Lordi turned a deaf ear at the voice's query, his every instinct cell screaming for escape. He poured flood of spirit energy into his Blood Spectre Footwork Art, his form blurring as he surged forward with desperate speed.
But no sooner had he moved than an overwhelming oppressive force locked onto him, like an abyss predator's gaze pinning its mortal prey. A tidal wave of dread suddenly crashed through his heart, his skin prickling in numb as every hair stood on end, his body spasm warning him of imminent peril. The air itself seemed to tighten, as if an unseen presence above the entire mountain range had tethered his soul.
Lordi exchanged a glance with Ruru Rosa, this Senior Sister's face pale with the same unspoken fear. Halting his steps, Lordi steadied his breath and spoke, his voice low but respectfully. "With the utmost reverence, this humble junior greets Your Honor. My name is Kinson Wexford, an Outer Sect disciple of the Abyss Pit Sect. If I may be so bold as to inquire, might Your Honor also be a revered senior legend of our most sacred holy sect?"
The voice hovering in the air paused, as if appraising him. "Kinson Wexford..."
It mused, its tone carrying a faint sneer. "Your cultivation is feeble, a mere flicker in the vast darkness of true power. Yet... I sense the embers of potential within you—unyielding Dao resolve, an unbroken Dao will. For this, I grant you the rare privilege to stand in my presence."
As the words faded, a sudden gale howled through the stone well courtyard, stirring the oppressive air.
From the depths of the Ancient Stone Well came a sound—first a soft trickle, like a stream over river bed, then a roaring surge, as if the ocean itself churned within.
The noise crescendoed, a deafening rush toward the stone well's mouth.
Lordi braced himself, expecting a flooding deluge, but what emerged was no water. Instead, a river of ink-black hair cascaded from the stone well's edge, spilling onto the dirt floor in sinuous coils, as though alive. Each strand slithered with a mind of its own, undulating like vipers poised to strike, their surfaces gleaming with a sickly, spectral luster.
Between the coiling tresses, a pair of ashen eyes burned with a malice so thick it choked the air. Pupils like cracked ice—pale, fractured, and depthless—fixed upon Lordi with unnatural hunger. There was no life in that gaze, only the seething rancor of the wronged dead, a venom that seeped into the marrow. The longer he stared, the more the eyes seemed to swell, their hollow pallor swallowing the light, the stone courtyard, even the breath in his lungs. Lordi's brow furrowed, his breath hitching as an invisible frost slithered up his spine—a slow, deliberate invasion. The air itself grew heavy, pressing against his ribs like the weight of a tombstone. His pulse, once steady, now hammered in erratic thrums, each beat a frantic echo of run, run, RUN. Yet his limbs refused to obey, locked in place by the sheer wrongness of those ashen eyes.
Before Lordi could so much as twitch, the writhing mass of hair twisted—a grotesque puppetry of sinew and shadow—snapping into the shape of a woman. Not a living woman, no. Something reconstructed. Her limbs bent at angles too sharp, her torso elongating like stretched wax before settling into a mockery of human form.
The serpentine strands of hair knotted tighter, weaving into the silhouette of a woman as if spun by some unseen, malevolent loom. They coiled around her form like a living cocoon—a grotesque chrysalis pulsing with unnatural energy. Then, with a sound like cracking bone, the obsidian threads split apart, peeling away to reveal a beauty's face of haunting perfection.
Pale as a winter moon, her features were sculpted with an otherworldly beauty—high cheekbones, dark red lips as a bruise, and skin so flawless it seemed carved from alabaster. But those eyes… still ashen, still gleaming with a hatred that had festered beyond death.
The cocoon shattered.
She rose—taller than any mortal woman, her body a sinuous paradox of lethal grace and voluptuous curves. The ashen robes that clung to her were little more than mist, betraying glimpses of her pallid skin, luminous against the gloom. Her raven hair, thick as shadow, spilled over her shoulders in wild disarray, veiling just enough to stir the imagination while her presence thrummed with a power that bent the very air.
She was a vision of towering grandeur, her statuesque frame draped in raven hair like the finest ivory silk, clinging to the decadent curves that commanded both reverence and desire. Her bosom, ample and full, rose like the soft slopes of snow-kissed hills, each breath a subtle undulation beneath the delicate lace of her gown. The raven hair corset she wore did little to constrain—only to accentuate—the lush swell of her décolletage, where pale skin, untouched by time, glowed with an almost otherworldly luminescence.
Her waist, though cinched to an hourglass perfection, only served to magnify the opulence of her hips, a regal expanse that swayed with predatory grace as she moved. There was something undeniably divine in her proportions, as if the gods themselves had sculpted her to embody both temptation and terror. Every glance she cast, every languid gesture, seemed to draw attention to the sumptuousness of her form—a body meant to ensnare, to dominate, to remind all who beheld her that beauty, in its most intoxicating form, could also be deadly.
She stood with her delicate, alluring bare feet pale as moonlit snow against the dark earth, the contrast between her unearthly beauty and the rotting soil beneath only heightening her unnatural grace. The hem of her raven gown whispered against the ground, yet not a speck of dirt dared cling to her—such was the dark majesty that clung to her like a second skin.
"My master bids you come," she intoned, her voice a sinister whisper that seemed to echo from within Lordi's own mind, slithering between his thoughts like smoke.
With a languid gesture, she beckoned toward the stone well's gaping maw, her long, clawed fingers unfurling like the petals of some venomous bloom. The movement drew his gaze upward, tracing the sinuous curve of her wrist, the swell of her forearm, the impossible lushness of her figure—every inch of her designed to ensnare even as it warned of ruin. Shadows pooled in the hollow of her collarbone, spilled over the ripe fullness of her bosom, as if the night itself sought to worship at her altar.
"Will you keep him waiting?"
Lordi and Ruru exchanged a wary glance, their instincts screaming against compliance, but the tall woman's aura was overwhelming, an evil force that brooked no defiance. With hearts pounding, they approached the well's edge and leaped into its depths, bracing for the icy plunge of water. Yet no splash came.
Instead, after a fleeting moment of descent, their vision blurred, and they found themselves standing in a garden vibrant with unnatural life.
The air hung thick with the perfume of roses, their pink petals spilling from trellises in cascades too perfect, too abundant, as if the very blooms were compelled to perform their beauty. They drifted onto the pond's surface, where water lilies floated like pale, open palms, their edges gilded by an unseen light. The water itself was too still, a mirror polished by unseen hands, reflecting not the sky but the garden's own endless, looping splendor.
A covered walkway arched nearby, its wooden beams entwined with ivy that never browned, never withered. Beneath it stood several low wooden couch, its velvet cushions sunken and faded, as though someone had once waited there for a guest who never came. Behind it loomed a towering screen of flawless marble, its surface etched with two solemn characters:
Frigid Sanctum
At first glance, the calligraphy appeared elegant and timeworn, the strokes flowing with the grace of forgotten masters. Yet, with but a second look—
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
A crushing tide of sword will erupted forth, vast and relentless as an ocean storm. It pressed against the soul, sharp enough to flay the mind, as though the very words themselves had been carved not by ink or chisel, but by the edge of a blade steeped in millennia of killing intent.
The marble screen's surface alive with intricate carvings—figures frozen mid-dance, mountains that seemed to breathe, rivers winding like veins across the stone. Between them, luminous night pearls were embedded, their glow faint but persistent, like dying stars.
Flanking the scene, small tables bore relics of a forgotten elegance: a plum-blossom vase, its glaze crackled with age, held two iridescent tail feathers that shimmered with impossible hues—sapphire, ember, molten gold—defying the garden's muted palette. Beside it, a begonia-style lantern cast a jade-green light, staining the roses with a sickly radiance.
Upon the innermost cushioned wooden couch sat a figure draped in flowing robes of midnight silk, his posture rigid with the stillness of a honed blade. Countless crimson threads—ethereal, serpentine—coiled around him from the void itself, weaving through the air like veins of some primordial curse. His hair, streaked with silver despite his youthful countenance, was loosely bound in a Daoist knot, secured by a simple jade pin carved in the likeness of bamboo.
His handsome face was all sharp edges—a blade's profile carved by time and discipline. The hollows beneath his cheekbones spoke of austerity, his lips a thin, unyielding line. Eyes closed, he seemed a statue of aloof cultivation, breath slow, presence weightless.
When footsteps disturbed the silence. The man's eyelids lifted, just a sliver.
And within that sliver, light.
Not the warm glow of spirit candles, but the cold, predatory gleam of steel bared in shadow. For a heartbeat, the very air grew thin, charged with something unspeakable—a silent, suffocating lethality. His gaze held no welcome, no curiosity. Only the quiet, coiled promise of violence, the unblinking watchfulness of a high realm powerhouse long accustomed to the arithmetic of death.
"Si... Si... Senior Brother Krogh Hanz?!!!" Ruru's exclaim broke the silence, her eyes widening in shock as she recognized the figure.