“One of you is gravely wounded, her black membrane shattered. The other is so weak he can barely hold his footing in the Snake realm. What exactly do you think you can use to resist me?”
Lu Sheng walked toward the half-submerged Ye Moling, his steps unhurried.
With a violent splash, Ye Moling burst out of the water, curling his body tight as he lunged straight at Lu Sheng.
Lu Sheng held one saber in hand and slashed downward without warning.
In that instant, the river itself was cleaved apart, water splitting cleanly into two walls. Ye Moling twisted his body with desperate precision, narrowly slipping past the blade and closing the distance.
“BOOM!!”
Ye Moling’s palm slammed into Lu Sheng’s chest. The impact thundered, yet the force was swallowed whole by the thick, layered armor. Before Ye Moling could even judge whether he had caused any damage, a crushing sense of danger flooded his instincts. He recoiled instantly, retreating in a blur.
“SWISH!” A silver flash appeared where he had stood just a heartbeat earlier.
Blood sprayed into the air.
Though Ye Moling had managed to evade in time, he was still a fraction too slow. His arms and neck were nearly severed, thin lines of blood blossoming across them.
His face drained of color, Ye Moling retreated frantically, flashing backward more than ten meters in the blink of an eye before landing on the opposite shore. Thereigidly, he turned to face Lu Sheng once more.
The monstrous figure was wading into the river, advancing step by step.
Water submerged his calves. The spikes along his back stood rigid like banners in the storm. The sabers formed from his arms were riddled with cracks, on the verge of collapse, yet bound together by some unseen force that held their shape.
“KILL!!” Scarlet District Mistress burst in from the side like a fired projectile, the translucent long saber in her grasp blazing with scarlet light.
The crimson arc tore through the air, sweeping up a colossal wave more than ten meters wide, surging forward like a raging tide.
“SWISH!!!”
A wall of water crashed down upon Lu Sheng.
“BAM!!”
Lu Sheng raised the saber formed from his right arm and intercepted the hidden blade within the wave with absolute precision.
“A meaningless struggle.”
With a flash of his saber, a terrifying force surged forth, driven by an unfathomable, overwhelming might. It slammed straight into Scarlet District Mistress.
In a single strike, she was blasted as though struck by divine lightning. Her body caved inward, grotesquely distorted by the colossal impact, before she was hurled violently into the water.
Ye Moling knew he could not afford even a moment’s pause. The instant Lu Sheng finished off Scarlet District Mistress, his own end would follow without question.
Seeing Lu Sheng raise his saber, poised to strike again at any moment, Ye Moling roared with everything he had left and charged forward once more.
Scarlet District Mistress, having barely caught her breath, also let out a furious cry and dashed toward him. Both of them understood that the battle had reached its final turning point. Together, they could barely hold their ground. If either of them fell first, the outcome would be sealed.
Lu Sheng had not expected Scarlet District Mistress to retain such combat strength after sustaining injuries that should have been fatal.
Nor had he anticipated such stubborn, unyielding resolve from Ye Moling.
Though neither of them truly threatened him, their bodies possessed terrifying regenerative abilities. Any injury could be rapidly healed unless more than seventy percent of their bodies were destroyed in a single blow. To truly kill them, their entire forms would need to be obliterated beyond recovery.
But then again… wasn’t this ideal?
An inexplicable thrill surged through Lu Sheng’s heart.
It had been far too long since he could tear through enemies and kill without restraint. For so long, he had measured every step, wary of consequences, cautious of unseen dangers. Even with overwhelming power at his command, he had never truly let himself loose.
Opportunities like this, where he could unleash his full might and slaughter without reservation, were exceedingly rare. Rare enough that every single moment now felt precious.
In this clash of blood and destruction, Lu Sheng felt a simple, undeniable truth.
He had been born to fight.
Fighting and killing flowed in his blood. Pain was merely seasoning upon the feast. Every desire and craving he possessed was fulfilled in combat.
“CLANG!! BOOM!!”
Lu Sheng blocked Ye Moling’s charge with his saber, then drove an elbow into him, sending his body hurtling away like a cannonball. Ye Moling smashed into the cliff face, stone erupting on impact.
Rocks broke loose and cascaded into the river below, splashing up towering sprays of water.
“A pity…” Lu Sheng muttered as he intercepted Scarlet District Mistress’ two consecutive strikes on his flank with a single arm. He slammed his shoulder straight into her face, then spun smoothly into a roundhouse kick.
“BOOM!”
For the umpteenth time, Scarlet District Mistress was smashed into the riverbed. This time, however, she struggled desperately, attempting to rise.
She failed.
Her injuries were far too severe. Vast quantities of Ultimate Crimson Nine Furies inner Qi were ravaging her body, suppressing her regeneration, burning relentlessly through muscles and organs that were desperately trying to heal.
Her internal organs had ruptured. More than eighty percent of her blood had been lost. Wide tears split her muscles, and several vital bones had been ground to dust.
A blood-red fissure had even appeared across her forehead and skull. Through it, her squirming brain matter was faintly visible.
To any ordinary mortal, such wounds would have meant death many times over. To a Snake realm expert, they were injuries that could still be healed given time. The true torment lay in the bizarre scorching energy tearing through her body without pause.
Lu Sheng did not finish her off.
Instead, he turned and walked toward Ye Moling, whose body was embedded deep into the cliff face, trapped and unable to move.
In Lu Sheng’s eyes, Ye Moling, a Manor Lord whose combat strength remained relatively intact, was the more immediate threat. As for Scarlet District Mistress, she had already been poisoned. The longer time dragged on, the weaker she would become.
Lu Sheng stopped before Ye Moling and extended his arm.
“Smack.”
His hand clamped around Ye Moling’s neck, and with a single pull, he tore him free from the cliff face.
“If it weren’t for the fact that my injuries never recovered…” Ye Moling forced the words out through a mouthful of blood. Back when he had been exiled from the Northern Lands, the wounds he suffered had crippled his foundation. That was the true reason his strength lagged behind that of an ordinary Black Snake.
“If my strength were complete, you’d be the one losing… ARGH!!!!”
Before he could finish, scorching Ultimate Crimson Nine Furies inner Qi surged into him. Invisible flames ignited across his body, devouring flesh and marrow alike.
Moisture and blood boiled away, erupting as white steam from the crown of his head.
Suspended in midair, Ye Moling writhed like a prawn thrown into boiling water. No matter how violently he struggled, Lu Sheng’s grip remained immovable, iron-tight.
A Black Snake was indeed formidable. Yet no matter how terrifying one’s regenerative abilities were, healing required time. Without even a moment to recover, a Black Snake was no different from an ordinary Bind expert.
A shattered bone could not support weight. A torn muscle remained powerless.
The time Ye Moling needed to heal was more than enough for Lu Sheng to kill him several times over.
In his current Yang Extreme Dao state, Lu Sheng possessed overwhelming speed and brute strength, enough to tear apart an opponent’s body piece by piece.
At the same time, his Yang-aspected inner force, inherently lethal to demons and ghosts, inflicted devastating damage the moment it penetrated and shattered an enemy’s defenses.
“Let him go!!”
Scarlet District Mistress staggered back to her feet. She had also realized how dire their situation had become. The translucent long saber in her grasp blazed with scarlet light, its glow intensifying rapidly.
That was precisely why Lu Sheng had delayed dealing with her.
Her saber was on the verge of unleashing its power.
And so, he had chosen to eliminate every remaining threat first, before turning back to handle her at his leisure.
Lu Sheng ignored her completely. In his grasp, Ye Moling screamed in agony. Blood evaporated rapidly from his body, moisture boiling away as his flesh shriveled and blackened, drying and burning at a pace visible to the naked eye. In moments, he was already halfway to becoming a desiccated corpse.
“Eh?”
Suddenly, Lu Sheng sensed something wrong. He attempted to lift his other arm, only to realize that his body could no longer move even an inch.
“INK LOCK!!”
Without warning, Ye Moling’s eyes snapped open. A torrent of inky-black smoke burst from his mouth, coiling tightly around Lu Sheng’s waist like living chains.
“HURRY, NOW!!” Ye Moling roared with the last of his strength.
Scarlet District Mistress forced her trembling body upright. The red glow on her saber surged violently, climbing to a blinding peak.
“Phantom Spirit Five Slashes!!”
Pouring every last shred of power into the blade, she leapt into the air. The saber flared like a miniature sun, its brilliance searing the eyes. In the blink of an eye, she crossed several dozen meters and descended upon the immobilized Lu Sheng.
“CLANG!!”
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!”
Behind Lu Sheng, the river detonated outward in a fan-shaped explosion. Dozens of towering columns of foaming water, each more than ten meters tall, blasted into the sky.
Enormous volumes of water evaporated instantly, turning into dense white mist that swallowed the battlefield.
The fog thickened rapidly, until visibility dropped to nothing.
Then—
“BAM!!”
A shrill scream tore through the mist as Scarlet District Mistress was hurled backward, her body shooting out of the fog and crashing heavily to the ground.
A towering figure emerged from within the white haze.
It was Lu Sheng.
He strode forward calmly, Ye Moling’s limp, motionless body dangling from his hand. Whether the man was still alive was impossible to tell.
“What a beautiful strike,” Lu Sheng remarked, lightly touching the wound on the left side of his chest. A shallow, depressed crack, about a finger deep, marred the armor there. That was where Scarlet District Mistress’ all-out strike had landed.
“It’s a pity that I’ve already integrated Yin and Yang. The Blood Web has fused perfectly with the Yin Crane Web, inside and out. All that breathtaking saber strike of yours could do was leave this mark.” He paused, then continued coldly. “This comedy ends here.”
Lu Sheng casually flung Ye Moling’s body onto the ground like discarded trash.
“After I kill him, it’ll be your turn.”
His saber fell without warning.
“BAM!”
Ye Moling’s body was crushed into pulp. Having already lost nearly all his blood, the shattered remains ignited instantly, burning like a human torch. Flesh shriveled, contracted, and blackened, curling in on itself as it charred against the rain-soaked ground.
Thus, in this desolate wilderness, the life of a Black Snake realm Deputy Lord came to a silent end. Apart from Scarlet District Mistress and umbrella girl, no one would ever know.
After that strike, Scarlet District Mistress was utterly spent. Her strength had been drained dry. She collapsed onto the river’s surface, her body drifting weakly with the waves, unable to move even a finger.
Lu Sheng walked toward her. He briefly glanced at the stunned umbrella girl, then let his gaze settle on the saber in Scarlet District Mistress’ grasp.
The scarlet shard embedded in the hilt radiated an irresistible allure. Its pure crimson glow was mesmerizing, capable of swallowing one’s consciousness whole.
“This is the Scarlet Dragon Tribulation shard?” With Yingying as his hidden pawn, Lu Sheng already knew its identity. Driven by curiosity, he reached out and grasped the saber’s hilt.
-“Are you truly willing to give up everything in exchange for power?”-
“I am willing.”
A deep, resonant voice sounded beside him.
Lu Sheng’s eyes narrowed as Scarlet District Mistress suddenly opened her own. Twin flames leapt within her pupils, burning fiercely.
An overwhelming, indescribable heat surged outward.
“KABOOM!!”
Lu Sheng’s massive body was blasted away in an instant. He slammed into the cliff with a thunderous crash.
The entire left cliff face of the valley shook violently. Huge boulders broke loose and plunged into the river below.
“I AM THE STRONGEST!!” Scarlet District Mistress forced herself to stand. Scarlet flames erupted from within her body, roaring outward like jets, engulfing her completely.
“STRONGEST!?” Lu Sheng tore himself free from the cliff face, his voice echoing with savage conviction. “NO. I AM THE STRONGEST! ONLY I AM THE STRONGEST!!”
“SWISH!!”
In the same instant, both figures vanished, transforming into two blinding streaks of light that slammed into one another.
There was no deafening explosion.
Scarlet flames clashed with a formless inferno, grinding violently against each other.
Lu Sheng’s battle with Scarlet District Mistress had risen to an entirely new level, unlike anything before.
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