Witch Hunter: Goujian Sword

Hot blood flowed from my stomach...

My vision darkened...

Coldness began creeping from the tips of my toes and fingers...

My body felt like it was being sliced by thousands of sharp objects...

It was painful... I had felt this pain before...

That time, it was raining. The same heavy rain as tonight.

My body felt shattered, my breath ragged and burning while my skin began to pale.

I fell from a great height and gazed at the sky covered by dark clouds. I felt an unbearable pain at the back of my head. I was sure that my skull was fractured and bleeding badly.

Slowly, my body became stiff and cold among the increasingly heavy raindrops...

In the darkness I saw, a light... That light guided me, bringing me to a place.

Slowly, with a painful groan, Sizhu's right hand moved, touching the wooden staff lying above his head.

The blood runes carved into the wooden staff glowed brightly in the dark night and the cold drizzling rain that was growing heavier.

A 'Promise' he held with a hand stained with warm blood. The blood slowly spread and covered the entire side of the wooden staff.

Creating new runes carved from sacred red blood.

Runes that made the fire glow with a warm green light. Dispelling the darkness of the night and the chill of the raindrops.

Master... This time, you won't be here to carry my small, badly wounded body and give me the warmth of your embrace.

Master... I will still keep my promise! No matter how many deaths I must endure!

Master! Tonight... I will kill the evil Witch who cursed this village! I will hunt them down... The ones who killed my family on the same night!

Sizhu's green pupils shone brightly. He moved his legs, trying to lift his body that felt unbearably heavy.

With a tight grip on his staff, he managed to stand after struggling. Using the blood-covered staff with glowing runes as his support. He slowly walked painfully toward the village.

The bleeding from the hole in his stomach stopped after a few drops mixed with rainwater fell to the ground. Sizhu tightened the muscles around his stomach as hard as he could so the bleeding ceased from the gaping wound.

"Hah... Muzhe... I swear to end you with all my soul..."

After five difficult minutes walking toward the village, he finally passed Qing's house.

There, the children were busy packing and carrying belongings. As soon as Qing opened the door and saw Sizhu struggling toward the village center, Qing who was ready to run hurried to him.

"Brother Sizhu!"

With a bag full of clothes and a wooden spear in hand for spearing fish, he didn't care about the rain and helped Sizhu stand after slipping on the slippery ground.

"Brother Sizhu! What happened? Why are you so badly injured like this?"

Qing looked a bit scared, surprised, yet worried about Sizhu's condition. He saw a large hole gaping on Sizhu's right side stomach and slash wounds on his back and left arm where the cloth was now torn off.

Yaoyao followed her brother to help Sizhu stand.

"Qi...ng.. hah... Take me to the village... Hah... We must stop the village chief... Hah... He will kill your father and all the villagers..."

"But Brother Sizhu..."

Qing seemed hesitant to take Sizhu to the village center.

"Take me! Uhuk! Uhuk!" Sizhu tried to speak firmly but instead coughed up blood. Some of his blood splattered on Qing's clothes.

"Brothel... We have to run..."

Yaoyao beside held her brother's hand while trembling.

Qing felt conflicted. He wanted to help Sizhu but didn't want to get involved in danger and wanted to escape with his sister. At the same time, he felt he couldn't just let Sizhu go to the village in such a pitiful condition.

Sizhu saw the doubt in Qing's eyes and said,

"Go... Hah... Run far from here... Hah..."

"But Brother Sizhu... You can't fight in this condition!"

"Go! Uhuk! I will save your father... hah.. I will save him! Hah... Because of that... Hah.. save yourselves first... Hah... Your lives are more valuable..."

Sizhu forced his legs and wooden staff in his right hand to move again. Walking slowly while enduring the pain.

"Brother!" Yaoyao shook her head, holding back her brother from leaving with Sizhu.

Qing bit his lower lip while gripping his wooden spear tightly.

"Stay alive, brother! We will wait for Brother Sizhu outside the village!"

With a heavy heart, Qing pulled his little sister away in the opposite direction from Sizhu.

Sizhu didn't look back but knew from the sound of wet footsteps that the two children ran. They ran out of the village into the cold dark night with heavy rain.

"Hah.. I will live.. save their father.. and get out of this cursed village!"

Sizhu walked with a hardened face. Anger and determination became the strength for his fragile steps.

***

"Muzhe! Why did you.. Yuan.. you killed Yuan!"

Hubei pointed to the person standing twenty steps ahead. Curious villagers opened their windows and doors wide.

Their faces were shocked to see the figure Hubei pointed at was someone terrifying. And when Hubei said the monstrous figure known as the Witch was the village chief, Muzhe, they were even more shocked, their mouths falling open unconsciously. Their hands covered their gaping mouths after seeing the corpse lying in the middle of the village crossroads.

It was Yuan's corpse, one of their neighbors who lived alone.

They also saw dozens of giant wasps floating in the air amidst the heavy rain. One of them dripped fresh red blood from its belly needle.

"Hubei..."

"Answer me, Muzhe! Why did you kill Yuan? Did he break the village rules? No. You killed him because you are a Witch! Muzhe!"

"Silence!"

Stretching out his hand, a wasp immediately moved to attack Hubei who was pointing at Muzhe in the middle of the village crossroads.

His left hand was cut off at the elbow by a swift wasp strike. The front two legs of the wasp instantly stained with blood.

"Arrrghh!!!"

Hubei sat on one leg while grimacing and pressing his bleeding left arm. He kept moaning as he tried to open part of his cloak to cover the wound, then tied it tightly.

Muzhe jumped flying quickly in front of Hubei's face.

He kept his face very close to Hubei's just to show the terrifying angry expression on his face.

His four eyes and eight eyes on his four wings stared sharply at Hubei who sat moaning in pain.

"You have broken this village's rules, Hubei. Now look at the consequences of breaking the village regulations!"

Muzhe lifted Hubei high by choking his neck upward.

"Kill everyone in this village."

The wasps in the air immediately flew to obey their master's orders.

When the villagers heard the order, they panicked, some tried to run to the forest before suddenly their heads were cut off.

Some tried to hide inside houses and locked their doors and windows tightly, but the wasps found a way in through a hole in the vulnerable roof. So the terrified occupants took a desperate action by coming out the front door. The wasp's sharp stingers greeted their faces.

Some tried to fight using machetes in their hands, protecting their beloved mother, but it ended with a cruel scene where a wasp dissected the man's stomach alive and pulled out his intestines in front of his hysterical mother before another wasp came to follow its companion's act.

"Look closely, Hubei! This is the consequence of trying to break the village rules I made!"

Hubei could do nothing but watch, hearing hysterical screams and all the tragic events around him.

"This is what happens when someone dares to break the rules, Hubei! Chaos! You are responsible for their lives! If you had followed this village's rules and didn't invite that cursed youth here, none of this would have happened!"

Hubei chuckled hearing that. He no longer cared about the pain and hardship he was facing.

"Responsible? Now let me ask you, Muzhe. Are you satisfied? Playing as the wolf among a flock of sheep? Being the shepherd of your livestock? Are you satisfied, huh? Killing my wife five years ago who knew nothing about this cursed village's rules that night... Are you satisfied?!"

His grip began tightening so Hubei couldn't breathe properly.

"You... are only pretending... to be human, Muzhe... but... you truly are... a monster...! You... are... a Witch... no matter who you are... in the eyes of this village... You... are a deceiver, Muzhe!"

"Silence!"

Hubei was slammed very hard to the muddy ground, making a small messy mud puddle. The thirty-year-old man coughed and grimaced in pain.

"Father?"

Muren, along with his younger sibling, older sibling, and mother, stood silently eight steps behind Hubei. A hundred steps behind them was the river near their house.

The village chief's wife looked very pale. She saw the figure, her husband who had become a Witch again after twelve years had passed.

"Father, what... happened?" Mufeng, the youngest, asked while his eldest sibling stood in front taking guard position.

Their eyes trembled with fear seeing the scene in front of them. Villagers' corpses and red blood mixed with rainwater emitting a pungent stench.

It was not a good sight.

"Muzhe..."

His wife asked while covering her mouth. Tears began to flow though they weren't obvious because of the rain.

But the middle-aged man's four eyes knew his wife was crying.

"Qiao..."

"Why... didn't you promise not to kill the villagers?"

"They broke my rules, Qiao! It's all because of him." Muzhe's index finger pointed at Hubei who was still lying sideways on the ground, coughing and grimacing.

"Muzhe! You promised your elder brother not to use the power that man gave you! Look at the consequences, Muzhe!"

Muzhe looked around, his wasps gathering again biting hands, heads, entrails, or any human body parts in their mouths. They hovered in the air, waiting for their master's orders again.

No one must see me like this, whoever they are! That is my rule! No one, even my family!

With a hardened face, Muzhe said,

"I have no choice... like you, you are now breaking my rules too... Qiao, forgive me."

"Father!"

"Muzhe!"

CRAT!

Four wasps cut the necks of that family.

With their eyes and mouths wide open, heads and bodies fell to the ground.

Hubei who witnessed the family's death said nothing and then laughed while shouting.

"HAHAHAHA! LOOK! YOU ARE A WITCH, MUZHE! CURSED YOU!"

Muzhe approached Hubei who was trying to sit up.

"Die, Hubei."

ZRAT! CRAT!

A head rolled with blood splattering on the muddy ground. The face of that head looked resigned, closing its eyes before its neck was cut off by a swift hand movement.

That event was witnessed by a young man who had just arrived struggling to walk using his staff.

His eyes widened seeing a familiar head rolling on the ground.

"Hah.. hah.. Muzhe!!!"

***