亚洲偷自区

(Holy Sword Sect- Mount Xilean)

(Fifth Peak- Private Residence)

There was no place like home.

Well... not really... because this home was \'poorly designed\'... and that was putting it politely.

Xu Lu sighed heavily as she approached the run-down wooden shack where she lived.

She walked through the entranceway that was partially blocked by a door loosely swinging from the hinges that were not properly attached.

There were only three pieces of furniture in the entire building.

A small wardrobe to store her robes, a mattress with no bedsheets and finally the most expensive item of all...

A large person-sized mirror.

Xu Lu frowned slightly as she saw her reflection. The silvery grey mask covering her face served as a grim reminder of what lay beneath.

Mutilated, scarred, and burnt flesh.

No... stop thinking about that... she needed to overcome... she could not afford to have such a terrible weakness...

The saintess hesitantly approached the mirror with her body trembling violently with every step that she took.

She could hear the voice in her head get louder and louder until it became a never-ending scream of despair and self-hatred.

(Stop it! Don\'t look! You are so hideous...)

(Don\'t take off the mask... don\'t take off the mask... DON\'T TAKE OFF THE MASK!)

Xu Lu took in a deep breath and placed two of her fingers gently on the corner of the mask.

Her fingers shivered ever so slightly as she cut off the qi connection flowing into the mask and slowly dislodged the corner of the covering.

(YOU. ARE. UGLY.)

"I know," Xu Lu softly replied as she lifted up the mask and silently stared at the scarred young woman who looked back at her with soft brown eyes.

Her face had not healed.

Whatever that demon cultivator had smeared on his dagger... it prevented her wounds from recovering.

The only undamaged part of her face was her eyes and most of her nose. The rest of her facial features had been destroyed.

Thick jagged lines of scar tissue criss-crossed her face in a random pattern accompanied by flesh that showed traces of burn marks.

(NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU! THEY WILL ALL MAKE FUN OF YOU... HIDEOUS LITTLE THING!)

"It doesn\'t matter... the only thing that cultivators respect is strength..." Xu Lu quietly whispered back as she raised up her fingers and touched her face.

"I... I already found love... I don\'t need another..."

Xu Lu\'s voice began to cut off as her body started to hyperventilate.

The original Xu Lu\'s emotions were flooding her mind and it was getting too overwhelming to deal with.

"No... I am stronger than... this... I am... Camilla\'s sword... the most feared... vampire... hunter..." Xu Lu hissed darkly.

The panic in her heart was only increasing with every passing second so she had no choice but to resort to doing something drastic.

The saintess opened her mouth and then bit down hard on her tongue.

Blood flooded her mouth, and a sharp burst of pain snapped her out of her mental anguish.

She coughed violently and thick droplets of crimson liquid stained the wooden floor beneath her feet.

Xu Lu knelt down and continued to spit out her saliva that was now a dark red colour. The voice in her mind got fainter as she struggled to push it down.

She reached for the mask and placed it back on her face. Immediately a sense of relief rose up in her chest and she felt at peace.

She imagined that was a similar sensation to what an addict must feel once they got their hit.

"Baby steps... baby steps..." Xu Lu whispered softly to no one as she got up from the ground and turned away from the mirror.

It would not be easy to deal with the negative side effects of inhabiting this body but all she could do was try.

Otherwise...

Xu Lu shuddered to imagine what would happen in a fight if her mask was somehow removed. An enemy would easily be able to take advantage of her fragile mental state.

She needed to fix this flaw... but was it possible to \'fix\' a personality trait?

The saintess let out a heavy sigh under her breath and walked outside. She headed for the edge of the forest and sat down beneath the shade of a large oak tree.

The sky was a clear blue colour but there were a few dark clouds rolling along the edges of the horizon.

Rain was coming.

Xu Lu reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small scroll with words that had been written down on yellowing paper.

She had eventually selected three techniques from the central sect library.

A movement technique, the special underwater breathing technique and last but not least... a poison cultivation technique.

Xu Lu may be a sword cultivator, but she was no stranger to playing dirty. In a life and death situation one needed to be able to use all the resources at their disposal.

Honour and mercy had no place in a fight for survival.

Sometimes the only way to win was to survive.

There are always stories of brave warriors who faced overwhelming odds and made last stands, but Xu Lu considered them fools.

The warrior who runs away... lives to fight another day.

It was that simple.

Xu Lu unfurled the piece of paper and glanced at the words that had been written down. \'The Black Dragon\'s Curse\'.

An extremely dangerous technique that bordered on demonic cultivation.

It involved ingesting a toxic substrate made from the skin of a rare frog found in the heart of the southwest jungles of the Easteroes Nation.

The cultivator who practised this technique would run the risk of polluting their meridian veins with a deadly toxin.

Xu Lu looked at the diagram that showed where the poison would have to travel around her body and felt a bit nervous.

This technique required the toxin to travel by all of her major organs. Definitely not a good omen if things were to go wrong.

"Okay... so I\'ll have to ask around the Alchemy Hall... maybe go into the town..." Xu Lu muttered quietly to herself as she tried to think about how to acquire the rare poison.

Still... there was no use worrying about the future.

Right now, it was time to train.

Xu Lu got up from the ground and stretched out her arms. She yawned sleepily and then took out the sword from the sheath attached to her hip.

She began to practise a set of plain movements.

A simple thrust, a light parry, a horizontal strike... these were all extremely basic moves and that was the point.

Swordsmanship could not be overly complicated. As a swordsman there was only one job that you had to do.

Kill people.

Flashy techniques, rare swordsmanship arts... were all unnecessary.

Xu Lu continued to swing her blade in the basic movements and her posture did not break once.

She had practised so many times that it had now become second nature. Camilla had always said that she was a natural born sword genius, but Xu Lu didn\'t think so.

Talent was useless without hard work and effort.

A single leaf fell down slowly from the tree. Xu Lu glanced at the floating object and swung her blade casually.

Slash!

The leaf was neatly spit into three pieces. Xu Lu clicked her tongue and waited for another leaf to fall.

Slash!

This time the poor leaf was sliced into five different pieces. The saintess nodded her head and then continued to practice.