Chapter Ninety-Nine: Imitating Qin Hongxiu

Lin Ze shook his head. If the Simulated Host Card did not work, there was no sense in wasting more attempts to simulate the two people standing beside him.
From their temperaments, they would never stop the idea of the Daoist running away.

But rushing headlong into darkness without opening his eyes was not his habit either.
Maybe… better to turn back?

“Pah! How did that cur-like thing even get to me?” he muttered, then lifted his eyes toward the brand-new character card in the simulator.

The Inner Court would also join this operation to intercept the demon calamity, and there was a high chance that a figure of Qin Hongxiu would appear. If he simulated her, he could at least learn a little.
Better than nothing.

[Character Card: Qin Hongxiu]
[Skill Card: The Dongyue Sword Canon]
[Simulation Initiated]

……

His view instantly lifted to the sky.
This time it had nothing to do with the angle he had chosen; Qin Hongxiu herself was already in midair.

And not just her. Everywhere around her were clouds of every hue, and on each cloud stood a figure. A quick glance suggested at least forty or fifty of them.
This was the first time Lin Ze had ever seen so many Gold-Dan True Immortals.

“Sister Qin, what are you pondering?” an old man turned and asked.

“Mm… re-reading the Dongyue Sword Canon,” Qin Hongxiu replied, sitting askew atop a broad, upright heavy sword, chin propped on her hand as she mused.

“She’s joking, Sister. Everyone knows Sword Immortal Qin has already refined the Dongyue Sword Canon to brilliance. What sword method could trouble you that needed a second reading?” The old man offered casual flattery.

“I don’t know,” Qin Hongxiu said skeptically, poking her ear with a little finger before looking up at the sky.

Lin Ze instinctively ducked out of her line of sight, and only after doing so did he suddenly realize he was inside the simulator. He fell silent for a moment, then turned his mouth down in helpless amusement.

No wonder she was the Kill-God as White Fox called her; even a casual glance from her could send a chill down one’s spine.

And this woman had already perfected that sword canon—thinking back to how he could not even make sense of the very first line was mortifying.

Amazing.

At the thought that one day he could toss in a skill card and have the simulator automatically generate things like sword energy and sword-pressing force, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. His junior uncle-disciple was, in truth, a premium utility model of White Heron Su.

Still, joy aside, he had not forgotten why he was here.

Looking down, he saw the mountain spread beneath him seemed divided by an invisible line: to the left it was lush with green, while to the right it lay bare, and thin streaks of black smoke rose from the ground itself.

A heavy, acrid demon miasma surged in, dense and offensive enough to make the most modest practitioners faint on the spot.

“Demon Mountain” was merely a general term for territory controlled by the Heavenly Demon Sect; it did not designate any one peak. Even the low rise outside Xiao Family Village was called a demon mountain.
But by the situation before him, what was hidden beneath that black haze was no mere little brute, and could well be the very seat of the Heavenly Demon Sect.

“Same old rules,” someone called from within the layered clouds. “From all peaks: two to each target, and each Inner Court elder takes one.”

“How should we count Sister Qin?” the old man who had been grinning earlier asked.

Everyone glanced at the yawning sword immortal in black robes and shook their heads helplessly. “That is something for the other side to decide.”

Qin Hongxiu had only first entered this matter forty years ago, and on her first outing she cleanly took down a major demon head. Since then, every ten years they had sent one more major demon.

If nothing went wrong, the Heavenly Demon Sect would dispatch at least four Gold-Dan demons against this sword immortal this time.
For any cultivator, that was enormous honor.

“Will there be any danger?” someone asked, uneasy. After all, they were all Gold-Dan, and two hands are no match for four.

“Qin Sister, do not overdo yourself. There is no reason for one against four, and the Dongyue Sect is not bereft of people.”

“Hongxiu, what are your odds?” a middle-aged man in black, senior in rank, asked quietly.

“Fifty percent.”

The man’s expression shifted. That was not an assuring figure. “If they send out five great demons…”

“Still fifty percent.”

Wind tugged at her hood; her black robe fluttered sharply. Qin Hongxiu yawned again and said flatly, “Either I die, or they die.”

“You’re being reckless.” The man shot her a rebuking glance.

She looked back at him, not bothered. “In fighting, only fighting tells you. I only juggle swords; I can’t tell fortunes… But if even I lose, you all jumping in at once will be for nothing.”

Why must people have to make everything so unambiguous? It just bruised people’s feelings.

At her words, the crowd broke into awkward throat-clearing.

Lin Ze was astonished as well. He could not imagine that among cultivators of equal attainment there could be such a vast gap in actual force; there were forty or fifty Gold-Dan practitioners here.

Stranger still, not one of them stepped up to object.
That meant his junior uncle-disciple’s words might not be boasting at all.

Then why were they worrying so much? Lin Ze realized it only now. This crowd was only showing concern in the ritual way, and only he had foolishly believed otherwise.

By this reckoning, the Dongyue disciples were already very practiced at these so-called demon-interception actions. The higher ranks showed almost no sign of strain.

The Heavenly Demon Sect likely wanted, by means of this, to weed out weaker clan members. The Dongyue Sect, in turn, could use it to train disciples from all peaks and, without risking fundamentals, test each other to see whether one side had weakened.

As it stood, the practitioners’ side was clearly ahead.
The younger generation utterly crushed the demon kind.

Of course, in this context, “younger” meant cultivators with lifespans of a few hundred years, such as Qin Hongxiu herself.

With the possibility of facing Gold-Dan major demons ruled out, Lin Ze finally relaxed. If it was only fighting at foundation-establishment level, there was practically no danger for him, with his own strength plus White Fox keeping the formation.

In a mood of watching from the sidelines, he prepared to observe this junior uncle-disciple’s true strength.

He did not wait long. At the instant the horizon showed the first gray-white light of dawn, a cultivator clicked his fingers in a mudra—some method like demon-seeing that read the air currents.

“Wait for my good news, everyone,” he laughed as he rode the clouds away.

Like a signal, other cultivators also stepped onto the clouds and vanished for a thousand li at a time, each hurrying along the invisible line on the earth toward their chosen targets.

Only Qin Hongxiu stayed behind, idly in place.

She lifted her eyes toward the sky.
That pack of beasts would not let her go. It was only a matter of who arrived first.

The Heavenly Demon Sect had pride, too. Unless forced to do so, they would not choose to win by sheer numbers—that would be to admit the demon race had lost ground.
She counted the passing time. It was almost enough.

At last she stood. She silently counted the auras racing in from afar.

“Four?”
“No.”

As the number increased, a glimmer of excitement flashed through her eyes.
A full twelve Gold-Dan demon auras crashed in, filling heaven and earth.
The world seemed to change hue; sun and moon dimmed.

The listless look drained from her face. Without dodging or turning away, she stamped hard on her heavy sword.

A knife-edged wail burst from the metal.
Her whole form suddenly shot forward in a single darting line, straight toward them.