Xue Li balanced the spear in her hand, her gaze set forward and a wild grin tilting up her defiant lips. Energy rushed over her and she wove through the crowds of screaming men; some shouted battle cries, while others wailed in pain, and some—the rare ones—laughed in the face of danger. Xue Li belonged to the latter category. Her grin was wider than any others as she swung her spear at the enemies. Vengeance pumped through her veins and made her a fiery goddess of war on the bloodied battlefield. Revenge and bloodlust was what kept her pushing through the warriors and fighting with all her might.

Revenge was usually painted in an ugly light—a light Xue Li fell into too many times. It was thought to be terribly tainting, but it was only spoken that way by those naïve souls who had never tasted betrayal, death, or animosity. For Xue Li, vengeance was more than a tainting of her soul—it had infused into her bloodstream, until all she tasted, breathed, and felt was the dull, throbbing ache of bloodthirst. She lusted for violence, if only to quench the hatred in her heart.

Xue Li rammed her spear into the nearest Ki soldier and watched as blood spattered his lips and his eyes widened. She shoved his body off the tip of her weapon and swung it around in an arc. It hooked against three soldiers and they were all sent to the ground. She shoved her way through, watching as fear tore through the expressions of the seasoned soldiers. Some were much older than her, but they recognized the power she exuded. A monster drenched in blood: she was the Bloody General.

More, more, more, she thought as she swung her weapon. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she had the whole world at her feet.

Helmets crunched beneath the weight of her spear and dying cries filled the air around her. She ran with all her might, straightforward, her gaze flitting over the faces in a blur. She didn’t pay attention to the particular individuals she was shoving right and left, but instead tried to pinpoint a specific body type. The man she was looking for should’ve been a towering mass of flesh, and yet she encountered no one like that—yet.

“Die, you bastard!”

She didn’t even turn towards the voice before propelling the spear in an arc, catching a group of soldiers and sending them careening to the side. Xue Li pivoted and twisted her hips to turn to them. She pierced the closest one with a single thrust of her spear before deftly yanking it out and sending a powerful kick to the second in line, and then a final thrust to the third. She didn’t stop there, she kept running. She was moving forward, never dallying too long in one spot.

Some Ki soldiers ran to her to get her head, while others avoided her, deciding to cling to the outer parts of the battlefield. She bulldozed straight through them, her grin growing wider as the battlefield grew. Her muscles creaked with the desire to release themselves, while her energy swirled around her, banging against her to let it out.

She lunged to the side as a sword came towards her, before slicing her weapon against the swordsman’s neck and continuing her slaughter. A rain of arrows colored the sky overhead, but Xue Li persisted. An arrow struck her shoulder, but it ricocheted away, much to the bewilderment of the nearby Ki soldiers, whose eyes were wide enough to pop out of their sockets.

“D-D-Demon!” one of them shouted.

Xue Li laughed as she brought down her spear on his shoulder. She pulled it back, her blade tasting even more red. “I’m not a demon,” she said with another laugh, swinging her spear at the nearby soldiers. “But I wouldn’t exactly say I’m human.”