Chapter Forty-Five: Fighting Side by Side

Wei Zhuo landed a hit, a morbid delight flickering in his eyes, and pressed his advantage relentlessly.

He raised the bone pen in his hand and traced a circle in the air before him.

Within that circle, ink bloomed, and two more demonic cultivators leapt forth from the painted scroll on the wall. Along with the eight that had already emerged, they sprang into action, once again pursuing Shangguan Chuci.

Among them, one true demonic cultivator moved with peculiar stealth, silently closing in on Shangguan Chuci. His steel blade slashed diagonally, dark ink swirling along its edge, aiming straight for the artery in her right neck!

This attack was vicious and deadly, clearly intending to seize the moment while she was wounded and end her life in a single stroke.

Lu Chenyuan’s heart seized at the sight.

In that split second, he recalled Qian Dahai’s guidance. Fixing his gaze upon the demonic cultivator, he carefully observed the turbulent flow of spiritual power and foul energy weaving through the man’s form.

Seizing the instant when the demonic cultivator gathered all his energy into the blade—leaving himself wide open—Lu Chenyuan did not hesitate. With a flick of his wrist, the boning knife he’d taken from the kitchen flashed from his sleeve, transforming into a streak of black light as it shot from his hand!

A strange, sinister aura still coiled around the blade, seeping from his own palm.

With a soft “thud,” the boning knife struck the demonic cultivator squarely in the forearm where he was channeling his strength!

The demonic cultivator felt his arm go numb as an icy, alien energy surged in, clashing with the chaotic power already roiling within him. His blood churned violently, and the seemingly certain blade veered off course by a hand’s breadth, cutting only a few strands from Shangguan Chuci’s hair.

Such a rare opportunity—how could Shangguan Chuci let it slip by?

She gritted her teeth against the searing pain in her shoulder, but instead of retreating, she advanced. Spinning lightly, her sword gleamed like silk, slicing past the deflected blade and driving straight through the demonic cultivator’s heart.

His eyes were filled with shock and confusion as he looked down to see the sword tip piercing his chest. He opened his mouth twice, making only two guttural sounds before his spirit fled.

His body slumped to the ground, lifeless flesh and blood after all.

With her sword still quivering, Shangguan Chuci flicked her toe at the corpse, sending the steel blade the demonic cultivator still clutched spinning into the air.

She caught it deftly in her off hand, feeling its heavy weight settle in her grasp.

With a swift motion of her wrist, the steel blade seemed almost sentient as it whistled through the air, arcing toward Lu Chenyuan’s back!

At that very moment, as she dispatched her immediate foe, a shadowy ink figure had circled behind Lu Chenyuan, blade poised to strike at his waist.

Lu Chenyuan’s full attention was fixed on the battle ahead; by the time he sensed the killing intent at his back, there was no time to evade.

In the nick of time, a dull “thud” sounded—a steel blade burst from the ink figure’s chest, the tip still vibrating with a low hum.

The inky figure stiffened, then burst apart in a splash of black liquid, which sizzled into ghostly green flames and was consumed to ash in an instant.

Lu Chenyuan felt a fierce wind brush past his ear, still shaken as he turned to see the steel blade embedded three feet behind him in the wall, sunk an inch deep, the hilt still trembling.

A surge of warmth rose in his chest as he reached back and pulled the blade free, its metal still faintly warm to the touch. He gripped it tightly.

At that moment, his eyes met Shangguan Chuci’s across the yard.

One held a longsword, the other gripped a steel blade. In the sinister light of whirling blades and ghostly fire, they faced each other from several yards apart.

Shangguan Chuci’s lovely face was pale, her left shoulder stained with blood, but her bright eyes shone with astonishing clarity, reflecting not only approval but a warmth that defied easy description.

Lu Chenyuan, clad in coarse homespun, held the steel blade in his right hand. Though he wielded no cultivation, the calm in his brow and the resolve he’d shown in hurling the boning knife lent him an unexpected air of a swordsman, composed in the face of danger.

A strange emotion stirred quietly in Lu Chenyuan’s heart—a mix of gratitude, admiration, and something else he could not name.

Was this what it felt like to fight side by side with another?

Their gazes crossed, then each turned to face their own opponents as the battle raged on, fraught with ever-shifting peril.

In Shangguan Chuci’s eyes, the fire of logic burned bright.

To her, the formation of the dozen demonic cultivators was as a woven chessboard of ink lines—seemingly complex and shifting, yet entirely within her grasp.

Seizing a fleeting opening, she unleashed a sudden burst of swordlight, a rainbow arc darting straight for one of the demonic cultivators!

The man reacted instantly, swinging his blade across to block. The clash of metal rang out, sparks flying.

Her strike thwarted, Shangguan Chuci twisted her wrist, about to turn her thrust into a slash and slip through a gap when Lu Chenyuan’s short, forceful shout rang in her ear:

“Elbow—under!”

At his words, her attack halted mid-flow.

Her sword pivoted sharply, gliding along the enemy’s blocking blade at an impossible angle, stabbing directly into the weak point where the chaotic forces within him collided and his true energy scattered.

The demonic cultivator’s right arm went numb, his grip nearly lost, and his movements faltered.

Shangguan Chuci’s sword flashed again, leaving a bloody line across his throat.

“Is this young man truly just a mortal? To see through the flow of energies with a glance—is the Dao Embryo really so formidable?”

Wei Zhuo saw the tide shifting against him. Both Lu Chenyuan and Shangguan Chuci displayed astonishing and uncanny abilities.

Feeling the increasingly violent foul energies within him, and the growing, uncontrollable thirst for blood, he thought darkly:

“I’ve only just begun to master the Fire Command; opening the gate and listening is already my limit. If I delay any further, I may be courting death on the Dao…”

“No, I must end this quickly! I misjudged before—while that young noble is troublesome, the true linchpin between them is the weakest, the Dao Embryo.”

“So be it! I’ll start with him, throw that young noble’s mind into chaos! If I can capture the embryo whole, all the better—if not, crippling him will do!”

Wei Zhuo held nothing back. The bone pen moved with blinding speed.

With every stroke he drew in the air before him, the color visibly drained from his face, as if the tip was not dipped in invisible ink, but in his own blood and soul.

Though his finger moved through empty space, with no paper beneath his wrist, the giant white hemp scroll behind him writhed with countless lines of ink, spreading and weaving themselves into a haunted tableau.

A strange spectacle unfolded.

Though the air before him was empty, harsh ink strokes appeared simultaneously on the hanging scroll behind him.

Each stroke seemed to stain and distort the world within the painting, and each twist in that painted world foretold a coming threat here in the mortal realm.

In a flash, one true demonic cultivator abandoned Shangguan Chuci, turning into a blur that lunged directly at Lu Chenyuan!

The blade gleamed, its force deadly and merciless.

Wei Zhuo now sought to eliminate the Dao Embryo—once so prized, now seen as an obstacle—before all else.

A chill of dread stabbed through Lu Chenyuan’s heart. He tried to evade as he had before, but his body suddenly seized up, as if bound by invisible threads, rendering him nearly immobile.

From the corner of his eye, he saw to his horror that the strange painted scroll on the wall now bore a new ink silhouette—one that looked just like him.

Wei Zhuo’s bone pen was sketching faint chains at the joints of that outline.

As the ink settled on the painted figure, the invisible bonds tightened around him in reality!

This demonic painter’s art could control a person from afar!