The Bandit Leader was dead, but Mira was a bloody mess.

“The Boss is… Dead? How can this be? What do we do?”

“RUN!”

“Hurry! Kill her while she is injured or else we will be dead too!”

Various thoughts ran across the Forest Hunter Bandits. Some started to run, others approached Mira with weapons drawn, and several of them just fell to their knees accepting their fate.

Around 100 people approached Mira with weapons drawn. Mira took a deep breath a focused her eyes once again. Her injuries were still healing, so running around slaughtering these guys might not be the best thing to do right now.

Mira surrounded herself in Ice Needles. She wanted to take care of the fodder first. Then she shot these needles towards the bandits approaching her. Some needles went right through their heads killing them, other bandits were able to block the needles, and some bandits got hit but in a non-life-threatening area. With this one move, she was still able to get rid of around half of the approaching bandits and the rest of them despaired. Their morale was already at rock bottom but seeing an injuring person still treat them like chickens, that was the final blow most of them needed. More and more bandits started running away. All that was left to fight were the remaining Qi Condensation Realm bandits.

Mira didn’t want to use any more Qi or her Ice Dao as she was running out of energy. All that was left was her body and scythe. There were only about 10 remaining Qi Condensation Realm bandits. Mira charged towards one and swiftly removed his read. It wouldn’t have been that easy if their morale hadn’t dropped and they felt like they had no chance of defeating her. She continued removing their heads until the last guy. This guy actually managed to block her attack. The bandit tried his best but was still, but one could say that his inevitable death was much worse. Mira removed his right hand in their battle, then removed his left arm. She then chopped him in half at the waist and left him to slowly die on the ground. She had to go chase some of the other bandits to prevent them from escaping.

Vulcan was waiting outside the walls and started seeing people come over. He knew that his time was up and he started to sever their spinal cords in their necks. All the people saw was a red blur before they died. He continued killing all of them until he didn’t see any more come over. He checked all the way around the base and didn’t find or sense anyone.

Mira was inside and had just finished killing off the rest of the bandits. She then walked over to where she presumed Maria would be. She walked into the room and saw a man without a head and a bruised naked woman who was seemingly asleep. She nodded at this then spotted Maria. She was sitting on the ground looking extremely pale. There was also vomit everywhere.

“Maria.” Mira called out.

Maria looked up and noticed that Mira was there. Maria looked at her with almost lifeless eyes.

“The bandits are finished. Vulcan should have finished off the rest of them that tried to escape. We are going to go around and unchain the women here then search the buildings to see if there is anyone or anything else to take. I will then go around and loot some of the bodies.” Mira said as she used her scythe to removed the chains from the woman on the ground.

The woman woke up from this and saw a girl in a black mask with a black Daoist robe. The only thing that was noticeable was the scythe and her shiny silver hair. This little girl was also covered in blood and had injuries that were currently healing.

Mira looked at this woman and spoke.

“You may go now. All of the bandits should be dead in this place.”

Mira said that and dragged Maria with her. Having her sit here like this would not do her any good. Mira didn’t want to force anything on her right now. This was something that she has to handle on her own. Mira can only hope that her pure and innocent mind won’t be broken after killing someone and seeing a sight like this. They walked out of the house and Maria saw the massacre that was much worse than before. There was only blood, dismembered corpses, and death. Maria just looked on with lifeless eyes as her brain still didn’t know how to process this.

They continued walking in and out of the houses and removing the chains from the women. It didn’t take them long to finish the houses. Then they started checking the other building to see what’s inside there. Most of the buildings were just living quarters in the base. One was a dining hall, one was the boss’ house and the last one was unknown. Mira decided to save the Boss’ house for last and walk towards the unknown building that looked like a warehouse.

They walked in and saw countless women locked up in cages and chained up. Mira partially expected this, but just not so many. Mira went around and used her scythe to open the cages and remove the chains from them.

Some of them walked out immediately, but others didn’t know how to react as Mira hasn’t said anything. After Mira finished she told Maria to go gather all of the women that were in the houses from earlier to gather here. There was a total of 500 hundred women in the building they were in after everyone gathered. Mira then began to speak.

“The bandits here are all dead and you are free to leave.” Mira said short and to the point. There was only silence after she said that. Mira figured this would happen. Most of the people here looked like they didn’t have the will to live anymore. Mira then began to walk over to one of them. She chose a woman that didn’t even bother to look up when she removed her chains and spoke.

Mira now stood in front of this woman with Maria about a meter behind Mira. Mira decided to speak to her.

“You can get up and go now. Go back to where you came from.” Mira said in an almost commanding tone. The women didn’t seem to notice that Mira was commanding this woman to go, but Maria did and was surprised. Surprised enough to look at Mira to try and understand what she is doing.

“I don’t have anyone or anywhere to go back to.” The woman said in a faint voice.

“I see. Then what do you want?” Mira asked.

“I… I just want to reunite with them.”

“I see. Are you sure?”

The woman just faintly nodded her head.

“Very well. I will assist in this endeavor.” Mira said and was about to cut off her head, but was stopped.

“Mira! What are you doing?! How can you just kill an innocent woman like this!? Even if she wants to die, why don’t you try to help her live?!” Maria yelled at her from behind after stopping her swing.

Mira shook off Maria’s hand then cut off the woman’s head. Maria was frozen in shock, but Mira turned around and grabbed Maria’s chin and brought her face close to hers, and looked at her in the eye.

“Let me ask you a question, Maria. What do you think life is?” Mira asked seriously. Maria didn’t know how to answer. Mira then continued speaking.

“Life is a constant struggle of trials and tribulations to achieve one’s goal. A person can go through anything to achieve that goal. That goal is their purpose in life. When someone achieves their goal, that’s the moment they feel their life was worth living like it like they didn’t just waste their life in a fruitless struggle. Some people reach their goal and stop, while others add a new and higher goal. The happiness one feels when they achieve their goal in life is not something that words can describe. Mainly because I don’t know what it feels like.” Mira then pointed at the dead woman.

“Take this woman for example. She probably had a loving husband and a great child. She was living her dream life. Now one day, bandits come and kill both of them. Her goal was killed and destroyed. You can’t just go back to square one after that, but this probably wasn’t what broke her will to live. It was probably the constant abuse and torture that she had to go through by the very same people that destroyed her life. After a while, her resolve, determination, and will to live and find a new goal have all but vanished. The only thing now that can put her mind at ease is to end this suffering and join her family in the afterlife.”

“There is one more reason for this too. Death can be terrifying. Sometimes someone may think they want death, but when death looms over them like a reaper some people can find the resolve to live.” Mira said and backed away from Maria a bit. She had spoken in a low voice that everybody could hear. Mira opened her mouth to speak again, but this time a bit louder and more domineering.

​ “Just like this woman, what if I go to all of the other women here and ask the same questions? Will I kill them mercilessly too? What if their answer doesn’t satisfy me and I just kill them anyway? It’s not like I came here to save them or take care of them. I came here for revenge and because I wanted to kill bandits. In the face of certain death, people can make choices that they never thought they would. If they don’t want to die, then they will certainly make a different choice than this woman here.”

“To be frank, these women here are really quite lucky. My parents died to these bandits and I promised them that I would exterminate them. I used their deaths as a sort of farewell to them. If my parents didn’t die to these bandits, then I would’ve just ignored them. It would bring me no benefit in killing a bunch of bandits other than using them as live dummies for training.”

A heavy silence filled the room. The next moments may very well determine their life and death. One young woman decided to speak up.

“Then what do we do? It’s not like we can travel through the forest by ourselves. Most of us here are just normal mortals without any strength. Unless you are willing to escort us, then we will only die no matter if we stay here or try to leave.”

“You’re right. You would need someone to escort you and I have no intention of doing that. It would take way too long. You’re right, if someone doesn’t help you then all you can do is sit and wait to die. It would probably be better if I just killed you here.” Mira said and thought for a minute.

“How about this. I will be staying in this bandit base to recover from my injuries. I will give all of you a choice. If no one else wants to join their family in the afterlife then I will help set you on the path of a cultivator. BUT! If one of you here cannot find the resolve to live, then I will go ahead and kill everyone. If anyone here tries to leave, then I will kill everyone. I will wait here for one hour. If all of you, meaning 100%, cannot decide in an hour then only death awaits. Rest assured though as I will make it swift. 1 hour starts now!”