After two grueling hours of walking, the six members of the Snow Sector finally arrived in Golden Cliff Village, their faces etched with weariness. Villagers had already gathered, forming a tense, expectant crowd around the members of the Golden Gate Sector and Lotus Sect, who stood amidst the chaos.
Yi Guozhi, a disciple of Golden Gate Sector, looked at the Snow Sector group and sneered, a condescending smirk on his face. He mocked, his voice dripping with superiority, "Hu Jianguo, you're late. We've already caught the fire demon."
The fire demon was a truly terrifying female creature, her two piercing red eyes as blood-red as polished rubies, radiating malevolence. The creature stood about five feet three inches tall. From the waist up, she appeared as an ordinary woman with striking red irises, but from the waist down, she was a bird, with two powerful wings folded menacingly on her back. She wore minimal, dark armor that only covered her breasts, and her hands were heavily chained to the ground, pulling against their restraints. She snarled loudly, a harsh, guttural sound, at the surrounding hunters and terrified villagers.
A male villager, his voice trembling with horror, asked, "Hunters, with these chains on her hands, can she escape?"
Yi Guozhi, puffed with an unwarranted confidence, replied, "With this magic chain, she can't escape."
Sien Ye, Yi Guozhi's arrogant junior, added, a sneer on his face, "Don't worry, there is nothing in this land that Golden Sector cannot defeat. We are invincible."
Suddenly, the chained female fire demon creature threw back her head and roared, a piercing, unearthly sound that tore through the sky. The inexperienced hunters, puffed up with pride, and the villagers, who knew nothing about the true nature of demon creatures, stood up happily, looking at the fire demon with deluded triumph, completely unaware that she was not begging, but calling for help, her roar a summons to her kind.
Sien Ye looked at the naive villagers and said, a mocking tone in his voice, "Look, she's begging us to let her go."
The villagers nodded happily, their faces filled with relief and continued to praise the hunters for their supposed good works, oblivious to the impending doom. After a moment of chilling silence, multiple fireballs, like molten drops of the sun, began to fall from the sky, striking the hunters, villagers, and houses with devastating impact. They then heard a harsh, piercing, collective scream of agony as the fireballs landed, and everyone immediately covered their ears, shielding against the unbearable sound.
Hu Jianguo looked around, his eyes wide with dawning horror, and shouted, "What is that?!"
Hu Dingxiang looked up, his face paling, and saw ten terrifying fire demons hovering above them, their forms silhouetted against the smoke-filled sky, spitting hundreds of small, incandescent fireballs from their mouths at the helpless hunters, screaming villagers, and burning houses.
The chained female fire demon, with a sudden surge of power, grabbed her two chains, her eyes blazing with newfound defiance, and screamed, "I'm not afraid of you!" With a mighty, furious pull, she tore the magic chains from the ground, shattering their hold, and began attacking the surrounding villagers and hunters with brutal swings of her chains. When the other ten fire demons landed, the hunters and villagers, seized by panic, retreated a considerable distance, scrambling for safety.
"Hide!" Hu Dingxiang shouted at the villagers, his voice raw with urgency. He quickly drew his sword from its sheath, preparing for the fight.
The female fire demon laughed loudly, a triumphant, guttural sound. "Ha... Ha... Ha... Kill them!"
The eleven fire demons, now unbound and unchained, rushed at the hunters and villagers, a relentless tide of destruction. Two fire demons flew up, spitting continuous streams of fire beads at houses and villagers, turning the village into an inferno. The other nine fire demons attacked the hunters directly, blowing concentrated flames from their mouths at them, causing them to fall into disarray, their formations shattered. Some inexperienced hunters were severely burned, their screams adding to the cacophony of horror.
The female fire demon, a whirlwind of chains and fire, directly sent her chains at Hu Dingxiang and Hu Jianguo, singling them out. The two brothers, with desperate effort, blocked the female fire demon's chain attack and, though struggling, began fighting fiercely with her. Members of other sectors, realizing the overwhelming threat, began to attack the other fire demons, desperately trying to hold the line.
The lead fire demon, the one Hu Dingxiang and Hu Jianguo were fighting, opened her mouth wide, releasing four terrifying fire orbs that floated straight towards the two brothers. As the fireballs got closer, they grew larger and larger, expanding rapidly, becoming as big as basins, heading directly for the two brothers. Because the fireballs burned everything, melting rock and charring earth in their path, the only thing the two brothers could do was retreat, giving ground.
Hu Dingxiang, his injured foot stepping on a dead villager's body, cried out in pain, causing him to lose his balance. He fell heavily to the ground, his sword clattering away, and a massive fireball quickly floated towards him, its heat searing his skin. He glanced desperately at Hu Jianguo, his eyes pleading for help, but Hu Jianguo, his face a mask of self-preservation, didn't care; he continued to back further away, leaving his brother to burn. Hu Dingxiang tried to get up, scrambling, but his injured leg failed him. He looked up, his eyes wide with terror, and the blazing inferno of the fireball continued to flow straight towards him, an agonizingly slow approach to certain death.
On Hu Dingxiang's second, frantic attempt to get up, a strong arm suddenly wrapped around him by the waist, lifting him effortlessly. He turned his head sharply to his right, his eyes widening in disbelief, and it was Guozhao Zhiqiang.
"Zhiqiang...?" Hu Dingxiang murmured softly, his voice a disbelieving whisper, relief washing over him.
Guozhao Zhiqiang, his face grim, threw a single talisman at the incoming fireball, which instantly, with a hiss of steam, turned it into a large, heavy ice ball. The massive, frozen orb crushed into countless pieces on the ground, shattering harmlessly. Guozhao Zhiqiang, still holding Hu Dingxiang securely in his left arm, swung them around towards Hu Jianguo and, with a swift flick of his wrist, sent out two more talismans at the other two fireballs. The two fireballs instantly turned into two large ice balls, which also fell to the ground with dull thuds and shattered into fragments.
The fire demon leader shrieked, a raw, piercing sound of utter anger and frustration, "Arrrrgg!"
The fire demon, furious, sent a chain lashing out towards Guozhao Zhiqiang, who was still holding Hu Dingxiang. The two men, a single, fluid unit, flipped backward twice, gracefully avoiding the strike, and Guozhao Zhiqiang sent out two paper talismans directly at the incoming chain. The two talismans instantly transformed into fifty razor-sharp icicles and shot straight at the leader of the fire demon, a deadly, glittering barrage. The fire demon leader, with a cry of pain, pulled back the chains and managed to knock off a few icicles, but two icicles pierced her left shoulder and upper left arm, causing her to shriek in pain.
Guozhao Zhiqiang gently but firmly pushed Hu Dingxiang behind him, placing him out of immediate danger. He drew his sword, its blade gleaming, and flew straight at the leader of the fire demon, a black blur of righteous fury.
The fire demon's chain, quick as thought, wrapped around Guozhao Zhiqiang's left ankle. She pulled him towards her, hoping to immobilize him. He, however, used the momentum to his advantage, pulling himself forward, going straight towards her. When he was close to the fire demon, he flipped over her, a graceful, deadly maneuver, and at the same time, the dragon sword pierced the fire demon's head, impaling her. He landed on her back and pushed the sword down with half his internal force, but the fire demon, incredibly, wasn't dead, still snarling. With all of his immense strength, he knelt directly on her shoulders and plunged the entire sword, hilt-deep, into her head. The fire demon shrieked, a final, agonizing sound, and fell to her knees, then collapsed. He pulled his sword from the fire demon's head, leaped from her shoulders, and the fire demon's body fell lifelessly to the ground.
A female villager, her voice trembling with relief and terror, shouted, "My child!"
Guozhao Zhiqiang, without hesitation, sent out two talismans at one of the remaining fire demons; the talismans instantly turned into fifty icicles and killed the fire demon where it stood, a silent, sudden death. The woman ran to her child, scooping her up and hugging her fiercely, tears of relief streaming down her face.
Guozhao Zhiqiang closed his eyes, a single talisman floated on his open palm, and hundreds of razor-sharp icicles quickly appeared around the remaining ten fire demons, encircling them. The icicles formed faster than the ten fire demons could destroy them, their fireballs futile against the freezing magic.
The remaining hunters, injured and uninjured, could only watch in stunned silence as Guozhao Zhiqiang crushed the talisman inside his palm, and all the icicles simultaneously pierced the ten fire demons, extinguishing them in a flash of ice and steam.
The injured and uninjured hunters swallowed hard, their throats dry, staring in wide-eyed awe at the strange, powerful man who had suddenly appeared and turned the tide of battle. With just a few precise movements and a few simple yellow paper talismans, all eleven terrifying fire demons were extinguished, leaving behind only the smoldering ruins of the village.
Guozhao Zhiqiang turned to Hu Dingxiang, his gaze calm, and walked towards him. He stopped directly in front of Hu Dingxiang. "Are you going home?" Guozhao Zhiqiang asked, his voice low, his face unreadable.
"After the fire demon is destroyed, we'll go home," Hu Dingxiang replied, his voice still shaky with shock and relief.
Guozhao Zhiqiang, without another word, stepped forward, carried Hu Dingxiang gently onto his back, and slowly, deliberately walked out of the devastated village, leaving the other hunters, stunned and bewildered, to claim their hard-won but false glory.
After some time of walking, the silence broken only by their footsteps, Hu Dingxiang gently stopped Guozhao Zhiqiang. "We'll stop here and wait for my elder brother," he murmured, his voice filled with a lingering hope.
"He was going to let you burn," Guozhao Zhiqiang said, his voice flat, tinged with a cold, righteous anger. "Why care for him?"
Hu Dingxiang sighed sadly, a profound weariness in his voice. "It may be because we're half-brothers, not real brothers, and we don't share the same blood of both parents. There's always been a distance."
"If I fall to the ground, Ah Bao will do everything he can to save me," Guozhao Zhiqiang said, his voice indifferent, stating a simple, unbreakable truth.
"Ah Bao? Who is he?" Hu Dingxiang asked, intrigued by this loyal figure.
Guozhao Zhiqiang looked at Hu Dingxiang, his hazel eyes softening slightly. "My younger brother by title, but he's older than me. We're fellow classmates, brothers through training."
Hu Dingxiang sighed heavily, a profound sense of melancholy settling upon him. "Life is really strange. He and I share the same blood, but he always looks for opportunities to humiliate me in front of others." He chuckled, a bitter, self-deprecating sound. "You and Ah Bao are just fellow classmates, but you're willing to die for each other."
"We live according to our principles," Guozhao Zhiqiang stated simply, his voice firm, unwavering.
"Why don't you go to Mountain Village?" Hu Dingxiang asked shyly, a hopeful note in his voice.
"You're injured. I can't let you fight those creatures alone," Guozhao Zhiqiang replied, his voice gentle but resolute, revealing his protective nature.
"Do you remember, you told me that we are just acquaintances?" Hu Dingxiang pressed, leaning closer, a teasing glint in his eye. "Why do you take extra measures to keep this acquaintance out of danger?"
"I..." Guozhao Zhiqiang stammered, his usual stoicism faltering, a faint flush rising to his cheeks.
"What are you?" Hu Dingxiang leaned closer, his breath warm on Zhiqiang's ear, pressing for an answer.
"I..." Guozhao Zhiqiang stammered again, his discomfort evident.
"Do you like me?" Hu Dingxiang asked directly, his voice soft, leaving no room for evasion.
"If you already knew, why ask?" Guozhao Zhiqiang responded, his voice barely a whisper, a flicker of a smile touching his lips.
"I want to hear it from your mouth," Hu Dingxiang teased, savoring the moment.
"I..." Guozhao Zhiqiang began, his voice hesitant, but Hu Dingxiang, with a joyful, knowing smile, interrupted him.
"Well, just say what you want," Hu Dingxiang smiled, pulling back slightly. "I don't like to force others to do things they don't want to do."
After waiting for an hour, the silence filled with unspoken feelings, Hu Jianguo and the four female disciples finally approached from a distance, their voices carrying faintly on the wind. Guozhao Zhiqiang continued to carry Hu Dingxiang, his steps steady, and walked away towards Mountain Village, his new path clear.
Hu Dingxiang leaned into Guozhao Zhiqiang's ear, his voice a soft, intimate whisper. "Brother Zhiqiang," he murmured, his breath warm against Zhiqiang's skin, "I like you." He quickly looked around to ensure no one was watching and that the others were still too far to care, then gently, swiftly, kissed Guozhao Zhiqiang's left temple, a tender, unspoken promise.