Chapter 202: Severing the connected lines

Severing the connected lines

The space above an adjoining rooftop rippled with a faint purple distortion as Lothe and Seana materialized amidst the howling wind.

Before her boots even touched the black tiles, Seana had drawn her Blood Moon Sword. A vivid crimson brilliance flared along the edge of the blade, illuminating the dark.

[Blood Art: Nine Crimson Blood Pearls!]

Nine blood-red orbs condensed around her in a disciplined orbit, humming with dense Blood Qi. The moment three Foundation Establishment zombies lunged from the eaves, she shifted her weight and swept upward.

A clean crescent of crimson sword Qi cleaved through the gloom.

The foremost zombie raised its armored forearm to guard, but the sword light passed cleanly through rotten bone and muscle alike. A hairline thread of blood appeared across its throat before its torso slumped into two pieces.

Without pausing, Seana glided forward, her second strike descending in a graceful, lethal arc toward the flank.

Every motion was fluid, like silk caught in a gale, yet steeped in sharp killing intent.

The nine pearls accelerated.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three pearls shot forth like cannon fire. One struck a lunging zombie between the eyes, caving in its lacquered mask. Another punched straight through an armored chest, while the third arced around a clumsy swipe to detonate against the base of a zombie’s skull.

Seana stepped between two falling corpses, her upper body swaying aside as a blackened palm brushed past her shoulder. Reversing her grip, her blade traced a tight crimson circle behind her back.

The attacker’s waist was severed clean through. As it staggered, a returning blood pearl hammered into its face, dropping it cold.

Yet from the narrow alley below, a dozen more cloaked figures vaulted onto the roof, their eyes burning with dull necrotic light.

Seana raised her left hand, five fingers curling as her Blood Qi surged.

[Blood Art: Crimson Needle Array — Sovereign Strike!]

Hundreds of crimson needles coalesced from thin air, humming with penetrating momentum before raining down in a concentrated barrage. The air shrieked with high-frequency whistles as the needles pierced the advancing swarm, pinning limbs and piercing skulls.

Some collapsed instantly; others, driven by unnatural resilience, dragged their impaled bodies forward anyway.

Seana frowned. "Their flesh is reinforced. Far tougher than ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators."

A heavy downward palm descended toward her blind spot, thick with foul Yin Qi.

Seana pivoted to parry.

CLANG!

The concussive blow slid her boots across the loose roof tiles. Before the zombie could press its advantage, a spatial fracture tore open the air beside it.

A black spear thrust out from the void.

Lothe materialized in a blur of motion, his black hair and dark eyes sharp beneath the dim city lanterns. Purple spatial Qi coiled around the spear shaft like a striking serpent.

[Spatial Art: The Void Step— First Form(Spatial Anchor)]

He vanished before the creature could even turn.

A faint ripple appeared behind the descending corpse. Lothe stepped out from the empty air, his spear driving backward with absolute precision.

BOOM!

Spatial Qi detonated inside the zombie’s upper torso, blasting it off the roof to shatter upon the street below.

Rotating his wrist, Lothe planted his back foot, vanished again with a faint hum, and reappeared beside another creature clawing toward Seana’s flank. A horizontal sweep of his spear severed its head cleanly from its shoulders.

He landed lightly beside her, his breath steady. "Are you alright, love?"

Seana parried a stray bone dagger without looking at him. "Do I look like a maiden in distress?"

His dark eyes flickered over her stance. "No. Just making sure."

"Then stop chatting and clear this idiots."

The corner of Lothe’s lips lifted. "As you command."

Four more zombies converged on their position.

Lothe’s black spear spun in a blinding wheel of motion. His first thrust impaled an outstretched palm, pinning it against the attacker’s own throat. A sweeping strike with the butt of the spear shattered the ribs of the second, hurling it into the third.

As a fourth dropped from an overhanging rafter, Lothe didn’t bother looking up.

[Spatial Art: The Void Step— First Form(Spatial Anchor)]

He appeared directly above the falling enemy, driving his spear straight down through its skull and pinning it into the ridge of the roof.

Yet the surrounding alleyways seemed bottomless; more masked zombies scaled the walls with unnatural speed.

Lothe’s gaze cooled. He raised his left hand, the space surrounding his fingers warping into violent ripples.

[Spatial Art: Spatial Blades!]

Dozens of paper-thin spatial distortions manifested in a halo around him, their edges vibrating with purple light. With a flick of his wrist, the invisible blades whistled across the rooftop.

Shing! Shing! Shing!

Limbs, necks, and torsos separated along geometric lines. Even when the zombies raised shields of corrupt dark Qi, the spatial blades ignored their brute defense, phasing through gaps to strike directly from impossible angles.

Seana immediately recognized the pattern. Without exchanging a word, her combat rhythm merged seamlessly with his.

Three of her crimson blood pearls broke away to guard Lothe’s flanks, intercepting incoming projectiles, while her remaining six maintained a whirling perimeter around them both. When a heavily armored zombie attempted to block Lothe’s spear with double broadswords, Seana’s blood pearl slammed into its elbow, knocking its guard wide open.

Lothe’s spear drove through the exposed opening without hesitation.

One created the fracture; the other shattered it.

——————————

"Fall back! Regroup!"

Elder Rowan’s commanding shout boomed across the rooftops.

Though the elder had pulverized the initial vanguard with his staff, reinforcements had poured out from the subterranean residential compounds below. The dark, necrotic Qi binding the horde was growing denser, forming an oppressive miasma that weighed on everyone’s meridians.

Rowan spun his staff, releasing an icy tempest that sent six zombies crashing through the balustrades.

Suddenly, a hulking figure wrapped in heavy burial shrouds dropped behind him. Its blackened fist drove forward with the force of an avalanche.

Rowan spun and blocked.

BOOM!

The collision sent a shockwave tearing through the roof tiles.

Rowan’s arms vibrated from the impact; the brute strength behind the strike far exceeded that of an ordinary Foundation Establishment Zombie.

Three more elite corpses closed in from the flanks.

Rowan shifted his footing, deflecting the heavy strikes with circular staff techniques while freezing their lower limbs with bursts of cold Qi. But the moment one fell, two more scrambled forward to take its place.

"They aren’t just fighting!" Rowan shouted through the wind, his eyes darting toward the distant azure pillar of light. "They’re stalling for time!"

Lothe’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the battlefield from his higher vantage point.

Through his [Qi Sight], the truth became plain. The dark Qi enveloping the horde wasn’t merely protective armor; it was an interconnected array, a living web of subterranean leylines flowing in one single direction.

Toward the blue light.

"Don’t waste your Qi trying to slaughter an army," Lothe called out, his voice cutting through the clashing steel. "Break the leylines. Shatter their formation and open a straight path!"

Zhao Meiyun, leaping back from a cluster of fallen bodies, grinned broadly. "Now that sounds like a sensible plan."

The alchemist flicked his wrist, three jade incendiary pellets aligning between his fingers.

Darian’s brass formation rings spun with a high-pitched ring.

Oren’s five soul-projections fanned out across the tiles.

Nyren gathered an arctic blizzard around Frostveil’s edge, while Caelan raised his blade, channeling pure azure sword light.

Seana’s nine crimson pearls accelerated into a blazing orbit.

Lothe adjusted his grip on his spear, the purple spatial Qi condensing around the spearhead until the surrounding air groaned under the pressure.

For a heartbeat, the rooftop went deathly still.

Then, the entire squad unleashed their arts at once.

[Frostbound Sovereign Scripture — First Form: Frostbound Genesis!]

Nyren swept her blade forward. A wave of ancient, sovereign frost surged over the roof, flash-freezing the vanguard in their tracks and encasing their limbs in solid glaciers.

Caelan struck immediately after. A colossal crescent of azure sword light tore through the frozen front lines, shattering the ice and the corpses within it into thousands of harmless shards.

Oren’s five figures darted like phantoms through the breach. Their five blades struck the pressure nodes of the opposing horde, severing the physical conduits of the squad.

Darian brought his hands together. "Array, manifest!"

His brass rings expanded into two massive interlocking golden formations that dropped onto the rooftops, manifesting chains of light that pinned down the reserves.

Zhao Meiyun stepped through the mist, casually tossing five pellets into the dense clusters of trapped corpses.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Scorching golden flames and acidic alchemical smoke obliterated the secondary ranks.

Seana raised her Blood Moon Sword to the sky.

[Blood Art: Crimson Needle Array — Sovereign Strike!]

The nine revolving blood pearls fused their momentum with the needle array, manifesting a massive crimson mandala in the air.

As she slashed down, ten thousand crimson beams descended like a blood-red meteor shower, suppressing the entire district in a blanket of lethal force.

At the apex of the assault, Lothe took a single step forward.

His spear thrust into the empty air.

[Spatial Art: Spatial Blades!]

The space across the thoroughfare fractured like cracked crystal. Countless spatial blades sheared through the invisible web of dark Qi connecting the horde, severing the spiritual circuit feeding the corpses.

The hive-mind formation collapsed completely.

Elder Rowan seized the opening. He leapt high into the air, his heavy staff radiating pure, blinding Glacial Qi as he drove it straight down into the rooftop.

BOOOOOOM!

A concussive shockwave blew the remaining shattered corpses off the thoroughfare, blasting a wide, unobstructed path straight through the rooftops toward the city center.

"Move!" Rowan roared.

The squad surged forward, vaulting across the cleared path at maximum speed.

The opening wouldn’t last long. Everyone immediately surged forward. Yet, just as they crossed the broken formation, Lothe suddenly slowed.

His gaze shifted towards the rooftops behind them. The zombies weren’t pursuing them recklessly.

Instead, they were retreating in an orderly manner, their movements strangely synchronized. One by one, they returned to their original positions.

Then, a deep vibration travelled through the underground city. The dark Qi surrounding the zombies began to fluctuate.

Lothe’s eyes narrowed. "They’re reorganizing."

Zhao Meiyun glanced over his shoulder. "Already? I thought we had given them quite a beating."

"That’s not what concerns me." Lothe looked towards the distant rooftops. "They’re not simply gathering again. Their formation has changed."

Elder Rowan stopped briefly, his expression turning solemn.

Before anyone could respond, a low, metallic sound echoed through the streets.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The masked zombies simultaneously raised their heads. Hundreds of pairs of lifeless eyes turned towards the group.

And then, without a single command, they began moving again.?