Eventually, as the cut through her head began to heal, Jun Li reclaimed some portion of control over her body, though it was little more than the ability to sluggishly move her head and neck.

  Lying there, cradled by Little Yun's coiled body, she couldn't help but wonder if Hua Shu had cut knowingly, to debilitate. It was hard to believe someone could exercise that sort of discretion with a sword, to cut into the brain in such a way that disabled without killing.

  'Could it be some sort of Martial Intent?' Jun Li wondered, contemplating a facet of martialism that she had yet to master. She had been shown by her master, Zhu Enlai, how, with the correct discipline, one could strike with a fist so heavily as to break bone, yet without leaving a bruise on the surface.

  Supposedly, those with great Sword Intent could reach the level of "Blade's Discretion," and cut only what they desire to. No matter how swift the strike or sharp the blade, those with exceptional Sword Intent never cut deeper than they wish.

  Despite an enduring interest in the subject, Jun Li was never able to touch upon the realms of Sword Intent or Fist Intent in her training, and so she set it aside. 'Intent, and Authority… how much power can be gained from such… vague things?'

  Letting out a shallow sigh, Jun Li focused inward. 'Qi Circulation… no, it doesn't seem like I can do even that…' Her quiet urging produced little reaction from her Dantian, spreading only ripples through her Qi, like gently blowing on the surface of a lake.

  Despite her impotent control over her own Qi, Jun Li felt she had retained the same control over her blood as always. Holding her pierced stomach and cloven face together wasn't a difficult feat when she was left with so little else to focus on.

  Within a few minutes, however, Little Yun began to shift, its body, which had cradled Jun Li for some time, sliding out from underneath her as the snake suddenly stood alert. With that as a warning, Jun Li was quickly able to pick up on the sound of approaching footsteps.

  "Pull me… away…" Jun Li struggled to speak, quietly muttering her words to Little Yun, unable to tell how near or far the approaching party was, her field of view restricted by an inability to properly turn about.

  Though the young snake quickly acted on Jun Li's request, biting onto the hem of her sleeve and pulling her a few feet towards a nearby building, a voice quickly called out, letting Jun Li know that it was too late. "...I was wondering what the holdup was…"

  Just within the range of Jun Li's vision, an enormous figure in red leaned down, looking over the only intact corpse in the square, the unknown officer in red bindings who had been wearing the conical hat and interrogating the Murong Clan servant.

  "Oh. You kicking the bucket might be decent. 'Been a while since I got any credit…" Turning to Jun Li, still being dragged away by Little Yun, the huge man was made more visible.

  He was far larger than Jun Li, or anyone else she had seen before, easily three heads taller than even Guan Heng. He wore the same shade of red as his apparent peers, but lacked the obscuring bindings, and two massive horns pierced through his conical hat, making his inhuman nature obvious, even beyond his stature and the primal glint in his eyes.

  In merely two steps, the man caught up to Little Yun, still attempting to carry Jun Li away, and picked her up by the collar, causing Little Yun to lift alongside her and tear part of her sleeve away under its weight. "You do all this? Little cripple?" It was obvious to Jun Li what he was talking about.

  "Does it… matter if I say no?" Jun Li muttered in frustration, glancing down towards Little Yun, who had slipped out of her line of sight. "Haha… I suppose not." The enormous man stroked his chin with his other hand. "...Might not look good if I bring you back… and you turn out to be useless…"

  Grumbling to himself for a moment, the man eventually seemed to reach some sort of conclusion. "No, even if you didn't do this… You'd be a victim. That's good. Useful."

  "Let's go. Little cripple." Turning to walk off with Jun Li's limp body in hand, the enormous man paused, glancing down towards Little Yun, who had rushed forward to block the way, though it didn't dare attack without command, sensing the gap in strength. "Hmm… Call off the brat. No point in killing them…"

  For a moment, he looked town warily at Little Yun, not wanting to crush them if possible. But after a moment, an odd sensation drew him back to Jun Li. 'My arm… getting heavier…?' Turning quickly back to Jun Li, the man saw a wave of blood flow out from behind Jun Li, emerging from her back and filling the air like a halo of red.

  'Demonic Arts…!?' The bull-like man's eyes widened, and he momentarily hesitated between dropping Jun Li and holding onto her. "That changes things…" He muttered, changing his grip to clasp around Jun Li's throat. "Burning Gosyypium Cult…! Can't let you run and talk…!"

  Jun Li immediately felt the bones in her neck start to shift as her throat was compressed, and quickly hardened the silverly metal under her skin, and the blood in the superficial veins of her neck. "Hmm!?" The bull-like man sensed the change immediately.

  To the side, Little Yun responded to the opportunity provided and launched forward, coiling around the man's legs and digging the claws of its small forearms into him as hard as possible, though even then, they didn't draw so much as a drop of blood. The snake instinctively knew it couldn't kill the man alone, and so acted in support of its master.

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  From the exit wound of the perforation in her gut, Jun Li consciously drew blood out and into a formless wave. With difficulty, she conducted that wave to sway and shape itself, while simultaneously retaining the hardening at her throat and head.

  Gripping Jun Li's throat tighter, the man's fingers tore open her skin, revealing the silvery metal beneath, which bent and warped under his grasp. "Your brat can't hurt me… Whatever trick this is won't last..." As he spoke, the flowing mass of blood behind Jun Li condensed into folds and separated into numerous, individual, thin tendrils of blood.

  Though he stood on alert, ready to counter whatever attack came his way, the tendrils of blood before the man seemed only to sway back and forth, becoming thinner and thinner. After a few seconds of this odd display, those tendrils, thinned to the thickness of paper, hardened at their furthest halves and lashed out towards him.

  "Foolish tantrum!" With scorn, the bull-like man held out his left arm, flexing it in the path of the bladed tendrils in such a way that caused his muscles to shift under his skin like iron cables under strain.

  From that arm, Qi rose like heatwaves, causing some of the hardened tendrils to crack and splinter even before touching his skin. When those tendrils finally reached his arm, they slid through his flesh without resistance, sliding deep enough to hit bone in five different locations.

  Jerking his arm in pain, the hardened blades of blood embedded in his arm shattered, raining down like broken panes of glass. He would have shifted out of the way the moment his arm was cut, but Little Yun bound his legs well enough that the instinctive attempt only caused him to stumble. "Aagh! Piece of trash…!"

  Within only a moment, Jun Li had begun forming another, larger volley of blades behind her body, and the bull-like man realised he might be in more danger than he expected. "If you won't die easily… You'll die painfully!" Turning his head, the man looked towards the pagoda, changing his grip on Jun Li's throat.

  A wave of Qi ran up his forearm like flame, searing Jun Li's skin as the man focused his strength and launched her towards the pagoda doors as if fired from a cannon.

  Jun Li had neither the time nor the ability to halt her flight, and she near-instantly collided with the pagoda doors, shattering them to splinters as she flew through into the unknown interior.

  Leaning down, the bull-like man peeled Little Yun off his leg, holding the snake at an arm's length. "Slave brat… Your master is dead." He threw Little Yun a short distance away before the snake could latch onto him again.

  Falling to the ground, Little Yun quickly looked around, seeing the pagoda doors that had been torn open. There, splinters of wood slowly lifted up from the ground and floated towards the shattered doors, slipping into place as the pagoda slowly repaired itself.

  Little Yun didn't understand the significance of the pagoda, and so thought little of Jun Li being thrown into it. The young beast simply crawled to a distance, gazing towards the bull-like man who had thrown its master, trusting that she would return to the fight soon.

  "You… don't get it, do you?" The man seemed almost saddened at the young beast's lacklustre response. Holding his mutilated arm, the man met Little Yun's gaze for a moment and let out a sigh. "I don't know what technique that witch used on you… But you are free now."

  Looking at the pagoda, the bull-like man saw that the doors had fully regenerated, and the windows of the first floor began to emit a soft light. "There…" He spoke, gesturing for Little Yun to look towards the pagoda. "Those lights will stay on as long as someone's alive in the pagoda. You're too much of a slave to decide when you're free. Let those lights decide for you instead."

  … … … … … …

  Twitching slightly from pain, Jun Li lay half-conscious inside the pagoda's foyer, having lost control over her blood for a moment. As she slowly regained enough lucidity to harden the blood around her wounds once more, she looked up to the distant ceiling.

  Suddenly realising where she was, Jun Li clenched her teeth and strained in an attempt to stand, only to quickly reach the limits of her current autonomy. "Damn it…!" Somehow, despite this scenario being a supposed death sentence, Jun Li's first thoughts were not directed towards herself, or even her family in the Zhao Kingdom, but towards Little Yun outside.

  "I can't leave them alone out there…!" She felt her heart sink at the thought of the young snake fighting alone, picturing a scene very different to what was happening in reality. "They're still so weak…" The frustration born of her current impotence almost caused her to miss a sound from deeper into the Pagoda.

  "Hmm… Another one of these types, hmm?" Twisting her head to look towards the source of the sound, Jun Li saw a man in full armour, with thick overlapping lamellar plates covering his body from his ankles to his shoulders. The man seemed middle-aged and sported a thick, but well-groomed beard.

  Most notably of all, his body was transparent, as if merely a gold-tinged image in the shape of a human being. "I suppose you've been beaten and left for dead in this place? It happens more often than you might think." He spoke rather simply, stepping over to Jun Li's limp body.

  "...Who are you?" Jun Li asked the obvious question, figuring the figure in front of her was just waiting to be asked. "I am… a simulacrum of the King of Severing Thunder, who passed beyond this meagre continent a long time ago."

  Blankly staring back at this 'simulacrum,' Jun Li couldn't help but smirk. "You seem proud… A simulacrum of… what was it? An Arihant?" She laughed silently to herself for a moment. "If we're talking pedigree, or origins… You shouldn't look so proud in front of me."

  Looking down on Jun Li, who lay in a pool of her own blood, the simulacrum bore an expression of annoyance at her arrogance. "You seem energetic… I'm sure you won't mind if I start the first floor's trial right away then."

  Jun Li's expression stiffened, and with a smirk of his own, the simulacrum vanished like smoke as the surroundings blurred, the walls turning to wood and the roof turning to open skies.

  Looking around to the best of her abilities, Jun Li saw she was now in some sort of improvised arena, crude wooden planks shoved into the muddy walls of a pit. At the walls, Jun Li could see cages dug into the walls, covered with lattices of smaller wooden planks, attached to ropes that hung from above.

  In the darkness of those cages, Jun Li could sense Killing Intent and see the glint of beastly eyes. Drawing blood from her wounds, Jun Li began to form a large arm from her flowing blood, before hardening the fingertips into conical spikes.

  There, readying herself for this bizarre scenario that had been thrust upon her, Jun Li let out a groan. "...Give me a break… how chaotic can one day be…?"