“Then who’s going to defeat us, if not you?” Boss Bao asked.

Long Di pointed to where the bandits surrounded the disciples. “Her.”

When Boss Bao turned around, what he saw sent a chill down his spine.

****

The group of bandits stood petrified as a terrifying darkness swallowed them.

In their midst quietly floated a cauldron of darkness. It was black, but not the same black as Long Di’s cauldrons.

No, this particular black was a deep chasm, a void that was unfathomable in nature. It was a stain in space, something that escaped the boundary of everything around it.

“B-Bo—Huh!?” One of the bandits stared into space in fear. One could see a thin film of darkness covering his eyes.

This was the case for every single bandit who surrounded the kids. Once their eyes were covered, the darkness crept like cracks outwards, making it appear as if their eyes were rotting.

“Aaaahhhh!!!”

Blood-curdling screams rang out in the air as the bandits lashed out in fear and panic!

“W-What the heck is going on!? What are you doing to them!?” Boss Bao didn’t know what to do, but he could almost feel the fear that his men were under.

“I’m not doing a thing,” Long Di advised indifferently. “Like I said, it’s her.”

Boss Bao followed Long Di’s line of sight and saw within the midst of the disciples a figure that avoided his perception entirely. But she shouldn’t have because… she was beautiful.

Her skin was a pearl white that emitted a soft glow. Her hair was like an ethereal mist, possessive of substance. A few strands naturally fell that curled all the way down as they cradled her face.

Her eyes, however, were the sole feature that changed. Where in the past she had small dots of light within, as of now it was pitch black.

Apart from Long Di, no one else was aware of her presence. It was like she wasn’t even there. Even the disciples that she was in front of didn’t realise she was there until Long Di specifically referenced her.

Boss Bao looked at her and though she was incomparably beautiful, at the same time, she struck a soul-deep fear in him as he looked into her eyes.

“J-Junior apprentice-sister Shen Ling?” Feng Yu trembled as she called out her junior sister’s name.

Shen Ling turned to Feng Yu. Her face was expressionless, and Feng Yu flinched back in fear at what she saw. However, the same fear that assaulted Boss Bao and his men didn’t affect her.

Not long after, however, Shen Ling turned her full attention to Boss Bao, who was still petrified.

She took slow steps in his direction, causing him to frantically and continuously shrink back.

“Wha-What the hell are you!?” Tears filled Boss Bao’s eyes as the little girl approached him.

Long Di watched the entire scene with interest, though his face didn’t reflect it. “What is happening right now?” He asked under his breath.

[Inconceivable.]

“What am I missing here Destiny?” Long Di asked.

‘She’s actually…’ The Destiny Scale paused for a second to process what Long Di just said. ‘M-My name is not Destin…’

“You’re getting off-track here, Scaley. What is this? Why is Shen Ling so unsuck-ish all of a sudden?”

[…]

The Destiny scale had to take a minute to recover from overexposure to Long Di. When it felt that it was in a good place, it continued.

[The cultivation method I gave her is called the Abyss Scripture. She has actually managed to not only decrypt a fraction of the first part of the scripture, but she has also managed to execute the technique hidden within it. I cannot stress how incredible this is. She is a prodigy. Could it be…?]

“Y’kno, I can fanboy about her too if you tell me something about all this,” said Long Di., hearing how the Destiny Scale just trailed off into silence at the end.

[Nice try.] The Destiny Scale wasn’t going to fall for such an obvious ploy.

Long Di was speechless when he heard this. “It just dawned on me that you seem to know what fanboying is. HOW? And WHY?”

As Long Di and the Destiny Scale bickered about the important things in life, Shen Ling finally appeared right before Boss Bao.

Her robe was gently swaying in the wind, making her look even more like an immortal fairy.

“P-Please leave me alone. I’m sorry!” Boss Bao was a sorry mess at the moment. Snot tears and all sorts of calamity poured down his face as he begged for her to spare him.

Suddenly, Shen Ling cocked her head to the side before she flashed a smile at him. In any other setting, this would be a blessing to all those who saw it, but not this time.

This couldn’t be more obvious in Boss Bao, who, instead of being enamoured, widened his eyes in horror once more.

Crack!

Boss Baos’ body started to corrode by what appeared to be cracks of darkness. At the same time, something that looked like tears of darkness flowed from Shen Ling’s eyes.

As the drops fell, they evaporated into what could only be described as a smoke-like trail of inky blackness mid-fall. Shen Ling was quite literally crying darkness.

[No!]

Long Di only heard the Destiny Scale’s cry for a second before it shuddered. It then shone with a bright divine light that illuminated Boss Bao for a fraction of a second.

Whoosh!

Before Boss Bao could issue a scream, the divine light wiped out his existence, along with the darkness that corroded him.

The light then enveloped Shen Ling. The tears she cried disappeared and the dots of light appears in her eyes before she fell unconscious.

Long Di moved instantly and caught her before she touched the ground. He laid her down gently as he watched her sleeping figure.

“What did you just do?”

[… I saved… her. Since you wa… wanted to keep her. Please warn h… her to never use that last ability, or w… what she truly is will… will be exposed. She… is not what we thought her to be.’

Long Di knew that something was wrong and instantly turned around to see the Destiny Scale flickering.

“So it was identity theft? That’s a thin—?”

‘Give this… to the kids, once you’re done with… them.’ The Destiny Scale ignored Long Di’s question and pressed three orbs into his body.

“Why are you a failing light bulb right now?”

[I apologise… in advance for your… divinity…]

After saying this, the Destiny Scale disappeared into his body. He received a final piece of info from it before it went quiet, and no matter how Long Di called out to it, he received no response.