
As Li Daji came running in I could see the shocked expression of Jinzi as she stared at her. It was clear she was wondering what happened outside just as we were wondering what happened here.
If I had to guess then I think she would be asking why the very person who took her form was now just walking around as if that whole ordeal didn't happen in the first palace.
She wasn't the only one who was watching Li Daji though, Ying'er was quite attentive to her the moment she heard her voice.
Her gaze was slightly solemn as she looked at Li Daji, but changed to a wry smile when she noticed that I was looking at her.
"Ying'er don't worry about her for now, let's deal with your problem."
I finished bandaging up her hand then brought her over to a seat nearby. Once she was dealt with I went over the Jinzi as the only witness to what happened.
"Can you tell me what you saw or heard?"
I knew that with her cultivation if the other two went as quick as they could Jinzi probably wouldn't see too much, but that didn't mean wouldn't have heard anything.
"Well it all happened just as I found something to cover myself with. I heard some kind of pebble from the stairs and I looked up to see where that sound came from. I thought it was you coming back at first, but then I saw that woman attack Big Sister for a split second before the very next moment a sword was embedded into her chest and they both dropped down."
"Did you hear anything else?"
"Hear? Well, I guess I heard the swoosh of the weapons for a moment before a little bit of sound from when they were hit. Oh and Big Sister Scream at the end just before she fell down, then you came."
'A pebble hitting the stairs? Yi Feng was a bit through, she didn't just try a simple sneak attack instead she went with a distraction first. It was a good try, but she probably didn't anticipate how high her cultivation is.'
I nodded at her before bringing her over to sit on a seat just a little bit away from Ying'er. After she was seated I was going to ask Ying'er the same thing and of course her version was a bit more detailed.
"I heard a sound from the stairs and thought you two had come back, only to notice that it was a small pebble bouncing around. The moment I saw it I thought about how it even got there and from the trajectory of its movement I realized a bit too late that it was thrown from behind me.
By the time I turned back I saw a scythe-like weapon rapidly descending down upon me. Of course its speed was nothing to me especially when I'm 6 realms above her, but when I tried to clamp the blade of that scythe it didn't seem to want to stop.
Even then I wasn't worried as I just activated my Qi Reinforcement, but even then the blade part of that scythe managed to split my reinforcement apart and even tear through a part of my flesh.
By the time I realized and pulled my hand back I could already feel that something had invaded my body through that wound. Whatever it is caused my surrounding flesh and skin to blacken, but luckily I was able to contain it within a small sphere of influence.
At that point I panicked a little and pulled out a sword to shove straight into her chest, but I made sure I didn't hit anything that would kill her instantly.
Once my sword was forced into her chest her body seemed to go limp and that scythe I saw her hold seemed to disappear as well. When that happened I suddenly started to feel a surge of pain coursing through the hand that she cut, forcing me to my knees, it's probably what you heard to rush in to save me.
My Hero fufu~ Ah!"
"Thank you Wifey, just rest for now, okay?"
"Okay~"
I walked over to the final person present for the event. She was currently being stabilized by Li Daji. The paleness from before had recovered a bit and her overall complexion improved. The bleeding had stopped, but the sword was still lodged within her.
A part of me wanted to get angry at the woman, but seeing her current state I didn't wish to do so anymore.
"Little Daji, how is she?"
"She's stable for now. I don't know what to do about that sword lodged within her though."
"What kind of cultivator is she?"
"She's a Qi Cultivator, but recently she made some achievements in Physically cultivation as well."
"Hmm, is that right? Well that's good, since she had a bit of a foundation in physical cultivation then her healing process should be a bit expedited. The removal of that sword shouldn't be too detrimental either, but we should still let her recover a bit of strength first.
We'll bring her to my dungeon for now. Li Daji, as for you, I'd like for you to enter our house and stay in the guest room."
Of course a reaction I expected to occur came out from behind me.
"WHAT! D-darling you can't be serious!"
"Ying'er I am, at the moment she still has my trust. I'd like to hear her side of that event's account. We can all discuss what happened back then can't we?"
Begrudgingly she must've accepted what I was saying as I looked directly at her with a gentle smile, but meaning within my eyes were that I was quite determined to find out the truth.
"I uh…yes, yes I suppose we could Darling."