Chapter 14
Liang Chen dismissed the overlay with a blink, the All-Seeing Eye retracting from his vision.
In front of him, more disciples were dying. One was grabbed by a wooden hound and ripped apart midair like paper, blood raining down on the battlefield. Another disciple screamed as thorn-encrusted vines burst from the ground and dragged her underground, the earth swallowing her whole.
Yu Miaoran fought like a crazed woman. Liang Chen had never thought that she'd be a fighter, but here she was slicing through a hound like it was nothing. Her two body guards fought valiantly behind her.
The Verdant Hand raised its arms in the distance. Green flames danced in his palms. More of the Wooden Barbarians surged from the trees, as if the forest had given birth to them.
"Yu Miaoran!" Liang Chen bellowed.
She appeared beside him, wielding a bloodied longsword that crackled with ice. A piece of bark jutted out of her shoulder, but it didn't seem to be hurting her. "Already counted twenty of them. They're splitting into units and they are trying to flank us."
"We kill the caster," Liang Chen said. "It's the only way this ends."
"You want to kill that thing?" She pointed toward the glowing Verdant Hand, who now raised its hand and chanted in a guttural language that made the trees groan. "You'll get ripped apart."
"I'm not asking for permission. I carve paths on my own accord remember"
Liang Chen's words struck her. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated for a few moments.
"Fine," she said with a sigh. "Just don't get yourself killed"
Liang Chen smirked. "I can't make any promises. But I'll try my best"
And then he vanished.
A nearby barbarian attempted to behead Yu Miaoran. A blast of blood hit the barbarian square in the head and it fell on its knees. Liang Chen appeared behind it, his saber soaking with blood.
"Now you owe me one" Liang Chen said with a smile and dashed towards the main fight.
Now Yu Miaoran's face was bright red. Had that lowly peasant just saved her life again, he did it better than many princes in her entire years of living.
Meanwhile, Liang Chen moved like a demon. He sliced at barbarians and the blood would continue to gush forward, entering Liang Chen. He had now officially gained the second latent skill of his Crimson Bone Blooming Scripture. The first latent skill allowed him to refine qi by forming flowers in his marrow, bone and blood.
He had mastered it to a reasonable extent, now he gained qi from the blood of his enemies.
Each drop of blood now held value for Liang Chen.
He didn't need to activate the scripture anymore. The marrow flowers he had once painstakingly cultivated now absorbed the blood of his fallen enemies.
He cut a barbarian clean through the chest. The sap-blood exploded, and before it could hit the ground, he absorbed it with a flick of his finger. Another blast of energy surged through him.
"If I continue like this, I'll have my first breakthrough by the end of this night"
He smiled. He was really having fun, even as people died beside him.
From the ridge, the Verdant Hand watched him silently.
The antlered being paused mid-chant, staring at Liang Chen.
It raised both hands.
Roots erupted from the trees like volcanoes. There were dozens of them. Some of them were as thick as tree trunks, while others were thorned like spears. They shot out toward Liang Chen like missiles, moving in curved, unnatural spirals.
Liang Chen's eyes narrowed.
"System," he hissed, "give me a route through that mess."
[Route Generation: Initiated]
[Objective: Slay the Verdant Hand]
[Suggested Path: Southwest Flank → Elevation Ridge → Tree Hop Maneuver → Direct Confrontation]
[Estimated Survival Rate: 18%]
"Good enough"
He dashed left.
A barbarian leapt at him with a club the size of a horse. Liang Chen dropped low, letting it swing over his head, then drove his saber upward in a reverse grip, straight through the thing's chin and out the top of its head.
More sap. More blood. All absorbed by him.
He exhaled sharply. "Come on, come on…"
His eyes found the ridge. Trees jutted out from the earth like knives from the sloped ground, The roots formed a perfect climbing path. The Verdant Hand stood tall at the summit, the spell in its hands growing brighter and larger.
That's when a vine wrapped around his leg.
Liang Chen hissed in pain as he was dragged backward, slamming into a tree trunk. A second vine snared his left arm.
'Not today' he thought.
He slashed at the vine holding his arm, then he continued his approach towards the ridge.
He did a flip between two incoming roots, he slid under the third, and used the fourth root as a springboard to launch himself into the air.
He landed in the upper canopy of a thick pine tree, then leaped to a higher branch, his eyes never straying far from the antlered priest.
The Verdant Hand began chanting again.
The air trembled, the wind whipped wildly, Liang Chen's hair getting in his face.
Above it all, a dark green rune spun in the air, large enough to cover the moon.
[System Notification]
Enemy Signature: Verdant Hand
Combat Level: [Peak Qi Condensation]
Status: Casting High-Rank Ritual (Nature's Judgment: Tier 4 Binding Curse: Once this spell is completed, the forest swallows anything in a 200m radius)
New Objective: Interrupt the Ritual Within 45 Seconds or suffer full battlefield-wide curse affliction.
"Forty-five seconds?" Liang Chen snarled, crouching low on the branch, the wind whipping his hair towards his face. "Plenty of time to paint the trees with his insides."
Then he launched forward.
[Skill Activated: Sanguine Traverse]
A flash of red burst beneath the soles of his boots. The blood-slicked bark turned frictionless. He slid from tree to tree, so fast the air howled behind him.
Below, the barbarians howled in frustration, chasing him with roots and spears.
The Verdant Hand noticed. The ritual faltered for a moment, the rune flickered.
It raised a hand and sent a swarm of blood-bark wasps spiraling upward, each the size of a fist, their stingers glowing with venom.
Liang Chen clicked his tongue. "System, defense options? NOW!"
[Suggested Skill: Bone Wall Bloom – Marrow Core Bloom Required. Qi Cost: 70%]
[Alternate: Blood Shear Pulse – Radial burst attack, offensive only.]
"I'm not wasting a bloom on bugs."
He stabbed his saber into the next tree, dragging it in an arc.
[Skill Activated: Blood Shear Pulse]
A shockwave of blood exploded from him in a 6-meter radius.
The wasps were pulverized and turned to dust. Blood and green ichor rained down.
He didn't stop.
The next second, Liang Chen reached the ridge right beneath the Verdant Hand.
The caster turned. Its eyes were hollow green pits, and in its right hand it now wielded a staff made of petrified elf-bone wrapped in bark. It pointed the staff at Liang Chen and roared.
"𐰢𐰤𐰆 𐰈𐰓𐰆𐰑𐰲!"
Roots exploded from the ground and impaled the trees behind Liang Chen. He leaped to the side to dodge, but one stabbed straight through his side.
"—KHK!"
Liang Chen gasped. Blood sprayed from his lips. A blinding pain enveloped him.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he yelled, the scream coming from the depths of his throat.
[Warning: Punctured Liver]
[Status: Major Bleeding, -5.3 HP/sec]
[Muscle tear in the right flank. Reduced mobility.]
He ripped himself free with a scream and rolled down the hill, painting the grass red.
The Verdant Hand stepped forward, vines wrapping around its legs like armor, its staff glowing brighter with a sickly green glow.
Liang Chen wiped blood from his mouth and grinned.
"First blood's yours. I'm stealing the rest."
They clashed.
The timer read 20 more seconds. Yet it felt like an eternity.
The staff struck downward. Liang Chen parried with his saber, but the impact was like getting hit by a boulder. His shoulder cracked. He screamed, his left arm going numb.
He retaliated by driving his knee into the creature's chest. Bones shattered under the force of Liang Chen's knee, but the Verdant Hand didn't feel pain.
It wrapped a vine around his throat. He could feel the thorns impaling his neck as blood gushed out of his neck from the multiple small cuts on his neck. Then the Verdant hand hurled him like a ragdoll.
Liang Chen slammed into a boulder, coughing blood and gasping for air. His ribs shifted. A bone stuck out of his chest. It hurt to breathe now. His vision was getting blurry and he was feeling nauseous.
"System…" he wheezed.
[Suggestion: Initiate Qi Bloom Repair?]
[Blood Reserve: 36%]
[Warning: May not survive second impact.]
"Fuck it then. Do it."
His body ignited like a flame from within. The marrow flowers he'd cultivated in his sea of consciousness released their stored qi in a bloom of blinding pain, mending bones, forcing ribs back into place, fusing tissue through blood alone. He felt like his entire body was being broken and remade over and over again.
He staggered back to his feet, saber clutched tight.
"Round two, bastard."
The timer now read 10 seconds.
He charged.
The Verdant Hand swung wide, but Liang ducked under the staff, rolled, and sliced at its leg.
[Skill Activated: Blooming Fang]
A crimson aura surrounded his saber, augmenting it. The strike severed the lower limb. The Verdant Hand stumbled.
Liang Chen grabbed its antlers, swung himself upward, and brought his blade down, straight into its collarbone.
Sap and blood exploded in tandem. The creature shrieked. It retaliated by stabbing its thorned fingers straight into Liang Chen's abdomen.
"AAAGH—!"
[Critical Damage Taken]
[Intestine Punctured. -5.1 HP/sec. Internal bleeding is increasing. Host will not survive for long]
Liang Chen didn't fall.
Instead, he grinned. A maniacal grin that belonged to somebody on the verge of death and insanity.
"You forgot something…" he whispered into the creature's bark-skull.
"I thrive on blood."
[Skill Activated: Crimson Root Inversion – Forbidden Marrow Draw]
He sucked the blood and essence directly from the Verdant Hand's arm. Its limb withered in seconds. Liang Chen's wounds sealed partially. His eyes turned deeper red. Veins glowed like magma.
The Verdant Hand howled.
Liang Chen jumped back, blood painting a crimson sigil in the air behind him.
"You started this with a ritual," he said.
"I'll finish it with a curse."
[Blood Scripture – Bone Bloom Technique: Deathroot Benediction]
He pointed the saber forward. The blood-sigil detonated.
Dozens of blood blossoms exploded from beneath the Verdant Hand's feet, impaling it from below with thorned crimson stalks.
The creature shrieked then its chest burst open, flowers erupting from within.
It stumbled.
And Liang Chen limped forward, body mangled, one lung collapsed, saber dragging.
"You fought well," he rasped. "Now die fertilizing my growth."
With a final grunt, he plunged his saber through the Verdant Hand's skull.
The antlers cracked. The light in its eyes dimmed. It was dead.
[System Notification]
Boss Defeated: Verdant Hand of the Forest God
XP Gained: 500
Level increase: Level 8→ Level 12
Essence Qi Gained: 1,600
Skill Mutation: Crimson Root Inversion → Crimson Devourer Vein (Passive)
Status: Critical. Medical attention required within 15 minutes.
Liang Chen collapsed to his knees. His saber fell from his hand. The battlefield went quiet. The barbarians shrieked, then scattered like ash as the Verdant Hand's death severed their link to the spell.
The forest went still.
Behind him, Yu Miaoran ran over, sword drawn…
Only to stop, stunned by the carnage. The hill was literally drenched in blood, and at its center…
Liang Chen knelt there bathed in blood, wounds wide open, chest barely rising. But he was smiling like a mad man.
She dropped beside him and grabbed his shoulder.
"You stupid, brilliant bastard," she whispered.
He chuckled weakly. "Still breathing. That counts as a win… right?"
Then he blacked out.