2 First Sortie - Demons

Faced with the place that the Crown Prince called a treasure trove, Xinxin's face darkened. The others may not sense it, but she could clearly tell. This was indeed a cursed place... It was a forest where a portal to the Demonic Realm was... she could feel that its demonic aura was leaking slightly, which meant that beasts probably escaped here and there.

"Crown Prince..." she said unsure of how to tell him about this.

"It's Senior Brother Chenfeng," he insisted.

"Senior Brother, do you know when this forest appeared?"

"Appeared?" he asked.

"This forest obviously grew overnight, so yes, when did it appear?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about," he answered.

She frowned, it seemed that the Crown Prince didn't know much about the place he had launched an expedition against. As they progressed, she suddenly sensed a bit of that energy near them. She scanned her surroundings.

"Junior Sister, you are too tense," said Wu Yahui, the sixth Prince. "Look, with this many of us you aren't in any danger at all."

She couldn't really put words on her own uneasiness, and she wasn't confident to speak well enough to convince a Prince, so she just shot him a smile and didn't say a word. Still, she had activated the scan of her system and scouted the place for any anomaly.

"See, you really don't have to be so tense, we've come this far, but nothing has happened."

"You take demonic beasts for way dumber creature than they are. I'd say that they're waiting that we all become as carefree as you," she grumbled to herself since the other party was a Prince. "It's likely that a massive attack will hit us with full force."

She was looking at the ground as she said that so she didn't see the Crown Prince look at her with a frown, and reinforce the grip on his sword. If his brother hadn't heard her warning, he fully did, and so did the man by his side.

This actually saved the group, because of their raised awareness, the two warned everyone in time. A dozen of beasts rushed at them from the front and were engaged by her sect brothers. She quickly released her qi under the form of several enchants, which enhanced the abilities of her sect brothers.

"Incredible," said the Eight Prince. "I feel as if my body is surging with qi."

"Wow, sect sister sure is ~awesome~ !" said the Sixth Prince dashing in the pack of monsters.

With this many demonic beasts, tracking the pure demonic energy she sensed earlier was more difficult, even with the help of her system. Well, that is, until she felt it right above her. She materialized ice from her qi and jumped backward, but the creature, invisible to the eyes shattered her ice shield.

"Sister!" the Sixth Prince turned and looked bewildered.

"There's one who's invisible. Fight the others, their presence makes it hard to sense the invisible one!" she told him.

He was about to rush toward him, but the Crown Prince told him that they couldn't even sense the monster's presence, so they'd only be a burden. All they could do was ease her fight by eliminating the others.

Ice wasn't her only element, she could control fire, wind, and water too. But she could hurt her allies easily with those so, for now, she stuck with Ice. Several times, she could feel her attack connect with the enemy. But she couldn't assess how much damage she did him.

That's when she had an idea, she created mud with water and the soil, then splashed it in all direction. It stuck to a creature who was just near her. It was about the size of an elephant but was very agile. she jumped on his back, and she spread poison powder in the mud attached to him when she landed. Quickly jumping away, she created an ice shield to block his fire.

She thought the fight would be long, but in fact, it wasn't. She didn't notice that some of her blood had mixed with the poison, making it the most potent poison ever against the demon. His invisibility ceased a few minutes later, and he fell dead right in the middle of an attack that would have dealt great damage to her.

"What the heck is that creature?"

"That's what humans who have sinned and can't reincarnate becomes," she said. "A demon."

This word petrified all the men around. This... used to be a human? But it has nothing left of a human's shape. But humans male had ceased to reincarnate for centuries... even the strongest cultivators didn't reincarnate nowadays... they'd become that?

"Don't look at me like that," she scolded them. "Who told you to break one of Heavens' Pillar Laws by becoming polygamous? Do you think that Heaven doesn't know that you have several wives and concubines that you ALL visit? Heavens Laws are that a man should have one and only one wife, and take as concubines the miserable who have nowhere to go."

She was annoyed by their now stupefied faces. Those guys were pretending that they didn't know what she was talking about!

"Taking in a concubine by heavenly law should be an act of charity, you are supposed to take in those who have kids and can't feed them. Who told you to become so lecherous and live in sin?! Don't whine that you can't reincarnate. And don't try to fool me saying you haven't noticed that you couldn't reincarnate ever since the Third Emperor proclaimed a man should have three wives and four concubines. Now let's go. Aren't you willing to go to the treasure trove?" she asked pointing out the direction ahead of them.

Nobody dared say a word. When they looked at the creature at her feet, they felt like this sister was crazy strong, and shouldn't be angered. Plus, her words lingered in their minds... was it really as she said? She didn't feel like she was lying. But would an emperor condemn his whole kingdom?

"In Qin, even men reincarnate," said Feng Zhelan. "They aren't monogamous, but they practice marriage as she has described... and they reincarnate."

The Sixth and Eight Prince looked at him with a complex expression. Brother Feng had always been against the polygamous system in Zhoudong since he was from Qin. He practiced polygamy too, but the Qin way. Besides his wife, he had never touched his concubines. That seemed to mean that he would reincarnate when he would die.

They were still deep in thought when a group compound of two demons and six demonic beasts attacked them. Her eyes sweeping across that group of enemies, she let out a sigh. "Brother Zhelan, it will take all of your strength, but defeat the one in the left, I'm taking the demon on the right," she said.

Those demons were different from the one she just beat, they were extremely strong. She couldn't afford to just dodge, so she kissed one of her golden bracelets and used a merging technique to fuse with a White Dragon. Two horns appeared on her head, and a tail appeared on her back. Her body became somewhat scales. She then engaged the demon with hand-to-hand techniques.

"Damn you, human, how can you be so strong?" roared the demon.

"Ain't that obvious? Cause nothing beats a demon barbecue. Demon meat has lots of nice properties," she answered. Decided to enrage the demon, she told him all kind of cooking methods for demonic meat.

"You lowly human, you dare think of eating us? Don't you think too highly of yourself?"

"Shut up, I don't speak with my meals, it's bad table manners," she answered.

The demon did just as she expected upon hearing this, he spread his arms wide to launch a demonic attack from his demonic core. At this moment she inhaled as much air as she could and she breathed it with her draconic form. It resulted in a breath attack that ravaged the whole area in which the demon was. He took the attack straight on so his demonic core shattered. He quickly died after that, turning into ashes.

Since she had warned them through telepathy, her friends had left the area she breathed at and dodged her attack, but they made sure the other demonic beasts were trapped in the area. Nothing was left of it. They looked at the deep hole with what seemed to be a single island in its center, it was where the demon was standing. It had been protected by the demon from being shattered like the rest.

"To think that I'd meet a woman I'm more afraid of than our Imperial Mother..." said the Eight Prince. "My horizon widened today."

On the other side, Brother Feng Zhelan was in a bind, he had almost used his whole energy, and while the demon was in a pitiful state, it wasn't dead. They were about to rush to his help, but they were stopped by Sister Xinxin.

"If he's really about to die, I'll intervene. But if he can take this battle to its end, he will enter the Saint realm," she answered.

They watched the battle and waited for him to come on top, but he began to lose ground, so Xinxin decided to intervene. She breathed again, and then fell on the ground, her form gone, her tattered clothes appearing back, and injuries covering her body.

"Let's camp," she proposed. "I'm in no condition to fight more demons for today and neither is Brother Zhelan. We must get out of the forest, and continue our journey tomorrow."

"Shouldn't we just scram? We're obviously no match for the creatures here," said the Sixth Prince.

"But Brother Feng can ascend as a Saint here," she said.

As they looked at her, and then at Feng Zhelan, everyone was torn between the feeling that it would be even more dangerous from here on and the feeling that missing this opportunity to let Feng Zhelan breakthrough was a shame since he might not have such an opportunity in a long time.

"Let's call Brother Xu, Feng Shui, and Geng," said the Crown Prince. "With them, we will have less to worry about."

This was the decision of the party leader, so everyone complied to it. Xinxin steeled herself and got up, decided to plant her tent and get some rest, but as soon as he saw this, the Crown Prince immediately picked up her affairs and told her to rest while he was planting her tent. She had a tent who had a roof and a one-piece inner body, for better defense against insects and other troubles of the sort, so they were curious and all came to see it.

"It's quite ingenious, this way, it's well-isolated..."

"And look there are runes all over to keep the tent warm..."

Different comments sprouted from the different members of the party. When she entered in, the runes to keep the place warm without fire activated, and she went in her sleeping bag. She was glad that she brought her regenerative sleeping bag, else she would be miserable for the entire night.