While Xue Wei was busy coming up with an escape plan, a different group of experts back in Heping Kingdom was on the move.
This was the Wayfarer"s group of experts. They had been spending the last few years hunting down the Ice Harpy – and although they had killed other Primordial Beasts in the meantime, their primary target had never changed.
The Ice Harpy was an existence that was renowned as one of the strongest Primordial Beasts in the eastern part of the continent, and she had a reputation for wantonly killing scores of humans just for the fun of it. Her ma.s.sacres were committed with indiscrimination, be it village or a stray soldier she met by coincidence on the road, and a trail of blood would follow everywhere she went.
They had been on her trail for a long time, but they had not once pinned down her location until now.
Strangely enough, their investigations revealed that she was still in the Kingdom of Heping, a kingdom where there the Ice Harpy had no equal and where she could act with impunity.
Deep inside the Northern Taiga the group had sat up camp. While many were busy roasting Fierce Beast meat on the bonfires, a young beautiful woman clad in a green dress was sitting with an elderly woman.
"Grandma, do you really think that Xue Wei is a Primordial Beast? Or do you think that he has by chance been tricked by them?" w.a.n.g Xiaoyun was anxious and had been feeling depressed the last couple of months after hearing that her sweetheart stood accused of being a Primordial Beast.
"I do not think he is one," the grandmother laughed gently as she rubbed w.a.n.g Xiaoyun"s head, "but even if he is not a Primordial Beast, there is sufficient evidence that he has colluded with them. Even if he holds a special place in your heart, you cannot let love blind you."
"We are Wayfarers. We will never let those who work with the Primordial Beasts be; they ought to be slain. It is likely that he was forced to work with them because of the extenuating circ.u.mstances behind his accusation, but the fact that the Primordial Beasts did not instantly kill him when he found them means that he has offered them something."
"Word is that he is currently traveling with a Primordial Beast. A beast that resembles a black dog with wings."
"When we have successfully hunted the Ice Harpy, our next target is likely to become this black dog and the Crimson Devil. By then, calm your heart – you cannot go against our family."
"We will be hunting Xue Wei?" w.a.n.g Xiaoyun"s face turned pale, and her lips trembled. Her hands were clenched into fists.
The elderly lady sighed when she saw the significant chance that had occurred in w.a.n.g Xiaoyun"s expression. "We are Wayfarers. Our lives are tied together with Primordial Beasts. When we activate our bloodline and become warriors, the warriors we become are far more magnificent than the norm."
"Our type of warriors are superior because of the Primordial Blood that flows in our veins. It has mutated our Qi and bodies. Although we seem like any other person, our bodies have become as if made from iron."
"Our ancestor became like this because of the Primordial Beasts. They did experiments on him and his many brothers and sisters. In the end, the majority of them died; only a handful survived and became the ancestors of us Wayfarers."
"This hatred towards the Primordial Beasts must never be forgotten. They treated us as slaves and livestock. They made us into experimental subjects and did not care at all about what was acceptable."
"The Primordial Beasts are all terrible." The older woman"s face turned into a hideous grimace as she thought about the Primordial Beasts.
"For our ancestors, we fight them. For the peace of humankind, we will kill them. This is our responsibility; and although I quite liked that little boy, I will still slaughter him now that he is working together with a Primordial Beast."
"Grandma, please excuse me." w.a.n.g Xiaoyun"s face was so pale that she looked like a wax figurine, and her lower lip was trembling. Her eyes were moist and her voice was shaking. She excused herself and almost ran from her grandmother"s side towards the carriage that belonged to her.
The grandmother who was left behind sitting in the darkness sighed and shook her head with sadness in her eyes. "I am sorry, my little one," she sighed, "but the truth is that he has chosen to ally with the Primordial Beasts, and thus our sides will always be against one another."
"You think he chose to ally with the beasts?" Resounding laughter rang through the entire campsite of the Wayfarers, and a beautiful woman descended from the heavens above.
Her hair was silver like beautiful rays of moonlight; her eyes were blue like the coldest ice; and her skin was pale like porcelain.
Her body was perfectly curvy, her waist so slim that a single arm could hold it, and her overall beauty was just breathtaking. When looking at her descending through the air shrouded by the moonlight, she did not look mortal at all. In fact, she looked like an immortal fairy.
"Normally, I would not personally have come to find you all since it is much more fun to trick Wayfarers into wasting their time, but I heard something interesting this time," she laughed out loud as she looked at the grandmother.
The loud laughter had alarmed the entire camp, and everyone had drawn their weapons and were moving towards this otherworldly fairy. The first to arrive was w.a.n.g Xiaoyun.
Although w.a.n.g Xiaoyun was a beauty, she could not help but feel inferior when compared to this woman in front of her. They were leagues apart! But she soon recognized the face. This was the human shape of the Ice Harpy! Their target and objective throughout many years!
This Ice Harpy was looking at w.a.n.g Xiaoyun curiously, but deep within her eyes was a hostility that could make anyone feel uncomfortable.
"So you two were talking about Xue Wei?" she asked, her voice chiming with amus.e.m.e.nt. "It is true that I tricked them into thinking that he is a Primordial Beast. He will be chased by everyone now, beasts and humans alike – is it not thrilling?" The Ice Harpy"s head lifted up as she chortled loudly once more.
"I wish I could kill him personally, to be honest. But since I’m not allowed to kill him, who says I cannot kill his sweetheart?" she continued. A murderous gleam appeared in her eyes when she looked at w.a.n.g Xiaoyun.
"I wonder what expression he will make when he realized that I have killed you?" A sinister expression fluttered past the Ice Harpy"s face and made her look ferocious.
The Grandmother"s face turned pale. "Save the young miss!" she exclaimed, and suddenly Qi appeared on her body and exploded outwards.
"Oh?" Chu Huiyin"s eyes glistened, and a smile spread on her lips. "Someone who has reached the Sky Knight rank? To think that I would encounter someone like you in this tiny kingdom," she mocked, and feathers started to sprout from her body.
Her feet turned to long legs with talons, her arms to large broad wings with blue and white feathers.
A screech exploded out from her throat, and she ascended into the air. Suddenly, Qi manifested around her, and crescent moons started to attack everything and everyone in the camp.
Blood splattered as many of the Wayfarers were cut into pieces, their corpses not even complete as they collapsed to the ground with eyes both wide open in terror and utterly devoid of all life.
The attack was so fast that no one, not even the grandmother, realized what had happened.
A dozen or more crescent moon blades of Qi descended from the sky, and all of them killed at least one, if not multiple, of the cultivators.
The grandmother’s face turned serious, and she shouted as she flew into the air to fight against the Ice Harpy, only to find that the Primordial Beast was snickering at her and not taking her serious at all.
"You there, sweetheart of Xue Wei, look how I slaughter your family!" she exclaimed excitedly. More and more crescent moons appeared every time she flapped her wings.
These attacks caused blood to flow like rivers and corpses to stack like mountains. No one had the time to act before they were slain, and the grandmother was gritting her teeth when a sword appeared out of nowhere and struck at the Ice Harpy in the air.
"Oh so you actually know how to move even though you are just an old lady?" the Ice Harpy said with a snicker and easily dodged the attack, continuing her ma.s.sacre.
Time flashed by in a red hue, and the area was filled with screams of despair and the scent of blood, corpses littering the entire campground.
Slowly, the screams died out, and no one could talk anymore. In fact, as time went by, only two survivors were present in the entire Wayfarer camp: one was the grandmother who had chased Chu Huiyin all the time, and the other was w.a.n.g Xiaoyun.
Both of them had eyes red with grief and anger. Both wished for nothing more than to rip the Ice Harpy to shreds and ensure that she no longer existed in this world – they wanted to destroy her soul and make it so that she could no longer enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Unfortunately, neither of the two could bring that feeling to fruition. Numerous Knight-ranked experts were among the toll of casualties, but even they had been killed as quickly as chickens on the chopping board.
"This is all my fault," w.a.n.g Xiaoyun blamed herself. She was present to hear the Ice Harpy’s statement about the reason for her attack, which was her being Xue Wei’s sweetheart, and she did not realize just how terrible it was to be the enemy of one of the strongest Primordial Beasts in the continent until now.
"Do not blame Xue Wei or yourself, little one," the grandmother said slowly. She turned to Chu Huiyin "You, Ice Harpy, are a primordial beast, so you will kill us whether or not we had anything to do with him. It is no hidden fact that you enjoy slaughtering humans everywhere you go! But who would have known that we would underestimate you as much as we did!"
"Well, that is true," Chu Huiyin did not deny it. "But it is also true that I am killing you all right now for the sake of seeing that filthy, abominable Xue Wei"s face contort with pain and agony. I hate him more than anyone else. He is even more disgusting than normal humans. He has to live a life of suffering! He cannot be allowed to be happy! For his unhappiness, I will hunt and kill anyone who is close to him; I will cause the whole world to turn against him, and I will destroy his life and force him to live through it!"
Chu Huiyin was completely incensed. She was lost in her thoughts and did not seem to be paying attention to the grandmother.
Seeing that the Ice Harpy was not paying attention to her, the grandmother did not squander this opportunity, launching a furious offensive. A brilliant s.h.i.+ne exploded out from her body as she rushed at the Ice Harpy.
Her body seemed as if it had been made from gla.s.s and filled with a prismatic light. This gla.s.s was slowly breaking, and her body was showing cracks and started to fall apart, yet when she reached Chu Huiyin her body had turned into a blazing sun of Qi.
This blazing sun of Qi had no emotions left; there was no flesh and blood, everything in the body, including the soul, had been trans.m.u.ted into pure energy. This energy detonated the moment it came into contact with the Ice Harpy.
The explosion that erupted was so powerful that it swallowed even the distant w.a.n.g Xiaoyun and flung her back like a kite that had been cut free.
Blood sprayed from her mouth and her vision blackened as she lost consciousness.