Xiu Xiang didn't know when she had fallen asleep but by the time she had awoken, sunlight was already pouring into the cave.
"Ah! My legs!" she cried as she looked down.
Wei Xing had spent the entire night using her as a human pillow until her legs went numb. It felt like thousands of ants were crawling over her legs.
Not wanting to wake him up, she gently pulled him off of her and laid him onto the ground.
She quickly checked his condition and found that the side effects of the medicine from yesterday seemed to have worn off as he was no longer shivering. She threw some more wood into the dying fire and then made her way to the exit of the cave.
"First things first. Let's find some food," Xiu Xiang said. She stretched her body out and made sure that there was no danger before she left the cave.
She didn't venture far when she came upon a stream.
There were plenty of fishes and she easily caught a few. Pulling out a knife from her bag, she cut up bamboo to use as a water container. Once she filled it up with fresh water from the stream, she started to backtrack towards the cave.
She could just see the entrance when she felt a dangerous presence closing in on her.
"How'd they managed to find them?" she thought.
Wei Xing covered their tracks so well.
Her head turned in the direction where the cave was. If she returned, she could possibly lead them back there.
If they were willing to kill her, they wouldn't mind killing Wei Xing off too. Right now, the poison hasn't subside and he was terribly weak. There was no way he can fend off four people even with her help. She could escape now and avoid detection but what if they find their way to the cave?
She racked her brains out and finally did something she would soon regret.
"Dammit, Wei Xing. Someday far off in the future when we meet again as enemies, you really have to remember this!" she thought bitterly. She hung the three fishes she had caught on a tree limb and leaned the bamboo container of water against the tree trunk.
He'll have something to eat when he comes searching for her, at least.
She purposely headed in the direction of the voices and made her presence known.
"Over there!" she heard Ren Wu Ji exclaimed.
"Fuck my life!" Xiu Xiang thought as she raced in a random direction. An arrow came zooming past her head and nearly cutting her ear off.
"Missed again!" she heard an angry voice spat.
Xiu Xiang was so going to remember this. Ren Wu Ji was just as bad as Wang Yue!
More arrows came zooming by and she barely managed to dodge them all. She could hear Ren Wu Ji's evil laughter of hunting his prey.
Just then she felt danger coming from her left.
Shit!
She nearly toppled over as she struggled to run forward. She shifted direction to the right and continued running. It seemed harder to run as her pathway started inclining but even then her pursuers couldn't catch up to her. Xiu Xiang dodged tree limbs and jumped over dead logs. She scraped her face and body as she ran but she didn't stop.
Once again, she felt danger getting closer but this time it was coming from the right. She veered off towards the left and felt a burst of adrenaline. The higher she climbed, the more out of breath she was. She was sure that she was going slower yet her pursuers still haven't caught up to her.
"Something's not right..." she thought.
Xiu Xiang could see a clearing up ahead. There was a dangerous roar the closer she got to the clearing. She burst out of the forest and into the clearing only to come to a shortstop.
Dead end.
In front of her was a cliff with a drop that was a hundred times higher than the first cliff that she had fallen from. What was worse than the dark abyss at the bottom, was the strange-looking gusts of wind. Her foot knocked a few pebbles off the cliff and the moment those pebbles met with the wind, it was sliced into dust.
Bottomless dark abyss...
Wind gusts that could slice anything to bits...
Xiu Xiang recognized the location just from its description.
"This is the Cliff of Abyss?!" Xiu Xiang cried.
This was the place where the original Demoness had caught Wang Yue and Song Yi Yan together. It was also the place where she was thrown off and eventually turning into the Demoness.
The storyline had veered off track a little but here she was, steered back onto the pathway of the demoness.
She looked at the bottomless pit of the cliff. One drop and you're a goner. Even if she had a sword to fly on, the draft was too strong to fly through. She had led herself straight to the turning point in the novel earlier than she had expected. No matter what Xiu Xiang did, she was going to end up as the Demoness.
"You're finally cornered," she heard a sharp voice say from behind her.
Xiu Xiang whipped around to see her teammates staring back at her. She finally understood why they never caught up to her. It wasn't because she was too fast, it was because they had purposely led her there. Like a sheep, she had been herded straight for the slaughterhouse.
"Make your choice, waste. Jump off yourself or we force you to jump off," Ren Wu Ji threatened.
"Why are you doing this?" Xiu Xiang cried.
"Why?" Wang Yue smirked as he took a step forward with his arrow notched on his bow. "Simple. I'd rather you die before me."
"What kind of reason is that?!" she retorted.
Wang Yue laughed as he pulled the string taut.
"Don't blame us. You only have yourself to blame, you cursed sow," he seethed.
Xiu Xiang peeked over her shoulder.
Can she really survive this fall? Wouldn't she be sliced to bits before she even makes it to the bottom?
She gulped and then turned back to her teammates. She laughed nervously as she tried to reason with them.
"Look, why don't we be civil about this, huh? You guys don't have to kill me. I'll disappear off this mountain and you'll never have to see me again," she suggested.
Ren Wu Ji grinned as he too aimed his arrow at her.
"Of course. You'll definitely disappear off this mountain and we'll never see you again," he repeated.
Xiu Xiang didn't like the sound of that. They were drawer closer toward her and she had no choice but to step back closer and closer towards the edge of the cliff.
"Listen! If I fall off this cliff, I swear I'll come back and haunt all of you!" she warned with her arms outstretched toward them.
"Haha! I rather deal with a ghost than someone who's alive," Wang Yue said.
Song Yi Yan, who stood behind him, smirked at her in triumph.
That confident look pissed Xiu Xiang off. She turned her attention to Liu Li. She was the only one who didn't have her bow drawn.
"Liu Li! We have no hatred for each other. Help me!" Xiu Xiang cried.
Liu Li simply stared back at her. There was a hint of pity but she did nothing to help.
"I'll give you to the count of three to jump off the Cliff of Abyss," Wang Yue threatened.
"You'll all regret this," Xiu Xiang said through gritted teeth as she imprinted every single one of their faces into her mind.
"The only thing I'll regret was not doing this sooner," Wang Yue said. "Three!"
Three arrows came flying at her. Her first instinct was to turn around and run, which was exactly what she did.
She raced for the edge of the cliff and threw herself off.
If it really was her fate to become the Demoness then so be it!
Continuous sharp pain after sharp pain.
It was as if someone was hacking away at her with a small blade, over and over. She could only scream out in agony as she fell while her entire body was being cut to pieces. The stench of iron filled her nose as her own blood splashed all around her. The sharp wind didn't let up once and she kept falling.
Falling.
Falling further.
She felt sick to her stomach as her body thrashed about like a lifeless doll.
"No more," she pleaded in her mind. Everything went dark and her back slammed first to the hard ground.
SMACK!
If her surrounding had lit up, Xiu Xiang was sure she would've gone blind from the impact. All the air in her lungs sucked out as she gasped for air only to cough out blood madly.
She was dead, wasn't she?