Chapter 4

The moment I heard the noise, I told Grandpa Serpent not to do anything rash.

Katherine gathered up every last serpent lotus and walked out to meet them, offering goodwill, urging them to change the way the contest was run.

Seeing that she wasn't dead, the crowd looked a little startled.

But the instant they heard us say no more needless slaughter of the beast-spirits, Mike smiled, cold and sinister.

【We slaughter the innocent? This is just the excuse you throw out because you can't win, isn't it?】

【Every sect here has killed demon-beasts. You two are the only ones protecting them. If that's not being a traitor, what is?】

Lily nodded along, and reached out to pull a spell-device from her sleeve.

【Today I'll teach you both a lesson on behalf of the whole sect, you traitors playing spokesman for a pack of demon-beasts!】

But when she wove her spell-signs to summon the beast-spirits the way she always had, this time she didn't call up so much as a single ant.

The other sects' disciples traded glances and began muttering that Lily, head disciple of the Beast-Taming Sect, wasn't so impressive after all.

To save face for his own partner, Mike charged straight at Katherine.

But he was a foul hex-worm cultivator who played with bugs. How could he stand against the head disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect?

A few exchanges in, he was driven back step by step, badly outmatched.

Clutching his wound, Mike held out his hand and said that if she'd just hand over one serpent lotus so he had something to show, he'd concede.

We believed him.

Katherine held the serpent lotus out to him, and the instant he took it, she collapsed to the ground.

A long while later, when she rose again, the sword in her hand was pointed at me.

Grandpa Serpent stretched out and swept me behind him, grinding out through his teeth:

【Piglet, that scoundrel just planted a love-hex in your sister. She only listens to him now.】

【Using a dirty trick like that. He really is no kind of decent thing!】

Mike gave the order with a vicious grin: Katherine was to kill Grandpa Serpent first, then take her own life to atone.

I threw myself forward without a thought and clung to her sleeve for dear life.

The blade tipped aside, the edge dragging across my cheek, and warm blood ran down.

I cried and begged her to wake up, but her eyes were full of struggle even as her body, like a puppet on strings, moved beyond her control, step by step toward Grandpa Serpent.

Mike stood with his arms crossed, his whole face mocking.

【Crying like that over a little thing like this. This Alchemy Sect brat really is worthless.】

Before the words had even settled, the whole mountain shook.

The disciples of every sect looked down and only then saw that even the demon-catching discs had gone haywire.

It was then that Lily stepped forward to calm everyone.

【Don't be afraid. I wove my spell-signs to command the beasts earlier. They're probably just running late.】

【Everyone get ready. When the beast-spirits arrive, go ahead and take whichever ones catch your eye. They'll all go obediently to their deaths.】

But a deep, resonant voice rolled through the valley, asking, displeased:

【Piglet, who was it just now that called you worthless?】

I thought Grandpa Serpent had gone senile and couldn't even keep track of that.

Until I realized the one who'd just spoken wasn't him at all.

Grandpa and I looked at each other, and in that instant we both sucked in a cold breath.

We were done for. That one had been woken up.