With a tap of his staff, Elder Gu Shouyin drove a formation into the ground. Green lines sank like roots seeking water, and in the next breath, thick vines surged from the earth, twisting into a living maze.
Gu Shouyin exhaled through his nose. "Hold for ten breaths, that's all I'm asking."
But his hope didn't even last half a breath as the green maze shattered, vines snapping like dry twigs. A male figure stepped through the broken greenery, demonic Qi crawling over it in slow waves, eyes lifeless as if nothing inside was truly looking back.
Ugly stitching lines, like worms writhing, crisscrossed its flesh, pulling skin into shapes it wasn't meant to hold. Whatever this person had been, they weren't human anymore, only a corpse hauled upright and kept moving by threads and something that hated to stay dead.
Gu Shouyin's grip tightened on his staff. "Ten breaths," he repeated, this time with a bitter laugh. "So much for that."
Demonic Qi rolled off the corpse and a sword formed in its grip, not forged steel, but condensed darkness, the blade swept straight for Gu Shouyin's neck, making his pupils shrink.
Before the edge could kiss flesh, another sword struck it aside with a ringing clash. The impact rattled the air, and Gu Shouyin stumbled back, staff raised as he retreated to a safer distance.
Elder Jian Moxiu frowned.
The moment their blades touched, that demonic energy crawled into his sword like rot creeping into good wood. Black veins spreading along the metal.
"Tch." He let go in the next breath, abandoning his weapon midair as if it had turned into a viper.
The sword fell, still dissolving.
Gu Shouyin clicked his tongue. "That's your beloved sword and you just threw it away?"
"It threw itself away, I just helped."
They'd come down thinking it was only a powerful cultivator rampaging. Early Void, perhaps. Dangerous, but manageable.
Except it turned out to be this weird corpse thing that wouldn't stay dead.
No matter how many times they smashed it apart, black stitching dragged the pieces back together, stubborn and obscene. The longer it fought, the more it felt like they weren't battling a corpse at all. They were battling whatever was pulling the strings.
As they fought, a flare had suddenly risen from the mountain, meaning the sect was under attack, and they immediately recognized that they had been baited.
As they'd been ready to withdraw and rush back up the mountain, the Qi in the city suddenly twisted and turned bitter. Blood on streets and bodies in rubble began to steam. Dark energy rose like smoke, then poured into the stitched corpse as if the entire kingdom had become a feeding bowl.
Its pressure surged until it brushed something it had no right to touch.
And worse, it stopped fighting like a mindless brute.
The corpse's demonic Qi began to gather and shape. Its steps grew cleaner. Its strikes carried intent. For a breath, its handsome face looked convincing enough to fool the eye.
The sect master had made the call immediately: the other elders were to go back to the sect, while he and three others stayed to handle this thing.
Now Jian Moxiu stood empty-handed, his combat strength cut nearly in half.
Its head turned toward him and moved, Like a shadow sliding across the ground. Jian Moxiu shifted to evade, but he was a fraction late, and pressure struck his spine.
Elder Hua Ruanxue's fan flicked.
A verdant breeze wrapped around Jian Moxiu's waist and shoulder, tugging him sideways by the width of a hair. The corpse's demonic blade passed through the space where his throat had been and he landed beside her.
"Thank you."
Hua Ruanxue's steps stayed smooth as a dancer's. "Try not to die while I'm watching. We need to end it quickly. I have a feeling what's happening at the sect isn't simple."
Song Cangqiu, the sect master, already knew.
Even while fighting, his senses had caught it: unfamiliar cultivators at the base of the mountain. Some of them were too strong to be stray rogues, and the pattern was too deliberate to be coincidence. A net was tightening.
He didn't want to be dragged here another moment.
"Hua Ruanxue," he ordered. "Blessing of the Verdant Breeze. Wisteria Snare Dance. Keep it pinned and keep us moving."
"Gu Shouyin, support me and stabilize the area. Don't let the field break."
Gu Shouyin grimaced. "As if I'd let my formations break in front of you."
"Good, make sure of that."
Both elders began operating their techniques.
Song Cangqiu stepped forward.
The corpse's gaze fixed on him, killing intent thickening as if it recognized the true threat. It tried to rush forward, but Song Cangqiu's sword hand lifted, and the air changed.
It felt like a forest canopy descending.
Pressure dropped like old pine shade, and the corpse's movement slowed as if invisible roots had caught its ankles.
He closed his eyes, then struck.
[Greenwood Eclipse]
Green swordlight swept out, deep as shadows beneath ancient trees. The sky dimmed. Smoke seemed to hesitate. The slash passed through the corpse, and the air behind it rippled as if the world itself had been grazed.
The corpse let out its first sound since the battle had began, a sharp, awful screech that didn't belong in any human throat. It convulsed, trying to tear itself free, but the suppression held just long enough.
The swordlight finished its path.
The corpse burst apart into a spray of blood and shredded flesh, raining down.
For a moment, silence fell.
Gu Shouyin's eyes searched for the stitching trying pull itself back together. Nothing moved, and a thin relief loosened their chests.
Hua Ruanxue covered half her face with the fan. "Finally."
Then the blood on the ground rippled and it began to gather.
A spear rose from it, long and slick, forged from demonic blood, its point sharper than reason. The pressure it released made the air feel like it had turned to stone. Windows down the street shivered and cracked. Far away, mortals dropped where they stood, hands clawing at their chests, and even the elders felt their hearts hitch.
Song Cangqiu's expression changed.
Gu Shouyin's voice went tight. "That isn't regeneration."
"No," Song Cangqiu agreed. "That's retaliation."
The spear didn't hang there to threaten. It launched in a blink, a straight line of murder aimed without hesitation.
It went for the weakest target.
Hua Ruanxue.
Song Cangqiu moved without thinking, sword flashing as he tried to intercept, but he realized too late that he wasn't fast enough, and Hua Ruanxue wouldn't be able to block a strike that seems to contain the full might of an emperor.
Roots exploded up in front of her, thick and layered. Gu Shouyin's shield formed over them, green lines weaving into a firm barrier. In that blink, it looked like enough.
Hua Ruanxue's eyes widened, she knew she couldn't evade it, but she didn't freeze either. Her fan snapped, and the breeze around her tightened as if she meant to brace the shield herself.
The spear hit.
It punched through root, through shield, through every layer as if they were paper, diving into Hua Ruanxue's ribs and tearing out the other side, leaving a hole that steamed with demonic Qi.
Her fan slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the ground like a fallen leaf.
She staggered once in the air before she also fell after it.
The last thing she saw was everyone rushing toward her, faces filled with shock and fury. Even Song Cangqiu, who always wore stern calm like armor, looked as if the air had been ripped from him before everything went dark.