Xue Wei, who held Tianyi, Hei Gou, and the priestess hid behind a large and wide tree trunk and observed the villagers.
Groups appeared from all directions. Except, compared to earlier, the amount was much smaller.
In their last meeting, they had been more than a hundred experts, yet now they were less than forty.
The group continued to wait for more to arrive, but their faces turned pale after ten minutes.
"They cannot all have been killed, can they?" one of them asked with a stutter. Qing Li, who was fortunate to be still alive, also had an expression filled with horror.
"No," he said hesitatingly, "I am sure that they have a good reason for not being here... let us move in one large group and find them!"
They were visibly shocked by what they saw when they did, however. The first group that they found had been wiped out; it wasn’t exactly that they didn’t die with perceivable wounds, but at least one person in every group seems to have died of ‘natural’ causes, which caused considerable confusion.
They had tried to track their missing comrades in the forest, temporarily putting the thought of killing Xue Wei and Hei Gou on hold. In the end, what they found were the corpses of their fellow warriors stuffed under the bushes and the dense vegetation.
Despite the red-leaved forest acting as camouflage, the scent of blood was hard to hide alongside the stickiness of blood that had stained the surfaces of the leaves.
The truth was that Xue Wei was aware that they could not hide their tracks for long, so he had not done too great of a job at hiding their victims. He knew that one group being found meant that the others would be found soon after.
In fact, this was what he wanted. He wanted this group of experts to feel worried, scared, and unsure of what to do.
The more nervous they became, the easier they would be to deal with. Xue Wei wanted to deal with them all in one fell swoop.
Xue Wei was not willing to completely wipe out the village because the children and their mothers were a moral factor that deterred him, so he would rather get rid of whoever pursued them. Once they get rid of the men obstructing their way, they should be able to safely continue their journey.
The women were also cultivators, so it was possible for them to sustain their families, but they would not go hunting for Xue Wei, Tianyi, and the priestess because their priority was looking after their children and not regaining the sword.
At least, this was what Xue Wei was hoping for.
Although Xue Wei had no issues with killing these men who were hunting them down, going back to the village to kill the women and children left behind was something he wouldn’t do.
Although they also had looked at him with hostility, they had not actively taken part in the chase, so he would not include them in the massacre. As long as they did not pursue him, he would leave them alone.
Xue Wei was no stranger to being pursued. He had been hunted for so long that it had become a part of who he was, but now the hunted had become the hunter.
Back in Heping Kingdom, it had been impossible for him to fight back because the pursuers were simply too powerful, but now it was a different story.
It was not possible for Xue Wei to turn the tables on the ones chasing him before, so he was taking out all his pent-up resentment and frustration on these villagers.
Killing so many apart from around forty experts had already made him feel much more tranquil. The rage that had been building up inside him for a long time had started to become smaller.
However, it was impossible for him to completely extinguish the flames of anger and rage that he felt. He still felt hatred towards the Kingdom of Heping after the death of Tie Haolong. He felt hatred towards them for chasing him as far as they had, and for not even listening to his explanations, just taking the words of the Ice Harpy for granted.
He felt anger whenever he thought about all the times his pursuers had almost caught him, and how they had chased him through the entire kingdom, and then they had sent a whole company to follow him into the Flowing Blood Prairie.
Now they were in the Vermilion Forest Kingdom. And although they were away from their original pursuers, they were once again targeted by others.
This alone had caused Xue Wei to fume with anger. Could he not go anywhere without being chased? Could he not enjoy just a bit of peace anywhere?
He channeled all these negative emotions towards the battle against the villagers, and felt no remorse after killing them one by one.
In his eyes, they had signed their death sentence when they had decided to chase him and his allies.
Xue Wei and Hei Gou did not immediately follow the large group of experts. Instead, they retreated and started discussing what options they had.
Earlier, they were up against ten-man groups, and they could tentatively handle two groups at once if the two groups only had one Sky Warrior each. But now the remaining four groups had banded together.
There were now twelve Sky Warriors and twenty-eight Earth Warriors. Even if they gave it their all, fighting that many might be too much for them.
"We can always try," Hei Gou suggested. "Take control of the strongest of them and have him cause a ruckus. We sneak up on them as always and kill them one after another. And then when they notice us, we go all out!"
"We can try," Xue Wei said hesitantly. It was true that the ten-man groups had not caused them any problems so far, but four times the numbers did not mean a mere four times increase in difficulty - the two scenarios were leagues apart.
Still, what option did they have? They had to try their best to get rid of all their pursuers.
"Our biggest problem is if they split up," Xue Wei sighed. "As long as we don’t run out of Qi, I believe we have what it takes to kill them, but if one of them flees, he can cause a lot of problem for us in the future."
"Don't worry," the priestess stepped forward. "They will not flee. They cannot flee," she said with certainty in her voice.
"I think it is about time for me to tell you the truth about our Thousand Mist Village and the sword you know as Tianyi."
Xue Wei and Hei Gou nodded their heads. It was indeed an excellent time to tell them exactly what was going on.
Jiang Fengmian sighed while looking around. "It is a fairly long story, so let us find somewhere a little less obvious."
Although they had hidden behind a log of a massive tree, if anyone came from any of the other directions, spotting them would be very simple.
Since this was the case, the group started wandering the forest until they found a small cave. They entered the cave after hiding the entrance with some branches, leaves, and other plants.
"Are you sure they will continue to search when they find no tracks of us?" Xue Wei asked. The priestess nodded her head. "They will keep looking until they die," she said with certainty.
"A long time ago, the Vermilion Forest was a forest like any other," she began. "It was brown during winter, green during spring and summer, and orange during autumn."
"Inside this forest, there were many villages like the Thousand Mist Village. Some Fierce Beasts lived there, but no more than we could handle. There were no Primordial Beasts, not even in the innermost regions of the forest."
"This was long ago. Back when there were no different continents, back when every piece of land was gathered together as one."
"It was before the big battle between humans and beasts; it was when everyone lived peacefully side by side."
"These humans and beasts all strove to become the kings and queens of the world; they fought to become the strongest of them all; and they fought relentlessly day in and day out."
"Amongst these people, one was known as the strongest. This man was Bai Tianyi. He was so strong that no one could fight him. He was the very pinnacle of every cultivator in the world, but he was wicked."
"He had reached the apex, but he was not satisfied. He started experimenting on his soul. Although he had many years of longevity, he wished to become an immortal. To reach this goal, he would do anything."
"The other experts got wind of his absurd plans, but it only filled them with greed. It was said that Bai Tianyi succeeded in his experiments, and they too wished for eternal life. They banded together to fight him and take the secret from him."
"At this point, the battle broke out. However, Bai Tianyi dissipated into thin air right then, and a sword spirit appeared in the spot he had been. A spirit so overwhelming that no one could fight it. It slaughtered every person who stood against it; it split the world into many parts that floated away from one another, becoming the continents."
"Blood rained from the skies; everything was painted red. But this massacre cost a lot for the sword spirit as well."
"The spirit was exhausted and fell to the ground. It landed in the middle of the Thousand Mist Village, which at that time was named the Thousand Blossom Village."
"Three experts, who were on the verge of death, followed the sword to the village, where they overwhelmed the sword. The sword spirit was weak after dealing so many experts, thousands of experts, deadly wounds, if not killing them already."
"Even though they managed to suppress the sword spirit, the dying experts realized that it was impossible for them to kill it."
"No matter what they did, the spirit was hanging on to life by the skin of its teeth. In the end, they sacrificed the rest of their lives to seal it, covered it with sealing paper talismans, and put up many formations around the Thousand Blossom Village, turning it into the Thousand Mist Village we know today"
"They also implemented a failsafe: every man in the village above the age of sixteen had to swear an oath to the heavenly tribulations that they would forever sacrifice their lives to keep the sword sealed."
"Then they picked a young woman. This young woman was fourteen when they found her, and then they branded her with their energy. This was the key to keeping the sword controlled."
"The energy roamed in her blood. She was not the owner of the sword, nor did she have a connection with the sword, but she had complete control of all the seals that imprisoned it."
"This energy had to be transferred through the bloodline, to a successor who would continue the duty of looking after the formations," at this point, the priestess' voice trembled, but she steeled herself and continued the explanation.
"The successor has to absorb the energy into her soul upon becoming the next priestess. There are two things this child has to do. First of all, they have to be the direct descendant, and secondly, they have to kill their own mother with their own hands to inherit the energy."
After saying this, the woman was silent for a long time. Tears had pooled in her eyes when she was explaining the process, which were now dripping down one after another. She seemed lost in thought and pained, and both Xue Wei and Hei Gou were genuinely shocked by what they heard.
This woman had to kill her own mother to become the next priestess? It was no wonder that she wished to escape! As soon as she produced an heir, she knew that this child would have to do the same to her, living with the same pain and guilt for the rest of their lives!