299 Goth Baddie
My fingers drummed a restless rhythm against the grain of the chair’s arm, the sound sharper in the silence that hung heavy in the small cottage. Every eye was on me, waiting for words I didn’t have. I had always been quick with solutions, but tonight my thoughts felt like stones sinking into mud. The old me would’ve already declared we were charging in, ripping Nongmin off that crucifix, and making a dramatic exit with explosions at our back. Yet my time in the False Earth had hammered a hard lesson into me… Being strong didn’t mean being untouchable. Lose enough times, and arrogance peels away into something sharper: caution. That was what gnawed at me now. Nongmin wasn’t just shackled; he was silenced and blocked off.
Even this close, I couldn’t reach the Human Soul tethered to him. Whoever had orchestrated this trap had worked carefully, thoroughly, and that frightened me more than I cared to admit.
“We should postpone.”
The words earned me a sharp glare from Zhu Shin, his voice cutting through the quiet, “You seriously can’t be suggesting that! His Majesty needs us!”
I leaned forward, meeting his eyes. “If we are going to save him, he has to want it.”
Alice crossed her arms, her tone edged with urgency. “We only have this one window. With Jia Sen far away, this is the moment. We can’t postpone.” Her argument had merit. Opportunities like this rarely came twice.
I sighed, the weight of my own hesitation pressing hard. “Fine… But is there a better way to do this?”
“There is no time to be second-guessing ourselves.” Zhu Shin’s face twisted with disbelief, his voice rising with frustration. “We can do better than this! His Majesty deserves more than hesitation and half-measures. If we falter now, then what was all our planning for?”
“Maybe. But have you considered that Nongmin knew exactly what he was doing?” My tone hardened. “We’ve always known him to be cunning. Every move of his is calculated, even his silences. If he’s telling us to leave him, it might not be simply surrender… It might be part of a larger game we can’t see yet, ya know?”
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[POV: Nongmin]
Nongmin’s breath rattled like wind through a broken flute. His body sagged against the nails that pinned him to the wooden cross, each inhalation a labor, each exhalation a trickle of blood that bubbled from his lips. He had long since lost the strength to scream; only the quiet rhythm of suffering remained. His ideal end was close. He wanted death, wanted release, and perhaps, in some dark corner of his weary heart, he welcomed it.
The bandages wrapped over his ruined eyes were soaked crimson, but he tilted his head as though to face the presence stepping into his awareness. He did not need vision as his Qi Sense spread faint and thin, yet enough to paint the outline of the man who arrived. His voice cracked as he croaked, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” came the answer. “How the mighty have fallen.”
Nongmin coughed, lips curving faintly. “Xun Li.”
“It’s Patriarch Xun Li to you, swine!”
The man stepped into the faint light, graying hair catching the dim glow of moonlight, his beard ragged, his robes more like rags than the vestments of a powerful swordsman. This was the Patriarch of the Seeker Clan, otherwise known as the Sword Pilgrim.
Nongmin tilted his head, blood dribbling down his chin as he whispered, his voice a blade honed by exhaustion, “A pilgrim who never reached his destination… hardly worthy of being called patriarch.”
The words cut deeper than steel.
Xun Li’s patience snapped like a brittle reed as he drew his sword and demanded, voice ragged with hunger. “Where is the treasure of my clan? Where… is the Hollow Star?”
Nongmin’s laugh rasped out through the filth and pain clinging to his throat. “Treasure? Of your clan? You are a fool! You don’t even understand what the Hollow Star is, and you want it?”
Xun Li’s hand tightened on his sword as if it were the only thing tethering him to control.
Before it further escalated, Bai Rong stepped between them out of nowhere.
“He’s bait,” Bai Rong said flatly, eyes on Nongmin. “He is important to us. Do not touch him or hurt him any further than necessary. Know your place, Seeker Patriarch.”
Xun Li’s jaw flexed, fury and wounded pride wrestling in his gaze. “Don’t you dare order me around after you so thoroughly lost to some nobody,” he spat. “Just like the Emperor, you’ve fallen so low as to associate yourself with the Heavenly Temple.”
“It wasn’t a nobody,” corrected Lu Wang as he walked off into the dark. “It was Da Wei’s disciple. And don’t you dare look down on us, Li… you weren’t there.”
Xun Li spat back. “Where’s the Black Matriarch?”
Bai Rong provided. “Healing. She sustained rather grave injuries. Sheathe your sword.”
Lu Wang added. “The Sky Matriarch will be with us shortly. If the trap Senior Jia arranged with the Kang Matriarch worked, we wouldn’t need the Emperor anymore. But the man we’re dealing with is dangerous, so we have to keep on our toes.”
“Hah!”
They turned to Nongmin.
“Hahahahahahaha~!:
It was the laughter of a madman who just couldn’t be bothered.
“It wouldn’t work,” rasped Nongmin, every syllable a shard of truth edged with irony. “If you think Da Wei would come for me, you are mistaken. Even if he does come, how are you supposed to beat him? He’s a Perfect Immortal, and the rest of you are only at the realm of Endless Path.”
Lu Wang only smiled thinly, the kind of smile that plans around impossibilities. “That’s for us to worry about. Once our bargain with the Heavenly Temple is complete, we will take what is rightfully ours. I will get my little kingdom, Xun Li will get his treasure through… you, and Bai Rong—” he paused with a faint, insolent curiosity, “what do you even want?”
“That’s none of your business,” said Bai Rong with a small but private grin. “But clearly, that’s the idea. We all got a little something for this… endeavor of ours. We all have a stake here, so you'd better behave, Seeker Patriarch.”
Xun Li huffed, sheathing his sword.
A ship tore out of nothingness and slowed into view, its hull scarred by travel yet proud, and from its prow descended an elderly woman astride a sword as if sitting a throne in flight. She landed with a breath that set the courtyard’s dust trembling; even with gray at her temples, she carried the pedigree of the Sky Matriarch in every line of her shoulders and the authority of a Tenth Realm cultivator in the way the air bent about her.
She did not pause in ritual courtesy; instead, she addressed the cluster of conspirators with blunt efficiency. “The trap for Da Wei failed,” she reported, voice crisp as frost. “Jia Sen and the Kang Clan are sending experts our way. The Kang Matriarch herself will be coming.”
The moonlight drenched the clearing in a pale sheen, silver shadows painting sharp edges across faces both weary and arrogant. Nearly all the leaders of the Seven Imperial Houses were present, from Xun Li’s hard scowl, Tian Meng’s calm precision, Bai Rong’s half-lidded calculation, and Lu Wang’s constant, faint smile that never seemed to reach his eyes.
The final arrival came with a measured click of heels across stone.
From the darkness emerged a woman stitched together like a tapestry of corpses, her gown as black as the void between stars. Her steps were elegant despite the grotesque seams holding her flesh together, and her eyes glimmered with the hunger of one who had drunk too deeply from forbidden wells. His name was Hei Yue, the Matriarch of the Black Clan, known far and wide as the Dark Moon. She stopped just shy of the gathering and cast her gaze over them all.
“It looks like almost everyone is here,” she remarked, her voice a velvet hiss. “Where’s the Wind Patriarch?”
Lu Wang answered smoothly, as though he had expected the question. “Probably scheming to make advancements into the Riverfall Realm.”
Hei Yue clicked her tongue and gave a dry laugh. “Greedy bastard—” But the insult never found its end. Her body convulsed, then fractured into pieces, chunks of flesh and bone falling like wet clay on the stone. No scream passed her lips, only a sharp hiss of Qi evaporating into the air.
Behind her stood a figure. Familiar, yet wrong in a way that unsettled every heart present. His dark hair swayed lightly in the cold breeze, emerald robes glowing faintly in the moonlight as if carrying their own radiance. In his hand was a massive single-edged greatsword, its edge drinking in the pale light. Hei Yue’s soul, torn free of her ruined body, shrieked in terror as it clawed at empty air, trying to escape the hungry weapon. The sword hummed once, and her essence unraveled, scattering to silence.
The man raised his free hand casually, fingers parted in a mocking peace sign. His smile was calm, almost friendly, though the ground still smoked from the Dark Moon’s obliteration. Nongmin’s eyes widened despite his pain. He knew that face, that posture, that irreverence!
Da Wei’s voice cut the silence like a blade drawn slowly. “So nice of you lot to gather all in one place… for me to slaughter.”
The gathered patriarchs stiffened, unease flashing across their practiced masks of arrogance.
Bai Rong’s eyes narrowed as his voice snapped with sharp authority. “Activate the Diminution Spiral!”
Under the moon’s pale light, tension swelled in the ruined courtyard as Lu Wang raised his hand, his voice sharp and commanding. “Protect the Sky Matriarch!”
Tian Meng leaped gracefully into the air, her sleeves flowing as her fingers blurred through a sequence of hand signs. The heavens themselves seemed to tremble as countless points of starlight ignited across the night sky, shifting and spiraling inward. She raised her sword high, her voice echoing like a divine decree, “Worlds beware, for fate gathers at the tip of my sword… Diminution Spiral!”
The stars twisted into a luminous spiral that bled light and weight, saturating the battlefield with a force that distorted breath itself. Even Nongmin, bleeding and nailed to the cross, felt the overwhelming oppression, his body convulsing as if shackled by invisible chains. He lifted his head and shouted hoarsely, “Flee now, David! Even you can’t resist this binding spell! Even an Ascended Soul will be defenseless against it!”
The ground quaked as Lu Wang pressed his palm down, his incantation rumbling like thunder, “Attraction of Fate. Bind him where he stands—Binding Earth!” At once, the gravity around Da Wei multiplied tenfold. Stones fractured, the earth groaned, and his figure was pinned down as if the entire world pressed its weight upon him.
Bai Rong’s lips curled into a thin smile. “The Diminution Spiral is the most powerful Anti-Outsider spell ever devised by Ward. It was crafted for one purpose: to counter aberrations like you. This spell borrows the fate of the entire Hollowed World to suppress every spark of mystical energy in its target. No Outsider, not even a Perfect Immortal, can resist.”
For the first time, the humor left Da Wei’s eyes. His smile faded, replaced with an unreadable calm. “Thank my lucky stars,” he said, his voice lowering, “because honestly… I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the act.”
Confusion rippled through the gathered clan heads. Xun Li sneered, spitting his disdain. “Enough yapping!” He lunged forward, sword flashing with lethal intent, only for his strike to meet resistance mid-air. Sparks rang out, his blade parried with impossible ease. Instinct screamed at him, and Xun Li staggered back, sweat rolling down his temple.
Da Wei’s voice carried a dark cadence now, one that scraped against their nerves. “Do you know of the existence… known as the Blood Progenitor?”
The silence grew heavy. His words throbbed like a curse.
“It was an ancient being,” Da Wei continued, his tone steady, yet his presence swelling with something otherworldly. “Born from the womb of Evil itself. And it hated magic, loathed it. To dominate the world, it fed its blood to its disciples, granting them power over reality itself, stripping away the very mystical laws that bind the universe. That is the nature of its legacy.”
The oppressive force of the Diminution Spiral gnawed at him, but Da Wei tilted his head back slightly, a small, twisted smile tugging at his lips. “This feeling of suppression… reminds me of my time in the False Earth, when the Void tried to scour me clean of every impurity. And yet…”
Slowly, before their eyes, Da Wei’s form unraveled, his outline melting into shadow. When the light clarified, standing in his place was a woman.
Her hair, long and softly pink, cascaded against dark robes that clung to her frame like living night. Crimson eyes burned with hunger, her presence both alluring and terrifying. Her aura was that of someone who denied the heavens themselves.
Tian Meng froze mid-incantation, her lips parting. “Who are you?”
The woman tilted her head, crimson gaze gleaming with mischief and predation. “Alice,” she said, her voice like velvet laced with iron. “Vampire… and your eventual demise.”
From the cross, Nongmin blinked in bewilderment, his battered chest rising with shallow breath. His lips twitched despite the blood that stained them. Of all things, this he hadn’t foreseen. And for once, Nongmin was utterly stumped.
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[POV: Alice]
Under the night sky, the glamour of the Magic Scroll of Disguise unraveled, its layers peeling away until Alice’s true form stood revealed. The pale pink of her hair shimmered faintly under moonlight, her crimson eyes burning as if awakened from centuries of slumber. In her hand, the Soulsunderer trembled violently, the cursed blade’s hunger gnawing at her very soul, whispering with every pulse to surrender, to let it consume her. Yet she endured. David’s Asura Soul, bound within her, lent a feral strength that anchored her against the weapon’s devouring call.
Her lips curved in a thin line as her thoughts darkened.
What happened when one stripped away the mystical from a warlock vampire? The answer presented itself in the flex of her jaw, the curl of her lips, and the tremor in her veins: you got a predator, pure and simple.
“Goth baddie,” intoned the Asura Soul in earnest.
It almost put a smile on her face.
David’s fragments were an enigma from his Ghost Soul with its naïve, obsessive streak, and this Asura Soul, which was nothing but the urge to fight, kill, and triumph. And now, it pressed against her suppressed instincts, feeding the very hunger she had spent eternity caging.
Lu Wang staggered back, his eyes widening as he spat blood. “How is this possible?” he demanded, his tone strained. “M-My spell rebounded?! How?”
The invisible bindings coiled around Alice cracked and withered like brittle twigs. People once called her kind ‘Mageslayer’ in the old days of Losten… and tonight she proved the epithet once more to be true as she resisted the Earth binding spell with a shrug.
Nongmin coughed weakly on the cross, his voice ragged. “I told you… not to come for me…”
Alice turned her gaze to him, her tone laced with cold amusement. “You told David not to save you. So he sent me instead.” She tilted Soulsunderer, the blade dripping shadows that hissed as they touched the ground. “You know how he thinks. Deal with it. He still has uses for you. Thus, you may live.”
Her composure frayed, the thin thread of restraint snapping as the Asura Soul surged in unison with her own vampiric thirst. Crimson light bled from her eyes, and her aura turned feral, suffocating the air around her. Alice stopped resisting. She welcomed the bloodlust and battle-madness entwining until she and the Asura Soul became one howl of unrestrained hunger.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Alice with a bewitching smile. “I won’t bite.”