“Haaah! Haaaah! Haaah! Are they… still chasing us?”

“They are. Keep running, Lady Zhenya! Don’t stop!”

Xing Zhenya’s ragged breathing couldn’t mask the pounding of her heart as she and Gao Zhou ran through the Magical Beast Forest. Their footsteps pounded against the ground. They did their best to dodge trees, shrubs, and roots, but she stumbled several times in her haste.

Behind them echoed the sound of stampeding feet.

“Where do you think you’re going, Young Lady?! Come back! I promise I won’t bite you… too hard!”

Xing Zhenya gritted her teeth as Mao Zemin’s voice echoed to her from behind. She pushed chi into her legs, felt the energy suffusing them with strength, and tried to increase her speed. Gao Zhou kept pace. His cultivation base was higher than hers.

She couldn’t recall how long she had been running, but it felt like days. This game of cat and mouse between her and Mao Zemin had been going on for too long. Her body ached. Her mind felt clouded. The only reason she hadn’t stopped was because she knew what would happen if that man caught her.

And so she ran.

A whizzing sound echoed in her ear.

“Look out!”

Gao Zhou reacted before she could, pushing her aside. She landed on the ground with a harsh thud, but she didn’t scold her bodyguard, for sticking out of his arm was an arrow.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Gao Zhou removed the arrow and ignored the blood spurting from his wound as he pulled her up. They took off once more, however, Mao Zemin and his gang were even closer now. She could hear their cackles and catcalls.

“Stop running, babe! There’s no need to be afraid of us!”

“We’ll treat you real nice!”

“Gya ha ha ha! You’ll be begging us for more by the time we’re through with you!”

Xing Zhenya almost couldn’t believe animals like this existed. These bastards thought nothing of others. She and the various women residing in Chenhou were playthings to them. Their actions disgusted her.

Those thoughts were interrupted when Gao Zhou stumbled. His breathing had grown heavy and his skin was pallid. Sweat drenched his brow as he held his wounded arm, which now had purple veins visibly pulsing against it.

“G-Gao Zhou! Your arm!” she cried out.

He gave her a mirthless smile. “It looks like… that arrow… was… tipped with… poison. Dammit all.”

Poison was not used very often among cultivators, but that didn’t mean no poison existed. There were plenty of potent poisons that could damage and even kill cultivators. Some could even slay cultivators at the Deva Realm, or so her father had once said.

It didn’t take long for Mao Zemin and his group to catch up and surround them. Xing Zhenya glared at the lecherously grinning men as they closed in. Standing right in front of her was Mao Zemin, who wore the most perverse smirk of them all. She shivered as he looked at her from her toes up to her head. The way he focused on her chest and crotch made it feel like he was stipping her naked with his eyes.

“You fiend! Is it not enough that you’ve enslaved my father and mother?! Now you have to come after me too! Have you no shame?!” Xing Zhenya shouted.

“Shame? What is that? Can you eat it?” Mao Zemin chuckled at his own joke before becoming serious. “There is no shame in the strong eating the weak. You are weak, and therefore, I can do whatever I want to you. That’s how this world works. If you want to blame anyone for your situation, blame yourself for being too weak to fight against me.”

While Mao Zemin wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t right either. The strong did have powers over the weak. Cultivators could easily kill regular people without consequence if they wanted. Few did because it simply wasn’t worth their time. Those who bullied others like Mao Zemin were simply scum who lacked any sense of self-restraint.

“You might be more powerful than me, but stronger? Don’t make me laugh. You’re weak. A pathetic coward who can only bully those who are weaker than yourself. Your strength is fake!” Xing Zhenya stated.

Her words caused Mao Zemin’s group to laugh at their leader’s expense.

“Hah! Look at the mouth on this girl!”

“You hear that, Zemin? Looks like you’re pathetic!”

“Are you gonna put up with that?”

Mao Zemin glared at Xing Zhenya. He no longer looked like he was enjoying himself. The dark look in his eyes made her shiver in fear.

“If you had just given yourself to me, I would have treated you at least halfway decently, but since you’re dead set on acting like a bitch, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to make you regret talking to me like that. You’re going to become my cumdump for the rest of your miserable life!”

“I’d sooner die!” Xing Zhenya stated.

“That can be arranged too,” Mao Zemin said.

“If you want to get the Young Lady, you’ll have to go through me first!”

With a roar, Gao Zhou exploded with power and rushed at Mao Zemin, swinging his axe in wild arcs. His foe quickly backpedaled to avoid the big weapon. Several of his men moved in front of him and blocked the axe with their swords.

Had this been before he was poisoned, Gao Zhou would have easily overpowered these goons. The poison had already seeped into his blood and was wreaking havoc on his body. His strength failed him, and the men who blocked his axe pushed back and overpowered him instead.

Gao Zhou stumbled. One of the men kicked him in the chest, sending him back even more. Blood welled up inside his lungs. He fell to his knees, coughing up blood laced with purple poison.

“Gao Zhou!” Xing Zhenya knelt down and placed a hand on his back.

“Young Lady… get back… I’ll… deal with these… cretins… somehow…”

“Stop talking! You’re in no condition to fight!”

“But… if I don’t…”

Gao Zhou was unable to say more as he hacked up more purple blood. The veins in his neck were now purple too.

“Hmph. This is what you get for remaining loyal to weaklings like the Xing Family. You only have yourself to blame for your predicament.” Mao Zemin snorted in amusement, then looked at his men. “Kill Gao Zhou, but leave Xing Zhenya to me. I’m going to get some use out of her before killing her.”

Xing Zhenya gritted her teeth as tears stung her eyes. She always knew that the Raging Boars would eventually make a move on them. They could not abide by a group that had even a modicum of power in their Chenhou. She just never expected they would attack so soon, but perhaps she should have. They were already strong enough to stamp out her family, after all.

As the men closed in, Xing Zhenya tried to shield Gao Zhou with her own body. He had given her so much. The least she could do was protect him in his time of need.

And yet the feeling of swords piercing her flesh never came.

“Get away from her!”

Xing Zhenya looked up as the shout rang out. She was just in time to see a figure drop from the sky. He landed on top of one man’s shoulders, driving the man into the ground, then leapt into the air. He spun like a top and kicked another man. The sound of that man’s neck snapping echoed around the forest.

“Is that… Jian Wu?” Xing Zhenya murmured in shock. “He’s not dead?”

Two more figures emerged from the trees. One of them was a giant black panther that leapt on one of Mao Zemin’s people and tore out his throat. The other was a young man with flaming red hair who released fire from his palms. The flames slammed into Mao Zemin’s group and lit them ablaze, causing many to scream as they fell to the ground and rolled.

Six of the twelve people who chased her were already dead, and Wu Jian quickly killed another one, though Xing Zhenya couldn’t figure out how. He threw a punch despite being too far away. The next thing she knew, one of her enemies had a hole in his chest.

Several shadows erupted from the ground, skewering two more people. Their blood stained the forest floor.

“What is this?! Jian Wu?! How are you still alive?! This is impossible! Impossible! I saw you die!” Mao Zemin screamed as Wu Jian killed another enemy with a powerful backhand. Once again, he wasn’t standing anywhere near his opponent, and yet his attack still struck someone.

“Oh? I’m dead? Really? You shouldn’t write someone off like that unless you see a corpse,” Wu Jian said.

The man with red hair killed the last person among Mao Zemin’s group. Now alone, the man in question raised his hands as he backed up as Wu Jian slowly walked toward him. Xing Zhenya used this moment to sling Gao Zhou’s arm over her shoulder and help him stand.

“Now… let’s be calm about this. You don’t need to kill me. I can help you. You want revenge on my old man, right? Well, I can help you get into our headquarters undetected. You’ll get the perfect chance to kill him. He won’t even know you’re there.”

Wu Jian stopped walking as though to ponder his offer. Xing Zhenya didn’t get a chance to warn Wu Jian not to accept Mao Zemin’s offer. The treacherous man grinned as he threw a poisoned dagger at her friend.

“Gotcha! Did you really think I’d let you use me?! Now die!”

Wu Jian held out his hand and the dagger suddenly stopped just before impaling his palm. XIng Zhenya, Gao Zhou, and Mao Zemin gasped.

“He’s at the Anima Realm!” she exclaimed.

“This isn’t possible! How did you get so strong?! You weren’t even at the Hunger Realm when I saw you last time! There’s no way you could have become so strong in such a short amount of time!” Mao Zemin screamed.

“I’m not going to waste words explaining anything to do.”

That was the only thing Wu Jian said. The next thing Xing Zhenya knew, her friend had thrust out his hand as though to grab something. She blinked as something red and beating appeared in his grasp. It was… a heart? Was that a heart? It was, wasn’t it? It was red, covered in veins, and pulsed like it was beating.

Xing Zhenya felt bile rise up in her throat, but she also felt vindicated, especially when she looked at Mao Zemin and saw him standing there with a hole in his chest. She didn’t understand it, but Wu Jian had somehow clawed her enemy’s heart out of his chest from several feet away.

“Go ahead and die,” Wu Jian stated as he crushed the heart in his grip. Of course, that was just for show. Mao Zemin was already dead. His body tilted to one side and he hit the ground with a dull thud.

Silence followed the action. Xing Zhenya didn’t know what to think. Everything had happened so fast that she was left speechless.

She felt a moment of fear when Wu Jian turned to her, but it left when she saw his relieved smile. He walked over and stopped just short of being able to touch her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine… but Gao Zhou…” She looked sadly at her bodyguard, who was slumped against her. He wasn’t dead, but the poison was clearly killing him.

Wu Jian turned to his companion. “Huǒ Shuchang?”

“Haaah. I’ve got a pill that should cure him… provided the poison isn’t too potent. I’m sure it’ll be fine. These weaklings don’t look like the type who can afford anything too powerful,” the one called Huǒ Shuchang said as he removed a pill and tossed it to Xing Zhenya. “Have your friend swallow that.”

Xing Zhenya fumbled with the pill for a bit, but then she laid Gao Zhou on the ground and pushed the pill into his mouth. He had trouble chewing it. She bit her lip as he slowly broke through the outerlayer, then sighed in relief as the liquid gushed down his throat. A slow change soon overtook him. The purple veins began vanishing, starting from his chest and going toward his extremities. His breathing soon evened out as he closed his eyes.

“Huh. He fell asleep. He must have been tired,” Wu Jian said.

“He is,” Xing Zhenya confirmed. “We’ve been running for so long. I… I had been so certain… that we were gonna die.”

Now that the situation was over, Xing Zhenya felt all of her emotions spill out. Tears spilled down her face and splashed against her bodyguard’s chest. Her body was wracked as she sobbed in both fear and relief. She couldn’t believe they were still alive.

“Th-thank you… Jian Wu… without you… we would be dead…”

Wu Jian sighed and shook his head. “You shouldn’t thank me. I feel responsible for what happened here. The Raging Boars might not have attacked you if you weren’t involved with me.”

“No,” she refuted him. “This was going to happen eventually. It’s not your fault.”

Wu Jian looked ready to argue, but then sighed and thought better of it. He changed the subject. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Taking a slow, shuddering breath, Xing Zhenya began talking. “After you took off, my group managed to escape back to Chenhou safely. I was talking to Father about what we should do when Mao Yuhan appeared on our doorstep with a group of people. They didn’t even bother demanding our surrender and just attacked us like savage beasts. Gao Zhou took me and fled while Father fought to hold them off.”

While Xing Zhenya said he wasn’t responsible for this, Wu Jian still felt like it was his fault. He had goaded Mao Zemin in the restaurant. That was certainly what had caused Mao Yuhan to take action. Perhaps if he had done nothing, this would not have happened.

Xing Zhenya looked at Wu Jian, eyes stained with tears. “Please… Jian Wu. They have my father. Please, rescue him!”