Trapping the snake 2

During the time that Du Lan was watching him do his thing, Xiao Fan was left with everything until she would make their real play, he just needed to play it out nicely and train his swordsmanship.

Though he needed to take account that one mistake from him could end in tragedy, considering that the snake was still having the better of him anyway.

For the current moment, Xiao Fan could still keep up with the snake, but that was mainly due to it being grievously wounded, making her movement limited to a speed that was even lower than his.

The snake, instead of fastly slithering and overwhelming him, kept her head high, focussing much more on battle power and awareness.

This was a constraint that she needed to do, yet she paid dearly for it, as every time she would get close enough to the human slowly losing his last bits of stamina would that pesky sword make him just enough space to retreat.

However, the snake didn't really mind this, as it was said before the human was starting to slow down after every clash, letting her get ever closer to him.

The cost of it was multiple slash wounds and a few stabs, but them all being superficial injuries, nothing compared to the wound which had destroyed one of her lungs.

Nevertheless, it didn't take a lot more before Xiao Fan was on his last legs, his counters had grown tired, the meters he could retreat shortened all the while his opponent wasn't slowing down at all.

That didn't change one thing. Moreover, that thing was the only reason he was doing this. He had by now began to retreat towards the trap where Du Lan was watching him with a nervous expression.

She also knew that one misstep from him at this point would lead to certain death, and if that were to happen, she would be then all out of luck, as even if she had become a cultivator losing him would be much worse than not becoming a cultivator so soon.

Luckily for her, Xiao Fan had successfully retreated to the small corridor between two houses keeping their trap in place, and what more the snake hadn't noticed.

The gatehouse door filled with blades was now pointing towards her scales as the only thing in the snake's head was that the human was making his final stand in this favourable location for it.

By now even the snake had realised that fighting this human had been difficult, but it was evident to her that soon he would become a part of her nest.

However, that wasn't to be the case, for Du Lan without mark sprung the trap.

Xiao Fan who was anyways watching upwards at the snake's head saw behind the head a figure jumping upwards and then coming downwards.

Seeing the figure, he knew that Du Lan had sprung the trap and was now going to collapse the gate door onto the snake's back.

Du Lan using the momentum, pushed the door and hundreds of blades that were attached to the door downwards. The moonlight reflected the blades for a moment before they cut down into the flesh.

Hundreds of blades penetrated on the snake's back, while the snake herself did not know what kind of tragedy had hitten her, she was too focussed on lunging towards Xiao Fan, who was on the ground.

The snake thought that the fight was over since her enemy was on the floor weakly holding his sword horizontally against her. Sure, it was over, but who was the winner?

Well, it wasn't the snake who had just been cut into two different part, and unlike a worm, she wouldn't survive that.

The trap had surely sealed her fate; no one would survive being stabbed hundreds of times in a second. And it all happened without her even getting a chance to counter the killing move.

The thing that even made her realise that her fate had been sealed was when her own body couldn't move forward to finish the annoying human.

Then when the realisation and feelings of what had happened the pain she felt was excruciating, but still, after this, she didn't know what had done her so much damage.

Wanting answers she forgot about Xiao Fan, she had much more important things to see, but when seeing what she now wanted to see... she was shocked, to say the least.

Anyone would be shocked like her when seeing that their body had been cut in half by some weird thing which she couldn't say what it was. She could only see that blood was coming from under the door.

And when it rains, it pours.

For Xiao Fan, who had been some meters away from dying had now begun to move with newfound vigour.

Using the sword that he had been holding onto would he now exact the revenge on this beast that had destroyed this town.

He jumped back up and then straight towards the head that had turned away from him. And as he was coming from a blind corner did Xiao Fan have all the luxury to decide a target.

Feeling brave, he decided to have some flash in his killing move, and so he pierced the massive eye of the snake from where he proceeded to thrust until it should have hit the brain.

When the guard of his sword was pressing against the eye, he still jumping past the snake didn't let go of the sword, but let it drag inside the snakes head.

His jump landed on the snake's head, and so did the sword that in his hand followed him whilst cutting the snake's bone and brain.

Him doing this flashy move, the snake, who was the target of it saw a new figure standing on top of the door from her eye which wasn't being pierced.

'So he wasn't alone nor was he without a plan' Was her last thought before her brain functions collapsed due to the brain itself being cut in two.

When all consciousness was gone from her head, the beast only hissed for one more time while at the same time the lifeless body rolled over onto the ground.

Xiao Fan, who was on top of the snake rolled with the snake, as he hadn't let go of his sword.

Then from the perspective of Du Lan, the fight had gone well and quickly, or so she thought, but then again, she only had taken part for a second or two.

¨That went almost too well. You didn't even get bit¨ She complimented.

Xiao Fan let out a sigh of relief before responding ¨Yeah. We were fortunate this time and mostly thanks to the sacrifice of everyone here before us we could slay the mutant¨ Saying so looked around them and every direction he looked there was destruction.

¨You shouldn't think it like that. They were unlucky, and we were lucky. We should be happy about being blessed, and we can also say to those people that we have now slain the beast giving us ample prestige when we get to Hefei¨

She paused for a moment when seeing Xiao Fan wasn't sharing her opinion.

¨Its a dog eat dog world here, and currently we can't afford to think about others¨ She quickly started teaching him about the world again.

He for a moment thought before nodding, he agreed but also didn't like it ¨Enough about dancing on other graves and benefitting from slaughter. I get what you are meaning, but can't you even have little remorse about all the people slaughtered here?¨ His hands tried to make, her look at all the bodies around them.

¨No¨ Came a quick and a short answer. Du Lan made clear to him that she didn't have the luxury or want to care about others; she only cared about being strong herself.

Xiao Fan had known her being somewhat cold, but this much? She didn't care about this? In his eyes, she looked and felt like a beautiful angel, yet she didn't weep about slaughter.

Yet, he still knew that everyone had their own thoughts and ideas so forcing her to adopt a weaker ideology about suffrage of others to be like his was impossible without even speaking about his charisma.

His charisma and diplomacy skills might convince animals, but surely Du Lan wouldn't care about him berating her. Knowing this, he chose that he would like her, regardless of her ideals.

Changing the topic of ideologies of the two, he talked about the thing they were here ¨Can you make the bow yourself or do we need to piece it and haul it somewhere else?¨

Coming to this topic, she also became exceedingly happy forgetting about the last topic ¨No need to drag it somewhere I have been crazy about bows enough that I should be able to craft a bow from this snake¨

¨you do what you want, but come back as tonight we will have our first feast¨ She in her eagerness even ignored him.

Seeing that she wanted to be left alone he spoke¨Sure, I will dig some graves then¨ And left her to do what she wanted with the snake's body, while he would go and bury all the people left rotting in the streets.

It didn't take him long to dig a grave and then even less to find a body to have its eternal slumber in it, as it didn't take over a minute to bury one person.

Doing this, he was also watching their faces filled with horror just before death took them. Furthermore, their bodies were usually missing a lower or top part, and there was one extreme case in the form of everything terrible; a child's head that was missing everything but the head.

The night had already set when the emotionally wrecked Xiao Fan came back to a house that had smoke coming out of its chimney were Du Lan was working to make herself a bow.

When the gloomy man came in was she for a moment about to happily jump onto him to hug him as thanks, but then seeing his face, she figured that doing so wasn't the best thing.

Xiao Fan looking like an empty husk of a human walked into the room and sat down on the table opposite of Du Lan, and then looked towards her.

¨How can you do it? Just looking at those faces was enough for me to...¨ In the end, he didn't say anything more while looking down at the table.

Du Lan looked at him, not saying a word, she noticed that he looked very much like herself when she had been kidnapped by the monkeys, a total emotional wreck that didn't know what to do.

¨I don't know. Maybe I have seen enough of those things happening from a child that I don't bat my eyes about death anymore? However, you know that one day you will see those scenes again. When that happens you can't be like this, or you will most definitely join them¨ She wanted to calm him, yet in a way that he wouldn't think that it was okay to cry or puke when seeing slaughter or torture.

Then before he replied anything to her, she remembered one thing that might save the situation, and so she stopped working on a piece of bone, she got up and walked towards the fireplace.

¨Here your very first cooked meat¨ She had grabbed a bowl filled with snake meat bits, water and other herbs she had found to season the soup.

Du Lan then put the bowl on the spot where Xiao Fan was looking on the table, tapped him slightly on his shoulder, and then went back to making her bow while taking glances towards him if he would start eating.

For a moment nothing happened, but it didn't take long for Xiao Fan to clarify things a bit in his head about everything while the smell also started to lure his nose and mouth with a tempting smell. He looked at the bowl for a bit before taking a spoon to his hand to taste the soup.

Tasting it the flavour experience was amazing!

Nothing before had even come close to this soup that was just before him. From it, even a small spark of happiness formed on his face, before he then looked towards Du Lan, who was also watching him, and Du Lan seeing his face had a little chuckle.

¨What did you expect? Didn't I say that the foods that I made inside the cave were just small things not comparing to my real cooking skills?¨ She boasted outwards while on inside was she thrilled 'He likes it' was a very happy realisation for her.