CHAPTER 267: THE ENDLESS NIGHT

Mu Qinglan POV

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Twisted limbs, black ichor pouring from the bulging muscles filled with swollen black veins the size of a grown man’s wrist. Each one throbbing and convulsing independently from the other as if thousands of tiny hearts beat one after the other.

My hands slipped on Endless Night’s hilt, blood, sweat... I didn’t care.

This thing wasn’t a zombie anymore.

It was something else.

John’s breathing lingered in my ears, a shallow, stubborn rhythm.

Badum-Badum... Badum-Badum.

His heartbeat grounded my turbulent emotions, kept me from drowning in the horror towering before us.

The monster’s body is like a mixture of snakes wrapped together, forming the shape of a human, with two large, black blades—their edges shimmering in the night with a glint of moonlight.

"Freak..." I hissed under my breath.

The temperature dropped with my rising will to fight. My skin prickled as ice surged through my meridians in a slow yet erratic flow.

A storm was building inside me.

I planted my boots, feeling the frost gather beneath the soles, and let out a long, controlled breath.

"Come, then." I lifted Endless Night to meet the darkness. "Let’s see what you’re made of!"

Lao’s yellow eyes narrowed. His Giant spheres, nothing like a human, stirred. Was it hunger, maybe recognition? A bottomless presence, like an ancient beast from the mysterious stories you read as a child.

He shifted forward with sickening movements, each step twisting and turning as the foul energy and rotten scent wrapped around him, as if rejecting the world itself.

The cold wind bit at my cheeks, growing colder as my breath fogged in the air. Snowflakes of pure ice qi swirling from nowhere.

Endless Night trembled once, vibrating as if sensing the danger.

I couldn’t wait any longer!

The instant my foot shifted, Lao moved.

Without so much as a sound, he attacked in a blur of black and silver light.

The first blade scythed through the air where my head had been, the pressure of its passage biting into my cheek like a razor. I dropped low, Endless Night flashing upward, sparks and frost bursting as my edge caught his second strike.

The impact rattled my bones.

Lao didn’t retreat. His other arm... well, if you could still call it that, hooked around in a murderous arc. I circled away, ice rippling across the wall beneath me, my body sliding back out of range.

With overwhelming strength, even the wind from his strike split my cheeks; not even the qi reinforcing my body and arms helped... He fought like a predator, pressing, trapping and severing—every swing aimed to either take my head or disable my movement.

"Too slow," I hissed, twisting past his guard. My blade swept along the inside of his elbow joint, frost blooming across his warped sinew.

The flesh cracked, and with a low groan, Lao staggered back a half-step.

I chased my advantage, Endless Night gleaming with a streak of darkness, slashing three times in rapid succession, shoulder to ribs, to thigh in a graceful arc, each cut leaving a jagged trail of frostbite in its wake. Steam filled the air as my ice clashed with his disgusting, corrupted qi.

But Lao smiled...

With a vicious diagonal slash, his right blade whistled, barely able to catch it, my blade recoiled with a clang. Then he snapped forward like a serpent, using his left blade to cut through my shoulder and fling me into the wall.

My spine smashed the wall, stone crushing my spine, which forced the air from my lungs. I dropped and rolled desperately to avoid his follow-up slash. Thud! His blade sank into the stone... half embedded where my head was a moment before.

I remained low, exhaling frost in a burst, ice crawling up his embedded blade, locking it to the wall. Lao yanked, muscles writhing, but in that heartbeat of stillness, I was already there—Endless Night plunging toward his neck.

He twisted, my edge carving deep into his collarbone instead. Bone cracked. I drove my knee into his chest, forcing him back before his free blade could gut me.

"Break!" I roared, qi flooding my arms. The ice along his arm exploded, shards slicing his cheek and tearing one yellow eye half-shut.

His counter was instant.

A sweeping backhand like a hammer, it slammed into my ribs. I coughed, blood spraying through the air as I slid through the mud and sleet, but managed to remain upright. If not for Endless Night absorbing the impact... It might have ended worse than sore palms.

Neither of us gave ground.

We traded blow for blow—steel and bone ringing under the blood moon. Each of my cuts left him slower, more frayed at the edges. Each of his strikes left my body screaming, frost splintering on my blade from the force of his assaults.

I knew then this wouldn’t be a long fight.

One mistake would end everything.

And it wouldn’t be mine.

Our blades collided in a fantastical blur, sparkling embers of frost and darkness scattered like fireflies beneath the moonlight. Lao’s strikes came with a bone-shuddering force, each swing aimed to end me, to split me in half.

I met him cut for cut, Endless Night darting to deflect, twist, and return in the same breath. But his reach was longer, his movements unpredictable, and each step forward pushed me one step closer to the wall’s edge.

Clang—Clang—CRACK!

The last block sent numbness rushing down my forearms. His next slash came from below, so fast it was little more than a black arc. I leapt back, ice snapping across the stone where I landed, trying to slow his advance.

It barely slowed him.

The right blade hammered down; I caught it high, locking our weapons, only for his left to hook low toward my ribs. I twisted away, the tip grazing my armour and sending a line of cold fire across my skin.

"Damn—!"

I didn’t get to finish. His next blow clipped Endless Night just off the centreline, the sheer force pitching me back several steps. My breath came ragged, arms heavy from the constant deflection.

Another step, and my heel hit broken stone. I was out of breath... and lacking strength.

That moment...

"Qinglan! Move!"

A streak of flame roared past me as Li Ya dropped in from the side, her halberd spinning into a blazing arc. The weapon smashed against Lao’s right blade, sparks and fire exploding outward.

Opposite, another light shone... golden and beautiful like a gymnast’s ribbon. Shen Yifei’s spear lanced forward in a blur, tip flashing in the firelight. She slid under one of Lao’s sweeping strikes, stabbing deep into his side before twisting free.

The sudden two-front assault forced Lao back half a step.

"You’re late," I hissed, already moving to rejoin the fight.

More of John’s other women... the truth was that I no longer felt the same anger or hatred when seeing them. Sometimes I even enjoyed the stupid conversations we had with each other... Yifei was growing on me.

"Silly girls..."

Li Ya smirked, parrying a downward slash with a flourish. "We like to make an entrance."

Yifei didn’t bother talking. Once she decided on something, her focus was razor-sharp, her spear snapping and darting with surgical precision, cutting at Lao’s wrists and knees whenever he shifted toward one of us.

For a heartbeat, it felt like the tide was turning.

Then Lao’s skin split.

Not from our blades... his body literally tore itself apart.

Sharp black tendrils that writhed in the air burst from each wound, dozens of them with jagged edges made of black bones.... They moved like snakes, whipping at us from angles that no human could mimic.

One lashed toward me; I brought Endless Night up just in time, frost exploding along the tendril as I knocked it aside. Two more came for my legs, forcing me to leap back as Li Ya intercepted, her halberd cleaving them mid-lash.

"Shit—he’s mutating again!" Yifei called, barely twisting away from a thrust that would have gone through her throat.

Now it was chaos.

Lao’s original blades still came in relentless sweeps, but now every movement was mirrored by the snapping, slicing reach of those tendrils. They curled around our weapons, tried to yank them from our grip, struck low while his arms came high.

We had to fight as one just to stay alive.

Li Ya took the front, her halberd blazing in wide, brutal arcs that forced Lao to defend with both main blades. Yifei became the shadow between us, her spear stabbing through gaps, causing him to block or recoil. I stayed to his blind side, ice qi flooding Endless Night as I hacked at the tendrils the moment they overextended.

Even together, we could barely hold even ground.

Lao no longer fought like a predator; he lost the grace and slight elegance he had maintained. Instead, he became erratic, violent and struck at us with bizarre and calculated timings.

His yellow eyes increased in number... dozens of big eyeballs swollen from his body like tumours watched us, and a distorted grin on his face. The wall beneath us shook from the clash, each blow echoing through stone and bone alike.

Deep in my gut... I could feel it.

That if we made a single mistake, his blades would kill without hesitation or delay.