The eyes of the fairies all opened.
Their gazes, like those of beasts tearing and drinking blood, locked onto Xian'er Jiu with dark magic, causing her to immediately feel a chill crawl down her spine. Fear, despair, panic – a torrent of negative emotions flashed across her eyes.
The meteorites exploded prematurely, tiny fragments of rock transforming into a sky-high rain of fire, blooming like dandelions, or like fireworks erupting on New Year's Eve, dazzling to the extreme. The invisible dark magic intermingled, obscuring all vision.
Xian'er Jiu turned with a deathly pale face. Her noble wings, once like those of a fallen angel, now drooped limply on her back, like frosted leaves in autumn.
She used her flame crystal scepter to support herself, desperate to leave this place. From Xu Mu's bow, she sensed a fear she had never encountered in her life.
At this moment, she could feel countless greedy, terrifying gazes piercing through the dark magic, fixed on her, intent on breaking her wings, stripping her of scales, tearing her tendons, drinking her blood, and even devouring her whole!
Thus, even the simple act of turning cost her precious time, for she lacked the courage to expose her back to that bow!
For she had guessed what that bow was!
The dozens of eyes on the Fairy Bow revealed a grotesque madness, crisscrossed with dense red veins that made them appear as if they hadn't slept for days, covering their deep brown irises.
As Xu Mu drew the bowstring, those red veins floated out, converging around the Great Dao Arrow.
Horrifying roars echoed ceaselessly. Xu Mu's expression was resolute as he released his index finger. The moment the Great Dao Arrow left the string, the rain of dark magic fire scattered like startled birds, and Xian'er Jiu's visual blockade was instantly shattered.
The Great Dao Arrow flew towards her.
Wreathed in a dark crimson, like a vengeful spirit returning from hell, it roared and opened its monstrous maw, greedily consuming all the escaping dark magic in its path.
Xian'er Jiu fled desperately backward. Her wings unfurled powerlessly once more, unable to support her body's weight for flight. Thus, she could only scramble into the forest on her legs.
But she was no Xu Mu. How could the speed of her legs possibly match an arrow?
"Puff!"
The Great Dao Arrow pierced through Xian'er Jiu's back.
Dark crimson threads, like horsehair worms parasitizing in a rural river, wriggled and burrowed into Xian'er Jiu's body from the gaping wound.
Ten thousand ants gnawing at her heart, drinking her blood and devouring her spirit.
Xian'er Jiu's pained screams made even the determined hunter Xu Mu feel a twinge of remorse.
He looked at Xian'er Jiu's lifeless body lying on the ground, sighed, and shook his head.
"If only you had cooperated with me earlier, you wouldn't have met such an end."
"In truth, I never cared what your conspiracy was for sneaking into the human world from the Elven Kingdom. We just wanted to find out who was behind the Weaving Heaven Pavilion. We never intended to kill you, yet you sought to harm me."
Xu Mu slowly put away the Fairy Bow and grasped the hunting knife he had been holding in his mouth. A terrifying blade intent, capable of cleaving rivers, swirled around it. He slowly approached Xian'er Jiu's fallen form.
As a competent hunter, Xu Mu would never let his guard down until he was absolutely certain the prey was dead, especially when facing a fourth-stage Dark Elf. Even with two Saint Relics, he dared not be careless!
"Stop pretending. I know you're not dead yet."
Xu Mu walked up to Xian'er Jiu, tightened his grip on the hunting knife, and said with a chilling voice, "If you confess honestly now, perhaps this strike can be spared."
Xian'er Jiu stirred painfully at his words, like a maggot at the bottom of a pit, clearly having lost all ability to move. The dark crimson power of the Fairy Bow, Silvan, was torturing her relentlessly.
Xu Mu also felt that the dark crimson threads returning were heavier than when they had departed.
The Fairy Bow was truly alive.
Xu Mu was momentarily distracted. By the time he refocused his gaze on Xian'er Jiu, she had already rolled over on the ground. Blood trickled from her lips, and her eyes, calm yet mocking, gazed at him.
Xu Mu's heart tightened. With no time to ponder, he brought the hunting knife down with all his might.
This strike was intended as his killing blow for Xian'er Jiu. It was imbued with a primal darkness more terrifying than hell itself, and it contained his unique blade intent. Compared to the Great Dao Arrow, it was no weaker, and even a peak-condition Xian'er Jiu would have found it difficult to withstand, let alone her current state.
"Weren't you the one asking me questions? Why are you so eager to kill me now?"
Xian'er Jiu remained seated on the ground, looking at Xu Mu mockingly, but her voice eerily came from behind him.
Xu Mu's heart jolted, his pupils constricting. Without a second thought, he controlled his wrist, swinging the hunting knife backward.
This strike directly bisected the Xian'er Jiu standing behind him, her blood cascading down him like a waterfall.
It seemed he had won.
But Xu Mu's heart pounded even faster.
Because the blood was blood red.
How could the blood of a Dark Elf be the same color as human blood!
A fierce lightning strike descended from the heavens.
But Xian'er Jiu, moving faster than the lightning, seized Xu Mu's throat. With her other hand, she grabbed his right hand, the one holding the hunting knife, and slammed his head against over a hundred thick trees, finally pinning it against a cliff face.
With deafening roars, Xu Mu's consciousness churned like a turbulent sea. His skull cracked, and blood flowed from the crevices in the rock, splattering his face.
Xian'er Jiu choked Xu Mu's throat fiercely, her expression contorted in a wild laugh, "Didn't expect this, did you!"
"Damn it, I should have guessed long ago that you were the human who entered the Sea of Realms. But it's not too late. Even if you have the Fairy Bow Silvan, so what? Compared to me, you are still too weak!"
"Boom!"
Dark magic invaded Xu Mu's body through his five orifices. At each critical juncture, it exploded, shattering his internal organs, some of which were reduced to mere fragments.
Xian'er Jiu's smile grew increasingly ferocious.
Xu Mu had just nearly taken her life.
The former possessed the Fairy Bow Silvan, something she truly hadn't anticipated. The moment the Fairy Bow appeared, everything about her was suppressed. Even knowing that this human couldn't wield the full power of the Fairy Bow, she still feared it so much that she couldn't spread her wings and could only walk on her legs.
She was simply too terrified of fairies.
For her elven kin, fairies existed only in the distant ancient era, much like how commoners in secluded paradises believed in Yama and the Black and White Impermanence, fearing them even without ever seeing them. The deterrence of fairies, their myriad eyes, froze her body.
The sudden appearance of the Fairy Bow Silvan disrupted all her offensive plans. The Great Dao Arrow was immensely powerful, making it impossible for her to defend against it in her haste.
"So, I put on a show for you."
Xian'er Jiu looked at Xu Mu, confirming that his meridians had been destroyed, rendering him unable to use his abilities. Only then did she unreservedly begin to consume Xu Mu's flesh and blood with dark magic, her pallor gradually returning.
"Though I feared your bow and arrow, I wasn't so afraid that I didn't know how to defend myself. Letting it pierce my chest was intentional."
"As a Dark Elf who wields the supreme power of dark magic, I can adjust the position of my heart. That arrow couldn't kill me."
"Then, I used dark magic to create an illusion to deceive you, buying me enough time to break free from the fairy's pressure."
"This is elven wisdom, you foolish human. Do you know how you lost?"
Xu Mu's physical body was shattered, appearing like an empty shell. Bloodied and with vacant eyes, he stared at Xian'er Jiu.
The grip in her hand tightened, and the erosion of his body by dark magic intensified.
He had basically understood what had just happened and couldn't help but lament in his heart Xian'er Jiu's extensive combat experience, managing to set a trap for him in such a life-or-death moment and achieve a miraculous comeback.
If it were any other Dark Elf, Xu Mu believed they would have tried to directly create an illusion with dark magic. But Xian'er Jiu had keenly sensed the anomaly in his sea of consciousness during their previous encounters, which was why she had used illusions this way.
This had indeed deceived him, causing him to make the wrong strike.
This was the first time someone had defeated him in terms of combat experience, and Xu Mu admired it.
But there was one thing Xian'er Jiu was wrong about.
She had not won.
Xu Mu gazed at Xian'er Jiu and suddenly lifted his nearly crippled left arm, shattered and eroded by trees and cliffs and dark magic, and fiercely grasped Xian'er Jiu's neck.
Under the terrifying grip, the sound of cracking bones instantly filled the space. Xian'er Jiu's eyes widened in shock, and her grip also intensified, causing Xu Mu's face to turn a suffocating shade of purple.
Neither of them let go.
After three to five breaths, Xian'er Jiu was the first to give way, seemingly losing consciousness from Xu Mu's chokehold. Her grip weakened, and Xu Mu seized the opportunity, using the only intact bone in his waist to push off the ground and spring up, then pinning Xian'er Jiu beneath him.
He grabbed Xian'er Jiu's neck directly with both hands.
A torrent of dark magic surged towards Xu Mu's body, and the dark magic already inside him erupted violently, intending to kill Xu Mu completely. But as the heart pounded powerfully, its glass-like blood flowed through the shattered meridians into his internal organs and limbs, reconnecting the broken pieces of his viscera and simultaneously purifying all the dark magic.
It was as if a sun had suddenly appeared in a dark corner, instantly illuminating all darkness. Mortals feared Yama, elves feared fairies, and naturally, darkness feared light the most.
Xu Mu's greatest strength had never been his bow and arrow, nor solely his hunting knife, but that Saintly Glazed Heart that had surprised even Fuxi.
Thus, Xian'er Jiu died.
Her soul floated out.
Xu Mu, with great effort, used the Daoist technique of soul capturing and summoning to lock her terrified soul within his palm, then enveloped it layer by layer with Dao Origin, and restrained the soul's limbs with lightning.
Having accomplished this, Xu Mu managed a weak smile, forcibly raised his bone-like hand to feed himself a pill, and then collapsed onto the ground.
"You lost."
"I'll give you one last chance. Tell me everything you know about the secrets of the Weaving Heaven Pavilion, why you joined it, and what conspiracy the elves have for infiltrating the human world. After you've spoken, I might let you live as a spirit."
The palm lightning continuously tormented Xian'er Jiu's soul. Her screams echoed through the space, but to Xu Mu's ears at this moment, they were as faint as mosquito buzzing, for he was severely wounded and had been barely holding on.
If not for that incredibly potent heart, if not for his extraordinarily robust physique, Xian'er Jiu would have already achieved victory. But alas, there were no "ifs." Even though he had ultimately won, he had paid a terrible price, having exhausted every last bit of strength in his body.
But fortunately, he was the victor.
"Despicable human, how can you still be alive!"
Xian'er Jiu's soul struggled wildly within the palm lightning, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not escape Xu Mu's grasp.
For she was merely a soul now.
Xu Mu had studied the Daoist soul capturing and summoning technique for a long time, and combined with the Innate Eight Trigrams, he was confident that any cultivator at this stage, save for a fourth-stage Lord who specialized in souls, would be unable to cause any significant trouble in his hands.
"Stop wasting your efforts."
"I'm not very patient. Don't waste the opportunity I've given you. You don't look that old, and I imagine your status within the Dark Elf race is not low. Are you truly willing to die like this?"
Xu Mu's breathing was shallow, his voice even softer, but Xian'er Jiu heard him clearly. She fell silent.
Even with her soul's limbs tethered by lightning, she did not utter a sound. For Xian'er Jiu suddenly realized her predicament.
She was truly going to die.
She had truly been defeated by this foolish human martial cultivator.
"No, you are not a fool." Xian'er Jiu's words carried a hint of self-deprecation. "The tide of victory and defeat reversed too quickly, making me almost forget that you are the human who entered the Sea of Realms alongside the Sacred Guards and the Elven Kings. How could someone like you be a fool?"
"This is not my fault."
"I thought you were all dead."
"They are all dead, and you should not be alive either!"