CHAPTER 266: FALL OF THE LIVING DEAD

Blood pooled in my throat with the bitter taste of iron, sticky and dense. My head pounded as if a club had repeatedly hit me. This led to my vision blurring as the warm liquid leaked from the corner of my lips.

The tendrils slid free with a wet, tearing rip, leaving my chest and gut hollow, the air whistling faintly through the holes. My grip loosened, and the sword slipped from my hand, clanging against the ground as I floated away.

I struggled to breathe as pain lanced through my body and flew towards the tower walls, and the sky twisted into a strange, dark shape with a blood moon.

Somewhere inside the chaos of battle, I heard someone call out to me.

"John!"

Roulan called out to me in a sharp, urgent voice as she flung a stage two, bashed a stage three while dashing towards me in a frenzy.

Closer, at the edge of the wall. Tang Wei’s eyes widened as her mouth dropped. The realisation of what had happened seemed to come to her as she shouted at me.

"Get up!"

My body spun in the air as I watched them, pale-faced and stunned.

I wanted to answer, but only a wet rasp followed.

Through the haze, Lao’s warped frame swayed ever closer, a new bladed arm glinting under the flames. His yellow eyes locked onto me, and that distorted smile filled with sharp, twisted teeth only served as nightmare fuel.

He lifted the blade, just a single slash, and I would die... Move! No matter how desperately I screamed for my body to move. The dull ache and broken bones refused to listen to my call; instead, death loomed.

***

Mu Qinglan POV

***

Ever since we came to the base, John has been too difficult to find. I wanted to spend more time with him to talk to him about the changes I’ve felt. From the moment he kissed me, to the night we first shared our bodies...

My blade tore through the filthy Brutes who tried to get in the way, points and experience flowing into him with each death.

"John..." I called his name subconsciously, although it was stupid and needy. I knew that this was just how I felt. I loved him.

Whenever we spoke, or touched... something inside me continuously changed as if evolving.

The desire to be with him was growing stronger and stronger, like a balloon filled enough to burst, and yet I still couldn’t turn away.

"John!"

Orders kept me away to protect the north and west wall. Because he asked me to do my best... I desperately pushed myself until my legs began to scream, throbbing with a deep pain as if someone had gouged my flesh with a long knife.

"John?"

This time, my voice cracked; it wasn’t the cry of a soldier on the wall. It was a woman watching the man she loved impaled by sharp black tendrils and tossed through the air like a dirty rag.

The crowd of undead between us blurred into meaningless shapes. My mind stopped counting kills, stopped hearing the orders coming through the comms. All I could see was John bleeding and limp, about to be erased from this world.

Something inside me snapped.

An icy cold poured through my body, filled my veins as the world lost all colour, only John and the bastard above him illuminated in bright light... one dark purple, the other a mixture of countless colours.

The air became sweet, tasting of snow and winter’s frost.

My heartbeat slowed to a single, booming drum, as the entire world transformed, it almost seemed like a vision of an Endless Night.

"I’m coming."

Frost rippled from my boots in jagged patches of ice, snapping across the stone and crawling over corpses like a hungry predator. I grasped Endless Night even tighter, the leather creaking as my fingers turned white.

I left my position.

The horde was no longer an obstacle; it was tofu, and I was a blade.

Brutes, Hunters, Blades, none of them mattered. The edge found them before their claws could even rise. Heads rolled, limbs spun through the air, steam rising as their flesh froze and shattered mid-fall.

That monster loomed above my beloved, his disgusting figure and curved blade already in motion, a sweeping arc meant to split John from head to crotch. My abdomen clenched, all the muscles in my legs and body tightened as I shot towards them with a violent burst of speed.

I was fast.

Fast enough to save him!

Clang!

Endless Night clashed with mutated bone, sending a snap of frost and shadow pluming into the air. My body trembled from the force as a vibration shot through me.

But I held my ground, bit my lip to ignore the pain—my glare locked on the ugly monster standing before me. "Die." My twisted voice leaked... emotions turned to words.

The bone blade shuddered under my guard, grinding against Endless Night like it was alive. Sparks of ice scattered in the air, freezing anything they touched, even the blood raining from above turned to brittle crystals before it hit the ground.

Lao’s lips twisted in something between a grin and a snarl.

He whipped me with those filthy tendrils, snapping like a circus tamer. I pivoted sharply, desperately moving as two snapped beside my face before parrying the last.

My ice shot down the tenril, coating it in an icy blue seal, freezing the barb as it shattered from the impact, leaving a ragged stump that leaked steaming black ichor. And yet he didn’t even flinch.

"Freak!"

I kicked his chest, the beast staggering back before carving a diagonal sweep, fast enough to shear the heads from two Hunters that came too close. I met it with my full weight, Endless Night howling as I channelled more qi into it. A shriek filled the air after our collision, shards of frozen flesh blasting outwards like shrapnel.

We broke apart, only to close again.

My body moved on instinct now — a blur of shadow and frost, weaving in and out of his massive reach. I slashed his side, felt the blade bite deep, only for a mass of tendrils to erupt from the wound and lash at my legs.

Ice coated the ground beneath me as I vaulted backwards, catching myself on the wall’s lip before pushing forward again. I spun Endless Night in a tight arc, the blade’s edge flashing black and blue as I severed two of his tendrils at once.

He roared, the sound distorted like white noise and lunged. The sheer force of his charge cracked the earth beneath, forming deep ravines. His mantis blade blurred into a flash of light as he used a feint before reversing upward towards my throat.

I pulled back, the edge skimming the frozen strands of my white hair, and twisted Endless Night before stabbing into his abdomen.

"Fall!"

The steel grated against something hard as sparks flickered, but I poured more and more qi into the strike, freezing the tissue around it solid. Lao’s torso stiffened, joints locked in place for a moment as I took advantage.

I twisted the blade and tore it free with a spray of black gore.

Before he could recover, I pivoted on my heel and carved across his right shoulder, severing the joint. His arm, the mantis blade, dropped with a heavy thud, twitching like it was still trying to strike.

Clang!

His second-bladed limb came next, but Endless Night met it mid-swing. The collision splintered the bone, sending jagged fragments spinning into the air.

We stood there, chests heaving, steam pouring from our bodies in the cold. My legs trembled from the sheer drain of qi, and blood seeped from a dozen cuts along my arms and ribs. His state looked horrible, ichor dripping from the stumps where his weapons had been.

No longer regenerating.

That’s when Lao dropped to his knees.

I’d won the exchange, but I could feel that this wasn’t over.

"John..."

Even if it was foolish, I couldn’t deny my heart or desires, and so I staggered towards him. With each step, Endless Night hummed in my grasp. Slumped on the floor, with his head leaning to the side, John wasn’t conscious.

I looked back, but Lao’s body remained idle, the black ichor still bubbling as he regenerated. My hands brushed the messy hair from John’s face when I noticed his eyes began to flutter and snap open.

"Lan-er?"

My heart raced the moment I heard him calling for me. I cupped his cheeks and wiped the blood away, smearing it across his cheeks.

"I’m here, John, stay with me."

The frost coating my fingers melted instantly upon touching his searing hot skin.

"You’re not dying here. Not while I still breathe."

"Who’s dying..."

His eyes opened with a flutter and focused on me. His irritatingly handsome smile tugged at my heart before another fit of coughing sprayed flecks of red over my gloves.

"Get some rest," I tried to comfort him, sliding away and grasping Endless Night.

"I’ll kill him. So just stay here and recover."

I heard the disgusting sound of Lao’s body transforming, the filthy squelch made my stomach churn, and when I turned around and caught a glimpse of it, it made me want to vomit.

His abdomen and limbs swelled like an abomination as the last remaining human visage melted away, and a monstrous silhouette replaced him.