From the very day Krogh Hanz had set foot upon the Sword Path, no matter the caliber of adversaries arrayed against him—be they demonic beasts of abyssal depths or rival cultivators of tyrannical Foundation Stage might—he had never retreated a single step, his path a straight slaughter line carved through the annals of cultivator fantasy with the unerring edge of his blade. This unyielding stance was the stuff of whispered horrors, tales of a genius who turned battlefields into graveyards, his presence alone instilling dread in foes who sensed the inexorable advance of his destiny.
Back in the days of Krogh venturing in the Vermithys, when he was merely at the Ninth Layer of Qi Refinement Stage, he had slain dozens of wellknown Foundation Stage cultivators with his self created sword art, a feat that echoed through the cultivation world like a thunderclap of defiance, marking him as a prodigy whose audacity bordered on the divine, yet carried the undercurrent of horror for those who fell before his unrelenting advance. Across the abyss's depths, teeming with monstrous ghost entities and treacherous malice currents, had been no match for the swordsman's burgeoning Sword Path Dao Heart.
He was the most radiant heavenly prodigy of the Abyss Pit Sect a decade prior, a figure whose brilliance outshone his contemporaries like a blood moon amid stars, earning him the accolade of the sole disciple in a century capable of rivaling the legendary Sect Successor Lunar Lilith, the in prowess and potential. In those bygone days of fierce generational rivalries, his name evoked both awe and fear, a harbinger of dominance in the cutthroat arenas of sect competitions, where killing intent clashed like tempests and only the strongest emerged unscathed, their paths paved with the bones of the fallen.
His sword heart stood firm as an indestructible monolith, unyielding against the tempests of adversity, a core of purity that defined his existence in the horror-laden world of cultivation, where weakness invited devouring darkness.
The Inner Demon Tribulation, a dreaded ordeal which had felled countless genius cultivators, ensnaring their minds in labyrinths of illusion and despair, was dispatched by this swordsman with a solitary sword stroke, cleaving through the veils of deception to emerge unscathed, a horrifying display of dao supremacy that left onlookers trembling at the implications of such unassailable Dao Heart.
With a Dao Heart of such adamantine firmness, the Inner Demon found no crevice to exploit, no shadow in which to whisper their temptations, rendering Krogh Hanz a paragon of resolve amid the encroaching evils that plagued the path of ascending immortality.
When his own clansmen fell under the Ju-On's bewitching mind control influence, seduced into plotting to aid its ascension onto the Dao path, he responded with merciless, slaughtering every blood relative in a single night of crimson retribution. This act of filicide was not born of rage but of cold necessity, a demonic Sword Path Cultivator's imperative to excise any obstacle from his trajectory.
Even ties of blood, even the profound grace of Dao transmission from mentors, even the intimate affections forged through daily coexistence could not impede his inexorable Dao Heart; he severed them all without hesitation, his Sword Intent demanding absolute purity, a horror that underscored the solitary nature of true cultivation, where personal ascension demanded the sacrifice of all that tethered one to the mortal coil.
With a snarl that tore at his raw throat, he buried the negative thought. Arrogance, his oldest armor, clamped back into place. He would prevail. He was Krogh Hanz!
The sword master dashed again, a furious expenditure of waning strength. His movement was a blur of crazy speed. A vicious sword palm, sheathed in the last few dregs of his Spirit Essence, broke through the Ju-On's defense and cut deep into its throat with a wet, chopping sound.
But the ghost thing did not fall.
Instead, slowly, with an air of detached, almost arrogant inspection, it leaned forward. It deliberately impaled itself further upon the weapon Krogh had forged from his own pain, the gash in its neck widening grotesquely. The distance between them closed until their faces were mere inches apart. Krogh was engulfed in a wave of psychic filth—a physical stench of open graves churned up after a hard rain, of thick, congealed malice that had festered for centuries. Its breath, when it spoke, was frigid, leaching the warmth from the very air between them.
"C̴l̷o̸s̵e̶r̸,̵" (Closer,) The thing whispered, the sound like frost cracking on a dead man's lips. "S̴h̴a̴r̴p̸e̷r̴.̸ ̴B̴u̴t̵ ̸s̷t̴i̶l̵l̷…̸ ̸n̸o̴t̴ ̴e̸n̴o̴u̴g̸h̸.̵"
(Sharper. But still… not enough.)
Its own hand, cold and pliable as clay left in a winter stream, rose with deceptive slowness. Its fingers closed around Krogh's wrist. The touch was an absolute violation. It was not mere cold; it was an invasive, nullifying ice that burned through flesh and sinew, searing its way down to the very marrow of the bone. The spectre's malice invaded the swordsman's body!
Then the voices came, not from its mouth alone, but from the countless dead faces that writhed across its form, a chorus of smirking, malice-chanting curses.
"Y̸o̷u̴'̷r̷e̸ ̷a̷ ̸s̴e̶l̵f̴i̸s̵h̵ ̵c̴o̴w̴a̴r̸d̴.̷ ̵W̸h̴o̴ ̵o̵n̵l̵y̸ ̵c̵a̵r̴e̵ ̶f̴o̷r̷ ̷y̴o̴u̷ ̵y̴o̵u̷r̸s̸e̷l̵f̵.̸ ̸N̸o̴t̷ ̴a̴n̵y̸ ̸o̵f̸ ̸t̵h̴o̴s̷e̴ ̴w̴h̴o̸ ̴l̴o̴v̸e̴ ̵y̵o̵u̶.̷"
(You're a selfish coward. Who only care for you yourself. Not any of those who love you.)
The voice of a woman, sweet once, now laced with venom.
"Y̶o̷u̸'̵r̸e̸ ̴a̸ ̴p̷a̷t̸h̶e̵t̴i̷c̸ ̸p̴i̴e̴c̴e̵ ̵o̸f̸ ̵w̴o̴r̴m̶,̵ ̵w̶o̴r̴k̸i̵n̵g̵ ̵a̴n̵d̶ ̴s̴e̴l̵l̴i̴n̴g̷ ̸y̴o̵u̴r̴ ̵s̷o̴u̵l̵ ̴t̴o̶ ̵t̵h̴e̴ ̴d̴e̷m̵o̴n̴i̴c̸ ̵s̷e̴c̶t̴.̷"
(you're a pathetic piece of worm, working and selling your soul to the demonic sect.)
A man's voice, gritty with the dirt of the grave.
"Y̸o̵u̴'̸r̴e̷ ̵t̸h̴e̸ ̴c̴r̶u̸e̷l̴,̷ ̵a̸n̴t̷i̵-̴h̶u̴m̸a̷n̴ ̸r̴a̵c̵e̸ ̴m̵u̸r̵d̵e̴r̴e̸r̵.̸ ̸Y̶o̷u̷ ̵w̷o̴n̴'̴t̸ ̶g̸e̵t̶ ̸a̸n̴y̷ ̴b̶l̴e̸s̴s̴i̴n̵g̵ ̴o̸f̷ ̴t̵h̴e̷ ̸D̶a̴o̴ ̵P̴a̴t̶h̸.̴"
(you're the cruel, anti-human race murderer. you won't get any blessing of the Dao Path.)
An elder's tone, cracked with judgment.
And finally, its own core voice, the amalgam of all of them, a hollow, grinding mockery of his own. "Y̵o̷u̴ ̸d̷o̷n̵'̷t̵ ̵h̵a̶v̸e̴ ̷y̷o̵u̸r̵ ̴s̶w̸o̷r̷d̸ ̴i̸n̵ ̴y̵o̵u̶r̷ ̸h̵a̶n̶d̸.̸ ̸A̵n̴d̵ ̷y̴o̸u̸ ̴c̶o̷u̴l̴d̸ ̸n̴e̸v̷e̸r̴ ̸b̸e̵a̸t̶ ̴y̴o̴u̶r̶s̴e̴l̸f̴.̶" (You don't have your sword in your hand. And you could never beat yourself.)
The words were not just insults; they were curses, each one a nail driven into the coffin of his resolve, each one amplified by the chilling, physical reality of its spectre malice grip freezing the very life from his arm.
"DIE!"
Krogh answered with one syllable. With motion, another furious dash.
His left hand, now a blade of concentrated will, blazed with a dazzling flash. It slashed downward in a perfect, murderous arc, from the forehead of Ju-On's malice look face to its waist. The impact did not send blood flying, but a long string of dazzling, hellish sparks, as if he were striking forged metal in the depths of the abyss. Though the ghost had anticipated the slash, the sheer ferocity and domineering speed of Krogh's strike, inspired by the relentless upward-splitting of a mountain waterfall, gave the Ju-On no time to do more than react.
The ghost mirrored the motion, its own arm swinging upward in a perfect, stolen parody of the block.
BAAMMMM!
But Krogh was already retreating. He had smoothly retracted his sword palm, the trajectory beautiful and efficient, the force powerful yet perfectly reinforced. This was the thrill he had cherished since childhood—the cold, murderous, and exhilarating dance of the mortal world's Force Sword, raised to a divine pinnacle. He did not hesitate. He swung, chopped, slashed, stabbed, and scraped. His hands united into a single devastating point, and he thrust forward with the force of a rainbow piercing the sun—the most resolute and domineering technique of his own Crimson Tide Sword Art!
The Whale Slaying Blast!
It erupted from his palm sword, a concussive wave of pure destructive aura. It struck Ju-On's chest with the force of a tidal wave, and the shockwave that followed crushed what remained of the shrine courtyard's ground into powder. Krogh seemed unfeeling, indifferent to the venomous black blood that stained his palm and sizzled against his skin. He thrust forward without a shuffle, without a single wasted ounce of momentum.
Again, Ju-On's feet slid backward, but this time, the ghost thing sliding again and again against the broken stone. The Whale-Slaying Blast was a success.
Krogh did not relent. From both hands to one. Another burst of sword light, this time from his right hand, erupted forth. His right hand ignited with a blazing, unnatural gold fire. As soon as he struck, he mercilessly unleashed the newest exquisite technique of his Foundation Stage cultivation, the Red Run Sword Art:
The Stacked Thunder!
A hundred thunderous blows did not follow one after the other—they erupted in a single, simultaneous instant. All of them struck into Ju-On's waist and exploded as one, a cataclysm of concussive force.
Before the echo could fade, his left palm sword, still humming from the Whale Slaying Blast, unleashed a supreme move from his Blood River Sword Art.
The Roar Sky!
And without a heartbeat of pause, his right hand followed with a Divine Sword Chisel, the most powerful martial move inherited from the previous generation of the Hanz Clan's chief.
Ju-On stumbled back, assailed by a storm of superior martial techniques, each the culmination of a different path of murderous artistry.
Krogh would not give the ghost a break. He became a whirlwind of edge and fury, unleashing a total of one hundred and sixteen sword strikes, all in one unbroken, seamless motion. Each slash was a testament, a lifetime of cultivation and understanding of his own and that of the ancestors' Sword Path.
When Krogh finally retreated, his chest heaving, his palms smoking and raw, Ju-On, while not completely defeated, was utterly, consumingly angry.
The evil thing was cut into pieces of malice flesh and vicious blood, its broken body a latticework of deadly, sizzling wounds. It began to slowly dissipate into a black mist, its venomous essence already pulling at the earth's veins to recover. Its malevolent eyes, burning with a hatred that could eclipse moon, locked onto the Hanz Clan Heir.
It saw the swordsman standing amidst the ruin, his palms still formed into blades, his posture one of lethal grace even in exhaustion. The ghost's gaze caught the sharp line of his jaw, caught in the dim, bloody moonlight—and there, etched upon it, a vicious, arrogant sneer of pure, unadulterated contempt.
Ju-On was being dismantled. With every shriek of clashing Sword Qi, another piece of its ghostly form was sheared away, its maleficent energy scattering like black mist. The fear and hatred that constituted its very being now curdled into pure, desperate terror. The Earth Vein's renowned power of regeneration, once instantaneous, now lagged fatally behind the devastating power of Krogh's Sword Intent.
Though the ghost thing possessed the same top level of cultivation strength, the same legendary Sword Intent, and even drew upon the Earth Veins for near-limitless healing, it was dying. The evil entity was reaching its end, its venomous fate curdled and final. Consumed by a loathsome fear it had only ever inspired in others, Ju-On could do nothing but retreat, its form flickering, on the verge of utter annihilation.
PS:
Hey everyone, here's the new chapter! Happy weekend!
A few have been wonderfully curious about how the side story "NTR Loop" connects to our main plot—so here's the quick spoiler!
So, I've been totally obsessed with all types of final showdown of MC battling villain. I keep thinking: how can our MC deliver the ultimate punishment to that final villain? Just defeating him isn't enough—I need to properly vent all that built-up anger! The revenge has to be thorough. It has to be vicious. It has to match all the hardship and hatred our heroes have endured.
Which is why I'm leaning toward giving Lordi a truly terrifying power in the future: the ability to send the worst villain into an infinite loop of lives, each one more miserable than the last. We're talking full physical and mental torment... like, getting NTR'd on loop from start to finish, life after life after life. 😈
The "NTR Loop" is the ultimate, diabolical punishment our MC, Lordi, can now unleash from that grand stage. Using a profound and terrifying power, he doesn't just destroy his greatest enemies—he exiles their consciousness from the ancient world and traps them in a customized, both ancient and modern-day hell.
So, the main story is the source of the power, and the side story is the nightmarish application of it. It's the same universe; one is just the cosmic courtroom, and the other is the super-max prison built for infinite, psychological torment!
Hope that clears things up! Thanks for being so invested in this world.
Wishing you all an awesome weekend filled with good reads and good vibes.