The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns: An OP Xianxia Returnee LitRPG

Chapter 17: Bounty Hunters

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CRAAASH!

That axe was very heavy; it took almost a speck of my strength to grasp its complete weight and the power that man had added to it with his myriad of stupid skills. His aura overflowed like a crimson flame; he resembled a mighty warrior, yet he remained weak and pathetic in front of me.“H-Huh?"His eyes opened wide when he finally realized that the awkward silence that came after he swung his axe against me was because he, in fact, had not killed anybody yet! His stupid, gorilla-like face groaned in disbelief.

“W-What the…?! What did you- A barrier!”

“Barrier?”

I grabbed his axe and then pulled it, dragging it towards me. He didn’t want to let go of his weapon, so I zapped his hands off with Photon Energy, turning them into ashes.

ZAAP!

“UUAAAGH!”

As he screamed in agony, I grasped his axe. It was made of pure gold with dragon decorations. Quite a beautiful weapon; it reminds me slightly of the artistic aesthetics of Murim. Where did he get this weapon?

“A rather beautiful axe, despite how pathetically weak it is, might have some sort of hidden potential.” I smiled. “I’ll be taking it from now on- Hm?”

Suddenly, I noticed rays of cosmic light hit my body, and tentacles made of shadows attempt to pierce my robes, though they dealt no damage. The magician and the rogue woman tried to go for a sneak attack from behind. Well, it did no damage either way.

“Did you thought sneak attacks would work against me? Now that you’ve all attacked me, unfortunately, I won’t hold back.”

“W-What?!” The warrior, the rogue woman, and the magician all screamed at the same time.

"Oi, you hulking idiot, what the hell is going on?! I’ve never seen someone just steal a weapon off your hands! Also none of our attacks dealt any damage?!"

“W-What?!” The warrior, the rogue woman, and the magician all screamed at the same time.

"Oi, you hulking idiot, what the hell is going on?! I’ve never seen someone just steal a weapon off your hands!"

“That woman is dangerous; fall back!”

The rogue and the magician quickly stepped back. I suppose being Level 1000 gave them some sort of experience in battles, enough to recognize I wasn’t just someone they could easily bully.

“GIVE BACK MY WEAPON!”

However, the muscle of their team charged towards me. Magic circles around him opened, summoning a rain of silver-colored swords and spears. It seemed his magic was the ability to summon metal—how amusing!

“Sure, you can have it back!”

I swung the axe with minimal effort, and a wave of Immortal Essence was unleashed, slashing and disintegrating his little flying projectiles and cutting through his entire body. The hulking giant, whose stats were probably ridiculously high, died in a single hit.

“W-Wha…?!”

His split-apart body splattered on the floor, his gusts falling and painting the grass red. The smell of blood filled my nostrils—nothing new for me. I’ve seen this scene way too many times. He was only able to ask a single question before he died, and it wasn’t even a completed sentence.

Should I pity him?

Why?

“I told you that I wasn’t going to kill you if you didn’t step forward, yet you did.” I sighed and grabbed his soul. “I don’t feel so nice right now; you just interrupted a nice moment with my mother and my sister.”

“W-What’s happening?!”

Crack, crack…!

“AARRGH!”

CRASH!

His soul squirmed as I crushed it and then shattered it into countless pieces. The glowing fragments of his soul were immediately absorbed by my physique.

“Not bad; the soul of a Level 1000 does carry a bit of power, huh? And Divinity too! How nice.”

The rogue and the magician were already escaping. They didn’t even try to fight back. I noticed them attempting to run away using a teleportation spell. How nice. I want to learn more about that myself, too!

With a single step, photonic energy zapped my entire body right behind them. I found the magician desperately forming a magic circle as the rogue guarded his back.

“Surprise! Where do you think you’re going?”

“Shit! She’s here!”

"Wait, the magic circle is not done yet!”

As they screamed, I quickly sprinted forward. Swinging the axe, I attacked the rogue woman with minimal strength. The leopard-beast woman, who was incredibly pretty, swiftly evaded my first attack with an explosion of speed and then appeared right behind me, gritting her sharp teeth.

“{Abyssal Dagger Arts}: {One Thousand Phantasmal Cuts}!”

A thousand cuts rushed down my back as she attempted to reduce me to shreds. The attacks didn’t even tickle, although they had very fancy choreography and many explosions of darkness.

“It is truly a pity that a beauty like you is my enemy. But let me tell you something: I do not spare people when I decide to kill them. I don’t change my mind, even if they’re a beautiful maiden.”

My axe quickly cut through her hands, which flew away in explosions of golden flames. A second later, I grasped her head with both of my hands and pressed them tightly. A pity, truly a pity, but that’s how life is. If you let these insects trample on you and insult you, you won’t ever make yourself respected.

“P-Please no! Don’t kill me! I was wrong! I will even become your servant! DON’T KILL ME!”

She kept struggling as her skull started to shatter and her eyes began to pop out of her face.

“Goodbye.”

SPLAT!

Her head exploded into pieces. Brains, eyes, skull fragments—everything. I simply cleansed the blood from my hands as I looked at the trembling magician; his magic circle was finally done.

“Shit, shit, shit! WORK! FUCKING WORK!”

FLASH!

His body was encompassed by a flash of blue and gray light and disappeared from where he was. He might have thought I couldn’t chase after him and that he was a lucky one. However, he couldn’t be far from the truth.

“Nice trace you left behind.”

I grasped the Mana Trace his magic left behind and simply followed it with my combination of Movement Techniques and Partial Spatial Manipulation. In a split second, I appeared right behind him, trespassing on dozens of Tower Floors.

“Hahhh… I-I made it… Those two died. Holy sh*t, she’s too dangerous!” He muttered. “W-What kind of monster is that strong without even being Level two thousand?!”

As he gasped for air, yet to notice I was right behind him, I looked around my surroundings. It seemed this was the Tower’s twentieth floor. A land of flames and volcanic scenery. This was apparently a safe area inside a mountain. But the outside world was a hellish and blazing landscape. I noticed countless demonic and blazing creatures walking across the land.

“So this is floor twenty, huh? Quite big!” I laughed.

“W-What?!” He gasped, suddenly realizing I had followed him.

“Surprised? It is very easy to track a trace of your magic if you are so bad at hiding it.” I laughed, appearing right in front of him a second later.

“G-Get away from me!” As he screamed, he fired several beams of blue light. “{Cosmic Rays}!”

The rays didn’t even harm me; I simply blocked them with my bare hands. They were ridiculously weak! And he calls these “cosmic”? They’re simply a lesser-light attribute spell.

“I’ve seen what truly cosmic power is, and you don’t have it. Whoever gave you that spell probably scammed you.” I said.

“W-What?!” He screamed before my hands could grasp his arm, tearing it apart from his body. I then stole his staff and left it for myself before kicking his legs and shredding them into pieces, blood splattering everywhere.

“NO! P-PLEASE…! DON’T KILL ME, PLEASE!”

As he screamed in agony, his magic attacked me continuously; chains of light, beams of “cosmic” light, and stars fell over my body, generating huge explosions. Yet all of it was mere replicas; nothing of it was actually at the level of power to call it “Cosmic”!

“What a disappointment you are. Is that all your magic? Oh, did you run out of Mana already?”

“W-What do you want?! Please… Don’t kill me! I’ll give you anything! All my credits, all my items..."

“Is that so? Drop them there then.”

“A-Ahhh!”

He quickly dropped a pile of valuable items and credits, shown as white-colored coins. It seems I can first extort these mortals out of their items before killing them, as killing them doesn’t give me access to their inventory items most of the time.

“This will be useful for my sister and my mother. Thank you. For that, I will give you an agonizing death!”

“What?! But I…!”

“Do you think I spare anybody? Foolish mortal, this is merely the divine punishment you receive for offending a primordial such as me! Repent in hell!”

I quickly grasped his head and slowly tore it apart from his neck; his screams reverberated everywhere, and people started running here to see the massacre, only to catch a glimpse of my hands tearing his head off his body, blood covering my face.

“What? Did you lose something?” I asked. “Give one step, and you might face a similar fate to this utter fool,” I said as I grasped his soul and shattered it into pieces.

“So? Anybody?” The Players slowly started walking back, full of horror, and then ran away. “Good! Don’t get involved!” I cleansed myself again as I sighed in relief.

I hate to admit it, but I did enjoy killing these fools. It seems Murim has truly fucked my head. I know my mother and my sister accept me even as a bloodthirsty monster. But when comparing my past self to what I’ve become, there’s a certain sense of hollowness.

“I suppose this is what comes with having become Murim’s strongest.” I sighed. “Yet even then, I was unable to even confront the Heavenly Will, and I had to run away…”

Despite how strong I might seem, compared to that monster, I am weak. I need to get stronger. There’s a feeling within me that the time I escape from his clutches won’t be the last time I see him.

I’ll become strong enough so I can make him pay for everything he did to me. For having put me in that horrible world and for forcing me to turn into the monster I am now.

“Hahh… Well, that is that.”

I moved back to where I was, greeting my family, who were still paralyzed where they were. I hugged my mother and my sister and told them that everything was alright.

“Sorry about that! Everything is alright for now. If anybody like them comes around, I’ll just kill them.” I smiled.

“Okay, but big sis, your face has some blood on it…” Ruby sighed.

“Dear, did you have to chase that magician down?!” My mother asked. “Aren’t you a bit too ruthless?”

“If I didn’t kill him, we would be risking him coming back for us with even more hunters,” I said. “It is better to remove the opportunity for this to even occur. Sorry if it comes as distasteful, but now that the world has changed and the Tower exists, I am sure many more share this thought process.”

“I guess… You’re not wrong; maybe we are the dumb ones for feeling bad about it.” My mother said.

“Not exactly either…” I said, smiling back at her. “That feeling you have, that feeling of remorse, of guilt... Embrace it. Don’t let it go away. It is what makes you human. And it is what makes your emotions precious. I, in the other case, have forgotten what it feels like to even be a human anymore.” I glanced into my bloodied hands.

“Katherine…” My mother muttered, hugging me from behind. “It’s fine, dear... You’re human to me; you’re my daughter.”

“Y-Yeah, come on…” Ruby was trying to say something but couldn’t think of anything.

The very thought of them just trying to cheer me up was enough to quickly make me smile and feel completely happy. Nobody was ever there for me back then; I was completely alone, always alone. Nobody was there to hug me, to tell me that it was okay to feel sad, or to question yourself.

“I’m happy to have you two with me. You two remind me that I was once a human.” I smiled, hugging them both. “Now! Shall we go? We got some bees to hunt!”

“Alright!” Ruby nodded; she was doing her best to cope with everything, although I could notice stress building up on her.

“Let’s go then; I am making my two daughters S-Rank Adventures.” My mother smiled, nodding.

As we moved forward, the figures chasing us continued their pursuit. However, no matter what, I could not feel any sort of animosity from them. If anything, it felt like they were waiting for an opportunity to talk with us.

Oh well, I did get a lot of gains from those three fools too, so it’s not so bad!

Ding!

[You have slain [Blazing Berserk Warrior: Gustaf: Lv1014], [Shadow Leopard Rogue Kunoichi: Essenica: Lv1008], and [Spatial Warlock: Herleck: Lv1050]!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Your Level has increased from Level 487 to Level 553/999!]

[All your Stats have increased. You gained Bonus Stat Points and Skill Points.]

[The Skill: [God Predator (SSS): Lv3] Skill effects have been activated. You have devoured the Divinity Fragments of the Avatars of the {Father Of War And Iron}, {Maiden Of Crescent Moon}, and {Scholar of the Stars}!]

[All your Stats have increased by +4.000]

[You gained +3.000 Divinity.]

[You learned the Magic Skill: [Blazing Iron Weaponry Creation (S): Lv1]

[You learned the Classless Skill: [Crescent Moon’s Shadow Dagger Style (S): Lv1]

[You learned the Magic Skill: [Cosmic Star Magic (S): Lv1]

[The Skill: [Divine Class Absorption: Lv2 (SSS)] Skill effects have been activated. You have devoured the Divine Classes of the Avatars of the {Father Of War And Iron}, {Maiden Of Crescent Moon}, and {Scholar of the Stars}!]

[You devoured the [Blazing Berserk Warrior] Divine Class!]

[You devoured the [Shadow Leopard Rogue Kunoichi] Divine Class!]

[You devoured the [Spatial Warlock] Divine Class!]

[You have earned +5.000 Skill Points!]

[For having slain so many powerful Avatars of many Tower Gods, you gained +600.000 Credits.]

[The Class Skills: [God Predator (SSS): Lv3] [Divine Class Absorption: Lv2 (SSS)] have Leveled Up!]

[Their effects have been strengthened and intensified.]

Oh, they were Avatars too…

[The Tower God {Father of War And Iron} roars in fury, asking what happened to his Avatar!]

[The Tower God {Maiden Of Crescent Moon} was sleeping when it all happened and is confused!]

[The Tower God {Scholar of the Stars} is shocked by your brutality and monstrosity. He swiftly decides to never interact with you again.]

Sorry about that; don’t worry, you’re going to join your Avatars soon enough.

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