40 River Python
Any other woman - even a peerless demonic beauty like herself - might well have become enraged at his utter lack of responsiveness.
But as ever, Miao Ying's refusal to play by society's rules, his unwillingness to be bound by conventional roles, only made Mei Xianxue desire him all the more fervently.
Stifling a petulant pout that she knew full well enthralled most men, she gave his hand one final squeeze before releasing him. Still, she remained pressed against his side, near enough for their bodies to share warmth.
"This way," Mei Xianxue announced, jerking her chin toward a winding path scoring through the forest gloom. "Hopefully, those Qin brats didn't manage to blunder their way ahead of us."
Without awaiting a response, she broke into a ground-devouring lope, forcing Miao Ying to match her pace.
At first, her progress was measured, almost lackadaisical in speed, her eyes dancing merrily back at Miao Ying in a silent challenge. Let's see if your footwork can match mine, those crimson orbs seemed to dare.
Yet soon enough, her languid strides quickened, rapidly escalating into an all-out sprint fueled by the vermillion fires of her rising battle spirit. Her laughing gaze flickered back to the speeding young man beside her, silently mocking him to try and keep up with her escalating pace.
To her initial smug satisfaction, Miao Ying seemed to struggle, maintaining only a hair's breadth behind her as she gloried in the wind buffeting her face.
But that sense of triumph proved short-lived.
Just as she began indulging in visions of thoroughly trouncing the young genius in their footrace, Miao Ying matched her stride for stride.
No matter how she flourished or redoubled her speed, he always remained a half-step behind, his handsome features utterly dispassionate and his breathing unlabored.
Finally, even Mei Xianxue was forced to relent, ebbing down to a trot as she shot her companion a sidelong look shimmering with new appreciation.
"Of course, I shouldn't have expected anything less," she managed, fighting to conceal the husky edge of desire roughening her voice. "I suppose even half-step Houtian talents would be little more than ants for you to crush underfoot."
Miao Ying simply gave a faint smile, shrugging as he said, "It's nothing much. They're not even full-fledged Houtians.
Mei Xianxue still clicked her tongue with audible envy. "The way you slaughter those so close to transcending the mortal realms, treating it like a mere stroll through the woods..."
To most cultivators, the path from Qi Establishment to the Houtian Realm represented an almost incomprehensible struggle spanning entire lifetimes.
Yet to Miao Ying, reducing half-step Houtian experts to shredded corpses with but a slash of his sword seemed utterly trivial - and Mei Xianxue couldn't deny that heady mix of envy and profound respect that filled her.
For a rising genius like herself to tread the same path as one so overwhelmingly powerful yet restrained, wielding the same casual arrogance as an immortal overlord... Mei Xianxue could scarcely fathom the allure of it.
Seemingly oblivious to her ardent musings, Miao Ying merely snorted. "It's not that big of a deal to me."
His nonchalant rejoinder only made Mei Xianxue's playful pout deepen into an exaggerated moue of discontent.
Of course, she knew that even such an overt display of petulance would fail to ruffle Miao Ying in the slightest. For him to maintain the same aloof countenance in the face of a tantrum as he did in battle - utterly dispassionate, yet never losing his edge - only cemented the image of Mei Xianxue writhing ever tighter in his web.
It didn't take much longer for the sounds of combat to reach them, rumbling through the verdant woodland in an ominous cadence.
Pulsing waves of clashing Qi sparked like thunderclaps on Miao Ying's senses, warning of the vicious battle already underway up ahead.
Sure enough, as they approached their destination, the first tremors began rippling underfoot, born from the collision of various powerful auras straining against one another.
Whatever was happening ahead, it clearly involved forces far beyond a mere sect squabble over resources.
A single glance was all Mei Xianxue needed to pinpoint the daunting array of powers aligned against them - two peak 9th stage Qi Establishment experts, one 8th stage, and the blazing imprint of what could only be a half-step Houtian prodigy.
In that moment, she felt something she so rarely experienced - a flicker of true dread uncoiling in the pit of her stomach.
Yet when Mei Xianxue stole a sidelong glance at Miao Ying, she found only that insufferable sense of casual arrogance underlying his features.
"Damn it, it's going after those two!" a panicked voice cried out suddenly, the warning tainted by sheer mortal terror.
An instant later, the source of that fear came crashing through the treeline in a starburst of shattered timber and shredded earth.
The River Python, in all its terrifying glory.
Dozens of meters long from diamond-scaled head to muscular tail, the beast's cobalt hide glittered with archaic runes etched into its flesh, pulsing with residual power in spite of the grievous wounds weeping brackish ichors down its flanks.
To the common folk, the mere sight of a Spirit Tier beast - even one so sorely wounded - would be enough to paralyze the soul itself.
Not so for Miao Ying and Mei Xianxue.
As one, their tightly condensed Qi seeds detonated in an apocalyptic shockwave that shuddered the surrounding forestscape. Towering trees groaned and twisted as Mei Xianxue's spirit sword materialized, encircling her lithe form with razor cyclones of crimson color Qi.
Simultaneously, Miao Ying's entire body began thrumming with a transcendent frequency, his aura warping and strobing as bands of searing golden lightning intertwined with whip-sharp tendrils of honed sword intent.
From their respective positions, even the Qin family's vaunted talents instinctively froze, hackles raised as the killing power roiling off the two newcomers washed over their senses.
In that singular heartbeat of stunned stillness, Mei Xianxue shot Miao Ying a coquettish glance and giggled, the breathless sound devoid of any mirth whatsoever.
"Ever the gentleman, dear."
Then she was moving, all feline grace and tightly coiled lethality as she flicked her slender wrist forward. Her spirit sword lashed out in a blurring arc, ripping an azure crease through the air itself as its honed edge unerringly tracked toward the River Python's throbbing ruby eyes.
Sensing the imminent threat, the beast released an anguished hiss of primal fury. Its cavernous maw unhinged with a sickening crunch, disgorging a billowing spray of virulent blue mists that hung like a choking pall in the forest air.
The mere whiff of the foul emissions raised blisters on exposed flesh, their subtle toxins burning with the same caustic potency as concentrated acid.
Yet Mei Xianxue sneered disdainfully at the Python's feeble attempt at deterrence, her own eyes glinting scarlet as her Demonic Cultivation Art surged into being.
An invisible wave of soul-scorching maleficence radiated outward, amplifying and focusing her Qi into a razor's edge as it sundered straight through the creeping mist.
The weak River Python's attack stood no chance of impeding her.
With utter impunity, the demonic blade pierced straight through the mist, leaving not so much as a single droplet to slow its trajectory as it plunged into the beast's unprotected eye socket with a sickly spurt of ruptured fluids.
An agonized screech tore free from the spirit beast's gullet as it convulsed in stunned torment, shredded optic nerves flashing streaks of pure agony through its primitive mind.
Instinctively, the ancient serpent reared back, its thrashing coils shattering the surrounding forestscape as it attempted to dislodge Mei Xianxue.
Against a larger threat, such a desperate maneuver might have succeeded. But the demonic bombshell was far from its only opposition this day.
The forest trembled with the thunderous roar of the River Python, its massive coils thrashing like whips against the trees.
Miao Ying stood his ground, sword gripped tightly as arcane golden lightning crackled across his body.
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. In the span of that same breathless interval, Miao Ying made his move.
One moment, he seemed utterly stationary, an indolent bystander watching the universe burn around him. Only the faintest tell of gathering Qi and the slight tensing of his thighs gave any indication he planned to act.
Then he was gone, a mere golden blur slicing through the serpentine beast's frantic death throes.
Half a heartbeat later, Miao Ying rematerialized amidst a storm of viscous ruby droplets, sword slashing up from its final strike in a lazy flourish.
At first, there was no obvious change to the River Python's condition, its agonized convulsions continuing unabated.
Until a split-second tremor rippled the length of its scaled body, finally registering the full impact of what had occurred.
Miao Ying's spirit sword had carved through flesh and scale with ritualistic ease, severing musculature and snake down to the very marrow. And as he reversed his sword's trajectory, that same blade followed the same gruesome path in a grisly second pass.
Fueled by the added impetus of its wielder's sorcerous golden lightning, when the blade finally tore free, it unleashed an apocalyptic shockwave that channeled that same transcendent power straight into the beast's ravaged eye sockets.
There was no slow inexorable build-up, no poetic prelude to the devastation that followed Miao Ying's strike.
One moment, the River Python remained a terrifying force of nature, an ancient spirit beast whose merest presence inspired awe and terror.
The next, its skull simply... detonated.
