As the figure came closer, Gu Ning finally saw that it was Yu Ruo.
And here I thought some wildling had spawned in...
Gu Ning muttered it under her breath.
Yu Ruo looked thoroughly the worse for wear just now, sword in hand, lips parted, breathing hard, her face flushed.
"Why did you act alone? If not for the fact that we share a gate, I would have left you to live or die on your own." Gu Ning frowned and scolded her, apparently still holding a grudge over what Yu Ruo had done.
Though Gu Ning knew her own reasons perfectly well. A secret realm this unknown had the most vicious drop rates there were.
Obviously she could not let Yu Ruo swallow it all and feast alone.
"Senior Sister is as heartless as ever."
Yu Ruo recovered her composure fast and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"I came in chasing the demonic sect's trail. Senior Sister Su told you, didn't she?"
Hmph—
Gu Ning neither agreed nor disagreed, and stopped trading words with Yu Ruo. She could not out-talk her anyway, and there was no point asking for the snub.
Gu Ning's gaze went past Yu Ruo to what lay behind her.
"Then what are you running from?"
"Because I'm being chased."
Before the words were out, a low roar came from the depths.
Then the stone tiles of the floor began to tremble faintly, and loose rock came whispering down from above.
Yu Ruo's face changed.
"Here it comes again."
Out of the darkness, an enormous thing slowly took shape. It was a red-copper puppet a full zhang tall, a small pavilion riding on its torso, runes carved on its chest, a long staff in one hand, and the whole of it heavy with authority.
It had no pupils, only green flame flickering where they should have been.
There was no intelligence in it, and yet Gu Ning felt clearly that its gaze had turned her way.
"That thing has chased me three laps already." There was an edge of teeth-grinding in Yu Ruo's voice. "It isn't fast, but blade and spear can't touch it. My sword doesn't seem to leave so much as a mark."
"Early Golden Core, roughly..."
Gu Ning weighed the two sides. She still had the edge.
"Get behind me."
Gu Ning raised a hand and summoned the Azure Frost Sword, slender fingers plucking along the blade.
Out of empty air before her appeared several longsword duplicates, circling Gu Ning like flowing water, forming a sword formation.
Gu Ning lifted her hand and closed five slender fingers lightly on nothing.
Five longswords, cold light rising pale blue along their blades. She pointed, and five streaks of sword-light shot out.
The sword-light shrieked as it tore the air.
The bronze puppet neither dodged nor gave ground. Its long staff swept across, a huge crash of metal on metal burst out, and all five streaks were batted away to slam into the stone walls on either side.
Behind her, disappointment flickered in Yu Ruo's eyes. She assumed Gu Ning had no answer to it either.
Gu Ning looked at her deflected swords without the slightest alarm. Instead a smile crossed her face, the smile of a plan going exactly right.
The bronze puppet ignored the blades embedded in the walls and bore straight down on where Gu Ning stood.
Then Gu Ning hooked one finger, and the swords in the walls shivered, wheeled around for a parting thrust, and cut at the bronze puppet from behind.
Gu Ning was not Yu Ruo. She was not about to hack away at the torso.
If you are going to cut, cut the joints. Double damage.
The five streaks of sword-light took the joints of the puppet's arms and thighs, and its neck.
And a puppet that slow had no way to react in time.
Sparks flew in all directions, a hideous shriek of grinding metal came off the bronze puppet, and thick smoke poured from its joints.
The bronze puppet lurched, went down on one knee, and drove its staff into the ground to hold up its torso.
Now!
Gu Ning pressed the advantage, circled behind the puppet, and the Azure Frost Sword left her hand as a silver rainbow, stabbing for its core.
Clunk—
With the core destroyed, the bronze puppet froze mid-motion. The green flames guttered a few times, went out, and it stopped working altogether.
"Heh heh~"
Looking at the puppet she had beaten, Gu Ning could not help a pleased little hum.
"Won... you won?"
There was disbelief in Yu Ruo's voice.
She had strained every nerve just to leave a few marks on the thing.
And Gu Ning had taken it apart in three moves and change.
The gap between them was plain to see.
Watching Gu Ning glistening with a fragrant sweat, the taste for conquest went deeper in Yu Ruo.
A daughter of heaven like this, so unreachable to outside eyes, so cold and so celibate.
And yet carrying the Mystic Maiden Violet Yin Body, a physique to set the imagination running without end. It was very hard not to want her.
Still, she was the sort who answered to softness and never to force. Wear her down slowly, then...
Feeling that burning gaze on her back, Gu Ning went uncomfortable.
"How exactly did you learn about this secret realm?" Gu Ning narrowed her eyes and looked Yu Ruo over. "Do not tell me you happened to see it on the way."
Yu Ruo had expected the question, and her tone was perfectly sincere.
"If I said it was chance, Senior Sister certainly would not believe me."
"This secret realm is the ruin of the Ashen Elixir Pavilion."
Gu Ning raised an eyebrow. The name seemed to ring a bell.
"The Ashen Elixir Pavilion? That heretic sect the sects put down together eighteen years ago?"
Yu Ruo was a little surprised. She had not expected Gu Ning to know that.
Then again, as the Mystic Light Sword Sect's next-generation First Sword, she would know that much.
"They refined pills from living people, destroyed lives, left no evil undone, and drove the common folk past bearing. They had crossed the cultivation world's kill threshold, and their sect was wiped out in a single night."
"But before their sect master died, he moved part of the legacy elsewhere. To this place."
Yu Ruo nudged the parts scattered across the floor, indignation in her voice.
"These would be the guards set to protect that legacy."
She did not look as though she were lying.
"Then do you have a map?"
Yu Ruo shook her head.
"Huh?!"
A few black lines came down Gu Ning's forehead. And here she had assumed that with Yu Ruo looking so sure of herself, she had come fully prepared.
Instead she had eaten one piece of information and just charged in hard, and whether she lived came down to how tough her luck was!
"You..."
Gu Ning opened her mouth, at a loss.
And just then, from the pile of scrap that had been the bronze puppet came the sound of metal knocking against metal.
Along with a curse.
"Scared me half to death, nearly got my fur shaved clean off."
Gu Ning reacted at once, took the Azure Frost Sword in hand, and looked toward the wreckage. Yu Ruo followed close behind, every nerve drawn tight.
Clatter, clatter...
Metal came down from the top of the heap, ringing brightly as it fell.
And from a gap in it came a grunting and puffing, as though something were working hard to squeeze its way out.
Pop—
A small white fluffy head sprouted out of the gap.
"Oh hell, I'm finally out, oh HELL!!!"
Gu Ning vanished from where she stood, flashed to a stop in front of the mysterious creature, and leveled her sword at it.
But once she saw the creature, her eyes went blank for a moment, and her lips moved.
"A dog?"
And the dog that had just come out was scared witless. It had barely got its head clear before it found the blinding cold light of the Azure Frost Sword pointed at that head.
"Peek and get one-shot! Go on, do it!"
The dog's opening line was a shock, its eyes stretched wide.
Gu Ning looked at this dog speaking human words and, for a moment, had no idea what to do with it.
"Speak. What are you?"
"I'll talk! I'll talk! Don't cut me!"
The dog put up both front paws in surrender, and the whole animal slithered out with a wet slap and landed belly-up on the ground.
It rolled over, swallowed, and said in a thin voice, "I... I-I'm the Ashen Elixir Pavilion's sect-guardian spirit beast! Right, sect-guard-of-the-sect spirit beast!"