63 FLY, MY TALONS, FLY; DANCE, MY BLADE, DANCE. (1/2)

One down.

Xiao Wu let go of the corpse in her hand. Her fleet footwork brought her beside another cloaked man that had yet to realize what was happening.

Swish!

With a diagonal sweep of her left arm, the black blade cut cleanly through the tendons by the knees, down to the bone.

”Argh!” Having suddenly lost his footing, the man couldn't even retaliate properly as the last ditch effort of stabbing out with his dagger-like fingers was easily sidestepped.

”Uh!” Xiao Wu elegantly twirled by the extended arm as seven blades silently shot straight through the man's heart, her black robes fluttering like the wings of a butterfly…

Swish!

In the midst of that dance, a black streak flashed past the man's vision: the unfortunate robed cultivator only felt a slight pain by the neck as his field of vision began spinning and spinning, blackening and blackening…

And that would be the last thing he'd ever see in this world.

Xiao Wu's eyes were doused in a purple glaze as her Spiritual Energy-infused Black Dragon Blade just cleaved straight through the neck of a person as if cutting down a blade of grass.

Second one down!

Dancing like a swallow, the blade's trajectory was further extended with a swift rotation of the waist: revived by the sudden burst of force, the sword motion met with a third cultivator's jugular before its momentum was exhausted…

”Kah,” was all he could utter as he fell.

Three, down!

”Ah!” a horrified person exclaimed: before anybody had even realized that one of their companions had long fallen, one more had been beheaded. Furthermore, a third was already on his knees, desperately grasping at his throat with a shocked expression: his eyes were already as murky as the waters of a swamp as his dying breath was snuffed out.

”Advanced Stage battle strength!” A shocked, furious shrill rang out, as one of the cultivators that had witnessed everything from start to finish without finding a chance to interfere alerted his companions.

”You little demonspawn, face me if you dare!” A cultivator with an Advanced Stage cultivation shouted with bloodshot eyes as he placed himself in between the handful of his remaining Basic Stage companions and the purple-haired lady in black.

Feeling the powerful cultivation base, Xiao Wu immediately kicked off the ground and retreated as fast as she could manage. Her breathing was a bit rushed and her eyes seemed calm, but in reality, her mind was reeling with both fear and shock.

The first kill of a lifetime was a great blow to a person's mind… It was not odd for it to be enough to offset the balance of the metaphorical scale lying within: the psychology of man was fragile, much so that it was possible to change someone completely with just a small nudge.

This was also why she could deal with them easily, and the same reason she had taken the risk to strike first so as to reduce the number of her opponents.

Unfortunately now, things wouldn't go as easy as before since now the remaining seventeen cloaked men were now taking her seriously, akin to enraged beasts with their hair standing on their end. Shouting, yelling and cursing at this little girl in front of them, they charged all at once!

Behind Xiao Wu, six flying blades revealed themselves and began wreaking havoc, albeit only on the surface: the young girl didn't yet possess the skill to perfectly divide her attention across multiple Flying Swords. It was a last ditch attempt on her part, but the experienced and now also wary cultivators easily dodged those half-baked attacks before closing in on her.

At that point, she could only rely on her footwork and swordsmanship to hold on: her accomplishments with the blade were great for her age, and her experience fighting fearsome monsters in the wild in the day and even stronger cultivator by night had further polished that raw genius into pure combat power.

Xiao Wu moved her whole body as fast as she could and the Black Dragon Blade was akin to a butcher's blade, slicing and dicing flesh left and right.

Her first few strikes cut through her fourth and fifth victims: they both fell on the ground, lifeless, drowning in their own blood. A sixth was hit by a wolf hand-knife, forcing him back with a fist-size gap in his shoulder.

Fly, my talons, fly!

Dance, my blade, dance!

Enemy after enemy fell, but, as the saying goes, two fists cannot fight four fists, let alone dozens.

Finally, the ninth cloaked man was pierced by the fierce counterattack of the last Vengeful Talon that the purple-haired girl had kept hidden behind her back all along: his heart was crushed and he died on the spot.

After that, she wasn't able to do any further damage.

In another story, she might have been able to struggle on.

Or, had her last Martial Way been available, her Pseudo Core detonated, or even just her proficiency with the Xiao Scriptures higher, all wouldn't have been lost yet. Unfortunately, that right there had been her limit, both hers, and that of her willpower: five Basic Stage peak and four low Advanced Stage opponents at once. When more joined in, she was overwhelmed.

Dozens of the strong, sturdy hands of the body cultivators grabbed onto her limbs and pinned her down on the ground. A peak Advanced Stage cultivator furiously slammed his palm onto her forehead and her vision swam, any control she had over her Spiritual Energy was cut off. Then, blow after blow landed on her body and sealed her movements, until she could barely raise a finger.

”Cough!” Xiao Wu weakly coughed out blood. It trickled down the sides of her mouth, almost choking her as it slowly stained the grass by her head crimson.

”This little monster!” A black robed person reached for his left cheek with astonishment, where a deep cut had been inflicted by the black sword, ”She was so fierce! We actually lost nine of our men, elite warriors, just to capture an eight-year-old Inferior Stage brat!”

”She had such weird techniques... She dodged so many of my strikes, as if she could read my mind!” One of the men holding her arm lamented: he felt humiliated at how he couldn't land a single blow and felt the need to explain himself before his companions. Fortunately, he was not the only one, as one after another voiced out their thoughts.

”Really, a true demon! If she is so strong now, what about in a few years! I doubt we could have captured her alive…” Another man fearfully added with a trembling sigh.

Zi Luo was also pale at the thought of losing so many able men in the span of a few breaths. However…

”However, 'a vermillion sun setting over a battlefield for the winner to rule over existence in the morning'; a catastrophe now might become a blessing in the coming days! With this child's talent, we might have struck gold!” His deep, grey-ash eyes lit up and his lips arranged into a complicated smile, ”This fierce lad might be the killer of our kin, but as we thought, she might just be the key to our Clan's resurgence! It was worth capturing her alive after all!”