Lin Xiaoyan didn't plan to give Mingyu a breathing space. He immediately unsheathed his sword, and ran towards Mingyu, his feet light as a feather, on the snowy ground.
On getting close, he leapt up from the the ground, raising his sword in preparation to strike.
"I won't be defeated easily." Mingyu said under his breath, and his grey eyes gleamed as he braced himself for the powerful hit, that was to come.
He muttered a spell, fueling his sword with spiritual power, in order to reduce the expected impact.
Lin Xiaoyan landed right before Mingyu and slashed at him, who was on the defense. Their swords and powers clashed, which resulted to a burst of energy.
Lin Xiaoyan was barely pushed backwards by the repulsion of their powers, while Mingyu who had used up most of his power, and had also suffered a terminal injury, was sent flying in the air, crashing down to the ground with a loud thud.
Groaning and grunting in pain, Mingyu slowly got up on his knees, the impact had made his wound much worse, making it bleed more profusely. This won't end well, Mingyu thought to himself.
He knew he couldn't defeat Lin Xiaoyan in his current state, and desperation clawed at his mind. With a surge of panic, he quickly reached for a talisman within his robes, which he always carried in case of emergencies.
Channelling some of the little power he had left to his fingers, he drew a symbol on the talisman.
Realizing what Mingyu was about to do, Lin Xiaoyan's eyes widened. He charged towards Mingyu with his gleaming sword, but before he could get to Mingyu, the talisman glowed with a blinding silver light which enveloped Mingyu, and right before the Jinxing Mages eyes, Mingyu disappeared.
The rest of the Mages immediately joined their leader by his side, looking at the spot where Mingyu had once been – which was stained with a pool of his blood.
"He is at his weakest, so he wouldn't be able to teleport far. Find him!" Lin Xiaoyan ordered and his men scattered about in search of the assassin.
….
Mingyu materialized in the middle of a lonesome street, his vision blurry from the teleportation. It was nighttime, so there were little number of people going about.
Due to the the high amount of spiritual power he had used up, the teleportation spell wasn't powerful enough to teleport him far, and he could already hear the sound of footsteps approaching him.
"Shit!" Mingyu cussed as he stumbled forward, his chest throbbing tremendously as he moved. The Jinxing disciples were hot on his heels, their shouts and footsteps closing in by the second.
With adrenaline coursing through his veins, Mingyu sprinted through the market, dodging the few merchants and civilians he met on the street.
He hid behind buildings and structures, and even used the little strength he had to climb the roofs of some houses.
"There he is! Get him!" One of the Jinxing Mages who had spotted Mingyu, alerted the few others that were with him, and they immediately chased after Mingyu.
Mingyu too, was quick to react, and ran as fast as he was able. As he ran, he spotted a large, old water barrel, tucked away in a narrow alley between two buildings.
The barrel was partially hidden by a tattered awning and some stacked crates, making it the perfect concealment. Mingyu quickly dove behind the barrel, holding his breath and hoping the Jinxing disciples wouldn't think to look there.
The heavens seemed to be against him, as not even a minute later, a few of the Jinxing Mages approached his hiding spot.
"His blood trail ends here." One of the Mages said, on noticing that the droplets of blood from Mingyu's chest wound had suddenly stopped. The droplets of blood on the ground was what they had used to track him.
"That means he is hiding somewhere around here." Another Mage said.
"So that's how they found me." Mingyu muttered, feeling stupid for not realizing his wound had been leaving a blood trail for the enemy.
I'll have to make a move before they find me, or it's game over. He thought to himself, as he sneakily came out of hiding, swiftly attacking the Mages from behind.
With precise strikes of his sword's hilt, he targeted the pressure points on the Mages bodies, rendering them unconscious in a matter of seconds, without making a sound.
The move he made proved to be detrimental for him, as it strained his injury.
With a huff of breath, Mingyu got on his knees, exhaustion eating at his bones as his strength waned by the second. His eyes began to drift close, and he slowly succumbed to unconsciousness.
The sound of cheers and merriment suddenly reached Mingyu's ears, and with difficulty, he opened his eyes to see where it was coming from. With dazed eyes, he saw a bar at the side of the street, and an idea popped in his head.
I cannot die like this. Mingyu's desperation fueled his body with strength. He stood up in determination, and made his way to the bar, dashing inside.
The patrons at the bar, turned to stare at the stranger that had entered, while Mingyu's eyes scanned the room frantically as if in search of something.
His eyes landed on the backside of a male waiter with fiery red hair, and without hesitation, Mingyu went over to the man, grabbing the man's collar.
However, as he looked into the waiter's face, he noticed the man was putting on a blindfold and was holding a walking stick.
"Sorry." Mingyu said with a wince, immediately releasing the blind man from his grasp.
He then looked around once more, before he grabbed a nearby woman instead, dragging her into the inner part of the bar – where the kitchen was – despite the woman's protests.
No one in the bar even tried to intervene, sensing that Mingyu was definitely not an ordinary man.
With shaking hands, Mingyu let go of the woman, after taking her to the kitchen of the bar. "Don't be scared." He said to the woman, but instead of his words to reassure her, it only made her fear heighten. "I don't want to do this, but I've no other choice. I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to be borrowing your body for the meantime."
As he spoke, he brought out a blue scale from his inner robe, without waiting for the woman to process all that he had said. The scale was glowing like a gem, and it was stained with Mingyu's blood which contained a potent amount of his spiritual power.
Mingyu looked at the woman with a piercing gaze, as if trying to see into her soul. He whispered some inaudible words, and the woman's eyes widened in terror as Mingyu's body began to glow with a faint, silver light.
As he spoke the words, Mingyu allowed the little amount of power he had left to flow out of his body and move into the scale, intending to transfer his soul into the woman's body.
Mingyu's vision began to blur, and his consciousness slowly faded. Summoning every last ounce of strength he had, he moved closer to the woman to place the scale on the woman's forehead.
But just as the scale was about to touch the woman's forehead, a hand shot out from the shadows, pushing the woman aside. The person then stepped forward and stood in front of Mingyu, replacing the woman.
Nooo!!! Mingyu internally screamed, his eyes widening in terror, as he immediately recognized the person standing in front of him, but it was already too late.
When the scale touched the person's forehead, Mingyu felt a shivering chill course through him, and the scale burst into a radiant light, dissolving into the person's skin and pulling Mingyu's soul along with it.
The last thing Mingyu saw was the person's face, as they said, "My body is yours to possess."
Mingyu's eyes slowly closed, and his consciousness finally faded as his soul left his body. His lifeless body fell to the ground with a loud thud, and a blue symbol of a dragon appeared on his forehead, before it disappeared a second later.
….
Moments later, Lin Xiaoyan and the remaining Jinxing disciples burst into the bar, using the trail of blood Mingyu left behind, to trace him.
With their swords drawn, they stormed into the inner part of the bar, paying no attention to the terrified patrons that were cowering on their seats.
What greeted them as they got to the kitchen was Mingyu's lifeless body, on the ground.
Lin Xiaoyan's aide, Wen Ting, knelt on one knee beside Mingyu, and checked his pulse before shaking his head, grimly.
"Mingyu is dead."