Chapter 26 - [Time's Up]

As the female cultivator's body fell to the ground, the two remaining demonic cultivators looked on in horror. In the blind spot created by the falling corpse, Shao reached down and unsheathed Yang Gongsun Bolin's steel dagger. He had to draw the knife with his offhand, since one of the bones of his dominant forearm was broken. It took Shao an extra fraction of a second to summon the knife to his hand, but his shocked enemies did not have the wherewithal to capitalize on this opening.

Knife in hand and screaming like a wild animal, Shao charged at the younger of the two surviving cultivators. The teenager backed away frantically, throwing wild haymakers to halt Shao's approach. One of the younger cultivator's punches struck Shao's face, giving him a black eye but not stopping his attack. Shao's knife found its target, and he buried the knife hilt-deep into the younger cultivator's abdomen.

Just as Shao was about to wrench the knife out of the younger cultivator's stomach to do more damage, an arm went around his neck and pulled him away from his target. Surprised by the unseen attacker, Shao lost his grip on his knife, which remained firmly in the younger cultivator's stomach.

"Run, Min Bo! I'll hold him off!" A voice called out from next to Shao's ear. The older cultivator apparently thought he was strong enough to stop Shao. Based on the feeble force he was exerting on Shao's neck, this was wishful thinking.

The younger cultivator barely had enough time to run a few steps before Shao bit down hard on the older cultivator's arm. As the older cultivator screamed in pain, Shao felt his teeth hit bone. The older cultivator's grip loosened, and Shao used his undamaged arm to break the hold he had on his neck. Shao turned toward the older cultivator as that strange instinct he felt during the fight with the divine bull spoke to him.

Hit him.

The older cultivator had been staggered by the injury to his arm. Shao realized that the opening was significant enough for him to use the divine bull's attack. Following that instinct to kill, Shao took a heavy step and punched toward his target with two fists.

For a brief moment, confusion passed over the older cultivator's expression as he saw that he was too far away for Shao's fists to hit him. Half a second later, this expression was obliterated. The older cultivator's body was completely destroyed in an instant as a cyclone of invisible ki struck it. The body twisted and contorted as it was destroyed as if it had been struck by a massive corkscrew flying at the speed of a lightning bolt. A deep trough was dug in the ground, and several trees in the distance were uprooted by Shao's attack.

Trying to ignore the pain in his injured arm, Shao turned toward the one surviving demonic cultivator. Killing the four others had not diminished his rage in the slightest, and the torrent of negative emotions still raged in his heart. Seeing the death of the older cultivator, Min Bo turned in fear and began to run from Shao as fast as his injured body would let him.

Shao took a step toward the fleeing cultivator, and he nearly fell to the ground. The injuries to his body and the use of the divine bull's technique had sapped him of energy. If not for the rage in his heart and the adrenaline in his bloodstream, Shao would have collapsed from exhaustion.

With his teeth clenched and his brow furrowed, Shao forced his legs to push him toward the demonic cultivator with a knife in his belly. All of his attention was focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Shao's advance toward Min Bo was only slightly faster than a walk, but that was the fastest he could move in his exhausted state.

In his scrambling retreat, Min Bo was able to increase the distance between himself and Yang Shao. The younger cultivator's injury slowed him much less than Shao's exhaustion.

"Get… back… here!" In between heavy breaths of exertion, Shao shouted these words at the fleeing cultivator.

Just as the distance between the two got so great that Shao could barely see Min Bo's body through the thick foliage of the forest, a flash of green, black, and silver cut off the demonic cultivator's escape. Where there had been nothing but foliage a moment before, Shen Jian stood with an unsheathed blade in one hand and the head of some creature in the other.

"Ah, there you are, Yang Shao. I knew I'd found you if I followed that ki source," Shen Jian said in his usual cheery voice.

Shao had used the divine bull's technique barely a minute before, yet Shen Jian was able to cross a distance of several li in the intervening seconds. He wondered how fast Shen Jian could move at full speed.

In an attempt to use Shen Jian's moment of distraction as an opportunity to flee, Min Bo tried to walk past Shen Jian and put more space between himself and Shao. Min Bo didn't get very far, as Shen Jian held the tip of his blade to the younger cultivator's throat the moment the distance between them was small enough.

"Answer in thirty seconds. Who are you and why did you turn to demonic cultivation?" All sense of levity disappeared from Shen Jian's voice as he made these demands.

"Gao Min Bo. We were desperate, honorable elder. Anyone in the Gao Clan who can't reach the sixth step by the time they're twenty years old becomes an exile. None of us had the talent to reach that level without outside help. Please, honorable elder, we never intended to inconvenience the Shigong Sect. We just wanted…"

In a blur of motion, Gao Min Bo's head was removed from his body. Before Shao or Min Bo had time to perceive the beginning of Shen Jian's swing, the demonic cultivator was dead.

"Time's up," Shen Jian said as he flicked the blood off his sword and returned it to its sheath. "It's been thirty seconds."