Chapter 101 - Clash Between Cultivating Old Friends

The Cultivators, under Chunhua's stern leadership, valiantly struggled to maintain some semblance of civility and order during the attack on Helgum. Some, being tasked with shepherding the fleeing villagers to safety, in an underground complex of escape tunnels built beneath the village; whilst others remained on the surface, continuing to rain the beast in their arrow shots as well as magical fire, ice, and lightning bolts. Receiving some help from local trainers: summoning their former girlfriends, wives, and older daughters as [Pocket Maids], to join the fray.

However, even through all their efforts, there seemed to be no end to Guy Fly's rampage in sight.

"Commander!" one of Chunhua's soldiers called out to her, interrupting her as she was joining her men on the frontlines, directly in the thick of things: about to fire off another arrow, from her standard-issue [Cultivator Longbow]. 

"What is it, soldier?!" she barked.

"None of our attacks are having any observable effect on the target!"

"So what? Did I order you away from your post, or give anyone permission to let up? Our main goal is to provide cover for the others to escape!"

"B-b-but Commander, at this rate there'll be no way for us to make it out."

Scowling, Chunhua grabbed the finicky soldier by the scruff of his neck—yanking him down to her eye level to fix him with an unwavering glare. Then, saying to him in a low growl, "we're soldiers, with a duty and a name to uphold. So I swear, if I don't see you with a bow in your hands—just as soon as I let you go"—she grinned—"I'll make sure you don't make it out of this shit alive."

With that, she flung the soldier as he gave a startled yelp, before promptly scurrying away to do as he was commanded.

It was then Zhao appeared to her, from out of the thick clouds of black smoke rising all around them. "Chun, he's right! You can't be serious about keeping all these men here."

She was taking aim down the sights of her bow, searching for a gap in the smoke. "We're all dead, either way."

"Chun, please! There's still time, if we—"

"Don't be so naive, Zhao!" she snapped at him. "Even if we did all manage to make it out alive, how merciful do you think the Generals back in the Imperial City will be: once they've learned that their only female commander couldn't even defend a backwater village?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "We should desert, then. Let everyone think we both died during the attack, and start a new life."

Pausing, he wiped the back of his arm across his face, leaving a smear of soot.

"We'll be together again. Like old times."

Chunhua gasped. "Zhao…!" Her face was deeply flushed, although it could not be clearly seen through a pervading ominous red hue.

"I love you, Chunhua. So, please...don't throw your life away."

Chunhua leaned her head back, biting her lip with a strained expression as her eyes glowed with freshly sprung tears. "You...you…!"

She slapped his face but saw, with surprise, that he still wouldn't let go of her.

So, she slapped him once again.

Then, again. And again.

Nonetheless, Zhao would not budge. Not letting his hands leave her shoulders.

"Idiot! I command you to let go of me!"

"I'm sorry, commander, but I cannot comply."

"Are you afraid? Is that it?" She stuck her face intimately close to his, glowering furiously. "Is it that you would rather I execute you right now as punishment for your disobedience, Zhao? Hm?"

She paused, squinting expectantly at him in wait of a reply, as he merely kept staring at her with a slightly amused-looking grin.

"Very well! You've forced my hand. I'll see to it that you're next on the chopping block, and keep your tiny coward's phimosis dick as a keepsake necklace"—she briefly chuckled—"so I'll always remember the useless man it once belonged to, and laugh, while I'm having my womb filled by a true warrior!"

Zhao was calm. Composed. "Even then, it'll still grow whenever you have a cute outburst like that."

Chunhua gave a frustrated growl:

"Augh!"

And slammed her fists against his chest.

"Idiot! Dumbass! Creep! Loser!" she raged. "I'll never fall to such a pathetic, cowardly act, as abandoning my country! Not like a shit-crawling maggot such as you."

Zhao sighed, cracking a smile. "You're not leaving me any choice, are you…?"

"Grr! What're you blabbering about now?!"

"I'm talking about"—he produced a [Maidé Ball] from his inventory—"this."

Chunhua gawked, backing away slowly.

"N-no...you wouldn't…!"

She glanced around, realizing that the force of fighting soldiers had moved on without them. 

"Will you reconsider…?" Zhao asked.

"Never," Chunhua said, dropping the bow she was holding and drawing her sword as she faced him sharply. "N-no man can...claim me," she said, shakily, despite her fierce look. "Not without a fight. If you're foolhardy enough."

Zhao armed himself, with his own [Wodao] blade, in turn. "It's just as well—like I've heard it be said, a weakened woman is easier to catch with a [Maidé Ball]."

She grimaced like a wild animal. "You've never been able to defeat me before, in our sparring matches."

"I was never serious before."

"Me neither," Chunhua cut back. "But now, I won't hesitate to kill you!"

She lunged toward him, suddenly: gliding effortlessly through the air, levitating like a puppet on strings as Zhao did the same, to meet her halfway in a clash of blades.

"It's time I gave you a stern reprimand!" she scolded.

They clashed some more: Chunhua continually slashing across him in the sky, yelling as each of her swift, darting strikes failed to meet their mark through Zhao's sturdy defenses.

And through her attacks, Zhao's easy smile hadn't faded.

"What are you smiling about?!"

She raised her other hand, to cast [5th Level Vacuum Force Push]: a mystical cultivation feng shui magic technique that conjured a wide blast of "unrelenting force," fired from one's hand; sending Zhao flying backward by the blast, creating a huge cloud of debris when he slammed into a distant burning building.

"Don't try to fool me by going all quiet," Chunhua said as she then floated over to where he'd landed, with a serious expression: borne not of concern, but of seemingly only a desire to finish the job. "I know you have trained in the [Iron Body, Bronze Sinew] technique: it was the first that you mastered, at the academy, after you'd proven yourself to be an inadequate Feng Shui spellcaster."

His voice answered, "because I knew I would need a tough defense in order to outlast your vicious offense, one day."

Inside, the building was dark as night, so she slowly proceeded into the main room, finding an uneaten breakfast still laid out on the long dining table made of bound logs, left behind by a recently evacuated family.

"Hah!" She gave a cold laugh. "The people of Seaspan still must consume food for sustenance—how quaint." She knelt in front of a brick hearth at the foot of the table, uncovering a still-warm pot of [Apple and Cabbage Stew] that was mounted over the loose pile of kindling, recoiling as she gave it a whiff. "Such a revolting, earthly smell. My natures are off-balance just from dwelling among such common filth."

"You were not always so cruel, Chun."

At the sound of Zhao's voice: piercing the soothing, cozy atmosphere of silently crackling flames, it was Chunhua's time to smile as she rose from the hearth and turned to face him.

"Don't you see, Zhao? Through cultivation, we have become far superior to such lowly beings—who still must eat and defecate."

An entire half of Zhao's body was badly damaged: his loose robes torn and seared, revealing his upper shoulder that was burned through the skin to the muscle all along his neck and side of his calmly gazing face.

"See, were it an ordinary human who sustained those burn wounds, he'd be screaming in agony."

"Chunhua..." he whispered.

"Spare me your proselytizing!" she quickly said, with a contemptuous wave of her hand. "Whatever path it is you wish to guide me on, you'll have to do so in the way of a true cultivating warrior."

He sighed. Just as expected, it seemed there was no other way.

Realizing this, Zhao spared no time lunging forth, suddenly: his jaws opening wide, like an animal's—through the use of his [Body Enhance Morph] technique—to grip down tightly on her neck.

Caught by surprise, the commander could not contain a shrill squeal of pleasure.

"You...bastard!" she protested in a light, feminine voice, as she felt his teeth dig deeper into her soft, tender neck flesh. "How dare you employ such a loathsome technique, against...my majestic aura…!" She was really just babbling at this point: her mind, a dizzying sea of confounding ecstasy at the sensation of her own blood being drawn by Zhao's evolved fangs.

"What 'majesty?'" Zhao growled, his voice muffled by his current mouthful. "You're merely a slave to the whims of our government—they couldn't care less about you as an individual!"

"As a lowly soldier"—she whined—"you wouldn't understand!"

"No, I can see all clearly: the fact that your tireless service to the Dominion has made you a shell of your former self! Everyone in the village could tell what it was you did with Yorick Stormfleece."

"You...moron! I knew everyone could see! I wanted it so, because I was proud to bear the seed of such a great warrior...!"

At this, Zhao loosened his teeth grip on her neck as Chunhua then immediately seized the chance to pull away—having the front part of her robe torn, from being caught on one of Zhao's evolved claws, in the process, as she fell to the cindered floor with a strained grunt.

"Chun...have you completely lost your mind?!"

"I am...a proud, cultivating warrior," she said shakily, as she turned her face, in shame, so that she would not have to look her dear, childhood friend straight in the eye; as her left breast, which still bore fresh fang marks leftover from her meeting with Stormfleece, was fully exposed.

"However...I am also a woman."