Chapter 149: First Blood
Ruru’s situation was no better. Though injured from the sudden betrayal attack, she had summoned her crimson-threaded Golden-Winged Centipede. The battle-scarred Gworm hovered protectively, fangs bared, claws ready.
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Shirley’s soul, already half-devoured, recoiled instinctively, as a Gworm master, she knew well that this centipede creature was a natural counter to soul wounded cultivator like her. The monstrous beauty’s mind raced: "This young guy and Ruru Rosa won’t fall easily. If I don’t kill Cade now—when will I get another chance?"
Seeing Cade on the verge of death, Ruru Rosa couldn’t stand idle. She couldn’t stand by while her comrade teetered on death’s edge. With a sharp flick of her wrist, her crimson-threaded whip snapped forward, its barbed tip slicing through the air toward Shirley Quinn with lethal precision.
Shirley’s lips curled into a sneer, her half-rotted face twisting with disdain. "Predictable," she murmured, her voice a venomous purr. In a single, fluid motion, she snatched the whip mid-strike, her fingers closing around it like a vise. She yanked—hard. Ruru, caught off guard, clung to the whip’s handle, her feet skidding across the slick earth as she was dragged into Shirley’s deadly killing range.
Shirley’s hand reared back, crimson energy coiling around her palm, ready to end Ruru with a single brutal blow. But before the strike could land, a bone blade wreathed in blood-red light tore through the air, its edge aimed straight for Shirley’s eye.
SLASH!
The killing intent was suffocating, a wave of malice that seemed to choke the very marsh.
Shirley’s smug expression faltered, her one good eye narrowing.
What the fuck is this blade art?!
As a Peak Ninth-Layer Outer Sect cultivator, she had scoured and studied the Pavilion of Myriad Arts across mountain peaks, memorizing every technique worth knowing. Yet this ferocious slash, this suffocating martial blade art pulsing with raw malice and hatred, was alien to her. And the weapon itself—the Blade of Life-Hater, a notorious Dao artifact whispered about in dread.