Tales of Demons and Gods : The Legend of Xiao Ning'Er

In the clean up, most of the nine men were unrecognisable, especially the four who had been killed by the Cricket bomb whose bodies had been ravaged by the black lightning. However, there was one man whom she managed to identify without a shadow of a doubt.

Deacon Yun Hua.

Once again, no matter how she tried to stay out of the radar of the Dark Guild, they had a way of hurting the people she most cared for. Even as she had looked down at the cold and lifeless face of Deacon Yun Hua, she did not feel a sense of satisfaction because of what had been stolen from her. She had not anticipated that the one month she spent eating her grandmother's homecooked food and laughing at the stories of her grandfather's courtship days would be the last moments she would spend with them in that manner.

She found a fresh resolve to grow stronger even faster so that she could completely crush the Dark Guild as soon as possible. She remembered the look on Ziyun's face in her past life when the Demon Lord had murdered the City Lord in cold blood. She absolutely had to find enough strength to intercept some of these events before their time!

The time had come for Lu Ye's monthly assessment of the third year students of the Genius Class but Ning'Er was exempted due to the understanding that she would require a period of time to grieve. However, Linjian, Ziyun and Du Ze's progress astounded the rest of the class when they realised that two of them had jumped to Gold Rank, and the other had jumped two stars reaching the peak of Silver Rank! Just what was this group of friends doing?

Lu Ye decided to have a catch up soon with them to better understand their training methodology and hopefully help the Holy Orchid Institute implement improvements in their teaching. From the assessments that he carried out on these three students, he could tell that their growth was not just externally forced through the usage precious cultivation resources. They had been able to properly consolidate each level of growth solidly with the corresponding martial comprehension and insights required!

Soon, it was time to leave for the Ning You City Ruins. Although Du Ze had not broken through to Gold Rank yet, Ning'Er could tell that if she could find another effective spirit herb, he just needed an opportunity to break the final barrier.

Ning's Er's logic was that it was in these less travelled areas that she would be able to find untouched valuable spirit herbs and even provide opportunities to temper their martial insights through encountering powerful demon beasts. The precious materials which could be harvested from the corpses of these beasts would be an added bonus, where if they were lucky, they could find resources to upgrade their equipment.

They set out towards a canyon three days away nicknamed Snake Valley. Adventurers avoided it because it had been completely dominated by all manner of snake demon beasts, and was even ruled by a Lernaean Hydra that had reached Black Gold Rank! This terrifying serpent had multiple heads that could regrow with incredible regeneration capabilities if chopped off. No warrior in their right mind would walk through this valley that would spell death for most.

As they stood on the edge of the canyon, Ning'Er reminded them again. "Remember, for any dangerous beasts we encounter, either hide from them using your Cloak of Misdirection, or kill them quickly and quietly. The last thing we want is to be swarmed by an endless flood of snakes!"

They decided to stick to the left side of the canyon walls as they eased themselves into the valley, feeling a sense of assurance from the fact that in the worst case scenario, they could scale up the cliff walls to avoid being completely surrounded. In any case, both Ziyun and Linjian's demon spirits could fly, meaning that only Du Ze would lack mobility in an emergency where they could carry him if needed.

For the duration of around half a day, they only encountered a few isolated snake demon beasts, which were only at Silver Rank, and Ning'Er allowed her friends to take them out. It was only further in that she sensed a tougher challenge at the cliff wall. About twenty yards up, there was a cave opening, of which she could sense a rich medicinal aura accompanied by the sharp scent of powerful demon beasts. Signalling for her friends to hold back, she spread her wings and flew up to get close enough to extend her spiritual perception into the cave.

She could hear an intimidating chorus of hissing coming from within and as she extended her perception inside, she could sense that there were over twenty snake beasts inside, half of which had reached Gold Rank and the other half at Silver Rank. They should be able to handle this group if they were careful enough and even if the battle drew other beasts, they could form a defensible position from the cave which would be difficult to fight into from outside.

She made sure that everyone had poison antidotes on hand although they were general spectrum on not specific to whatever they may encounter. Then she prepared five flares which they would light and throw into the cave before rushing in, which would allow them to blind those within for a few crucial moments, and to give themselves greater visibility as well.

Other than Ning'Er, the other three had to climb up because they didn't want to expend too much soul force merging with their demon spirits unless it were necessary. Once they got into position, they took a deep breath as they waited for the signal to begin. In an instant, the peace and quiet was gone.

Gleaming white flares burning brightly were thrown into the cave followed by four ruthless warriors. Ning'Er recognised the demon beast the moment she saw them, Red Feathered Serpents! These snakes had scales that were covered by a layer of feathers, and although they could not actually fly, they could launch themselves into the air and glide in various directions, allowing them to attack from unpredictable angles especially if they were in a group.

Ning'Er allowed Du Ze and Linjian to take the vanguard and their Unity Swords flashed alongside each other, beating off the any lunges by the dangerous snakes. From a distance, Ziyun shot unerring arrows that began to find their way into the eyes of unwary beasts. Once they realised the danger from further behind the boys, they made sure to protect their faces with their tough, scaly bodies and Ziyun could no longer find easy pick-offs.

Despite their teamwork, the boys started getting pushed back when more Gold Ranked serpents began joining the attack from various directions, and soon, some gashes began appearing on their arms and legs from attacks that broke through their defence. Ning'Er then stepped in, sending lethal wind blades towards any of the snakes that found positions where dangerous attacks could be launched.

For any Silver Ranked beast, her wind attacks would slice right through the serpents, leaving both halves flopping around in their final death throes. For the Gold Ranked beasts, they would leave deep gashes that caused them to slowly bleed out, losing strength as time passed. Within a short time, the beasts realised that they had no chance against these dangerous humans and suddenly rushed to the exit of the cave to escape.

Ning'Er was ready for this as she switched from ranged wind blades to physical attacks, which contained even more force and was able to decapitate each snake that came close to the exit. Ziyun supported her with unrelenting arrows which would inevitably find its way through the eye, mouth or already open wounds of the serpents.

In a matter of minutes, every Red Feathered Serpent lay lifeless on the ground. None had escaped. As this demon beast was not known for its potent poison, the boys could apply a common paste to counteract the stinging sensation they were experiencing. While her friends harvested the body parts of the serpents, where the feathers could be used for high quality arrows, the fangs and scales for equipment, and the blood for inscriptions, Ning'Er decided to explore the back of the cave for the source of the strong medicinal aura she had perceived.

As she navigated to the back, she was overjoyed to find six eggs in a nest of soft weeds. She quickly put it into her interspatial ring. Without certain stimulus, she knew they would not hatch yet. She could either sell it to the Beast Guild in Glory City or even raise it herself if she had time. It was always useful to be able to train powerful pets from the time they were babies as allies for the future.

Although Glory City currently only tamed the more docile beasts to support functions such as farming, in her previous life's travels, she had encountered races and civilisations which had trained majestic and frightening beasts as important parts of their armies. She had learnt some of their methods and had trained up a few impressive pets to aid her in the past.

She heard a sound of dripping water and followed the sound behind a rock, where found a small pool of water that glowed bright blue emanating an energy filled with vitality. Azure Water! This was a liquid that accumulated in a place with extreme yin and it would have taken decades to fill a pool such as this. It had a cleansing and purifying effect that was very gentle on the body, and she was ecstatic because this was something that may help her grandfather greatly!

Taking a few large glass containers out of her interspatial ring, she filled them until the pool was empty. She decided not to touch the shimmering stalactite where the liquid was dripping from to extract the Azure Essence found within because this would mean that the liquid would never accumulate again.

Next to the pool of water, she finally found the spirit herbs that she was looking for. There were five golden flowers with bright blue streaks all over, as though someone had beautifully painted an intricate pattern over the plant. They were a few precious Azure Streaked Elecampanes, whose flowers would only grow near a source of Azure Essence!

These were incredibly valuable herbs that even the Alchemist Association could make use of because of its relatively gentle nature. However, this did not take away from the vigorous energy that it contained to boost one's cultivation. She carefully harvested them with the soil beneath and placed them in a special box to preserve their potency.

Then she went back to the front portion of the cave to find that her friends had completed harvesting the valuable parts of the Red Feathered Serpents, and also applied the pastes on any wounds they had. They decided to rest there for the night knowing that the next day would be when they would face their toughest test yet at the exit of the valley in the form of a formidable Lernaean Hydra!