“You truly have a death wish…” Jared’s voice out through the poison-laden mist, a cold grin crawling across his face. A mere Earthly immortal Realm Level Five dares strut before me?
The audacity almost amused him. He faced King Millesnake without blinking. In one casual arc of the Dragonslayer Sword, hundreds of radiant blades burst from the swing, streaking toward the monster like meteors breaking free from a cruel sky.
King Millesnake’s body fragmented mid-air, severed into grotesque sections that thudded to the ground. Black, fetid blood splashed over the toxic undergrowth, its vile touch so caustic that even the poison-fed plants sizzled and smoked.
“You b*stard! How dare you slaughter my King Millesnake!” Sarpa’s single remaining eye bulged, the hand clutching his burlap sack gone bone-white with fury.
That a Wandering Immortal Realm Level Nine could erase his painstakingly reared beast, it was an outrage Sarpa’s mind fought to process.
King Millesnake had stood proudly at Earthly Immortal Realm Level Five, a terror few would provoke.
With a furious slap to his own chest, Sarpa spat a thin arc of pale green blood essence onto the soil.
The liquid crawled like sentient acid. Instantly, the Mithril Centipedes scorched by Flaxseed’s Corpsify Pills regenerated, their bodies swelled to twice their size, shells gleaming with an eerie crimson sheen.
“All poisons as one, tear apart!” roared, hands weaving frantic seals that cracked the air.
As though answering a general’s trumpet, the Mithril Centipede horde surged, a living tide rushing to drown Jared beneath iron mandibles.
“That blood essence has driven them feral!” Flaxseed blanched, horror whitening his already pale cheeks.
Corin’s longsword whirled in a silver halo, reducing the few creatures lunging at Flaxseed to metallic dust. “Jared, finish this quickly!”
Instead of alarm, a faint, almost detached smile touched Jared’s lips.
He lifted his Dragonslayer Sword with deliberate grace; golden light and marked aura coiled around the blade, weaving into a living spiral that pulsed like a predatory heart.
“A swarm of crawlers dares block my path?!”
The last syllable had barely left his tongue before vanished, a blur too swift for poisoned air to grasp.
An explosion of interlaced gold and black erupted within the Mithril Centipede ranks, a radiant storm shredding their formation from the inside.
This was no ordinary light but Jared’s sword domain, driven by the full force of a Wandering Immortal Realm Level Nine’s spiritual energy.
Inside that miniature killing field, insights from the tomb of swords fused with his marked aura, forging a sword domain intent solely on slaughter.
Where the rain of light passed, shells once thought impenetrable crumpled like wet parchment, green ichor mingled with black marked aura before both were crushed Into nothingness by the force of the sword domain.
“Impossible…” Terror constricted Sarpa’s pupils, felt the lives of his pets snuffed out one after another, as if an unseen black hole devoured them.
By the time the final Mithril Centipede disintegrated, Jared stood before Sarpa, their noses scarcely one meter apart.
“Y-You…” Sarpa tried to channel his venom art, but his limbs refused to budge. Dread dawned as discovered could not move a finger.
The marked aura circling Jared had become invisible chains, threading through Sarpa’s meridians and locking them without mercy.
“You were there, weren’t you, when the Flaxseed clan was hunted down all those years ago?” Jared’s voice, though soft, drove into Sarpa’s ears like an ice spike.
Sarpa’s lone eye widened, the leathery skin around it blanching to an unhealthy gray. His head jerked forward as though the words had struck between the brows.
“H-How could you possibly know…” stammered, voice cracking under the weight of fear could no longer disguise. Jared lifted one corner of his mouth, neither smile nor sneer, merely certainty made flesh.
“I guessed…” said, letting the two simple words hang In the poisonous air like a verdict already handed down.
With a casual flick of his wrist, the Dragonslayer Sword sliced a perfect crescent through the sunshine, cold and merciless, as though it were carving open the very day.
“Keeping you alive this long,” murmured. “Was more mercy than you deserved…”
Sarpa lurched backward, breath rasping. “N-No! I’m the chief law-keeper of Venom Valley! Kill me and Mr. Ricin will… Will never spare…”
The protest died mid-sentence, severed as cleanly as the warm air between them.
With a flash of steel, his head flew. Sarpa’s severed head traced a slow, almost graceful arc before tumbling earthward. The single eye still glimmered with stunned disbelief as a fountain of dark blood erupted from his neck. Yet the crimson spray never reached the ground, Jared’s marked aura burned it into coils of gray-green smoke before the droplets could fall.
The remaining black-cloaked cultivators watched the ash swirl above the elder’s headless corpse. Terror shattered their discipline. As one, they spun on their heels, scrambling for any path that did not end beneath Jared’s sword.
“No one escapes!” Flaxseed roared. His gravelly voice split the clearing like a whip-crack.
He slapped three yellow charms onto the wind, chanting words that sizzled with ancient power. Paper became flame, flame became dragons, three serpentine torrents of fire that twisted through the air with minds of their own. hunting the fleeing men by scent and fate alike.
Meanwhile, Corin flowed between thorny, toxin-weeping plants as though the deadly grove were nothing more than morning mist.
A pinpoint touch of his sword to each enemy’s throat, a faint tremor of steel, and every target collapsed wordlessly. His sword remained spotless, its sword energy had already unraveled toxin and life force.
