Daggers Drawn, To the Death

Amid flickering thunder and lightning, the solitary tower trembled violently, and the domain began to fracture. Yet beneath that solitary tower founded upon blood, bone, iron, and stone, deep within an even darker and more secretive abyss, a buried ancient gate gave a faint tremor. A domain hidden beneath a domain revealed itself for a split second! A grand and sinister underground palace lay buried in the darkness beneath the domain. Painted upon the ancient stone door was a portrait of a woman holding a lantern, her pale, eerie face curled into what looked like a wide grin. *The woman unbars the gate; the realm of the dead swings open.* Before the threshold ran a roaring river of blood spanned by a craggy bridge of bones. Amid endless weeping and wailing, in the solemn hall situated in the deepest recesses, sticks of dark green incense set upon the offering altar ignited on their own without any wind. Wisps of smoke curled upward, wreathing the spirit tablet enshrined in the center. The antique tablet differed radically from standard designs. Upon its black face, not a single character was carved. A pale hand took up a vermilion brush, soaked it thoroughly in ink of fresh blood, and inscribed with a single flourish: *Spirit Tablet of Lou Yanyue, Daughter of the Lou Clan.* Thick, viscous crimson slowly trickled down from the corners of the characters, mournful as tears of blood. Outside the hall, countless lingering spirits knelt like marionettes on strings, their expressions blank as they kowtowed in unison, performing a solemn, formal prostration. Then, invisible flames consumed them all to ash. Upon the offering altar, the incense and candles burst into wild conflagration. The soaring firelight illuminated the monstrous, towering silhouette behind the altar, revealing three smiling, pale faces. All three faces leaned down together, peering down at the tiny spirit tablet. They opened their mouths, their raspy, shrill, and rumbling voices layering over one another into a summons that echoed through the underworld: "Lou Yanyue, why haven't you returned?!" At that very instant, the phantom manifestation of Five Towers and Twelve Cities ground to an abrupt halt. Caught completely off guard, Lou Yanyue finally heard that voice from afar. Time seemed to freeze; everything locked up completely. She was plunged into a daze. Under everyone's bewildered gazes, the Bifang hovered frozen in the heavens, clutching the tribulation lightning in hand, yet remaining motionless right on the verge of victory. An eerie sight visible only to her emerged between heaven and earth. The world turned black and white. From within the dark, murky clouds, a colossal face slowly surfaced, breaking through the storm. As if wearing a magnificent golden mask, four pitch-black eyes looked down upon her. A pair of withered hands had reached out from the void at some unknown point, seizing her soul, slowly tightening around it, and scooping it up. Upon the giant face, a foul, gaping maw opened wide. It snapped shut toward her! Swallowed whole in an instant! From that moment on, Lou Yanyue would exist no more in this world. In the next instant, the erupting Scourge of War would surge into the heavens, completely annihilating her physical body alongside it and erasing the final trace. Thus, a rising star of the Lou family's generation would fall by some absurd twist of fate in the Seven Cities overseas, in a duel sparked by mere wounded pride. Immediately after, the Chopra family's House God would be thoroughly lost in the ensuing reckoning and counteroffensive. A quagmire would be left behind, waiting for the enraged Lou family to leap in of their own accord... A Seven Cities bloodbath, the Lou family's sudden demise! How melodious that sounded. Unfortunately, the sound of something shattering was even more melodious—and far crisper! *Crack—!* Inside the closed maw high in the heavens, a sharp crash and fracturing sound rang out. The giant golden face froze in shock. It was like opening one's mouth wide to feast upon a gourmet delicacy, only to bite down on a slab of iron hidden beneath tender pork knuckle. No—it had bitten directly into a blade! The ghost god shrieked and roared. Viscous blood gushed from its mouth as it howled in agony. The idol inside the underground palace stiffened in disbelief as the spirit tablet before it rapidly fractured into pieces. Within that giant maw, Lou Yanyue—who was supposed to have been entirely defenseless—was already covered and transformed by sharp, angular crystals. It was the exact scene Ji Jue had once witnessed with his own eyes. The Lou family's ultimate life-saving technique when faced with an unavoidable fatal calamity: the "Deadlock," which transmuted all spiritus and even the soul entirely into solid matter, awaiting a later thaw! Yet the force that had frozen Lou Yanyue and shattered the Ghost-Devouring Fangxiang Curse was not Lou Yanyue's own spiritus at all. The subtlety of its transformations and the loftiness of its nature were beyond anything an ordinary Celestial Chosen could ever hope to attain! It was the power of a Celestial-Human, driven like a dagger straight into Lou Yanyue's soul! What kind of Celestial-Human had nothing better to do than stab a knife into their own family's most prized junior for fun?! Or could it be... Under the aegis of the blood-red crystal, Lou Yanyue raised her head, scrutinized the furious Four-Eyed Fangxiang, and grinned. *Finally showing your true colors, aren't you?* "Not good." In the subterranean palace domain, the ethereal three-headed ghost god's expression twisted in horror. High above, a single glint of cold light silently emerged. Hundreds of kilometers overhead in the heavens, veiled beneath heavy mist, the dormant freighter was already covered in intricate secret rites. An immense reserve of spiritus crystals burned to ash in that singular instant. At the bow of the vessel, Lou Feng, who had been waiting for what felt like an eternity, finally no longer had to listen to Ji Jue's insufferable trash talk. Without a second thought, he flicked his finger. *Mirror Transformation: Star of Bethlehem, erupt!* Upon the deck, the countless illusory lights on the colossal crystal tree withered away, as though spring had ended in an instant and all living things were perishing. Only a single glittering, brilliant illusory speck fell from the branches, showering down upon the mortal world. A single point of light that seemed slow yet moved with blistering speed crossed the immense distance in a breath, plunging straight into the arena. It was clearly a tiny speck of insubstantial light, yet wherever it passed, a piercing screech rang out like glass being sliced apart. It caused everything to shimmer and shift, forcing the monstrous ghost god lurking in the void to faintly manifest. There was no time to react. Or rather, before it had even been unleashed, it had already struck its mark. By the time anyone noticed, it had already breached the domain and pierced into Kozobel's massive frame, freezing the two-headed giant in his tracks, rigid as ice... Boiling sounds arose from within him. The illusion of the high tower shattered. Countless streams of blood vaporized and burst apart. Under this single strike, the outermost disguise was stripped and torn away without mercy, penetrating straight to the core. Just like a string of a thousand firecrackers tossed into a cesspool, the moment that spark of light detonated, tumultuous spiritus fluctuations and shockwaves repeated tens of millions of times within the span of a single finger-snap. The putrid, rotting contents inside spewed forth like an erupting geyser... As the two-headed giant's body collapsed and the domain dissolved, the deeper domain hidden underneath, along with the soul concealed behind Kozobel, was swept upward by the deluge. In a flash, the gloomy, sinister underground palace, its cruel horrors, and the bizarre entity seated upon the divine throne were dragged into the broad light of day! In the sudden silence, everyone exchanged bewildered glances. Stunned. Utterly unable to comprehend. *What the hell is that? What's going on? Where am I? What just happened?* In the blink of an eye, the entire game had flipped on its head. Where the hell did all this come from?! "Xu Lingshou! Xu Lingwei! Xu Lingyue!" The blood-red crystal burst apart, thoroughly dispelling the Fangxiang curse. Midair, Lou Yanyue broke into wild laughter. "I was wondering who was scurrying around with their heads tucked in! Turns out it's you three maggots from the Xu family... Hahaha, it really has been a long time!" Her smile vanished, replaced by cold, ferocious severity as she demanded, "What were you crouching in there trying to do?!" Draped in thin, blood-red veils, the three-headed ghost god upon the divine throne blanched. Without a moment's hesitation, it pressed its palms together and its body abruptly collapsed inward, instantly shrinking into a faint, barely perceptible wisp of gloomy light. Without a single word, it turned tail and fled! Could it escape, though? *Smack!* Above the sea outside the arena, a thin mist faintly materialized and suddenly condensed into a solid form, turning into an invisible iron wall. Its top was nowhere to be seen, its bottom reached into nothingness, and it possessed neither end nor beginning. Both illusory and real, indistinguishable between truth and falsehood. The gloomy light slammed into it and rebounded! At the same time, another cold snort exploded like thunder, making everyone's vision go black. The three-headed ghost god, speeding away in the form of a wisp of light, was knocked straight back to its original form, unable to stay concealed any longer. Between the sea and the sky, two figures materialized silently on either side. A man and a woman, Ascension and Mirror. Lou Zhaoye! Lou Yuling! "Since you're already here, what's the rush to leave?" They sneered in mockery. "You Xu family types truly are used to hiding like turtles. Have you forgotten even basic manners?" High above, the light of the Star of Bethlehem blossomed. Countless spiritus crystals, spread like a colossal tree, covered the sky, locking down this entire space completely. "An Immortal's Caress indeed!" Beneath the pale mask of the central head atop the three-headed ghost god, a voice laughed in bitter, venomous fury: "What scheming, what methods! Today, I—" "Today my ass, motherfucker—" In that split second, the Bifang swooped down. Lou Yanyue charged forward, sweeping her azure wings as ten thousand blazing beams as bright as the sun and stars erupted in a massive spray. "You three old bastards, you dog-fucking pieces of shit, die for me!" *Boom!* Lou Zhaoye and Lou Yuling were caught off guard for an instant. Wait, weren't they supposed to exchange a couple of dramatic threats first according to custom, just to keep up appearances? Still, since the fight was on, they exchanged a glance and joined the siege without hesitation! Just before that, they could not resist casting a deeply meaningful glance toward the sky. *Brat, you'd better start thinking about how you're going to explain this to the family!* "...Why does everyone blame me for everything?" Aboard *Prosperity*, Lou Feng stiffened, so frustrated he could have cried. *I really didn't teach her that!* *Auntie, please tell them you learned that on your own!* *I'm begging you! If you don't speak up, I'm going to drop dead right here!* Lou Yanyue said nothing, only unleashing a relentless barrage of explosive strikes and foul-mouthed trash talk... In despair, Lou Feng closed his eyes and waved his hand, letting tears and a spiritus bombardment rain down side by side. *Fuck it, whatever happens, happens. If I live, I live; if I can't, I die!* Amid earth-shattering roars, the spectral apparitions howled and bellowed ceaselessly as the expanse between sea and sky turned into a life-and-death battleground. Meanwhile, within the fractured dueling arena, everyone stood dumbfounded like wooden chickens. "Huh?" Fernan stiffly lowered his head, staring at the dead arena and the two-headed giant whose body was still warm—a corpse that had been dead for god knew how long! Kozobel! From the very start, the duelist in everyone's eyes was nothing more than an empty shell, a vessel, a puppet manipulated from the shadows... And the puppeteers behind him... Wait, if that were the case, then... The moment he realized what would have happened—how massive a fire would have been stoked across the Seven Cities and how much turmoil would have erupted had Lou Yanyue died here—he understood. He understood everything! He could not help but turn around, his eyes shot through with blood, glaring toward the stunned members of the Sukarno family. "Saino!" Saino's face twitched, and he took a step back instinctively, only to see Minkler's grin and a pair of eyes staring straight through him. "Give us an explanation, Saino." With his House God manifested, Minkler advanced step by step, leveling his accusation across the distance: "Who's the one breaking the rules now?!" Plain as day, the representatives of Yamen and Dancheng who had been crowded around Saino leapt aside as though struck by lightning, scurrying in both directions. They were terrified that if they moved a second too late, Saino's blood would splatter all over them! The corners of Saino's eyes twitched furiously as he forced out a defense: "I didn't know either—" Before he could finish, an eerie ripple surfaced behind him. The attendant at his back suddenly laid a hand on his shoulder and activated a blessed artifact. In an instant, an Eternal Gate opened, spanning tens of thousands of miles. He was fleeing! Before the others could intercept and while they were still grinding their teeth in helpless rage, they saw Saino—who should have vanished into thin air—teleport right back onto his original spot. A classic in-place teleport! He had teleported, sure, but it amounted to not moving an inch. Saino whipped around in a daze, glaring behind him in a furious rage. *What the fuck are you doing?!* Then he saw a face even more dazed than his own... *Squelch!* With a soft sound, a vermilion blade casually punched through flesh. Blood gushed and sprayed, splattering across Saino's aging face. "What are you mumbling about over there?" Ji Jue withdrew Pan Ying, planted a foot upon the corpse, and looked at Saino with a final question: "Are you smart enough to kneel on your own, or do I need to help you?"