anwhile, deep within the winding, mist-shrouded paths of the mountain estate, a different kind of silence prevailed—one of intense, predatory pursuit. Garrick Blackthorn led the grim procession with the unerring focus of a apex predator on the hunt, his entire being tuned to the faintest trace of spiritual residue left by his quarry, Donovan Valdez. Behind him, moving with a swift and synchronized gait that spoke of harsh discipline, followed his sect comrades from the Abyss Pit Sect. They were a single, cohesive entity of focused malice, a pack of wolves coursing along the rugged mountain path.
There was no warning. No shift in the wind to carry a foreign scent, no whispered incantation to betray an external attack. One mont, they were a unit, a weapon of unified intent moving with lethal purpose. The next, their perfect, hateful harmony shattered into screaming pieces.
It was Zoe who moved first. Her head, which had been thodically scanning the treacherous path ahead, snapped to the side with a sudden, unnatural, almost avian jerk. The sharp cunning that had once glittered in her eyes was utterly extinguished, replaced by vacant pools of pure, undiluted frenzy. Without a sound, without a cry of warning or a snarl of rage, her curved blade flashed in a deadly silver arc, aid with terrifying precision at the throat of her Dominator Squad companion who walked beside her.
Clang!!!
The tallic shriek of blade eting blade in a desperate parry tore the serene mountain silence apart. The struck cultivator, blocking the lethal strike more from ingrained instinct than any comprehension, could only stare for a fraction of a second in bewildered, dawning horror. That horror was the last coherent thought he possessed before the sa inexplicable madness claid him, too. His face contorted into a vicious rictus of snarling hatred, and he lunged not at his attacker, Zoe, but at the man to his left, his own weapon now seeking brotherly flesh.
It was not a battle; it was a virulent contagion of violence, a spontaneous and total eruption of internal slaughter. The thin, cold mountain air grew thick and heavy with the hot, coppery scent of freshly spilled blood and the rising cacophony of brutal, close-quarters butchery. The narrow pass beca a slaughterhouse, its confines ensuring every savage strike found a target.
Slash! A razor-sharp blade opened a white robe from shoulder to hip, and a torrent of crimson blood across the fabric like a grotesque and rapidly unfolding flower.
Bang! A palm-strike, charged with demonic energy and enough concussive force to pulverize solid rock, connected squarely with a chest cavity; the sound that followed was not of combat, but of a wet sack of at and splintering bone giving way.
Thud! A broken body, its owner not yet dead, crumpled onto the rocky ground, only to be stumbled over by another maddened sect mber lunging toward his next victim.
These were not novice fighters; they were masters of vicious, demonic martial arts, each a skilled and efficient killer cultivator in their own right. Now, they turned their grim expertise upon themselves with grisly, nightmarish efficiency. Spells ant to corrode an enemy’s spirit and cripple their ridians were unleashed at point-blank range against their own. Blades consecrated for slaying heretics and heroes now found their deepest hos in the flesh of their own brethren. There was no strategy, no formation, only a blind, ravening, and all-consuming need to destroy the moving thing closest to them.
It was over in a handful of brutal, chaotic monts.
The last choked gurgle of life faded into nothingness, leaving only the lonely, indifferent whisper of the high-altitude wind to bear witness to the atrocity. The narrow pass was utterly choked with the fallen. Pristine white robes were now painted in violent, abstract patterns of red, the fabric dark and glistening under the pale sky. The scene was one of abject and total ruin—severed limbs lay twisted at unnatural angles, viscera spilled from torn torsos onto the cold, unfeeling stone, and the very ground beneath their feet ran slick and treacherous with the evidence of their sudden, mutual annihilation.
Amidst the sprawling carnage, separate from its body, lay the head of Zoe Wright. It had co to rest facing the vast, infinite blue of the sky, the intricate and once-nacing tattoos on her face now frad by a ssy, tragic halo of her own blood and the dirt of the path. Her eyes, empty of their brief, explosive frenzy, stared sightlessly upward, a final, silent testant to the inexplicable and absolute horror that had consud them all.
And while the Dominator Squad had descended into that final, self-destructive craze, cutting and killing each other with savage abandon, Garrick Blackthorn and the other non-Dominator Squad cultivators simply stood by and watched. They were unmoved, unblinking statues amidst the storm of violence. There was not a flicker of emotion in their dull, glazed eyes as they witnessed the last of their sect comrades from the elite Dominator Squad cease breathing, their blood-splattered robes a stark testant to their own emotionless, absolute obedience. They did not speak a word, offer a gesture, or share a glance. As the final death rattle faded, they turned in unison from the carnage as if it were rely a rock slide blocking the path, they continued their relentless, unwavering search for Donovan Valdez.
——
"W̸h̴a̸t̸ ̸n̷o̴w̶?̴"
"A̴ ̴m̸i̷s̵t̸a̴k̴e̸.̶" The admission was a blasphemy against its own nature, each syllable dripping with a corrosive self-loathing.
"J̷u̸s̴t̴ ̵o̸n̸e̴ ̸s̴m̴a̸l̴l̶,̵ ̵i̴n̸s̷i̶g̷n̸i̵f̵i̴c̴a̵n̷t̴ ̸m̷i̴s̵t̴a̴k̴e̴.̴"
"I̷t̸ ̴w̴a̴s̷ ̴s̸u̵p̸p̵o̴s̴e̴d̸ ̸t̵o̶ ̷b̸e̸ ̵m̴i̸n̷e̶.̵"
The whisper was a covetous, greedy thing, laden with the weight of stolen mories and perverted legacies.
"A̷l̵l̴ ̴o̴f̷ ̵i̴t̵.̸"
The Sword, the Earth Vein, the power, the legacy of Krogh Hanz—every facet of this destiny had been ticulously inventoried and claid by the Ju-On’s hunger.
This panic was compounded by a profound, galling impotence. It was Bound, utterly and completely, by the ethereal, unbreakable links of the Cosmic Path Dao Pillar’s Ninefold Malice’s chain suppression. These were not chains of iron or spirit, but of cosmic law itself, forged from the very Dao. The Threads of Fate anchored it to the profaned ground of the Ancestral Shrine. It could not leave.
And it knew, with the chilling certainty of a predator that understands the hunter has beco the hunted, what was unfolding beyond its prison. If it stayed here, impotent and seething, the real Krogh Hanz would undoubtedly seize this fleeting chance. That disgusting Hanz heir would race to claim his Sword of Red Run. He would harness the power of the Earth Vein, and he would refine the Natal Soulbound Artifact. The final step would be the completion of the Dao Pillar through the Cosmic Path Foundation Establishnt Technique.
After ascension, the first act of that disgustingly human would be a direct and vengeful march to the Ancestral Shrine. He would not co to negotiate or to seal. He would co to obliterate its existence utterly. This was the future the Ju-On saw, and it was a future it would burn all of creation to avoid.
Just as the Ju-On wavered in its dreadful dilemma, its malice consciousness churning with a frantic, poisonous anxiety it had never known, the very foundations of its gray world were suddenly violated.
The Ju-On did not—could not—complete its thought. There was no whistle of cutting steel, no gleaming, predictable arc of a descending blade to herald the attack. Instead, there was only a force, imnse and utterly concentrated, that arrived faster than any physical law or sensory perception could track.
The side of the raging Krogh Hanz’s stolen head simply ceased to exist. The profound silence of the void was shattered not by a roar, but by a deafening crack of pure, undeniable force, a sound that spoke of realities breaking.
It was a brutal, unstoppable concussive force—a shockwave of pure, condensed power given the shape of an overwhelming intent. It struck not with the elegant precision of a cultivator’s technique, but with the primal, devastating impact of a god’s warhamr. Bone, cartilage, and the vile, conjured illusion of brain matter vaporized into a fine, grueso ectoplasmic mist that painted the formless gray floor in a wide, fanning spray of black essence and spectral red. The remaining half of the skull hung in the air for a single, surreal mont, a shattered cup draining its contents.
The body, its central support violently erased, crumpled at once. It was not rely falling; it was pinned to the ground by the sheer, overwhelming violence of the impact, the psychic weight of the blow driving the stolen form into submission. The realization did not form in the Ju-On’s shattered brain, for it had none, but in the very core of its spooky, mist-coiling being, a fundantal recognition of the energy that had maid it: Sword qi...
Within the ruin of broken skull, a single eye, wide with a shock so profound it was beyond any concept of pain, remained intact and staring.
The very fabric of the gray dinsion tore like rotten silk, and through this impossible rift, a man stepped into the heart of the Ju-On’s domain.
The man who had torn his way into this place was a blade himself, thrust into the very heart of the formless. His form, tall and unyieldingly straight, was a stark, solid contradiction to the shifting, amorphous gray that tried to reject his presence. His face was a mask of cold, imperious arrogance, every line and angle etched with a confidence that bordered on contempt.
The man had paid a terrible price for this entrance. He had willingly, irrevocably severed his connection to the nurturing Earth Vein. His long hair, once a uniform, majestic cascade of jet black, now stread behind him as if caught in an unfelt wind, fully half of it bleached to the stark, lifeless color of ash and frost. The sa stark, weary grey swept through one eyebrow, a slash of unforgiving winter and deep exhaustion across his otherwise flawless, ice-sculpted handso features. He was a sword that had willingly broken its own scabbard, existing now for one purpose alone: a final battle.
The man took a step forward onto a floor that did not exist, the void itself seeming to solidify under the absolute, unassailable pressure of his will. He radiated no rage, no heated passion or triumphant fury. Only a killing intent so pure, so focused, and so absolute that it chilled the very essence of the lair, a deadly, taphysical frost forming in a realm that had never before known the concept of temperature. He was walking the path to his own inevitable end, and he did so without a single mont of hesitation.
There was no fear in this man’s eyes. No uncertainty, no doubt. They were the clearest, coldest things in that dead expanse, twin chips of glacial ice reflecting the nothingness of the Ju-On’s world back upon itself with utter disdain. He did not glare or search for his foe, for his Sword Intent had already lock its target. Because even before the Ju-On could form its next thought, the man’s next strike was already slashed forward, a continuation of the motion that had brought him here.
This man, this avenging embodint of cold fury, possessed exactly the sa face as the entity whose gray void he now dominated, whose stolen form lay broken at his feet. It was the real Krogh Hanz, and he had co to avenge.
The thing that wore Krogh Hanz’s face did not fall. The single, black and bloodshot eye that remained swelled, the pupil dilating to swallow the white. A terrifying power flushed through its shattered form, knitting bone and weaving malice into muscle.
With a series of wet, crackling sounds, the corpse-leapfrog contorted, pushing off from the ground at an angle no living joint could achieve. It moved with a spider’s dreadful speed. One arm snapped up, a single finger pointed like a dagger at the icy cultivator. A blade of distorted, shrieking darkness, the Ju-On’s own corrupted sword qi, ripped through the air towards its target.
Krogh Hanz did not dodge. He didn’t even seem to track the incoming attack. His own will made manifest. Another wave of force, invisible and absolute, hamred into the leaping horror. It was not a slash, but a brutal impact. It caught the Ju-On mid-leap, severing its torso at the waist and pulverizing its lower body into a fine mist of black blood and bone fragnts. The force was imnse, a divine hamr swatting a fly, slamming the two halves of the creature down onto the gray ground with a sickening wet crunch. A fountain of thick, coagulated blood arced through the void.
The Ju-On’s own attack, anwhile, shrieked harmlessly through the space where Krogh had been, dissipating against the far nothingness without ever nearing its mark.
Denial, rage, and a cold, clawing terror flooded the ghost’s mind. Its upper torso, trailing viscera, propelled itself upright once more through sheer fury, its remaining arm slashing wildly, sending another scythe of dark energy flying.
And again, it missed. Krogh Hanz stood, unmoved, his expression one of icy, arrogant disdain. The Ju-On’s frantic attack was t by another concussive blast of his sword intent. This one sheared through the creature’s shoulder and chest, carving a canyon of ruin through its form.
The mangled form of the Ju-On writhed, a grotesque marionette of at and shadow. Black, coagulated blood wept from the ruin of its torso, pooling in the featureless gray of its void. The stolen face, half-shattered, contorted not in pain, but in a paroxysm of pure, incandescent fury, undercut by a terror so profound it chilled the very air. From the ragged hole that was its mouth, a voice ripped forth, not a whisper now, but a guttural, shrieking bark that echoed through the nothingness, a sound of breaking glass and tearing flesh.
"F̸U̴C̵K̷!̴ ̵W̸H̴Y̵?̸!̶"
The malice in the words was a physical force, a wave of psychic rot that would have turned a lesser man’s mind to mush. The single, bloodshot eye bulged, fixed on the icy cultivator who stood unmoved, his own sword intent still humming in the air like the aftermath of a thunderclap.
"I̵’̶M̴ ̸S̴U̸P̴P̴O̴S̴E̷D̸ ̸T̸O̵ ̷H̷A̴V̸E̵ ̸T̵H̸E̷ ̴S̴A̴M̴E̸ ̸S̴T̵R̴E̵N̷G̸T̴H̵ ̸A̵N̷D̵ ̴P̷O̵W̴E̵R̵ ̸A̵S̴ ̸Y̵O̴U̶ ̸D̸O̶!̸"
It roared, the declaration a desperate, furious incantation against the evidence of its own mutilation. It gestured with a stump of an arm at its own broken form, then at Krogh’s pristine, arrogant stillness.
"H̴O̷W̶ ̵C̸O̷U̴L̴D̶ ̴Y̴O̵U̷R̴ ̸S̴W̴O̴R̴D̸ ̸B̴E̵ ̴F̷A̵S̵T̷E̴R̷ ̷T̸H̴A̵N̵ ̸M̴I̴N̸E̵?̴!̶"
It had copied his Sword Intent, all the Sword Will that forged the power. It had mimicked his cultivation strength, thoroughly comprehension the sacrifice that granted this aura. But why it still in the complete disadvantage?
The Ju-On’s terror peaked. Its mind, malice and cunning, scrambled for a strategy, a defense, a way to parry this unstoppable, battering force. But Krogh was done with its flailing. He offered no monologue, no final glance. His hands ca together, fingers forming a complex seal with practiced, effortless speed.
Above the mangled Ju-On, the stagnant air shimred. Dozens of manifestations of blood-red sword qi materialized, each humming with a lethal, crushing intent. They did not fall like rain, but like a volley from a siege engine, hamring downward in a single, obliterating cascade.
"H̸a̴r̸k̶,̵ ̸a̷ ̸t̸h̵r̴e̸n̴o̴d̷y̵ ̷f̸r̴o̴m̵ ̷a̸b̸y̵s̴s̸ ̸d̷e̵e̵p̸s̴,̸"
Ju-On’s confusion, the question, the rage—it all vanished into a more primal imperative: survival. Thought was a luxury it no longer possessed. Instinct took over, and with its last vestige of will, it spat curse of pure, undiluted malice.
"S̴c̸o̵u̸r̸g̴e̶ ̵s̵o̸n̷g̸ ̶o̵f̴ ̸m̴a̵l̸i̶c̷e̴ ̸t̷h̴a̵t̵ ̸n̵e̴v̴e̷r̷ ̵s̵l̵e̴e̵p̴s̴.̶"
By violent, shuddering convulsions that shook its broken, blood-spilling form, the thing wearing Krogh Hanz’s face began to unravel.
"T̴e̵n̶ ̸m̷i̴l̴l̴i̴o̷n̵ ̸w̵r̴a̷i̴t̸h̵s̸,̴ ̵i̷n̶ ̸h̴a̴t̸r̴e̴d̵ ̸b̸o̵u̵n̵d̸,̶"
The transformation was not a shift, but a horrific dissolution. The stolen flesh sloughed away like wet clay, not falling to the ground but evaporating into a greasy, grey mist. The half-shattered skull collapsed inward, the features lting, running together until all that remained was a formless, human-shaped shadow the colour of a month-old bruise.
"S̷h̸a̸l̵l̷ ̵s̵t̷a̴l̵k̵ ̸t̴h̵y̶ ̷f̶o̵o̴t̴s̵t̴e̴p̴s̸ ̴o̴n̸ ̵c̵u̴r̸s̴e̴d̶ ̴g̸r̵o̵u̴n̴d̵.̸"
Where a face should have been, there were only holes. Not eyes, not a mouth, but ragged, weeping apertures from which poured a thick, grey substance. It dripped with the lazy viscosity of sticky vomit, oozing over the formless head and down the shadowy torso, sizzling with a soft, corrosive sound.
"A̸n̴d̴ ̵t̸h̵r̵o̷u̷g̸h̴ ̵t̴h̴e̴ ̴h̵a̴l̸l̸s̶ ̸o̴f̶ ̸t̴i̴m̵e̷,̴ ̴a̷c̶c̴u̸r̸s̴e̴d̵,̸"
It was impossible to assign this ghost being’s gender, or any category of being at all; it was simply other, a manifestation of pure, undiluted spite.
"T̴h̴y̸ ̷n̴a̴m̷e̴ ̸i̴s̴ ̸h̵o̴w̵l̴e̸d̵,̷ ̵a̷n̶d̴ ̵m̴o̴c̴k̵e̴d̴,̶ ̵a̸n̴d̶ ̶c̷u̴r̷s̴e̵d̴.̴"
Across its entire grey form, weird, pulsating characters glowed with a sickly internal light. They were not carved but seared into its essence, a scripture of hatred written in a language never ant for mortal eyes.
"T̵h̴i̷s̴ ̷s̵y̸m̴p̷h̵o̸n̵y̸ ̶o̵f̷ ̴e̴n̴d̵l̵e̷s̷s̶ ̴h̴a̴t̷e̸,̴"
And from these characters, more of the stinking grey malice continuously wept, dripping and pooling around its base, filling the air with the stench of open graves and psychic rot. This was its genuine, original form—a thing of utter negation.
"S̴e̴a̶l̵s̵ ̴f̵a̴s̵t̴ ̴t̷h̴y̷ ̸w̴r̸e̴t̴c̷h̸e̴d̷ ̸a̶n̸d̴ ̸m̷i̴s̵e̸r̴a̵b̶l̵e̴ ̴f̴a̵t̸e̸.̶"
The air grew thick and heavy, a palpable weight of hatred that pressed down like a sodden blanket. The grey, formless thing that was the Ju-On pulsed, and the weird characters seared into its essence began to twist and sway as if alive. A closer look revealed the truth.
Each character was not written in ink or shadow, but woven from countless, minuscule human faces. They were visages frozen in their final monts of agony, their mouths stretched wide in silent, endless screams, their eyes burning with a vengeful fire. They were the felled, the slayed, every soul ever reaped by Krogh Hanz and his infamous Sword of Red Run.
As one, a legion of the damned, they fixed their malice upon the sword master. Their features contorted into inhumanly cold smiles, and a chorus of curses began to spill forth, a sibilant, overlapping whisper that grew into a psychic torrent. Countless voices, each spitting its most venomous resentnt, wove a net of spiritual scourges, a blanket of pure hatred that enveloped Krogh in the dark.
He felt it instantly—the chill that wasn’t temperature, the sapping drain on his spirit. The vibrant battle aura around him flickered and froze, his imnse cultivation strength plumting as the curses of his past victims sought to strangle his power at its source.
However, the swordsman did not flinch. His icy composure did not crack. A faint, almost bored sneer touched his lips. This was a familiar song and dance, a tactic he had weathered in a dozen other lethal clashes across the years. His arrogance was a fortress the dead could not breach.
At that mont, as the net of hatred tightened, he simply stabbed a finger forward. The gesture was clean, direct, and utterly dismissive. Another vicious Sword Qi, the color of dried blood, materialized and shot forth. It was not a slash, but a concentrated lance of force, a lethal giant arrow ant not to cut, but to pulverize, ramming deadly towards the ghost-thing’s evil core.
"You crawled into existence from the curses and resentnt of the millions I have slaughtered—the feeble, final breath of pitiful creatures who could not bear the weight of my slash."
"You are nothing more than a retard specter, a faint and fading echo of my own deeds given a wretched semblance of form."
"Do you truly believe your borrowed anguish frightens ?"
"Your very being is a testant to my power, a monunt to all I have erased."
"No matter how errie your manifestation, no matter how twisted your power, never forget this: if I ended the life that birthed you once, I can—and will—extinguish this miserable reflection a hundred tis, a thousand tis, for however long this pathetic farce continues."
Krogh’s voice did not rise, it deepened. His words were not spoken—they were pronounced.
"You are too weak to be called a threat, too insignificant to be considered a rival."
"Your very attempt to challenge is an embarrassnt—an affront to the magnitude of my power."
"Unworthy."
"Miserable. Hmph. Beneath my attention."
The sword master’s eyes, cold and piercing as glacial ice, swept over the shuddering apparition without a flicker of alarm, seeing only a minor irritation, a whisper of defiance in a world that had long since learned to kneel.
"A bunch of feeble ghosts that already died once beneath my sword dares stand in my presence?"
"For to even lift a finger in response to your wling defiance... is an insult to my legacy."
"This does not qualify as a fight. I call this your extermination."
——
PS: For the translation users, here’s the full Ju-On poem from the Chapter. Enjoy the nightmares! 😊
Hark, a threnody from abyss deeps,
Scourge song of malice that never sleeps.
Ten million wraiths, in hatred bound,
Shall stalk thy footsteps on cursed ground.
And through the halls of ti, accursed,
Thy na is howled, and mocked, and cursed.
This symphony of endless hate,
Seals fast thy wretched and miserable fate.
Love you all! ✨
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