Chapter 112: Sudden Calamities
Lordi Payne stood shrouded in a crimson gauze of blood mist, the bone-white Blade of Life Hater glowing malevolently in his grip, its jagged bone edge drinking in the slaughter, exhaling a blood-red haze. A relentless aura coiling around Lordi’s body like a living shroud.
As Lordi channeled the Blood Fiend Blade Art, a torrent of killing intent surged through his veins, flooding every cell with primal fury, yet his mind remained an icy bastion of calm. When the Ninth Layer girl wraith’s hollow, blood-weeping sockets locked onto him with palpable malice, Lordi felt no fear. His cold gaze met hers unflinchingly. With a flick of his wrist, Lordi slashed sideways without looking, the blade’s blood mist reducing a lunging wraith to ashes in a heartbeat.
The girl wraith tilted her head back and unleashed a shriek like breaking hundred of bones, the sound clawing at the squad’s sanity. Then, with unnatural speed, her tar-like, child-sized body stretched, distorted, a blur of rotting flesh and weeping tar, hurtled toward Lordi, a blur of spectral horror radiating Ninth Layer power.
"Watch out!" Ruru Rosa cried, her leather whip cracking through the air, desperate to intercept the attack.
But too slow.
The girl wraith’s speed outmatched her—Ruru’s whip had barely moved when the girl closed the distance, her claw-like fingers inches from Lordi’s skull.
Carl Murphy, Alena Newman, and the rest of Thorn Squad braced themselves, hearts sinking as they anticipated Lordi’s gruesome end, the wraith’s toxic claws poised to rend his flesh.
This was death.
The wraith’s claw throbbed into Lordi’s skull and shattered it—