Chapter 26: Crimson Delight

Silver lightning flooded the wrecked room.

The one-eyed wolf lunged, its single emerald eye burning with wild fury. Lothe planted the butt of his spear against the floorboards and vaulted directly over its leaping form.

Boom!

A dense bolt of electricity erupted from the beast’s shattered horn, exploding the concrete beneath where Lothe had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. Concrete splinters rained down like shrapnel.

The wolf pivoted with terrifying speed, refusing to give Lothe room to set his feet. Its claws swept toward his chest in a rapid, heavy pattern.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Inferno Dragon Spear spun in Lothe’s hands, deflecting each claw strike by millimeters. Every impact scattered bright sparks and arcs of raw electricity across the room.

This thing... Lothe thought, his jaw tightening. It’s adapting.

With every exchange, the beast was learning his rhythm. It was no longer swinging wildly; it was deliberately waiting for the exact moment his spear reached full extension before launching its counter.

It was hunting like a martial artist.

Not far away, Seana stood against the remaining two wolves.

One carried a long, bleeding wound across its snout where she had clipped its horn earlier. The second prowled behind her, the black horn on its forehead crackling with silver lightning.

The wounded wolf struck first.

It lunged with a guttural growl, its claws aiming for her throat.

Clang!

The Blood Moon Sword parried the strike, the dark steel ringing under the force.

Seana didn’t fight the momentum; she used the recoil to step past the beast’s flank, her crimson-tinted blade flashing once.

Shhk!

The dark steel sliced cleanly through the soft cartilage of its throat.

The wolf staggered forward three steps, blood spurting over its paws, before collapsing onto the cracked tiles. Its legs twitched once, then went still.

[You have slain a Level 3, Tier 2 Silver Horned Wolf.]

[Experience gained: 100 EXP.]

The last wolf let out a furious roar.

Silver lightning gathered around its horn, the electrical density making the air vibrate so violently that the hair on Seana’s arms stood on end.

Seana moved before the charge completed. She activated her Shadow Weave Cloak, her body blurring as she slipped past the beast’s shoulder like a phantom.

Shhk!

Her blade carved a deep line across its flank. Before it could turn, she delivered another strike to its rear leg. She moved with tight, clinical efficiency, targeting nerve clusters and tendons.

The wolf thrashed, its thick tail whipping toward her head like a steel cable.

Seana dropped flat, sliding beneath the tail, planted her left hand on the floor, and launched herself over the beast’s back. As she hovered above it, she brought her sword down with both hands, aiming directly for the base of its horn.

Clang!

The steel hit the armored horn, sending a violent vibration up her arms.

Crack!

Arcs of silver lightning surged off the horn and traveled up the Blood Moon Sword, instantly numbing her hands.

Seana gritted her teeth, refusing to drop her hilt.

Ripple.

The dark blood pooling across the room suddenly stirred.

Under her command, fine threads of blood rose into the air, wrapping tightly around the hilt and blade of her sword like scarlet ribbon.

The blood layer acted as an organic insulator, neutralizing the electric current while coating the steel in raw, killing intent.

The wolf’s pupil shrank. It felt the shift in energy.

Opening its maw, a dense sphere of compressed lightning rapidly took shape between its fangs.

"Too late," Seana whispered, her eyes turning icy cold.

She stepped into a low stance and executed three rapid horizontal slashes.

[Technique: Crimson Delight]

Description: flowing three-stage sword art that compresses Blood Qi into razor-sharp crescents. Each successive slash grows stronger than the previous one, making the final strike almost impossible to evade after avoiding the first two.

The wolf do

Three crescent-shaped waves of compressed Blood Qi burst from her blade in immediate succession.

The three-stage sword art compressed her internal energy into razor-sharp arcs, each slash carrying twice the velocity of the one before it.

The wolf dodged the first crescent by throwing its weight left.

It barely ducked beneath the second, the Qi clipping its ear.

The third arc arrived before the beast could reset its balance.

Shhk!

The third crimson crescent tore straight across its chest, the impact blasting the massive wolf five meters back through a brick wall.

The archive shook as masonry rained down.

The wolf dragged itself back up, blood pouring from the gaping chest wound. The lightning around its horn flared to a blinding intensity, expanding outward as it prepared to unleash a desperate, self-destructive explosion.

Seana’s instincts flared. If that discharges down here, the whole floor collapses.

She raised both hands.

Every pool of blood scattered across the stone floor rose like writhing serpents. Under her absolute control, the crimson streams shot forward and hardened into thick, solid chains around the beast.

The blood chains bound its legs, wrapped around its jaws, and locked its horn in place.

Roar!

Silver lightning exploded against the red links, causing the chains to strain and crack.

Seana narrowed her eyes, her knuckles white. She slowly closed her fist.

The blood chains wrapped around the base of the horn tightened with brutal hydraulic pressure.

CRACK!

The black horn was torn clean off the wolf’s forehead.

For a single microsecond, the room went dead silent.

Then—

BOOOOOOM!

The compressed lightning stored within the detached horn detonated like a high-explosive shell.

A heavy shockwave blew through the archive, shattering every remaining pane of glass as white light and blood mist exploded in all directions.

Seana crossed her sword before her face, her boots sliding four feet back across the stone floor before she planted her weight.

[You have slain a Level 3, Tier 2 Silver Horned Wolf.]

[Experience gained: 100 EXP.]

At that exact millisecond, the one-eyed wolf fighting Lothe instinctively twitched its head toward the roar of the explosion.

It was a distraction that lasted less than a tenth of a second.

For a spear master, a tenth of a second was an eternity.

Lothe’s dark eyes flashed. He stepped forward, his weight transferring in a seamless line from his back foot to his shoulders as blazing purple Qi flooded the Inferno Dragon Spear.

[Technique: Blazing Horizon Spear Art]

The black spear thrust forward like a purple dragon tearing through the dust cloud.

Shhk!

The spearhead entered the wolf’s remaining eye socket, drove through the brain, and erupted out the back of its skull in a single, fluid strike.

The beast froze mid-stride.

It stood motionless for a single breath before its legs buckled, crashing heavily onto the shattered stone floor.

[You have slain a Level 3, Tier 2 Silver Horned Wolf.]

[Experience gained: 100 EXP.]

Silence finally reclaimed the ruined upper archives.

Only the sound of their heavy breathing remained.

Lothe snapped his spear back, clearing the blade with a flick of his wrist. With a wave of his hand, all four Silver Horned Wolf carcasses vanished one by one into his Space ring alongside they orbs.

Before they could even catch their breath—

A terrified scream rang out from the lower floor.

Then came another, followed by frantic shouting and the sound of breaking wood echoing from the main library lobby.

Lothe and Seana exchanged a brief look. Without needing words, they gripped their weapons and sprinted toward the door.​