16. End of mountain village

As they traveled through the forest, they couldn't find any herbs along the way, so they entertained themselves by play-fighting with wooden sticks. Their pace was brisk, and after three hours, they reached a camping place with dead wolves. All the wolves were already eaten, so the area was cleaned, with only some bones left behind.

After eating lunch, they entered the cultivation state until all the wood was burned away. Then they resumed their journey. Li Wei could cover forty kilometers in three hours, but Mei Lin, even after entering the cultivation realm, still had a body that was weak, similar to an ordinary human. She was probably the weakest first-stage cultivator in terms of body combat. While her cultivation was not very advanced, she was happy that she could cultivate and thus help her parents.

After a few hours of running, they were near the village, so they slowed down. Night began to cover the forest, and they were happy that they would be home soon. Mei Lin was exhausted, so they had no other choice. As they left the forest and stepped onto the farm field, they started looking for signs of a welcome. However, all they saw were destroyed houses. The main hall wasn't even there, only ruins. Not a single house had been spared. Everything was destroyed, with traces of battle everywhere; the land was filled with craters from spells.

Mei Lin dropped her rabbit gloves and started running to her house as fast as she could. Along the way, she fell to the ground due to a rock hidden under the snow. When she stood up, she continued to run. Tears are falling down her face as she became more and more desperate with every step. She stopped before a smaller house with half of the roof destroyed and one of the walls destroyed. Opening the door, she rushed inside.

*****

Li Wei wasn't as devastated by the scene. After all, he was a demon, and he didn't care about his adoptive parents. He was content that he didn't need to deal with them anymore. His sole goal was to become a cultivator, discover his birth parents, and become the strongest cultivator. Unlike Mei Lin, he didn't place much importance on finding his parents; survival was the most crucial priority above everything else.

He started slowly walking through the snowy field and headed to the nearest house to inspect it. "This was the work of cultivators, he thought, so they didn't take any loot. Maybe I'll find some money and food. Then we can find a big snail and leave this forsaken village."

An hour later, Li Wei had looted all the houses, and only one remained. He didn't go inside; instead, he went to kneel and began waiting.

*****

After Mei Lin went inside the house, she saw her parents lying on the ground in a frozen pool of blood. "No... Wake up, you can't be dead. You don't even know that I became a cultivator. I want to go to the cultivation sect and help you in the village." She went to them crying, scraping the blood from the wooden floor and pushing it near them, perhaps hoping that the blood would enter their bodies and wake them up. After scraping blood for half an hour, the skin from her hands was scraped off, and blood poured from them.

After more than ten minutes, she began hearing voices. "Why didn't you save us! Save us!" She scraped the blood even more frantically. In this moment, another voice appeared. It was the voice of the Sleeping Deity.

"If you want to put their blood inside them again, why don't you command the blood to do it? Hmm? Why are you only putting it back? You need to command the blood if you want something from it to happen!"

"A few minutes later, the disgusting scratching ended. Mei Lin's eyes turned red, as if they were filled with blood. The blood all around her started flowing back inside her parents' bodies. Not even a quarter of the pool went inside, but from the extreme stress and consumption of her natural energy, her black hair started turning white from the roots. After that, she fell unconscious into the blood, and all the blood that had entered them spilled out again.

When Li Wei heard that the scratching had ended, he looked inside and immediately saw her lying there, just like their parents.

He dropped his loot on the ground and went inside the house. When he turned Mei Lin on her back, he discovered that her eyes were completely bloody red, and her hair had turned white. "Shit, what happened to her? She was fine an hour ago. No one else was alive here except for us, so what happened?"

He rushed outside of the house and started looking for the big snail. The snail was still in the same place, so he found it easily. "I need help. Something strange happened to Mei Lin. Her eyes turned red, and her hair turned white. Help her!"

As he started shouting at the snail, the deity began to creepily smile. Her plan had succeeded. Thanks to her intentional guidance, she was responsible for Mei Lin's state. It was her who started talking to Mei Lin when she was in despair and pointed her to become a Blood Path cultivator.

Those were just her intentions she didn't believe that someone with such a seemingly weak potential talent like Mei Lin could be fortunate enough to have an affinity for the Blood Path.

*****

In the cultivation world, there are five main cultivation paths: Water, Fire, Wind, Wood, and Metal. From these five basics, other special paths are derived, such as the Blood Path, Soul Path, and so on. The Blood Path is derived from the Water Path, sharing some similarities with it. Every derivated path usually bears disadvantages of the main cultivation paths, but bears their own unique advantages.