Inside a certain cave on the northwestern side of the 2nd martial continent, a haggard old man sporting a long light-grey beard could be seen sitting hunched over as he struggled not to lose consciousness. His clothes had been tattered and bloodied from the injuries littering his body. His forehead was bleeding heavily, creating small rivers of red as the blood trickled down his face and down to his chin. His torso was covered in cuts and burns, but most notably was the large line that had been carved diagonally down from his chest to his stomach from which a waterfall of blood was flowing with bits of his innards poking out here and there. Meanwhile his right leg was only barely connected to his body by a small layer of mangled flesh as it had nearly been twisted off his body.
These injuries would normally be enough to kill any mortal man in minutes, but in spite of that, the elderly man has been clinging to life for over half a day in this state. The reason why he has managed to keep himself alive so far is in part due to him being a nascent soul cultivator. Nascent soul cultivators can enhance their recovery speed with the power of their qi. Hence, an injury that would normally be fatal to a normal person wouldn't necessarily be so, for a nascent soul. However, there are still limits to how much they can take before dying and the elderly man was quickly approaching his.
*Cough**Cough**Wheeze**Cough*
"*Wheeze* Is this how it ends? *Cough* Ai, I just wish, I could see your smile one more time! *Cough*" Those were the last words the old man muttered as he lost consciousness.
"Nice! I needed a new guineapig! Why am I having the strangest feeling of déjà vu right now? Oh, right!"
…
Nox's POV:
After kicking the playboy's ass of the 1st martial continent, I quickly nipped the supreme empress Nox possibility in the bud as I shoved all the responsibilities of running my new turf on to the suckers who had sold me their souls. This ain't my first rodeo, I know painfully well how much paperwork goes into running such a large nation anywhere but into the ground. It was the reason why I sent those other suckers out to manage the individual countries instead of me just taking over the place directly. If I had openly unified the place under me while beheading anyone who stood in my way, I would end up stuck to another throne buried under a mountain of paperwork just because I killed every Tom, Dick, and Herry, who could function as my replacement.
Anyways, as soon as I finished my research on the 1st martial continent, I hightailed it out of there before those suckers realized how crappy their job was and tried to throw it back to me. Unfortunately, I had underestimated the 'Abyssal Ocean' separating the 1st and 2nd continents and tried to cross it on my newly built pirate ship, in hopes of starting another chapter in the epic tales of captain Nox and her merry crew of golems, but alas, it was not meant to be. The moment we left the harbor, me ship were destroyed by the legendary kraken, who then proceeded to eat me merry crew of me-shaped golems.
Instead, in honor of my fallen crew, I turned into the majestic 'cecaelia' (octopus mermaid) Nox and began my studies of the ocean abyss while getting dragged into all sorts of shenanigans, but that is a tale for another time, that will never come, since I will never return to that goopy abyss of creeps again.
Once I reached the shore, I decided to go pay my baby girl a visit.
Unlike my two troublemakers, Meathead, and Slowpoke whom I sent to summer camp, I decided to send my otaku daughter abroad to the big mecha farm underground. It was kind of a pain to smuggle her over without that playboy noticing since it was kind of located right under his turf, but I pulled it off thanks to the spatial gates of my late aerial craft, may it rest in pieces.
However, …
*Cough**Cough**Wheeze**Cough*
The temporary womancave I had fashioned for myself while preparing for the journey to the Wimp, had been turned into the mancave of some dying old dude.
"Nice! I needed a new guineapig! Why am I having the strangest feeling of déjà vu right now? Oh, right!" I said as I remembered how I ran into the playboy after my last migration.
This is the second time I have run into a half-naked dying dude upon moving abroad.
"Whatever! I need to finish my studies of nascent biology anyways! If this Santa reject turns into a pervert by the end of this, I'll just destroy his jingle-balls and hope that will be the end of it!" I muttered to myself as I pulled out the chainsaw and got to work.
...
The next day.
*Wheeze**Cough**Cough*
"I'm alive?" the elderly man coughed out after opening his eyes.
"Yes, you are! Now get your scaly butt out of here, or else!" Nox said as she threw a paper airplane into the old man's slit pupil.
"Ouch! What the *cough**cough*!" The elderly man started coughing up small amounts of blood as he clutched at the bandages covering his torso.
"The list contains the stuff you should and shouldn't do while recovering!"
"What list? Who are you lass?"
"The list is the paper airplane I threw at you, and my name is on a need-to-know basis! Now scram!" Nox said as she vanished into the back of the cave.
"Wait! Hold on! I-! Where did you go?" The elderly man felt confused as his old eyes had finally adjusted to the dark cave to a point where he could see the back of the cave, only to find that Nox was nowhere to be found.
"Was she a spatial practitioner?" He pondered out loud, as he couldn't find her with his sixth sense either.
"Ouch! I guess I should thank the heavens that I didn't parish at the very least! Hm? WHAT IN THE WORLD!" The old man said as he stood up only to find himself buck naked under the blanket that had been draped over him.
"WHERE ARE MY CLOTHES?!"
"On the ground behind you, dumbass!" Nox said as her head suddenly phased through one of the nearby walls.
"HOLY MOTHER OF-! *Cough**Huff* Don't sneak up on me like that! You could have given this old man a heart attack!"
"Could have? I already did!" Nox said as she pointed towards the dead body on the ground.
"…! WHAT?! WHEN?! HOW?!" The old man had been so distracted that he had somehow not noticed that his nascent soul had jumped out of his body upon seeing Nox's talking head on the wall.
"No, it's fine! I just temporarily separated from my body! I didn't die, which means I can just jump back in and-!"
"Nah man, this thing stopped breathing when it hit the ground!" Nox said as the rest of her body phased through the wall to study the corpse.
"This can't be real! I survived all that for nothing! And I perished in such an undignifieeeaaaaAAAHH!"
Just as the pale ghost was in the middle of processing his own demise, Nox suddenly grabbed his core and smacked it into his dead body before kicking him back to life with a lightning element leg enchantment.
"*Wheeze**huff* What just-?!"
"There, you're no longer a naked old energy ghost, just a naked old man in a cave! You're welcome! Bye!" Nox said as she phased back through the wall.
"Lass! Wait, you still haven't explained yourself! What did you do to my body?"
*BOOM*
Before the old man could get an answer, a giant fireball came crashing through the roof of the cave. Descending into the crater that was Nox's cave was a gang of around 20 nascent soul cultivators.
"Hey, boss! I can't sense him anymore! You think he's dead?"
"I doubt it! He's tanked plenty of these earlier!"
"I still think blowing up the cave was overkill! He seemed to be on his last leg when he escaped! Even if we didn't attack, he might have just keeled over on his own eventually!"
"If he's dead then will find his body soon! If he's not, then we just need to finish him off! Now let's spread out! He can't have flown too fa-!"
*Swoosh*
Before any of them could react, Nox had swiftly jumped out of the debris and stabbed her hand through the leader's dantien, before pulling his core out of his body.
*Thud*
"So, the playboy didn't learn his lesson after last time and sent more goons after me? *Sigh*"
"BOOOOSSS!"
As the other cultivators moved to attack Nox, she threw out a large number of darts, accurately piercing each of their necks.
"YOU THINK SOME NEEDLES WILL STOP US!" The nearest cultivator screamed as he lifted his battleaxe in the air.
"Yes!"
*Thud*
*Clang*
"AAAAHHHH"
*cough**cough*
Just as the man was about to split Nox in half, he and everyone else suddenly fell to the ground as they began to cough up blood.
"Damn you! *Cough* What did you do? *bleurgh*" One of the cultivators coughed out.
"Oh, it's just my new and improved blend of playboy repellent!"
"What? *cough*"
"It would seem, I owe you my life once more, little Lass!" The old man said from beneath the rubble Nox had jumped out of.
Right before the explosion hit, Nox had pulled him through the illusion barrier she was hiding in before activating a small defensive barrier as to not be incinerated with the rest of the cave.
"Didn't I tell you to get lost?"
"Well, I would still like to know the name of my life's savior! This elder Ming is not shameless enough to forget such kindness from a stranger!"
"I told you its classified! SO, BEAT IT YOU OLD GOAT!"
"Nox Manus! *cough* You're that woman from the wanted posters!" One of the attackers coughed out.
"Wanted posters? So, he posted them here too, huh! *Sigh* I guess he's the type who never learns!" Nox said as her eyes turned dark.
"So, Nox Manus is your name!"
"If you don't want to die old man, then you act like you never saw me, you got th-!"
*Pop*
"SHIT!"
While Nox was distracted, one of the men on the ground had pulled out a spatial artifact and teleported away.
"*sigh* Let's just get this over with!" Nox said as she moved towards the cultivators on the ground with bloodshot eyes.
"Little lass, this might be a bad time, but you wouldn't happen to have a spare set of clothing I could borrow?" Old man Ming asked as the only clothing that survived the fireball was the blanket he had wrapped around his waist.
"Just take that guy's stuff and get out of here already, before you piss me off any more than I already am!" Nox said as she pointed at the dead man she had killed moments ago.
"Well, stealing from the dead is a bit-!"
"I don't give a shit if you walk away buck naked! I'm already in a bad mood from my base exploding and for some reason your ugly mug is pissing me off the longer I look at it! So, get lost before I cut off your nuts!"
"Hm! *sigh* Fine, I won't take any more of your time! That said, if you are ever in need, do not hesitate to come to this old man for help! You can find me at-! Whoa!" Just as Ming was about to float away in the dead man's pants, his words were interrupted by a poison dart.
*Swoosh*
"JUST GO ALREADY!" Nox screamed as she was preparing to throw another one at the old man if he didn't go right this instant.
Seeing what her darts did to his pursuers, he didn't dare linger any longer for fear of ending up like them.
*ROAR*
Ming then transformed into a white dragon and flew into the distance.
"Shitty old lizard! Seems like that playboy will find out that I am here sooner than I would like him to, and I went through all that trouble to avoid being detected on my way over! *Sigh* Well, at least I have some more guineapigs to play with!" Nox said as she turned around to look at the other cultivators who were writhing in pain on the ground.