Chapter 45

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Chapter 45: Sever and Protect

The moon beamed through sparse clouds, casting its cool, silvery light across the land.

In the quiet of the night, amongst a vast landscape of rolling hills, a small forest was disturbed.

The night crow's cry echoed, as if calling to the afterlife. A man with silver hair stumbled through the moonlit trees at great speed, his hand clutching a shoulder. Sound of pursuit followed him.

Changyi turned his head and looked at the soldiers chasing after him. Ji Yunhe was among them.

No time to get emotional, he clenched his teeth and kept running. The surrounding trees receded and a clearing appeared before him. He ran a few steps forward then stopped abruptly as a gust of wind blew across his face.

A cliff. He had nowhere left to run.

Changyi turned around. The well trained soldiers formed a semicircle and quickly surrounded him.

They held their blockade firmly and did not move again. Only Ji Yunhe dismounted and walked step by step toward him with a sword in hand.

Changyi looked at the cliff behind him, and then turned back to look at her. A Ji Yunhe that was no longer gentle and sweet.

The strike he suffered from her back at the camp had damaged his power and ability to ride the wind. Behind him was a steep fall into unknown depths, and in front of him… she was also like a bottomless abyss.

Ji Yunhe stopped ten feet away from him.

The clouds parted up in the sky and allowed the moonlight to pour down over the cliff. Changyi saw his own shadow stretched to Ji Yunhe's feet as she stepped onto its throat.

She said, "There is nowhere to run."

Changyi stared at his shadow in silence. It was so helplessly bound to the ground, defenseless and trampled on by her.

Ji Yunhe raised her sword, unsheathed it, and threw the scabbard aside. Then she pointed the tip at Changyi.

He finally shifted his gaze from his shadow onto Ji Yunhe, and his eyes reflected the sheen of her sword. "I don't believe it," he said as he stared at her.

His words drifted into Ji Yunhe's ears, but they did not stop the sword in her hand.

Her eyes were cruel, and she made her move under the chill of the moon.

When her sword entered his chest, Changyi felt no pain, only despair.

His chest was numb, and his entire body was numb.

He only felt cold.

A bone-chilling cold.

Ji Yunhe's sword had plunged through him with a force so great that it pushed him over the edge of the cliff.

He was unable to resist. Or maybe he did not want to.

He just looked at her, and his own reflection inside her dark eyes. He saw himself broken, desperate, foolish, and lost. And Ji Yunhe's face did not show the slightest wave of emotion.

The howling of the wind blocked all other sounds from his ears as everything grew distant and faint, finally vanishing from his sight.

His body fell under Ji Yunhe's gaze, her eyes as cold as the moon.

I don't believe it...

He wanted to say it again, but he no longer had the strength to. The darkness under the cliff took everything away.

His world fell silent...

"Stop! The princess wants him alive!"

Zhu Ling's voice pierced the night sky. It did not reach the ears of Changyi, but Ji Yunhe heard it loud and clear.

A white figure on a sword flashed over along with Zhu Ling's voice. He flew past Ji Yunhe and headed straight for the cliff, trying to retrieve the jiaoren who had fallen off. But after he made barely an inch beyond the edge, the sword under his feet was deflected by a strong force.

Ji Chengyu turned his body and stabilized himself in mid air. Before he could make a second attempt down the cliff, his sword cracked and broke in half.

He had no choice but to leap down onto the ground. Along with Zhu Ling who rushed over just now, they stared at the broken sword in shock.

Ji Chengyu turned to look at the source of the power that broke his sword.

It was Ji Yunhe.

She was still wearing the uniform of the Demon Valley, but her aura now looked completely different.

She wiped at Changyi's blood on her sword with two fingers, then drew a pair of blood marks on her forehead.

Like those barbarians out in the wild, painting a totem of faith on their own bodies.

She turned around with her sword in hand.

"Whoever crosses this cliff will die tonight."

She stood at the edge with her back to the abyss. Her whole body emitted an aura of bloodrage.

At this instant, she seemed to have transformed from an ordinary demon master into a god of death. Just as she had said, whomever that crossed her would die.

"Nonsense! A lowlife demon slaver dare to stop us?"

Zhu Ling was the first one to react. He viciously kicked at the horse under his feet and charged at Ji Yunhe.

"Zhu Ling!" Ji Chengyu tried to stop him, but he had already rushed by.

Ji Chengyu did not delay another second. He immediately made a hand gesture and a sword flew into his grasp from a soldier nearby. Then his body lifted into the air and flew past Zhu Ling to attack Ji Yunhe first.

Ji Yunhe blocked Ji Chengyu's sword, then formed a magic seal with her left hand and shielded herself from Zhu Ling's saber that followed.

Zhu Ling mocked, "Skills of an ant!" He withdrew his saber, changed his stance, and slashed down at her again.

Ji Yunhe did not even bother looking at him. The seal in her hand flashed and easily deflected his attack. Zhu Ling then turned over and leapt off of his war horse. The horse, now no longer under a rider's control, immediately ran away.

A soldier standing off to the side pulled on his bow string and an arrow shot past Ji Yunhe's ear.

Zhu Ling turned around and ordered, "Find a way down the cliff! I want this jiaoren dead or alive!"

"Yes, sir!" the soldiers responded.

Ji Yunhe saw the men preparing to ride off. She withdrew the sword she was using to block Ji Chengyu's attacks, and took a slash from him with her flesh as she threw her blade out into the crowd, breaking the legs of all the horses.

The horses cried in pain and the men fell.

Ji Yunhe grabbed a hold of Ji Chengyu's sword still lodged inside her. With a loud cry, she broke it with her bare hand, pulled the blade out from her body, and hurled it at Zhu Ling, knocking his helmet off of his head.

Ji Yunhe's spiritual power then swirled out around her body and formed a magic shield.

She covered the wound on her shoulder with her hand and her eyes fiercely swept across the crowd.

"I will cut the head off of anyone who dares to go after him. I promise."

Proofreader: Gem, Joker