A few moments later, Lordi was sprinting, a phantom between the trees, but a cold sweat sheening his skin not from exertion, but from a dawning, visceral dread.
Slowly, he broke from the treeline and froze, his breath catching in his throat. The world had been amputated.
Before him, the towering, ancient forest—a verdant expanse that had stretched for kilometers—was gone. It had been cleanly severed, as if by the single, indifferent sweep of a god's sword. Thousands of primordial trees now ended in perfect, horrifically smooth cross-sections, their innards revealed in pale, concentric rings. They stood like a vast field of stumps, a graveyard of giants, the earth around them blanketed in a fine, settling dust that was all that remained of their canopies.
His gaze, helpless, was dragged upward to the horizon, to the twin sentinels that had named this place. The left peak of the twin mountains was simply… absent. Where a majestic summit should have pierced the clouds, there was only a brutal, raw scar of exposed rock and a colossal, sliding fan of rubble. Its brother, the right peak, still stood, but it was a mutilated thing. Hundreds of deep, precise gashes—each the size of a canyon—were gouged into its face. They were not the work of erosion or avalanche, but unmistakably the scars of sword strikes, as if a blade the length of the sky had raked its edge down the mountain in a fit of divine rage.
And in the valley between them, where the Hanz Stronghold had nestled, there was only a gaping maw of splintered wood and shattered foundation. The expensive, Dao Array warded structures had been utterly unmade, pulverized into kindling.
He moved with urgency, quickly circling around the mountain woods and beginning a cautious ascent up a steep, scree-littered mountain slope.
But his momentum was shattered when he crested a small ridge and stopped in his tracks so abruptly that his boots skidded on the loose gravel, his entire body freezing solid, utterly stunned by the impossible sight that dominated the landscape before him. There, rooted with ancient, terrifying permanence amidst the rubble of the mountain rocks, stood the vast, towering form of an evil tree, the Souleater Kodama.
His heart immediately hammered a frantic drum of pure, visceral horror against his ribs, a primal alarm screaming at him to flee. His fingers, moving on instinct, clenched like a vice around the precious Hundred Miles Escape Dao Fulu in his palm, ready to activate the escape artifact on the spot and abandon all his plans in the face of such certain, monstrous death.
Yet, the estimated, inevitable deadly attack did not come. The seconds stretched into an eternity of held breath, and the huge, evil tree stood utterly and completely still, its once overwhelming and sinister aura—a palpable force that had once choked the very air—now extinguished. It possessed no more presence or threat than a common, inanimate timber; it seemed, for all the world, to be just… a massive tree.
After a long, tense moment stretched thin by terror, Lordi's rational mind began to warily reassert itself over his instincts. Needing empirical proof, Lordi bent down, never taking his eyes off the colossal form, and scooped up a heavy, jagged stone from near his boots. With a grunt of effort, he hurled it with precision at the giant tree's thick, gnarled trunk, bracing for any sign of reaction.
The result was a dull, hollow thump that echoed faintly in the silent basin. A chunk of the tree's bark splintered away under the impact, tumbling to the ground and revealing not the pulsating, sap-filled flesh he expected, but only dry, desiccated, and lifeless wood beneath. There was no reaction, no shudder of pain, no roar of anger. The Kodama seemed truly dead, the tree itself completely lifeless, its bark dry and cracked like a long-fallen log.
"What? Dead?" he whispered, the words a gust of disbelief in the quiet air. A powerful surge of relief, so potent it made his knees feel weak, washed over him, the feeling of surviving a catastrophic disaster he had not even known he faced.
With caution still dictating his every move, he carefully descended the steep slope and began to circle the big, inert tree in a wide, observant arc, every sense stretched to its limit for any flicker of residual malice. Finding none, the relief solidified into certainty, and he turned, dashing away with renewed purpose toward the final leg of his journey, ascending the vast, unstable mound of ruins that was all that remained of the Twin Peak Hill's left peak.
After traversing several small, treacherous slopes and bypassing a dozen massive landslides of collapsing rock and earth, Lordi finally reached his destination.
There, nearby where the Hanz Clan Ancestral Shrine had once stood as a pillar of spiritual tradition, now reduced to a foundation of scattered rubble, three bodies were spotted lying calmly amidst the great wreckage.
"So, the Ju-On was the victor after all," Lordi concluded silently, the evidence before his eyes leaving no room for other interpretation. A complex, cold feeling passed through him.
Driven by curiosity and a cultivator's pragmatism, he crouched down to carefully examine the three corpses, starting with Donovan Valdez. The Mister First Dominator's eyes were frozen wide open, his entire sect robe completely saturated and stiffened with his own dark, dried blood, as if he had borne witness to something truly unspeakable in his final moments. As Lordi leaned closer, he discovered the source of the gore: Donovan's chest cavity had been violently pierced by what must have been an impossibly sharp weapon, the wound so precise and destructive that his heart was conspicuously absent from within the gruesome cavity.
Emma's corpse presented a scene of even greater and more bizarre horror. The beautiful woman's body lay shattered not like flesh and bone, but like a fallen wax figure exposed to tremendous heat, cleanly split in two from the very crown of her head down through her abdomen. This horrific, perfect bisection was made all the more unnatural by the complete absence of any blood; her skin, muscles, and internal organs were all uniformly shriveled and withered, possessing the desiccated, brittle quality of a mummy, as if every drop of life-giving fluid had been instantaneously sucked from her body. This gruesome, bloodless death was chillingly familiar, instantly reminding Lordi of Shirley Quinn, who had been killed and drained in a similar fashion by the sentient malice of the Sword of Red Run.
Lastly, Lordi turned to the body of Krogh Hanz, a form he could now barely recognize. The powerful cultivator's body seemed to have been utterly drained of its vibrant life force; the male corpse was so profoundly aged it appeared almost inhuman, its skin hanging in wrinkled, leathery folds and covered in dark age spots. This was a stark contrast to the formidable figure Lordi had glimpsed in the ancient well, who possessed a full head of long, black hair and the vigorous appearance of a man in his late twenties. Now, the dead man's hair was a dry, brittle white. He bore several clearly fatal wounds, some piercing directly through vital organs, yet the skin around these injuries was strangely cauterized, seemingly scorched by the stubborn swordsman's own high-temperature spiritual energy in a futile, final attempt to stem the massive bleeding. His face remained vivid in death, eyes still wide open, his forehead heavy with deep wrinkles and his brow furrowed in an expression of permanent, profound shock, as if he had encountered something in his final moment that defied all belief and understanding.
Wasting no more time on reflection, Lordi moved quickly. He returned to Donovan first and retrieved the squad captain's storage pouch, then moved to Emma's corpse. As he pried the latter pouch from the body's stiffened, cold grasp, he noticed that Emma's other hand was clenched into a tight, stubborn fist, as if guarding a final secret even in death.
It took considerable effort for Lordi to break the powerful rigor mortis and pry open her stiffened, waxen fingers. Inside, nestled against her pale palm, was a single piece of a jade slip, its surface intricately carved with esoteric symbols and pulsing with a profound, unique energy that felt both ancient and immense.
Acting on instinct, Lordi tapped the jade slip against his forehead, channeling a thread of his spirit sense into it. A quick, overwhelming glance at the contents flooding his mind confirmed its staggering identity—the Ju-On Dao Pillar.
"Holy shit?!" The exclamation was torn from him, a whisper of pure awe. This was no simple technique; it was a Cosmic Path Foundation Establishment Method, a legendary key to a higher realm of power, a treasure that countless sects talents would go to war to possess. Without a second thought, he stored it securely deep within his own robes.
Buoyed by the unexpected joy of his monumental discovery, Lordi turned his attention at last to Krogh's withered corpse, which lay in a state of final repose amidst the ruins of its legacy. His searching gaze quickly fell upon a length of crimson steel lying discarded near the body. The blade, once a vessel of unimaginable terror, was now dull and inert, its surface uniformly coated in a fine, grey dust that had settled from the collapsed structures around them, making it appear no more remarkable than a common artifact forgotten in a long-abandoned attic.
He reached out and snatched the blade up carefully, his fingers tracing its length as he examined it with a critical, discerning eye. There was no mistaking its identity—this was indeed the fabled Sword of Red Run, the very instrument that had hunted him and haunted his every step for hours. Yet its current state defied all logic. The Ju-On, having triumphed in the ultimate life-and-death Dao Path ascension struggle, might have had no interest in mundane wealth, but how could it possibly abandon the very symbol of its slaughtered original's strength, a weapon of such profound and legendary power? Driven by a mix of caution and burgeoning hope, he reached inward, channeling a wisp of his own newly mastered Sword Intent and directing it toward the cold steel in his hand. The blade remained utterly inert and unresponsive, a completely passive piece of metal. There was no answering hum of power, no flicker of recognition; the sword was an empty husk, its malevolent essence having departed alongside Krogh's final breath.
"The Sword of Red Run was Krogh Hanz's Soulbound Natal Flying Sword," he mused, the pieces clicking into place with the force of revelation. His understanding dawned fully: such a weapon's existence was inextricably tied to its master's own life force and cultivating soul. With the master's soul utterly extinguished in the climactic struggle, the sword-born spirit, a consciousness forged and sustained by that bond, simply could not endure its own separate existence and had been snuffed out. He hefted the lifeless metal in his hand, feeling its considerable weight. "But the base materials used to forge this artifact are still peerless."
The entire left peak range was a tomb of stone and splintered wood, but for a moment, Lordi carved out a small sanctuary within it. He cleared a space from the landslide's ruin, his movements methodical, a ritual of respect in a place that had known only violence.
With the Sword of Red Run, he carved three graves from the unyielding earth. The task was slow, the scrape of metal on stone a grim dirgy. He laid them to rest with a somber care: Krogh Hanz, the genius sword master; Donovan Valdez, the Mister First Dominator; and Emma Dawson. Once the soil was packed over them, a final, intimate weight, he planted the Sword of Red Run upright before Krogh's mound, a silent, steel-headed stele.
He bowed, the gesture deep and prolonged. "Sword Master and his sword to the end," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper against the vast silence. "A final service for your master. Keep him company here. Rest in peace with him."
He then moved to Donovan's grave and knelt, the hard earth cool against his knees. From his storage pouch, he produced a flask of local sake, liberated from the Hanz clan treasury. He broke the seal and poured the clear liquid slowly onto the fresh-turned soil, a traditional libation for a departed soul. "Farewell, Senior Brother Valdez." The history between them was a tapestry of conflict, a near-fatal blow from Donovan forever etched in memory. Yet, Lordi's respect remained, a grudging acknowledgment of the man's capable leadership and the sharp intelligence that had, in the end, given them all a fighting chance. It was Donovan's true nature, his profound sense of responsibility for his squad, that had ultimately moved Lordi, a survivalist who trusted few. In another life, if both of them survived this and back at the Abyss Pit Sect, they might have even become friends.
Lastly, he stood before the smallest mound, his posture heavy. "My sincere apologies, Senior Sister Dawson," he offered, the words a soft sigh laden with regret. "Senior Brother Luther's body was lost. I cannot grant you two a shared burial. May you reunite with your beloved beyond." The weight of their shared perils pressed upon him, a specific, sharp guilt for the role the AllFullOS system—and his own subsequent, necessary ruthlessness—had played in her fate. To survive this devil's domain was to walk a path stained with such compromises.
With the formalities observed and his respects paid, the moment of pure sentiment passed. Lordi gathered Krogh's storage sack and belt. Then, he stretched out his hand. With a subtle channeling of Sword Intent, the air hummed. The Sword of Red Run shuddered in the earth where it stood vigil, then tore free from Krogh's grave, flying in a smooth arc to slap firmly into his waiting grasp.
"You've accompanied your master," he whispered to the blade, his tone now firm, resolved. "It is time for us to take our leave."
The dead were at peace. The living had a demonic world of hatred and malice to survive.