Chapter 19
Chapter 19
The Real Appearance of Scarlet Moon
“Miss...”
Ling Xi’s voice was very soft, almost drowned out by the sound of the wind.
Scarlet Moon tilted her head slightly. In her blood-red pupils was reflected Ling Xi’s uneasy face.
“Hmm?”
“Completely ignoring her like this… isn’t that just provoking her?”
“Yes.”
Scarlet Moon answered as if it were only natural. “Otherwise, how boring would that be.”
Aina’s chest heaved violently. Scarlet Moon’s casual attitude was more infuriating than any direct mockery.
“You monster!!”
She let out a roar and raised the staff in her hand high into the air.
“Everyone! Attack!”
With a single command, three hundred mercenaries and mages launched their attacks at the same time.
Magic projectiles of various colors, arrows imbued with battle aura, and heavy battle axes came crashing down toward Scarlet Moon’s position in an overwhelming wave.
The entire sky was dyed in a riot of colors.
Ling Xi’s face instantly turned deathly pale.
She could not even see the trajectories of the attacks. She only felt the aura of death surging in from all directions, completely drowning her.
However, Scarlet Moon, standing at the center of the storm, did not even have the hem of her dress move.
She turned around, looked at the terrified Ling Xi, reached out her hand, and gently patted Ling Xi’s head.
“Be good, don’t be afraid.”
At the same moment her words fell, the fingers of her other hand curled lightly into a fist.
That dazzling torrent of multicolored attacks suddenly stopped several meters away from her back.
Then, like bubbles blown apart, all the energy transformed into specks of light at the same instant and dissipated into the air.
The clamorous battlefield fell into an absolute, suffocating vacuum.
Ling Xi’s heart nearly stopped beating.
The full-force saturated attack of three hundred elites,
did not even qualify to make Scarlet Moon spare it a glance.
Scarlet Moon lowered the hand that had been resting on Ling Xi’s head and let out a soft sigh, as if she had grown tired of this boring farce.
She looked toward the ground beneath her feet.
“Let me see what kind of moving elegy you ants can play.”
The instant her words fell, the entire plaza’s ground turned into flowing ink-black darkness.
The crowd behind Aina suddenly felt empty space beneath their feet, and their bodies began to sink.
“What?!”
“It’s a domain! Get into the air!”
The mages attempted to rise into the sky, while the warriors tried to leap toward solid ground.
It was too late.
Something writhed beneath the ink-black surface.
In the next second, countless shadow tentacles, each thicker than a barrel, burst from the ground and shot into the sky!
Every tentacle was covered in densely packed, coldly gleaming barbs.
Like a forest of thorns come alive, they lashed toward the crowd in midair in a frenzied manner.
Puchi.
The first mercenary caught was struck midair by a tentacle and torn into four pieces.
Blood and fragments of flesh fell like a crimson rain.
That was only the beginning.
The tentacles swung faster and faster, until even the air began to hiss.
Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!
Dull, heavy impacts rang out without end.
Flesh was ripped open, bones were shattered, and whole bodies were smashed into unrecognizable masses of blood and gore.
Those magic shields were more fragile than paper before the tentacles, shattering at a single touch.
The warriors’ armor was easily hooked and torn apart by the barbs, along with the bodies inside.
This was a one-sided slaughter with no suspense whatsoever.
Ling Xi stood behind Scarlet Moon. Watching the hellish scene before her, her stomach churned violently.
She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from vomiting.
Fear pierced into her mind like countless icy needles.
【We are calamity】
This was Scarlet Moon’s true face.
The one who had held her, explained the power system to her, and the monster before her now, grinding lives into fragments in the bloodiest way possible, were the same person.
Ling Xi’s body trembled.
These things, these barbed tentacles—just not long ago, they had gently supported her falling body.
If one day she angered her, would these things also strike her like this?
The moment that thought appeared, Ling Xi felt as though all the blood in her body had frozen solid.
In just a few breaths, aside from Aina, not a single person remained standing in the plaza.
The shadow tentacles withdrew back into the ground, leaving behind only devastation.
Aina knelt on the ground, drenched in blood. Her mage robe was in tatters, and her staff had broken into two pieces.
She stared blankly at the carnage around her, her body trembling like a fallen leaf in the autumn wind.
As if sensing Ling Xi’s emotions, Scarlet Moon loosened that invisible rope.
Scarlet Moon stepped forward, her long boots treading through the sticky pools of blood as she walked up to Aina.
She lowered her head and looked down at the woman collapsed on the ground.
“Didn’t you say just now that you had stepped on your competitor beneath your feet?”
Aina looked up at Scarlet Moon with a dazed expression. “What do you want?”
“You don’t even have the资格 of being stepped on by me.”
Scarlet Moon’s voice was soft, yet it crushed the last trace of Aina’s dignity.
After speaking, she did not spare Aina another glance. Instead, she turned her head slightly, her gaze falling on Ling Xi not far away.
Ling Xi’s body trembled sharply.
That look was completely different from the one she had given Aina.
There was no killing intent, no contempt. It was as if she were looking at something that belonged to her.
Following Scarlet Moon’s line of sight, Aina also saw the silver-haired girl wearing a gorgeous dress and a collar.
“So that’s how it is...”
Aina suddenly let out a strange giggle, as if she had gone mad.
“So you have a weakness too. You monster… you also have something you care about!”
She abruptly raised her head and poured all her remaining magic power into the broken staff.
A dark purple beam, condensed with all her resentment and malice, shot toward Scarlet Moon!
No! That’s not right!
At the instant the beam left her hand, Aina’s wrist twisted in a strange motion.
Just as the lethal attack was about to hit Scarlet Moon, it curved in an arc—its true target was clearly Ling Xi, standing behind her!
It’s over.
She was going to die here.
Ling Xi’s mind went completely blank.
However, the expected death did not come.
A crisp, light sound rang out.
Ling Xi cautiously lifted her head.
The collar around her neck was now emitting a gentle dark red glow.
The fatal beam from Aina, at the moment it touched the glow, was as if absorbed into it, disappearing without a trace.
Aina froze, unable to believe her eyes.
Scarlet Moon turned around.
The smile on her face was gone.
“It seems my earlier evaluation of you was still too high.”
She extended her hand.
The shadow beneath Aina’s feet transformed into a massive palm, gripping her tightly.
“You not only lack the资格 to be stepped on by me,”
The shadow began to tighten, and Aina let out a pained groan.
“You don’t even have the资格 to look at her.”
The shadowy palm suddenly yanked downward. The ground split open into a bottomless fissure, dragging Aina’s entire body inside.
A shrill scream rose from the abyss, then abruptly cut off.