An Ning"s sword did not miss much. It usually didn"t.The blade of an Amazon will always be true to its owner: strong, decisive, ruthless.
An Ning"s sword once belonged to Hippolyta who used it to slice the scaly head of a python woman terrorizing a kingdom by kidnapping and eating its children. By the time Hippolyta and her twenty thousand strong Amazon army arrived after an invitation from the terrified king, the python woman had already devoured more than half of the kingdom"s children population, including the king"s five year old heir to the throne.
The case was also one of the most unnatural that the Amazon queen had ever encountered. The python woman had a very interesting history. She was actually a human child who, when she turned fifteen, suddenly awakened to her true ident.i.ty. She had been hidden by her grandparents in an underground hole under their house, almost forgotten but for the chronic fear of her guardians who treated her like a diseased animal to be abused and maltreated.
The onset of the girl"s menstruation at the age of fifteen, however, triggered her dormant instincts and her eventual transformation. The python with the girl"s head burst forth from the ground and devoured her grandparents, who were awakened from their sleep while the girl"s snake body hissed and coiled terrifyingly above them.
The python woman was a creature of the dark and so it remained hidden in darkness, only striking at night like a serial killer feasting. Hippolyta had met creatures like that in her long life as the leader of immortals. But a child-eating python? In the end, the reason turned out to be simple.
The python woman or girl in this instance was a youngster still whose teeth was not fluid enough nor strong enough to devour human-sized prey. In real python age, it was still a child teething and it needed smaller and more tender victims to prey on. It actually got sick trying to feed on its full-sized grandparents but it learned fast and knew who to target as it grew in size and cunning.
The sword that sliced off the head of this creature was a double-edged blade that Hippolyta"s mother carried with her after she fled her husband"s kingdom during a b.l.o.o.d.y rebellion. It was the same blade that Hippolyta practiced her swordmanship on when she turned five. The sword"s blood-drenched history was long. The number of people and creatures it killed longer. The second day Ceres was finally reunited with her daughter, An Ning woke up to find the sword lying on a chair in her bedroom. The flame-like glint of the shiny sword looked cool and icy, the blade keen and sharp.
An Amazon"s blade will never ever miss its target. Unless of course he"s a fey creature from the Underworld with the speed of light and the unlimitless power of the Undead.
The sword hit Hypnos on his body, a flawless sword strike that should have instantly decapitated him in half. An Ning, however, watched as the sword pa.s.sed thru Hypnos" body like a shadow, toothless and useless. An Ning paused, looking at him in total shock then she immediately changed directions and flew behind him, plunging the sword into his heart. But it didn"t even pierce him. There was no blood, no sign of injury at all.
Hypnos laughed. Then he tauntingly moved nearer to An Ning so that the blade plunged deeper into his flesh, the sword that should have cut into his entrails pa.s.sed through his flesh like thin air. He didn"t hurt and there was no blood. Even when the sword suddenly cratered into his chest and left a cavity the size of a hole, he didn"t even blink.
In her shock, An Ning flew upward and watched Nian Zhen and Castor as they readied to battle. They didn"t know. Their lunges...
"He can"t be killed!" An Ning suddenly realized.