Lu Cai coughed twice and lowered his head in disbelief watching as blood dripped down the sword's shaft dripping from his chest onto the grass.
A soft chuckle echoed from behind him eerily matching his own voice.
It was terrifying.
Turning his head he saw another version of himself.
The other person stood behind him clutching the hilt of the broken sword. His entire body seemed damp as if from rain, his eyes cold yet his smile was so bright it seemed out of place in this dark and dangerous place, a chilling sight.
The man stepped closer, grasped Lu Cai's chin from behind and said jokingly, "If you'd tried to break free I might have spared your life. But you're just an ordinary, cowardly person."
Lu Cai was forced to twist his neck his light brown pupils trembling violently. "You, ahem! Who are you?"
The blood gushed from his chest even more as he exerted force. The pain and blood loss made Lu Cai's face pale.
The man raised an eyebrow and chuckled, "I forgot you had some skills. You didn't die immediately."
Lu Cai's eyes blazed with rage but as long as he was human a puncture in his vitals meant the difference between death in ten seconds and ten minutes.
After glaring at the other man his eyes gradually began to unfocus but he still managed to hold on refusing to collapse. He found the other man quite amused and he finally sighed:
"So curious? It seems you really hate me."
The other man drew his sword and mercilessly kicked Lu Cai, sending him crashing down next to Zeshia.
Lu Cai convulsed in pain. This time he could see clearly that the other man not only looked identical to him but even the torn areas of his clothes were identical. This ruled out the possibility that he had a brother who, seeing his success harbored resentment and was waiting to kill him.
The other man wasn't human.
His suspicions confirmed the other man slowly walked over to him and squatted down. Seeing Lu Cai clutching his wound and panting heavily he smiled with satisfaction:
"Then before you die let me see who I am?"
Lu Cai gritted his teeth and raised his eyes. He could feel the ebbing of life with every breath and intense pain accompanied every spasm of his body. If he died in confusion he would surely die with his eyes wide open!
He watched helplessly as the other person's face merged with murky water, stirring strange ripples. Her body also experienced similar fluctuations. The figure shrank, her hair grew longer and she finally revealed the appearance of a girl of sixteen or seventeen.
"Did you recognize who I was?" Xiao Yu tilted her head and smiled at him.
Lu Cai uttered a murmur through chattering teeth: "You."
"Yes, it was me." Xiao Yu's face no longer showed the previous tension and worry but was filled with pity and a hint of disdain for Lu Cai. "Can you rest in peace now?"
Lu Cai glared at her, her delicate face pale as a sheet of paper.
Xiao Yu scoffed and stood up. "You're just blind to it after all this trouble you really think you're the savior."
She clutched Lu Cai's broken sword and slowly walked over to Zeshia, eyeing the behemoth curiously.
"But you're incredibly lucky. I've never seen anything like it before and I don't know where it came from but it actually listened to you. Is it really a dragon? Why doesn't it look like the legends?"
Lu Cai panted heavily, his pain numb and numbed as he looked at Xiao Yu.
Xiao Yu nudged Zeshia's head with her foot then suddenly turned and asked Lu Cai, "Are you and him really a couple? Did he show up because you wanted to be his wife?"
Lu Cai couldn't bear it any longer and growled, "What the hell are you?"
Xiao Yu expressionlessly kicked Lu, causing him to spit blood. Without a trace of emotion, she said, "Cherish the few minutes you have left. Don't rush into reincarnation."
Lu Cai coughed up blood and trembled as he propped his head up. "If you want to know what he is, tell me what you are!"
Half his face was covered in blood and he looked like a rag doll. Even so, his willpower was astonishingly strong, making Xiao Yu want to laugh.
"You only have a few minutes left to live and you're still trying to negotiate terms with me? Once you're dead I'll have plenty of time to figure out what he is, where he came from and how to tame him!"
Lu Cai said nothing, his eyes filled with astonishing fury and a captivating glint.
Xiao Yu's smile faded, feeling rather bored. She turned to Zeshia and said, "I am Xiao Yu."
Lu Cai coughed wanting to ask, "Why are you still lying to me?"
Xiao Yu continued, "Xiao Yu who died long ago."
A lot of things suddenly became clear. Lu Cai recalled the few times they had touched. Xiao Yu's fingers had always been cold but there were many explanations for those circumstances. Xiao Yu was nervous and scared or had just been pulled out of the water. Any of these could have caused her to be icy cold.
It was absurd yet also made sense.
The dead are typically immune to dark matter infection and mutation so in this dangerous village only Xiao Yu remained remarkably normal. Her ability to change appearances might be due to another mechanism, something Lu Cai's master called a vengeful spirit.
In this frenzied era rooted in the dark matter explosion many things previously unexplainable by science have surfaced. The vengeful spirits are even close to you.
And judging from his position just now it was indeed Xiao Yu behind him.
Lu Cai clutched his wound, panting rapidly as he felt the blood flow slowly slow. This wasn't a good sign; only the dead shed blood.
In the dim mist only this patch of Zeshia's scales shimmered with a faint silver light. Xiao Yu gazed at the behemoth and marveled at its power.
"You're going to die anyway so it doesn't matter what I tell you," she shrugged, turning to look at Lu Cai, her youthful face radiating a calmness unbecoming of her age.
"I wasn't completely lying to you before. I'm the bride but not the next one, the one before Zhang Xue."
Lu Cai listened calmly with a look of understanding in his eyes.
"This village should have died long ago. Whether it was through sacrifice or infection there had to be a reason to wipe them all out," Xiao Yu said lightly, a flicker of satisfaction in her eyes.
She looked at Lu Cai intently: "Now, your turn. Tell me, what the hell is he?"
As he spoke Lu Cai vomited several more mouthfuls of blood. Seeing himself lying in a pool of blood he slowly raised his head and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. A smile suddenly broke out on his thin face stained bright red.
"Let him tell you himself."
Xiao Yu was stunned. A surge of power suddenly descended from above. She barely managed to look up when a bloody mouthful of force engulfed her!
Lu Cai turned his head away and spat out another mouthful of blood gasping as he did so: "Don't eat anything."
Zeshia, whose mouth was still wide open, was stunned. Remembering their previous agreement he struggled with whether to swallow it or spit it out and step on it.
A brief hesitation allowed Xiao Yu to react quickly. The vengeful spirit easily twisted its body and shifted its form instantly darting out from the silver dragon's mouth shocked and furious.
"How did he... No, you, how did you.!"
She had so many questions her breath stuck in her throat, not knowing which to ask.
Zeshia grew annoyed by the incomprehensible chatter. His very existence proved that his movements weren't swift and deadly enough; it was a blasphemy!
Then, with a fierce pounce her claws swooped down—
"Foolish and filthy creature! Do you think a noble and intelligent dragon would trust someone based solely on appearances? Death is your final destination!"
Xiao Yu screamed, dodging the dragon's attack. From a distance, it looked like a giant fly swatter swatting a darting insect. Lu Cai suddenly felt ashamed of his own fantasies. She shouldn't have judged Zeshia that way.
At least he was indeed an intelligent dragon.
Xiao Yu, nearly beaten to death by Zeshia's pursuit finally caught her breath and glared at Lu Cai with venom: "You knew all along? You knew he was fine!"
Lu Cai lay there, his eyes indifferently raised. The next second, Xiao Yu furious, burst into laughter mustering her last bit of strength to flash before Lu Cai!
"Liar! You're all liars!!!"
"I won't even give you the last few minutes! Go to hell!!!"
The vengeful spirit, its hair bursting with rage, roared as it plunged its claws into the young man's body, tearing at his flesh frantically.
From a distance it looked like a meat grinder.
"She's terrifying! Are all human females like this? No grace at all!"
Zeshia clutched his muscular chest, a lingering fear in his heart. He strode over to the other side and sighed with the young man.
The young man remained silent, still trying to win back the human female: "She's a special case."
Xiao Yu was startled by the words, her anger subsiding slightly. Belatedly, she realized that the person lying beneath her wasn't the frail, near-death young man she'd seen before!
It was a blood-stained piece of yellow talisman paper now torn to shreds!?
"Puppet, collect!"
"Imprison!"
As the cold voice chanted the yellow talisman paper before Xiao Yu's eyes instantly crumbled to dust and she felt her body unable to move.
"No, impossible. I'm not human, why am I imprisoned!!!"
She screamed in fear and struggled desperately but the terrifying thing was that the slightest movement would instantly cause an invisible force to burn her body.
I clearly have no physical body.Why am I still feeling pain!?
Lu Cai walked up to her and spoke calmly, "Let me introduce myself. I'm Lu Cai. I'm currently employed by Team A at the Foundation's Northern Base in the Chinese Region and I'm a disciple of the Tianshi School."
He paused, suspecting that this little girl transformed into a vengeful spirit might not be familiar with the Tianshi School. He briefly explained, "In my early years I was a professional exorcist."
At this point the pressure shifted to Xiao Yu.
The fading aura of the mastermind behind the scenes was gone and Xiao Yu's pupils trembled as if from an earthquake. "How did you sense that? You and that dragon. How did you both evade my plan!!!"
The shrill screams made it sound like she was on the verge of collapse but Lu Cai remained unmoved. In fact, he had been watching Xiao Yu calmly from the beginning.
"In a place where everyone else is abnormal you're the only one who's normal. That's inherently suspicious. And I didn't deliberately avoid your plan. I just never trusted you from the beginning."
Every word of the final words pierced Xiao Yu's heart. Although Zeshia didn't understand seeing the girl's increasingly distraught expression, his gaze towards Lu Cai gradually changed.
He didn't care about the girl at all. At least on the surface her tears were hers.
His dragon knight had something special!