Jin Hua frowned, drawing back and thrusting forward with her sword, piercing through the heart of a cloaked figure. They came from nowhere, as if from shadows, and they were everywhere. Thousands, at the very least, had breached into the halls of the Auction House, and if that wasn't bad enough, she also realized that they were all trapped within a massive array which seemed to prevent all communication with the outside world.
"Are you two alright?" she turned back and saw the two kids huddled up in the back, with the boy standing steadfast in front of the girl, holding a bloodied sword.
"We're fine, Sister Hua," little Meng replied. "Who are these people?!"
"I don't know," Jin Hua had a small inclination, but couldn't be certain of anything. They moved out and down the hallway, wanting to reach the central hall as that seemed to be where almost everyone else was gathering.
She kept stabbing back and forth with her sword, keeping a close eye on the two kids behind her. Sounds of the battles were erupting from everywhere, and the house would quake every so often under the weight of countless explosions. The further along the hallway she went, the harder it became to traverse as more and more bodies were piling up that had already been there.
Towards the exit, they practically had to trample over still-bleeding corpses just to make their way out.
"This way," she called out as they made a left turn, gripping the shadows and hiding for a bit as she began restoring the spent Qi.
None of the cloaked figures they'd encountered were particularly strong; in fact, they were kind of pathetically weak, more so as a force attacking the Auction House residing within the heart of Heavenly Sword Sect. This was the kind of force one expected to assault the walls of some low-level, nameless sect, and not one of the world's hegemons.
And yet, despite that, the situation clearly wasn't being resolved, which meant that the true powerhouses that were present at the auction were being tangled up by something or another that was far greater.
She sighed, somewhat regretting telling Yun Qi she'd attend the auction alone when he offered to come along. She hardly thought this place of all of them would be attacked, and he was better served trying to figure out a way to get into the Vault.
Regrets were, however, for the meek, and that she was not. After restoring herself back to the peak conditions and confirming that the two kids with her were the same, she slithered out as they began their descent down to the emerging hall connecting most of the passages in the house.
Eerily, there was a complete and total lack of cloaked figures attacking them. In fact, there were barely any corpses present, and the few that were there were... decimated would perhaps be the most fitting word. There wasn't a corpse that was whole, and even she felt a slight sense of trepidation at the sight, much less the two kids who vomited their guts out at least thrice before they finally reached the exit.
Slipping out into the vast hall was an even greater shock, as the sounds of the countless battles emerged like the droning of two metal shards being rubbed together.
There were approximately seven distinct 'battlefields' scattered about the tall and vast hall. Most seemed rather pedestrian, though two in particular caught her eye. One because it involved a face that had stirred something inside of her when she first laid eyes on him, and the other because there was a boy who seemed to be seventeen or eighteen and was contending against a cloaked figure who seemed about as strong as Jin Hua herself--around the peak of the Inner World Realm.
The boy, decidedly, was not there--rather, he looked to be merely in the Revolving Core Realm, and was all but toying with the man, repeatedly dancing between the strikes and carving open one wound after another in a cycle of violence that answered the question she had: who was responsible for the carnage in the hallway?
Those people.
The boy wasn't alone in his wanton violence--practically all the children were doing all in their power to be as cruel as physically possible. There was another boy with a sword who, instead of cutting heads or limbs, was quite literally degloving his attackers as though he were using a kitchen knife to prepare meat.
There was a girl who looked to be roughly his age who was breaking seemingly every bone in the cloaked figures' bodies before finally letting them die, and another girl--no, perhaps a young woman was more apt--who was delimbing people as if she were collecting trophies.
It took her about five seconds to clock the fact this wasn't so much a battle as it was a violent outburst. The man himself participated, doing rather bizarre things such as grabbing the cloaked figures by their necks and literally screaming into their faces for a couple of seconds. He'd then toss them aside and seemed to become wracked with guilt for quite some time, before some remnants of anger and hate bubbled back on the surface.
The two kids next to her stared at the 'spectacle' with aghast expressions and, for once, she couldn't even muster it in herself to look down on them. Even she had trouble accepting this reality, and she had seen Yun Qi kill someone firsthand.
Piles of corpses kept stacking, gnawing away at the open space, while--somehow--the number of the cloaked figures never seemed to decrease. If anything, there were more of them, but... none of it mattered. It appeared as if the kids--and the man himself, indeed--had a well of Qi that could not be exhausted. They kept attacking, pushing forward, cruelty the crown maiden.
At some point, the man drew back, his shoulders hung low. The guilt seemed to be back, but the anger never bubbled back up again, as though he exorcised it completely. He turned his het and met her gaze, frowning momentarily before suddenly stepping through the shadows and appearing next to her. While the kids yelped in shock, she didn't really move as she didn't sense any hostile intent from him.
"Are you alright?" he asked, though as he was covered with blood, it looked more like her Inner Demon manifested than a concerned person.
"We're fine," she said. "Are you?"
"... been better," he sighed. "Even knowing they're mindless husks... man, sometimes I look around myself and wonder what I've become."
"Mindless husks?" she arched her brows, wondering if that was the excuse he was giving himself.
"Hm. That guy Tao'er is fighting seems to be somewhat normal, I suppose. Haah. Really, they couldn't wait another hour or two."
"You knew they were going to attack?!" she exclaimed softly, pulling back slightly.
"Hmm... I knew they were around, I suppose," he said, finally cleaning himself with Qi. "But even I didn't think they'd be nuts enough to attack the actual auction."
"Who are they?"
"Grunts of the Sages," he said. "By the way--who are you? And, more importantly, how do you know me?"
"K-know you? I, I don't know you."
"Want to try that again?"
"Know you? I don't know you."
"Funny."
"So I've been told," she said.
"No, seriously. I know you know me, I just don't know how."
"... your eyes." she said.
"My... eyes?"
"Hm. The portrait captured them perfectly. So perfectly it's a bit terrifying, actually."
"... eh? The portrait? What portrait? I've never once in my life sat down for a portrait! No, wait--the weirder bit here is that you recognized me by my eyes. They're normal-looking eyes! I don't buy it."
"It's not the appearance," she sighed, fully and thoroughly confirming that this was the man Yun Qi yapped on about for hours on end. Though the initial shock of seeing him swat away lives like cattle did make her doubt herself for a moment, this strange, eccentric manner of speech and behavior... it was unmistakable. "Now is really not the time, however. We should be on our way to the central hall to join the others. And it looks like your kids have mostly wrapped up the fight."
"Hm," he eyed her suspiciously for a moment, relenting. "Fine. Let's go. But I'm keeping an eye on you, just so you know. The eye you supposedly recognized."
... oh. This is going to be even more annoying than I thought...