by Virlyce
I’m not sure how long I activated my Path of Slaughter for. I’m not sure about anything really. I just wanted to vent my anger at these bastards for killing Durandal like that! But once I was done, there was no one left. Just blood and bones and bits of mangled flesh floating around. The crater that was created by the tribulation was covered by a layer of knee-deep blood. Ah. Durandal…. I pulled out the egg and hugged it to my chest. Was Durandal really in here? If, if it hatches, will Durandal come out?
An ear-piercing screech rang through the air, and I quickly stuffed the egg back into my pouch. A phoenix was flying above me, circling overhead. This stupid bird. How dare it lay an egg that absorbed Durandal! I’ll go up there and strangle it with my bare hands! …But I can’t fly—I teleported!? Caught it! The erect peacock plummeted to the ground and I landed on its back. It let out a strangled cry. Oi, I’m not fat. What was it crying for? Wait a minute…. I shouldn’t kill this bird just because it annoyed me. I need it to incubate the Durandal egg. If Durandal hatches as a phoenix…, I think I’ll cry. Durandal…, please be okay. Please, don’t leave me. You promised not to leave me. Why? Why did you leave me again? Again! I hate you, you stupid sword spirit! Durandal…. Durandal…. Durandal…. My chest hurts so much.
“L-Lucia?”
Who was that? Ilya? And Softie.
“Lucia? Are you alright?”
“No.” I’m not alright. How can I be alright!? Durandal just died a stupid death! I could’ve saved him if I tried. If I didn’t threaten those stupid bird people to help him with a formation! I should’ve used all my treasures to block the lightning for Durandal instead! If I weren’t so greedy, Durandal would still be here, hugging me and patting my ears! Why am I so greedy!? Why!? Why…? …Durandal’s worth much more than every treasure I have. And I lost him. I fell to my knees and smacked the bird in my hand against the ground. It stopped moving, and I shoved it into the pouch. The blood covering my legs and waist was warm and wet. A very, very familiar feeling.
“Lucia….” Something soft pressed against my back. Arms wrapped around my waist, and a cold cheek pressed against my neck. “What happened?”
“S-Softie?” It’s hard to speak. My nose is stuffy. My eyes are watering. My lips won’t stop trembling. I don’t deserve to live. I let Durandal down. I’m such an idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid greedy squirrel!
“Stop!” Softie grabbed my forehead, but that didn’t stop me from slamming it into the ground again. She hissed in pain, but she didn’t let go. Why wasn’t she letting go? Why was she even here? What was she doing? “Lucia…. Tell me what happened. Everything’s going to be okay. Do you hear me? Everything’s going to be okay.”
“D-Durandal broke a-apart and merged into an e-egg.” I’m ugly crying. But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters if Durandal’s not around.
“Can I see the egg? If his core didn’t break, I might be able to save him,” Softie whispered. She stroked my back and patted my tail. There was something so comfortable about her embrace. It was warm and soft and perfect to cry in. I sniffled and reached into my pouch. Where…, where did the egg go!?
Softie yelped as I bolted to my feet and tore the pouch off my waist. I took out a bed from my interspacial ring, and then I flipped the pouch over and emptied its contents onto the soft mattress. An unconscious phoenix fell out. Then a red egg. Then a red pearl that looked like a … spirit seed! I grabbed the spirit seed and stared at it. This was Durandal. It had to be Durandal! I need a weapon! But all the exquisite swords Durandal had were broken….
“Congratulations, Lucia.” Softie smiled at me and patted my arm. Hmm? What was she talking about? “That’s Durandal, right? Sometimes, spirit seeds can absorb treasures; though, most of the times, they’re absorbed by the treasures instead. It looks like Durandal became stronger after fusing with a phoenix egg.”
“Then … he’s not dead?” Durandal’s alive! Well, he’s still in seed form, but he’s alive! I need to get a super-strong sword to stick him into! “Softie! Where can I find the best sword available?”
“Hmm? In Kong County, any sword in our Shadow Devil Sect’s treasury can be counted as a top-tier sword.” Softie nodded. Was it that easy? “But they’re only at the peak of spirit realm. If you want an earth-realm-ranked sword, then you might be able to find one at the King Province Exchange. Or … if you’re really feeling up to it, you can look for a sky-realm-ranked sword in Kang Country’s Imperial City.”
Hmmm. I think I’ll plant Durandal into one of the Shadow Devil Sect’s swords. The sooner Durandal reappears, the less stressed I’ll feel! “Do you have a good sword on you right now?”
Softie shook her head. “I only use whips. But I’m sure Elder Sky has a few nice swords with him.”
“Then it’s settled! Give me—”
Don’t you dare stick me in anything other than a sky-realm-ranked sword!
“…A second.” What was that? “D-Durandal?”
That’s right.
“You’re really alive! I’ll stick you in a sword right away! Then we can break you later and stick you in a better one, yeah?”
Stop! That won’t work. I can’t speak for long. Promise me you’ll put me in a sky-realm-ranked sword.
“Eh….”
Promise me!
“Eh….”
Lucia! If you don’t promise me, I won’t have sex with you ever again!
“Promise! I promise! I’ll stick you in a sky-realm-ranked sword!”
Good. It’s time for me to … hibernate. I believe in you, Lucia.
…In the end, he left me again, huh?
Chapter 13
It’s amazing how much can change in a year. That’s how long I’ve known Lucia. Just one year has passed and my world is completely different…. I’ve left the sect for the very first time. I’ve accomplished my first mission. I’ve had my first kiss ever with Lucia. I’ve led my first expedition. And I progressed by three whole ranks! Huh? What do I mean by my first kiss with Lucia? It’s exactly like it sounds like! I was meditating on the boat as usual in Lucia’s room while Lucia was sleeping. Then she suddenly stood up, walked over, and fell on top of me while muttering, “Durandal.” And that’s when we kissed…. Even though she was the one that was asleep, I feel like I’m the one who was taken advantage of…. It, it’s not like I enjoyed it! I-it was just really weird. Yeah. Weird.
“Softie, what’s up? Your face is redder than Lucia’s when she exercises.” Ilya sat next to me and tilted her head. Right now, I was sitting on a bench facing the side of the boat, staring off the edge at the sky. The boat was flying back to the Shadow Devil Sect. It hasn’t even been two days since Lucia completely eradicated the Star Phoenix Sect. Right, that’s another thing that’s greatly changed in a year: The five fingers of Kong County are now the four fingers of Kong county.
“Oh, nothing! Nothing at all!” It took forever to separate from Lucia. She hugs really tightly when she’s asleep!
“If you say so.” Ilya raised an eyebrow before shrugging. “So, be honest. How bad is it that Lucia destroyed the Star Phoenix Sect? Is anyone going to come after her? Do they have a backer that we should know about?”
I sighed. “Yes, they do. The Star Phoenix Sect is a small branch sect of the Rainbow Phoenix Sect. They’re located within the imperial capital of Kang Country. Most certainly, they’ll send someone to investigate the destruction of the Star Phoenix Sect, and since there were so many witnesses wanting to see who the new earth-realm experts were, they’ll be able to find out it was Lucia. Of course, the Shadow Devil Sect won’t abandon Lucia.” Even if the Shadow Devil Sect faces annihilation in the future, I’ll convince my grandfather to save Lucia. She’s our sect’s greatest hope of advancing in the world. It, it’s not like I have a personal bias that wants to help her—this is purely for the sect!
Ilya’s brow furrowed as she pursed her lips. She seemed a lot older than she actually was when she did that. “Does our Shadow Devil Sect have any backer
s?”
“Um. Sort of. We’re under the umbrella of the Immortal Devil Sect. Kind of.” It’s hard to explain. “Long, long ago…, no, that’s not right. How do I put it…? There’s basically two factions in the Immortal Continent—well, two major ones—the light faction and the dark faction. A long time ago, there weren’t any factions but separate sects. One sect, the Greedy Devil Sect, provoked the ire of nearly every single sect; as a result, they were besieged from all sides and eventually slaughtered. Then, the sects that slaughtered the Greedy Devil Sect decided to form an alliance to annihilate every sect that shared the same principles as the Greedy Devil Sect. Because—”
Ilya raised a hand. “Let me guess. Then the sects not in the alliance stuck together and formed the dark faction.”
“T-that’s right.” Ilya catches on a lot quicker than Lucia. At the very least, I know she’s always paying attention. Lucia doesn’t.
“And our Shadow Devil Sect belongs to this dark faction. If the Rainbow Phoenix Sect attacked us, then the dark faction would step in, is that it?” The creases in Ilya’s brows smoothed out as she took a notebook and magical writing utensil out of her interspacial ring. I took a peek at her notes, but they were written in an unknown language.
“That’s the theory….”
“Why’s it only a theory?”
“Well, there hasn’t been a large conflict in an extremely long time. A full sect annihilation hasn’t occurred in over a thousand years—even if it was only a tiny branch sect.” No one ever completely eradicates another sect; that’d be wrong! It’s etiquette for the losers to subordinate themselves underneath the victors and pay tribute. These were the rules that the two factions had set up to prevent a perpetual cycle of revenge. Now that our sect has broken that rule, a sky-realm expert from the dark faction might pay us a visit. “Mm. There might be trouble, now that I think about it more.”
“Trouble? What trouble?” A head with furry round ears appeared between me and Ilya from behind.
“L-Lucia!?” Where did she come from? “G-Good morning!”
“Hmm?” Lucia tilted her head, her hair brushing against my neck. I wanted to hide myself in a corner somewhere and cover myself with a blanket. “What’s up with her? Why’s she so jumpy?”
“I’m not sure,” Ilya said. “Did you do something to her this morning?”
“I don’t think so?” Lucia’s hand clapped against my shoulder. Heat flowed from her palm straight through my clothes and into my skin. My neck started to itch. “Softie? Are you okay? And what trouble were you talking about?”
“I, um, it’s, err—”
“You wiped the Star Phoenix Sect off the face of the earth,” Ilya said, interrupting me before I could gather my thoughts. Why am I so flustered!? L-Lucia doesn’t even remember doing anything to me, so it never happened! It never happened. “Usually, killing a million people brings about trouble from their family, lovers, allies, and whatnot. In this case, there might be another sect coming to look for you.”
“Me? Kill a million people? When did I do that?” Lucia blinked and recoiled while pointing at her own face.
“Y-you don’t remember?” How can she not remember? When Ilya and I found her in the Star Phoenix Sect, she was standing in a lake of blood filled with mangled corpses. There were no survivors! Could it be that she blocked off the memory due to trauma? Many cultivators choose to lose memories to rid themselves of heart devils, but if they suddenly encounter a trigger that makes them recall what they chose to forget, then the consequences will be dire. I hope Lucia hasn’t done something similar. I’ll force her to remember now to mitigate the damage. “The Star Phoenix Sect. Doesn’t that ring a bell?”
“Of course,” Lucia said and nodded. “Those selfless volunteers who sacrificed themselves completely for me to pass my tribulation. They were good people. Ah, I should burn some fake money for them. That’s a custom, right, Ilya?”
“You actually remembered something I said?” Ilya asked, her eyes widening. She bit her lower lip and shrank back and away from Lucia while hunching her shoulders. “You already gave me a noogie!”
I don’t understand. “Huh?”
“Lucia only remembers grudges,” Ilya said and hid behind me. “I didn’t think she’d still be upset over a little joke I played on her.”
Lucia snorted and raised her head into the air while puffing her chest out. “I’m not upset. I’m a very magnanimous and merciful person. Why would I hold a grudge against you?” Then Lucia summoned a grill from her interspacial ring and placed it down by the bench. “Anyways, it was my tribulation that destroyed the Star Phoenix Sect. It can’t be blamed on me! They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mhm.”
Lucia’s words would be a little more convincing if she wasn’t busy trying to cook a struggling phoenix on her grill. But since she was, I couldn’t believe her. I guess if she eats the phoenix now, when the sky-realm expert comes to check on us, she won’t eat it in front of him then. Now I’m curious—what does a phoenix taste like?
***
Phoenixes are magical creatures. No matter how high I turn up the heat on the grill, the phoenix simply doesn’t cook! Mm. Oh wells. I’ve cut it apart a few times, but it always turns into a pile of ash and reforms. So now I have a very upset phoenix and a pile of raw phoenix wings that can’t be cooked. There goes my dream of eating a phoenix. I don’t eat raw food; I’m not a savage! During my attempts to cook the phoenix, Ilya kept saying something about a Rainbow Phoenix Sect. I thought phoenixes could only be red. Are there green and yellow phoenixes too?
Anyways, now that Durandal’s in his spirit seed form, I don’t have to work hard anymore! I can finally slack off and rest. After all, I don’t have a sword to perform Madness Strikes with anymore. Mhm. This is justified laziness. And since the Impenetrable Shell needs a sparring partner to train and my usual sparring partner turned into a red bead, I don’t have to train this one either! As for the Footsteps of the Giant, well, that’s fun to use since it lets me walk on walls and ceilings, so I’m always using it. I’ve really been thinking about wearing pants instead of this robe since my clothes are still affected by gravity if I want to romp around upside down. But it’s great to finally relax after this hellish year of training! The only downside is Durandal doesn’t have a penis in his current state. Oh! And I’m an earth-realm expert now! I’ve learned how to teleport! All I have to do is focus really hard on the place I want to go and … poof! I’m behind Ilya now!
Ilya sighed and shook her head. “The last thing Lucia needed was the ability to teleport. She’s hyperactive enough as is. Now, if she’s bored, she’ll blink away somewhere and ruin something. She ruins everything she touches. How am I supposed to keep an eye on her now? This is a nightmare.”
Oi.
Softie made a strange expression, and Ilya stiffened before sighing. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”
Softie’s head bobbed up and down.
Ilya screamed when I grabbed her and ground my knuckles against her head. “Who’s a disaster, huh? Who ruins everything she touches, huh? Say that to my face.” For an encyclopedia, she’s gotten awfully brave over this past year! It’s because she reached the saint-realm by breaking through to the tenth circle, isn’t it? I have to teach her not to be arrogant since her dad’s not around to watch over her. She needs a responsible adult—say, a cute squirrelkin girl like me—to keep her from straying on the wrong path.
Speaking of the wrong path…, it’s quite unfortunate about the Star Phoenix Sect. If they helped Durandal pass his tribulation properly, I’m sure they would’ve all survived. But since they tried to kill—wait, no. Since they actually killed Durandal by interrupting him at a crucial moment, they were struck by divine punishment and wiped off the face of the Immortal Continent. Right. It was divine punishment caused by the heavens and not an individual. As the only witness, my words are law. Anyone who disagrees with me wasn’t actually there, so they’re wrong since I’m the only o
ne who witnessed what happened. …And this phoenix, but phoenixes can’t talk. Maybe they can talk to other phoenixes, but the other phoenix died while helping me pass my tribulation so that doesn’t matter.
“Mm. Anyways”—I released Ilya—“how do I get to Kang Country? That’s where you said I could obtain a sky-realm-ranked sword, right?”
Softie nodded. “I said Kang Country’s imperial capital. We’re in Kang Country right now. King Province and Kong County are a small part of it.” Softie’s brow furrowed. “I’m sure I told you this before when Ilya asked.”
“Even if you did tell me, you’d have to tell me at least ten times for me to remember something as boring as that.” Mhm. I only remember important things! Like how to cook stuff and miscellaneous things about Durandal like his favorite color. It’s blue, by the way. What was I doing? Right! “Okay, so how do I get to the imperial capital? I’m rich, right? I can just waltz in and buy a sword there, yeah?”
“You’re rich…?” Softie tilted her head. “Oh! It’s because you stripped all the resources from Kong County. But that’s not enough to purchase a sky-realm-ranked sword.”
What!? “A whole countysworth of stuff can’t buy me a sword? Then how do I get one?” Durandal’s set me on an impossible task! I should just stuff him into a normal sword. Right, even if he swore to never have sex with me if I did, it’s better than never seeing him again because sky-realm-ranked swords are impossible to obtain. Besides, it’s not like he can uphold that promise. All I have to do is shackle him with a spirit-restraining rope and tie him to a bed. Right. It’s settled then. I’m sticking Durandal into the first sword I find.
