As the dust settled, Lang Tian stood frozen, his soul drained by the spectacle before him.
"Hmph? Little mutt, is that all you've got?"
At the heart of the boundary between life and death, Shangguan Yue Ling stood resolute. Beneath the colossal claws and gnashing fangs of the Fourth-Rank Demonic Wolf, she remained unyielding and unshaken.
She had caught the full force of the beast's earth-shattering attack… with a single hand.
"One hand?!"
Langtian's mind reeled, his spirit shaken to its core. His eyes widened, his entire body trembling with disbelief.
"Impossible!" he gasped, drawing in a frigid breath, his voice faltering.
Then, her voice dropped, cold as the wind sweeping through a valley of death:
"My turn."
She lowered her stance, and in that instant, the world itself seemed to shift.
Her expression twisted, her eyes igniting with a crimson blaze akin to blood fire.
Her lips curled, revealing sharp, beast-like fangs.
As she raised her other hand, her twin sabers erupted into flames, not merely scarlet fire, but also crackling red lightning, roaring as if to tear the heavens asunder.
Langtian's breath caught, as the horrifying truth dawned upon him.
'Wait… These flames, this lightning… they aren't ordinary spiritual energy, nor are they effects from her weapons!
They… carry the essence of demonic aura!
Could it be… like a Fourth Rank beast… Senior Sister Shangguan… somehow, at some point, has mastered her own Demonic Flames?!'
And then, what came next was the most terrifying display of raw power Langtian had ever witnessed.
"Little Junior Brother… let me show you something new." Yue Ling smirked, her smile brimming with arrogance.
She shoved the Demonic Wolf back, the massive beast staggering under the overwhelming weight of her presence, as if heaven and earth themselves bowed before her.
Then she advanced, her twin sabers ablaze, flames and lightning coiling around their edges like dragons in flight.
"Demonic Jiao Blade Art: Crimson Serpent Shatters the Heavens!"
With a thunderous cry, her sabers carved radiant arcs through the air, leaving trails of blinding fire and lightning in their wake.
The mist was rent asunder, spiritual energy surging like a tidal wave, as two colossal phantoms of Jiao dragons materialized behind her. Their scaled bodies shimmered with crimson flames and crackling electric currents, their blood-red eyes locking onto the wolf with murderous intent.
Yue Ling raised her sabers high, her eyes blazing like twin suns.
"Second move…"
The Demonic Wolf lunged once more!
Yue Ling brought her sabers down in a devastating dual slash.
"CRIMSON RAGING TAIL SLASH!"
SHHHHRRRRAAAA—KRAKOOOM!
The tails of the spectral Jiao dragons lashed out, divine yet frenzied, surging forward with a serpentine shriek, cleaving through the Demonic Wolf's body in a spiraling vortex of flame and thunder!
The beast didn't even have time to howl.
Its body was torn apart in an instant, shredded by the twin divine blade qi into steaming, quivering fragments.
A bloodstorm erupted.
A torrent of crimson blood sprayed from the beast's sundered flesh, fanning out into the sky in a vast arc. The heavens, the stones, and even Yue Ling herself were drenched in scarlet.
Chunks of the Demonic Wolf's corpse crashed around her, sizzling with residual energy. Its head fell last, rolling once before coming to a halt, its fiery eyes wide with terror, slowly fading into stunned silence.
And then, the blood rain descended.
Thick, heavy droplets splattered across the cracked stone, dripping from the blades Yue Ling still held pointed downward.
She stood motionless, her sabers fixed in their stance, the final flickers of flame dancing along their edges, bathed in the gruesome deluge of Demonic Wolf blood.
Not a single word followed.
Only silence.
And death.
_______________________________
The blood rain gradually ceased.
Yue Ling stood motionless in place, her entire body, from head to toe, drenched in crimson, her robes soaked with the creature's blood. Her gaze was cold, immersed in the eerie stillness that followed the slaughter.
As for Lang Tian, he could only stare at her, dumbfounded, frozen stiff, unable to utter a single word.
He had even forgotten how to breathe, let alone speak.
For what he had just witnessed… surpassed the comprehension of mere mortals.
One strike.
Two slashes of her blades, and a Fourth Rank Demonic Beast was torn asunder like rotten wood, without even a chance to utter its final cry.
Yue Ling tilted her head slightly, turning to look at him. A wide smile spread across her lips, revealing teeth as white as pearl. Her crimson eyes still glowed with an inner fire, a flicker of suppressed killing intent flashing for a moment… before slowly fading.
"I told you, didn't I?" she said with a light laugh, her voice like a fleeting breeze. "I'm very strong."
From the corners of her mouth, two small fangs peeked out, slightly longer than normal.
Lang Tian shuddered, his voice escaping as a faint whisper, like the hiss of wind.
"S-Senior Sister… h-how… how did you…"
Yue Ling stepped toward him, lowering her blood-stained twin sabers. Her smile deepened.
"Now then…" she said slowly, her eyes never leaving his, "if I told you that there's a way to restore your Golden Core… would you like to hear it?"