Chapter 389: Cornered
Deep in the Northern Frontier, demonic energy surged like a tide.
The closer Bai Li and the others got to the secret realm of the Zhu Long, the more bizarre and distorted the surroundings became.
On the trunks of the towering ancient trees, fine scale-like patterns emerged. What dripped from the branches and leaves were not dewdrops, but solidified blood-colored crystals. The air was filled with the mixed scent of decay and sulfur. With every step they took, the sound of dry leaves cracking was like the whispered secrets of some ancient creature.
"Princess... these trees..." A Cang, the hornless deer demon, trembled as his hoof sank into a sticky black marsh. Three blood-red eyes suddenly opened in the mud before quickly sinking back down.
Bai Li condensed a thread of ice-blue demonic energy at her fingertips, illuminating the increasingly malformed forest ahead. The branches of those trees began to twist into claw-like shapes, and what seeped from the bark was no longer resin, but dark-red viscous liquid that slowly slid down the trunks, gathering on the ground into tiny streams of blood.
"Stay close to me," she warned in a low voice, more and more ice crystals forming in her silver hair. "Zhu Long's aura is already affecting this land."
Suddenly, a bone-chilling yin wind swept past. Everyone in horror discovered that their own shadows were wriggling on their own, twisting and deforming like living creatures. Even the shadow of the mermaid girl, Qing Dai, extended sharp claws, quietly climbing up her ankle—
"Don't look at the shadows!" Bai Li shouted sharply, throwing out an ice blade that nailed Qing Dai's shadow to the ground. The shadow let out a silent screech and dissipated into black smoke.
A Cang's deer ears twitched continuously. "Princess, I hear... someone is crying..."
Indeed, the faint sobs of a woman could be heard on the wind, now near, now far. But when they looked in the direction of the sound, all they saw was a withered tree hanging with dozens of cocoon-like objects. As the yin wind blew, those "cocoons" swayed slightly, revealing the struggling silhouettes of human forms within.
"Don't look, don't listen, don't think," Bai Li bit her fingertip, drawing a blood talisman on each person's forehead. "Zhu Long's power is clouding our minds."
Just as they were about to pass through the last patch of twisted woodland, a crisp crack of breaking branches suddenly came from behind.
Bai Li spun around sharply. Over a dozen black figures emerged from the miasma—leading them was a wolf demon clad in heavy black iron armor, with a purple crystal bestowed by the Demon King embedded in his forehead.
"Princess," the wolf demon's voice was as cold as iron, "stop running."
"I've set up the Thousand Illusion Maze, yet you could still catch up so quickly. It seems not everyone following me is truly loyal." Bai Li sighed meaningfully.
The wolf demon said coldly, "It's not just the Saint's order, are you going to disobey your father's as well? No matter what, the Emperor is still your father."
"Father's order? Hmph..." Bai Li's pupils suddenly contracted into thin lines: "After he married that wretch, he no longer deserves to be my father."
The wolf demon sighed as he drew his greatsword. "Then don't blame this subordinate—"
Before he could finish, a cold light suddenly attacked from beside Bai Li! The mermaid girl's nails grew three inches long, aiming straight for Bai Li's back.
In the nick of time, Bai Li's figure shifted like a ghost, sidestepping half a step, and struck Qing Dai's chest with a palm blow, sending her crashing to the ground.
"No wonder we were always caught up... it was you, Qing Dai, after all." Bai Li's voice was piercingly cold. A sword of ice condensed at her fingertips, pressing against the mermaid girl's throat. "So it was you leaving traces along the way, reporting our location."
Qing Dai's fish tail flapped weakly on the ground, oozing light-blue blood between her scales. She dared not meet Bai Li's eyes. "Princess... I... had no choice..."
Bai Li's ice sword trembled slightly. She recalled the scene from three years ago when she had saved Qing Dai in a human village—the mermaid girl, bound with ropes, was about to be burned to death by the villagers as a sacrificial offering.
At that time, Qing Dai's eyes had been filled with despair, and most of the scales on her fish tail had been forcibly torn out...
"I saved your life," Bai Li's voice was unusually strained. "Why did you betray me?"
Qing Dai's tears fell like pearls. "They said... if I reported your location... they would release my sister..."
She suddenly grabbed Bai Li's ankle. "Princess, please leave quickly! There are more of them... more behind—"
"Enough!" The wolf demon roared in fury, his great sword cleaving a pitch-black blade of energy.
Bai Li pulled Qing Dai back rapidly. The ground where they had been standing was split by a three-zhang-long gash, from which oozed a foul, black blood.
"Form up!" Bai Li commanded sharply. The remaining four demons immediately formed a circle, backs to each other. She pushed Qing Dai toward one of the demons: "Protect her!"
The wolf demon's subordinates were spreading out in a fan formation.
These pursuers were clearly elite warriors, each pulsing with a strange purple demonic energy—the unique poison art of the new Demon Queen consort.
"Your Highness," the wolf demon's eyes flickered with a hint of pity, "You shouldn't have defied the Holy Mother. Surrender now, and you might still leave with a whole body."
At the wolf demon leader's command, over a dozen elite demon soldiers surged forward simultaneously.
The wolf demon leader's heavy armor flashed with purple patterns as his great sword unleashed a pitch-black blade, cleaving a three-zhang fissure in the ground. Bai Li moved like lightning, ice blades condensing in her palm. They struck against the great sword, bursting into dazzling sparks.
"Protect the Princess!" The hornless deer demon shouted, his single intact antler swelling to block two charging demon soldiers.
A lizard demon's blade took advantage to slash at his front leg, but the mermaid girl Qing Dai swept her fish tail horizontally, raising a wall of water a zhang high to block the strike.
The wolf demon sneered: "Just a worthless creature. When we get back, I'll chop all your sisters into mincemeat to go with my wine."
Qing Dai paled, becoming flustered again, but was cut off by Bai Li's sharp command.
"Back off!"
The four demons immediately retreated half a step, backs firmly together. At the same time, sharp ice spikes instantly formed on the ground.
A leopard demon charged too forcefully, his paw pierced by ice spikes, screaming as he was thrown back by the deer demon.
Seeing this, the wolf demon leader flew into a rage. His purple crystal erupted with blinding light, shattering the ice formation to directly attack Bai Li.
Ice crystals suddenly flashed in Bai Li's silver hair as a frigid barrier materialized out of thin air.
The wolf demon's great sword struck the ice wall, forcing both combatants back three steps.
Bai Li suddenly laughed, a hint of madness in her smile: "Do you know why I brought them to the Zhulong Secret Realm?"
The wolf demon leader had a bad feeling.
But in the next moment, she had already slashed open her palm, spraying blood onto the ground beneath her.
Strangely, those blood beads didn't seep into the earth but hovered in the air, forming an ancient demonic character.
The wolf demon leader's face changed dramatically: "Stop her—!"
But it was too late.
The entire earth suddenly trembled violently, and a long, resonant cry echoed from the distance.
Everyone in horror discovered their shadows were wildly twisting, as if trying to tear free from their bodies.
"Because... even though he no longer deserves to be my father..." Bai Li's silver hair whipped wildly in the wind, "The blood flowing in my veins is still that of the Holy Venerable!"
She slammed her blood-stained palm against the ground. In an instant, the land for a hundred li radius began to writhe like a living creature. The stone platform in the distance—the Thousand Serpent Monument—had all its patterns glowing with crimson light.
The originally static snake reliefs on the monument's surface now all opened their golden eyes.
"No—!" The wolf demon's scream was cut short.
An irresistible suction force erupted from the direction of the Thousand Serpent Monument. The entire space began to twist and collapse.
Trees were uprooted, rocks turned to dust, and whether it was Bai Li's group or the pursuers, all were pulled by this force toward the awakened ancient monument.
At the same time, the serpent patterns on the stone platform rapidly reformed, once again forming a perfect circle.
The space at the center of the circle began to collapse, revealing a rotating, dark red vortex.
Qing Dai desperately grabbed Bai Li's sleeve in the fierce wind: "Princess—"
Bai Li grasped her wrist in return. In the final moment before falling into the blood-red vortex, she leaned close to the mermaid girl's ear and whispered a single sentence.
The next moment, everyone's figures were sucked into the dark red vortex.
The serpent patterns on the Thousand Serpent Monument slowly closed their eyes, and the forest returned to silence.
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