Chapter 3: Chapter 2 - Dance, Dance Until You Die

Yuriel studied the photo of a young man shining on the holographic screen above the Flash Station.

He was Tie Li, the Young Master of the Iron Clan.

Three weeks ago, during the umpteenth battle between the Iron Clan and the Blood Sword Clan, Tie Li’s mother got killed. Tie Li wanted justice for his mother, but his father, the Iron Clan’s Leader, opposed it, not wanting his clansmen to be killed in vain. He wanted to conserve his clan’s strength.

Long story short, Tie Li decided to sneak out of his clan and seek revenge himself. He ambushed one Blood Sword clansman after another, injuring several unrelated people in the process. The police was allerted by this, and thus quickly chased after him – but their attempt resulted in repeated failure. By now, he had succeeded in killing a total of fourteen Blood Sword clansmen, all while being chased. Even under the joint chase of the Blood Sword Clan and the police, he could still kill right under their noses and escape. This showed that this young man was not ordinary – or rather, he had a helper... a friend hiding in the dark.

A few days ago, Yuriel, who was preparing her plan, received the news about Tie Li going in the direction of the Loche City’s central area. This was great news for Yuriel. She then readjusted her plans, chosing to carry it out this day, when Tie Li was predicted to arrive here.

She had to meet this Tie Li. And more importantly, his friend...

***

Whoosh!

A dark figure darted fast between the shadows of tall trees, entering an area devoid of buildings near the Flash Station.

Faintly, the sound of rapid footsteps could be heard not far behind.

At this moment, the dark figure suddenly stopped in his track. A few meters in front of him, sitting on a bench under a tall tree, a dark-red-clothed girl sat. Her long lustrous black hair fluttered gently behind her back, creating an ethereal feel to her presence. She was currently staring at the dome-shaped building a few hundred meters away down the hill.

“Young Master Tie Li, nice to meet you.” the girl suddenly greeted.

Correct, the one who just arrived was Tie Li, the Young Master of the Iron Clan.

“Climb the tree next to you,” the girl, Yuriel, said without waiting for his reply. “I’ll distract their attention. You can find the chance to attack them.”

Wind blowed. The figure was gone. The area returned to its previous tranquil atmosphere.

A few minutes passed by.

Several figures arrived. They were all clothed in black, with black-red masks hiding their faces.

‘One Grandmaster rank and ten Master rank powerhouses.’ Yuriel thought. ‘The fight isn’t going to be easy, with the Grandmaster-rank leader...’

With the arrival of these eleven people, Yuriel appeared to be startled, jolted to her feet in shock.

“W-who are you?” she asked timidly in a voice that was vastly different than her actual one.

“Girl, did you see the evil boy Tie Li?” the one at the lead asked.

Yuriel stumbled backward, looking scared. “W-who? I-I don’t – I didn’t...”

Suddenly, sharp needles rained down upon the group of masked men. They yelled in shock, frantically fending the needles off using their blood-red swords.

With no one paying attention to her, Yuriel quickly disappeared into the darkness – literally.

The masked men were still busy fending off the needles when a dark figure suddenly swooped down. Sharp light glinted as he swung his bronze machete around in a barbaric manner, knocking down two and wounding three of the masked men.

By this time, the rain of needles had ended. But just as the rest of the masked men were about to counter-attack, darkness enveloped them.

It was as if someone had dyed the air with ink.

Creeping in the darkness, Yuriel lightning-quickly poked the masked men’s leader’s hilt bone sharply. The leader who got paralized by Yuriel’s precise hit to his accupoint was startled. But still, he was no rookie. As such, he immediately exploded with his peak Grandmaster rank-level natural power and broke the seal placed in his accupoint. Roaring in anger, he reached out for his attacker, but grabbed nothing but thin air.

He let out a roar, his natural power blasting in every direction. The ground immediately trembled under the pressure of his power, and even the darkness hanging in the air receeded a little, making it possible for everyone to faintly make out the outline of each other’s figure.

Yuriel seemed to had expected this, and quickly took out a flaming sword which looked like it was entirely carved from deep-red garnet stone. She slashed it at the ambushers’ leader, who met her attack with his own sword. Soon, the two were engaged in an intense battle of swordplay, techniques, and natural power. Blood-red and fiery-red, two similarly-colored energies, continuously flashed in the darkness, accompanied by the clear sound of blade colliding and battle cries.

Nearby, Tie Li had successfully killed the five ones he had attacked previously. Eyes cold, he took out a big lump of metal from his spatial stone. He willed it to melt and envelop the rest of the masked men. Two managed to escape, though. Tie Li clenched his left fist, and the melted iron tightened around the three masked men, forming a ball which gradually became smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, his right hand wielded his bronze machete with ease, blocking one sword attack after another.

Feeling cornered, the masked men formed some hand seals with both hands as they chanted some ancient incantation. Blood-red light array formed under their feet. Suddenly, pulled by a mysterious force, blood spurted out from the wounds all over Tie Li’s body. He roared in pain, but held his ground.

On the other side, Yuriel and the leader’s battle was relatively less flashy than Tie Li and the other masked men’s. Shrouded in darkness, Yuriel was like a specter as she continuously attacked her opponent with a black sword – at some time, she had switched her fiery sword with a dark black sword. Like an arrow of darkness, its blade pierced through the masked men leader’s right shoulder blade.

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The man roared in pain, but he didn’t back down. He knew that this was his only chance. If he let Yuriel retreat back into the darkness, he would be continuously attacked and could only defend passively. Ignoring his pain, the leader clutched the hilt of his blood-red sword with both hands and madly slashed toward where he predicted Yuriel to be.

Yuriel, who had lost a considerable amount of power, was late by a split second. Even though she had reacted quickly and immediately retreated the moment she noticed her opponent counter-attacking, the skin on her right side was still grazed by the sharp tip of the sword. Beads of blood, sparkling like ruby, formed along the line of her wound.

Sensing his attack succeeding, the leader hastily formed some hand seals with both hands. Putting his pain aside, he focused on chanting the same ancient incantation his subordinates had previously chanted. Blood-red light array bloomed from under the man’s feet, then spread lightning-quickly, and reached Yuriel in a matter of miliseconds.

A pained shout subconsciously escaped Yuriel’s mouth. From her open wound, blood spurted out, pulled by an invisible force. The sudden burst of blood forcefully ripped open Yuriel’s skin and flesh, and even some veins near the wound. Quite painful indeed.

But pain wasn’t the first thing in her mind – she was shocked, her pride wounded. How could she had let the opponent wound her? She was but the Young Miss of the Emperor Zhang Clan!

Yuriel’s anger surged. Unknowingly, her irises flashed red, and that familiar murderous aura engulfed the air. Her fiery sword appeared in her left grip, and she swung her twin swords of darkness and fire around, forming some circular and vertical linear patterns.

“Eternal Purgatory!” she shouted.

Bright light bloomed from within the darkness, and a vermilion-red array took shape right above the leader’s blood-red one. Not only did the vermilion-red array suppress the blood-red array, its diameter was wider, enveloping everyone involved in the battle. Before anyone could react, the grey winter sky above them, which previously could still be faintly seen, seemed to darken, becoming completely pitch-black. And bellow them, vermilion-red flame blazed, licking the skin of the masked men, burning them alive. Immediately, shrill cries resounded.

The leader of the ambushers of course didn’t stay still. With his life at stake, he forced himself to activate the Blood Sword Clan’s forbidden secret method, the Rain of Blood Arrows.

He formed some complicated hand seals with lightning speed, and suddenly, arrows of blood shot out of his pores, shooting towards Yuriel, who quickly formed a barrier made out of natural power in front of her. The rain of thin blood arrows collided against her natural power shield and melted. Then, the blood arrows which had melted crept around the shield and converged at the other side of it, then onto Yuriel’s pointed fiery sword. Strangely, Yuriel let her sword be covered with her opponent’s creeping blood, until it was about to reach her skin.

Yuriel smiled coldly. With a light shake of her arm, the fiery sword covered in her opponent’s blood erupted with flames.

"AAAAARGH!” her opponent roared in extreme pain as his blood, which contained a sliver of his mental power, evaporated.

The flames spread toward Yuriel’s natural power shield, enveloping it, mercilessly burning the blood covering it. Roars and shrieks of pain continuously resounded in the area.

Meanwhile, Yuriel naturally wouldn’t let this opportunity go and quickly shot toward her opponent as she slashed with both swords, sending a cross-shaped sword slash toward him. The masked men’s leader, who was weak beyond weak, couldn’t resist the attack.

Splash! The cross-shaped energy blade cut through his body. In a slow-motion, his body nicely broke into four parts.

Her natural power drained, Yuriel released a fit of cough as her skill, the Eternal Purgatory, dimmed. She couldn’t rest now, though, as she could sense that at the other side, Tie Li was struggling to hold his ground, already losing a considerable amount of blood. So, she quickly willed the Eternal Purgatory to re-appear. This time, the darkness was absolute, and the flames intensified.

“Dance,” Yuriel said, smiling faintly. “Dance until you die.”

The masked men shrieked in panic, because this time, no matter what they did, they couldn’t fend the darkness off. They could only see the vermilion-red flames dancing on their shriveled, burned skin.

Gradually, everything went silent.

The Eternal Purgatory slowly disappeared, revealing a circular area of scorched-black ground, about fifteen meters in diameter.

Tie Li stared at Yuriel warrily. He didn’t know why she helped him, and most importantly – she was stronger than him. Definitely a threat to his life.

Meanwhile, Yuriel was also studying him. The guy was a tall and robust young man, about seventeen years old, with short dark brown hair and sharp eyes. Having lost a lot of blood, his face was pale, and his body was very faintly trembling out of weakness.

He wore a set of brown leather warrior robe and boots – which was currently torn in many places, with both dried and fresh blood here and there. He wasn’t that handsome, but his entire being radiated a sharp and dangerous aura – an irresistible natural charm.

“Thank you.” Tie Li suddenly said.

Yuriel managed a faint smile, saying, “You should go.”

From the corner of his eyes, Tie Li caught the sight of the gaping wound on Yuriel’s side, which was still gushing out blood.

“Come with me. Your wound is quite severe.” he blurted out, forgetting that Yuriel could kill him at any time.

Yuriel gave him a deep look, smiling, “Let’s quickly go, then. The police are already nearby.”

Not wasting any more time, Tie Li quickly led Yuriel to a public restroom. They activated their boots’ hover mode and flew toward their destination, so the police wouldn’t be able to find their footprints.

“We should change clothes first.” Tie Li answered Yuriel’s silent question.

And the two went into a cubicle each to change their clothes.

Yuriel used her dirty shirt to wipe the blood around her wound, frowning. As she had the innate power of the Emperor Zhang Clan’s bloodline, the wound should have started healing already. Normally, no matter how severe her condition was, the power contained within her blood would always heal her back. Of course, she and the Emperor Zhang clansmen would still die out of age, or if fatally wounded.

But right now, Yuriel’s wound showed no sign of even the slightest bit of healing. She had no time to think about it for now, though, so she just wrapped a strip of bandage around her waist, waiting for it to heal by itself.

Outside, Tie Li was already done, and was waiting for Yuriel to come out.

“Let’s go – they’re near.” Yuriel said.

Tie Li nodded. He put on a mask, then led Yuriel toward a path leading to the enormous dome-shaped building in the distance. The path he chose was one that was quite bustling, with food stalls installed on either sides of the path, lining down the hillside. Noisy chatter filled the air, the people there completely oblivious to the two youngsters who just joined them.

Going right into the Flash Station? An area full of surveilance robos? It meant that Tie Li had the confidence of getting past all the surveilance.

The two waded through the river of humans, toward the entrance gate of the dome-shaped building in front of them.

“Are you using your real identity?” Tie Li suddenly asked in a low voice as they neared the security personels.

“No.” Yuriel said.

Tie Li nodded, then quickly muttered, seemingly to himself, “Did you hear that?”

Witnessing this, Yuriel smiled. Now she was certain that Tie Li could run from the police without being caught, was because he had a friend helping him pass through all of Hexasia’s high-level security!

How... great...