Far within the rundown border area of the Soaring Phoenix Kingdom.
"No! Please, not my daughter! Not her—!"
The old man's voice cracked as he threw himself over the limp body of a young girl, shielding her with his frail fra.
His cry was drowned by laughter—a twisted, hoarse sound that echoed like a hyena's howl through the smoking village.
"Oh? You think you can bargain now?" sneered one of the demonic cultivators, his face marked with dark veins, his pupils thin as needles.
His hand crackled with dark energy, a deep violet that hissed as it struck the ground.
The old man convulsed, screaming, as his body was lifted into the air and drained in monts—his soul wrenched from his flesh, pulled into a jade talisman glowing at the demon's hip.
Children cried. Mothers scread. A burning roof collapsed nearby, scattering sparks into the air like fireflies.
The village of Qingyan, once peaceful, was now a massacre.
"We only needed thirty souls," one of the younger demonic cultivators said, wiping blood from his cheek with indifference. "We've taken over eighty."
"Greed is a good teacher," replied the one with the talisman, tucking it into his robe. "Let them rember us as monsters."
"They won't be rembering anything," another muttered, stepping over a mutilated body. "They'll be bones by morning."
"Hahahaha."
The demons laughed again.
The village was all but gone—bodies strewn across the dirt roads, huts crumbled, flas licking the sky.
The Soul-Harvest Art had left its stain on the land: an oppressive silence between the screams, a stillness that reeked of death.
Then, like the sigh of wind through trees, another sound entered the chaos.
A flute.
Soft, slow. Barely audible at first, but growing steadily louder.
It ca from the eastern woods, where the smoke hadn't yet reached.
"What is that?" asked a cultivator, frowning.
Before an answer ca, a flash of silver streaked through the air.
The head of the questioner rolled to the ground.
"What the—?!"
Swords sang.
More silver flashes.
Shadows moved within shadows, and from the treeline erged a group of cultivators clad in black and silver.
Their movents were swift, their techniques clean—disciplined.
"Form up!" one of the demonic cultivators barked. "They're just a squad!"
But he was wrong.
The squad was led by her.
She walked calmly through the smoke, untouched by it, as if the fires parted for her. Her robe was black as night, lined with silver thread that shimred unnaturally.
Her hair, long and wild, whipped in the breeze.
At her waist, a black flute.
On her back, two curved blades.
But it was her eyes that struck fear into the hearts of the remaining demons.
Eyes like glass—empty, clear, and deep enough to drown in.
The soldiers around her didn't speak as if they needed to strike down the orders of their princess.
They moved like wolves under command, and in monts, blood sprayed the soil anew—but this ti, it belonged to the demons.
The lead demonic cultivator, the one with the jade soul talisman, stepped back as the woman approached.
"You!" he spat, pointing. "You sent us the scroll! The black seal—Urghhh!"
The woman didn't reply.
She only kept walking.
It was as if she did not care that others could hear the information uttered by the man.
"wh-why betrayal, you witch!" another demonic cultivator shouted, now desperate. "We followed your orders! You told us the village was hiding a cursed artifact! You said eliminate it—eliminate them!"
Still, she said nothing.
His hands trembled as he pulled the talisman from his robes. "We've done everything you commanded! You said—!"
A sword glead.
His words were cut short—literally. A soldier beside her, with a hollow expression, stepped forward and slashed the man's head clean from his shoulders.
It rolled near the feet of the villagers' corpses, coming to rest beside a child's lifeless body.
The battlefield fell silent.
And now the woman stood alone in the village square, facing the carnage.
Her soldiers ford a loose circle around her, bloodied but untouched.
None dared speak.
Her eyes scanned the bodies. Her breathing slowed.
And then, with a strange grace, she lifted both arms into the air.
"I apologize for the delay in my arrival, innocent souls."
But the air changed.
It beca heavy.
The flas that still danced along rooftops flickered, then dulled, dimd—as if the fire itself was holding its breath.
Her delicate hands moved towards the flute in her robe. The black flute slowly hovered at the touch of her fingertip before she held it.
With elegance, she blew air.
A lodious tune filled the whole area.
From her body—though unseen by the soldiers—thin threads of light erged.
They shimred faintly in the air, dancing like the strings of a harp.
They snaked outward across the corpses, disappearing into skulls, chests, fingers.
The villagers—n, won, children—began to twitch.
"Only a god could do such a miracle…" one of the soldiers murmured.
A boy sat up, blood dried around his mouth.
A mother gasped as she clutched her previously dead baby.
A farr, who had been gutted, rose with entrails still hanging—but now glowing faintly with life.
More rose.
Dozens.
Their eyes were clouded, as if they were seeing a different world before becoming normal.
But they all turned to the woman.
And, as one, they knelt.
"Thank you," they said in soft unison. "Thank you for giving us another life… Master."
The woman didn't smile right away.
Her lips trembled slightly.
Then, slowly, a smile ford—not of joy, but of deep amusent—after being treated like a god by these re mortals.
She placed her flute back at her waist before turning away from them.
"Your lives were stolen by greed," she said softly, her voice low but clear. "Let your rebirth serve sothing greater."
The villagers did not reply. They simply stood, eyes still empty but bodies upright, waiting.
She turned to leave—but her knees buckled.
'!?'
"Master!" a soldier rushed to catch her, holding her upright.
"I'm fine," she said, though her breath was shallow. Her skin had lost color, and her fingers twitched with residual threads of energy. "It was an old soul that got set free today... by a devil."
Her composure would return soon enough, considering that older, reanimated individuals had a greater effect on her upon their death.
Right now, the sudden dizziness made her realize that the one who had died was none other than i Lianhua—a 30-year-old woman whom she had reanimated at the age of 10 or so.
'Who did this...' There was a flicker of doubt as her hand once again took out her flute, closing her eyes as she blew air into it.
Again a lodious tune erged, but this ti there were several visions in her mind, directly projected from the last monts of that woman whom she had sent to get her hands on the progeny stone, sothing she needed the most.
'!'
'Y-you!' As she tried to see through the mories that were around 24 hours before the spy's death, she saw a punch landing on her face, limbs broken, while a man, who arrived monts later, removed his clothes, roaming around the room naked and mocking her dying reanimation.
And finally ca the last mont, where she saw a mber of the neutral faction, the princess of the Azure Fla Kingdom, and the sa man who had openly challenged her, standing half naked with those peculiar crimson and golden eyes.
'I will reanimate you and crush that dangling thing between your legs soon enough, KYLE ARCUTUS!'
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