Gabalawi and Divinity were on their long way back to the sect; they were closing in on the sect and would reach it in one day maximum. The road in front of them was bare. There were no villages close by, no humans, no greenery.

  Yet, they saw the occasional bare tree that looked dead after losing all its leaves.

  Other than the vast expanse of the sky, there was nothing much to see.

  Divinity was enjoying one of her favorite roadside sweets a caramel apple, and Gabalawi didn’t find the opportunity to ask her about what happened for the last two days, but he wanted to make her speak about it, because then maybe she will finally let it all go to focus on her future as a yin cultivator.

  Gabalawi cleared his throat and said, “How do you feel after everything that happened?”

  She was surprised that he talked since they rarely exchanged words, but then she looked ahead at the road again before she said, “I feel relieved, and disappointed.”

  Gabalawi asked, “What do you mean?”

  She looked down at the ground sadly as she said, “I feel relieved they won’t be able to harm another child again. I feel disappointed because I thought if I took my revenge on them, it would erase the memory of what happened to me, but it didn’t, and now I am left with no one else to take this anger out on. I’ll be the only one left hurting, as I was the only one who always hurt from what happened.”

  She looked at him deeply before she said as she stared deeply into his eyes, “They never felt guilt for this; the gravedigger never felt guilt at all. My father felt guilt only when I came to haunt him. Meanwhile, I feel guilt, shame, sadness, anger. I am not sure how long I’ll feel this way.”

  Gabalawi nodded and thought for a while before saying, “I think you will stop feeling this way when you make new memories, when you make new friends, and have new things that you care about. Right now, you have nothing but the terrible memories; you haven’t made good ones yet, but once that changes, you will be well on your way to recovery and living the life that a good person like you deserves.”

  Divinity smiled at him for the first time since they left her village and said, “I am already making new memories, and I already made a new friend; thank you for coming with me on this mission.”

  Gabalawi smiled back; he felt glad that there was hope for her to live her life for the first time.

  At that moment, he noticed a vulture fly down into one of the bare trees on their way, but he looked to Divinity and asked, “Do you want another apple?”

  She smiled sweetly and said, “No, I’ll take one later though. Right now, I just want to enjoy looking at the surrounding scenery.”

  Gabalawi said, “Oh, you finally noticed the beautiful nature around us on this road.”

  She looked to the sky on the right side of the road and said, “Yeah, I was really out of it. I didn’t notice anything or anyone; my body was operating autonomously after I killed the inner sect disciple.”

  Gabalawi winced as he said, “Yeah, we are going to need to get you in good standing with the other sect disciples again, because they are probably terrified of you and might go to extreme measures to make sure you don’t end up killing them too or something.”

  She looked at him with fire in her eyes as she said, “Fuck them, I don’t care, he had it coming. If they say nothing pervy to me, they will be safe. If they cross the line, I won’t even care if they kick me out of the sect. Nobody will ever make a sexual remark about me and live again.”

  Gabalawi thought that wouldn’t to help her in the future, but he nodded in respect because she was right, then he noticed another vulture fly down into a bare tree in front of them and he said, “Hmm, that vulture looks familiar!”

  Divinity looked at him and said, “What?”

  Gabalawi pointed to the tree and said, “The vulture — didn’t we see it before?”

  Divinity looked at it, and before she confirmed his suspicion, they saw a third tree up ahead that had a man on top of one of its bare branches.

  She said, “Oh shit, it’s that freak Black Crow from the tournament; what is he doing here?”

  Gabalawi squinted his eyes to see the man better and said, “I don’t know, that’s very odd, he became a rogue cultivator and didn’t join the sect. Let’s say hi?”

  Divinity looked at him in disbelief and said, “Say hi? How gullible are you? Be on your guard; this doesn’t look good.”

  Gabalawi didn’t think that anything bad was going to happen, but he thought to be careful, anyway.

  As they got closer, Gabalawi’s voice boomed and said, “Black Crow, long time no see since the tournament; you beat me good in our match, but it only helped to make me want to become stronger. So, thank you for that.”

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  Black Crow was crouched on top of the bare tree branch and was looking at Gabalawi with a deadpan look on his face.

  Divinity’s entire body was taut with readiness; she felt something was going to happen. She looked behind her and saw the other vulture had joined its peer on the same tree, and they stared daggers at the duo.

  When Gabalawi didn’t get an answer from Black Crow, he said, “So, are you going to say something or should we just leave?”

  Black Crow scoffed and said, “Leave? You are dreaming, Gabalawi; I have found the perfect way to advance as a rogue cultivator, and that’s by using the bodies of fellow yin cultivators to fuel my growth and literally absorb the yin energy out of their lifeless bodies. Do you remember when I beat you in the trials? I really hope that you became better as you claim, because if you didn’t, it will be too easy when I take your life, but either way, your life is mine for the taking.”

  The vultures behind them chirped as if they were laughing gloatingly at them.

  But Gabalawi had heard enough; he stomped the ground with one foot, and a fissure moved directly towards Black Crow’s tree. Once it was under it, a stone spike lunged from underground and skewered the tree, cutting it in half.

  The tree fell as Black Crow turned into thousands and thousands of flying and crawling insects. Gabalawi jumped again with both feet this time, and the fissure headed straight for all the crawling insects and killed a significant number of them.

  Meanwhile, Divinity stood in front of Gabalawi in a way that suggested she was going to protect him and activated her hammer whirlwind.

  Her body had spun into a decent-sized whirlwind by the time the flying insects closed in on them.

  Some of the flying insects were too close and got sucked into her whirlwind, never to be seen alive again.

  While the rest hovered back, observing and trying to find an opening.

  Gabalawi wanted to rush to the front and do something about them, but Divinity didn’t allow him by blocking his way.

  Somehow, she was aware and could see everything from inside the whirlwind even though her body was spinning around at terrifying speed.

  The flying insects got to the edge of her whirlwind and then tried to speed past her to get to Gabalawi, but she shifted and caught a quarter of them before they could get away.

  Another group was on the opposite side though and they tried to get at Gabalawi, but Divinity pushed the whirlwind back, almost like she was going to hit Gabalawi himself.

  In order to dodge her, Gabalawi ended up getting the whirlwind between him and the second group of flying insects, which kept him safe, and Divinity caught a quarter of that group too in her whirlwind.

  Broken bodies and bits and pieces of insects were flying out of the whirlwind to the sides; the whole ground was stained and littered with their bodies.

  The insects seemed to think for a while before they started circling the duo from all sides.

  Divinity seemed to understand what they were going to do and increased her speed and changed her trajectory as she circled Gabalawi, making him the eye of the whirlwind.

  Each time the insects thought there was a gap because of her wider path now, they ended up getting swallowed by her whirlwind, and eventually they gave up and flew back.

  Black Crow congealed from the rest of the insects that didn’t die and was standing defenseless in the middle of the road.

  Divinity slowed down her whirlwind until it stopped completely and looked challengingly at Black Crow.

  Gabalawi looked angry behind her, but in his heart, he was glad she was with him because he had no answer to Black Crow’s attacks.

  Black Crow said calmly, “Looks like you will get away this time too, Gabalawi, always lucky with your guardian angels”

  Divinity smirked and said, “You choose the tough path, you choose to prey on your kin, and for that you will eventually fall.”

  Black Crow looked annoyed and said, “Tsk, it’s not about a tough path or easy path, little girl, it’s about the fun path. I am the hunter, and you all are my prey. Don’t let me catch any of you in the wrong place at the wrong time, because I’ll be there to capitalize on the opportunity, mark my words. The Yin Disciples Cultivation Sect is my prey, and I’ll victimize every one of you on my way out of Fallen Valley.”

  Gabalawi was angry after he heard that and said, “I have heard enough; you won’t get away with this. We end this right here, right now.”

  He stomped the ground with one foot, and the fissure headed for Black Crow, but suddenly he made a cross with his body by raising both arms to the side as he looked on the ground with a smirk, and his two vultures flew to him fast and carried him from both arms away to safety.

  Gabalawi made a low growl as he said, “Tsk, he got away; we should have pressed the attack on him. Now he will hunt our fellow yin cultivators to use them for cultivation.”

  Divinity said, “He is using the same method that made cultivation tombs possible, but cultivation tombs are an honorable inheritance of our predecessors. He is actively killing living yin cultivators to use their energy for his cultivation.”

  Gabalawi replied, “Is that even effective? The predecessors are way stronger than new cultivators; they would provide an abundance of energy compared to new cultivators. He is choosing the hard way to ascension. If he had joined the sect, it would have been much better for him. He could have made it into the inner sect with ease. What an unfortunate outcome; now he is our enemy when he never needed to be our enemy.”

  Divinity was scanning the surrounding scenery, looking at faraway mountains and hills, before she said, “I wonder if he has made an immortal cave close to the sect to hunt our fellow disciples down as they venture outside. We will have to warn everyone back in the sect.”

  Gabalawi nodded. “Yes, the first thing we do when we get back is meet with the elder and tell him of this. Maybe he could venture out himself and take care of Black Crow.”

  Divinity giggled. “I don’t think it will be that easy; challenges make or break a cultivator. The elder will see it as a challenge to all of us, and he will let us deal with it.”

  Gabalawi nodded in agreement, “I think you are right, but at the very least people will be on the lookout for Black Crow from now on, I don’t think that will help them much though, few people have an answer to his powers.”

  He then got an idea that he hadn’t realized until that moment: “You actually saved me! You just saved my life. I was supposed to be out here to help you, and now I am the one who owes you.”

  Divinity smiled sweetly and said, “There are no favors between friends; I’ll never forget what you did for me. He attacked both of us; I just hate that we took it easy on him and didn’t attack him after he returned to human form.”

  Gabalawi winced. “Yeah, I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt us.”

  The duo then continued on their journey back to the sect; they were only one day away from returning, to start their sect life.