CHAPTER 132: 132- LIN ZHAOYUE FACE OFF.[2]

The virulent green light at the tip of Lin Zhaoyue’s hairpin flared, not like fire, but like concentrated, decaying life.

As she uttered the incantation, "Wood Explosions" the energy didn’t shoot outwards.

Instead, it pulsed downwards, through the saturated earth, a silent, devastating command.

The ground beneath the Viper Seduction Flower’s thick, sinuous tail heaved.

Not a tremor, but a violent upheaval.

Mud, water, and tangled roots exploded upwards in a geyser of filth.

But it was the roots themselves, drawn by Lin Zhaoyue’s Heavenly Timber technique, that were the true weapon.

Thick, gnarled swamp roots, saturated with Lin Zhaoyue’s corrosive wood-element Qi, erupted inside the tail segment just below the impossibly beautiful bloom.

They didn’t pierce; they detonated.

CRACK-BOOM!

The sound was muffled, wet, and sickeningly final.

A section of the armored tail, thicker than Lin Zhaoyue’s torso, simply bulged and then burst apart in a spray of dark ichor, shattered scales, and pulped flesh.

The force wasn’t concussive outwards, but inwards, focused devastation.

And through the gore, tumbling end-over-end like a discarded jewel, flew the Viper Seduction Flower.

Lin Zhaoyue’s eyes, cold and furious just a moment before, locked onto it.

Time seemed to slow. It was beautiful.

Ethereal. Its luminous petals, untouched by the filth of the explosion, radiated pure, hypnotic light even as it arced through the air.

A perfect, deadly jewel severed from its monstrous anchor... Now gone.

A surge of vicious satisfaction, intertwined with a strange, fleeting appreciation for its doomed elegance, washed over her.

Her focus on the falling flower was absolute, almost rapturous in its destructive triumph.

But her body, honed by instinct and battle-lust, was already moving.

She had known the strike would come.

The rumbling hiss from the darkness became a shriek of pure, unadulterated agony and rage.

The swamp itself seemed to recoil as the hidden head, massive and triangular, streaked from the murk like a black lightning bolt.

Fangs, longer than swords and dripping viscous venom, aimed unerringly for the spot where Lin Zhaoyue stood, seemingly mesmerized by the falling flower.

She wasn’t.

Even as her gaze traced the flower’s descent, her free hand had already swept up.

The silk of her sleeve flowed like water, but beneath it, her forearm was rigid, layered with dense, emerald-green spiritual energy that solidified instantaneously into overlapping plates of hardened wood, Ironwood Bulwark.

The third form of Heavenly Timber.

It was not a shield held aloft, but an integral armor formed seamlessly along her arm and shoulder.

THUD-CRUNCH!

The viper’s strike hit with the force of a collapsing mountain.

Mud and water erupted in a ring around the impact point.

The sound was brutal, bone-jarring.

Lin Zhaoyue’s boots sank several inches into the muck from the sheer force transmitted through her guard.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface of the Ironwood Bulwark, venom sizzling where it splattered, but it held.

She hadn’t tried to dodge; she’d anchored herself, braced, and absorbed the blow meant to obliterate her.

The impact jarred her, snapping her head back, her dark hair whipping wildly.

Yet, her eyes never left the falling flower.

She watched it hit the churned mud a few yards away, its light flickering once, twice, like a dying star, before dimming completely, swallowed by the filthy water.

Only then, as the beautiful lure was extinguished, did her gaze snap back to the source of the agony.

The viper’s head recoiled slightly, stunned by the resistance.

Its vertical pupils, burning with pain and fury, fixed on the small figure who had just maimed its tail and blocked its killing strike.

The hypnotic light was gone, leaving only primal rage and the stink of blood and swamp.

Lin Zhaoyue lowered her cracked, smoking Ironwood Bulwark arm slowly.

She didn’t flinch at the venom burns on her sleeve or the ache in her bones.

Her jade hairpin was still held ready in her other hand, its tip glowing faintly with residual green energy.

Her expression was no longer coldly furious, but chillingly calm, a predator assessing wounded prey.

A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her lip where the impact had bitten her tongue, stark red against her pale skin.

"Annoying," she breathed again, the word barely audible over the viper’s pained hissing and the swamp’s settling turmoil.

Her eyes, cold and calculating, locked onto the enraged serpent’s head.

The chilling calm in Lin Zhaoyue’s eyes sharpened into razor-edged focus as the viper recoiled, its massive head weaving in agony and fury.

The raw power of the strike had been immense, but... unrefined.

The rage was primal, the movements powerful but lacking the cold, calculated lethality of an ancient Nascent Soul beast.

This wasn’t a seasoned predator; it was a newly ascended powerhouse, drunk on its own strength and lashing out blindly.

A predator’s smile, thin and devoid of warmth, touched Lin Zhaoyue’s lips.

Her hands moved in a blur of contrasting motions.

The jade hairpin in her right hand swept through the air in a wide, graceful arc, trailing not destructive energy, but a cloud of shimmering, iridescent dust, Heavenly Timber: Second Form – Sleep Dust.

Simultaneously, her left hand, still bearing the cracked Ironwood Bulwark, slammed palm-down onto the churned mud.

Virulent green energy pulsed into the earth once more, not towards the ruined tail stump, but snaking unseen beneath the muck towards the massive head itself, Heavenly Timber: First Form – Wood Explosions.

The newly ascended viper, blinded by rage and pain, inhaled the shimmering Sleep Dust.

Its furious hiss faltered, becoming a confused gurgle.

Its weaving head slowed, the burning intensity in its vertical pupils dimming, replaced by a sudden, unnatural heaviness.

It was still powerful, still dangerous, but its reactions were sluggish, its mind clouded by an overwhelming urge to simply... rest.

It never got the chance.

The roots, guided by Lin Zhaoyue’s precise malice, erupted inside its skull.

SPLUTCH.

The sound was sickeningly wet and contained.

The viper’s massive head didn’t explode outward.

Instead, it bulged grotesquely for a split second, scales straining, before collapsing inward like a deflated sack.

Dark ichor, brain matter, and shattered bone erupted from its eyes, nostrils, and gaping maw.

The colossal body, still coiled in the swamp, shuddered violently once, then went utterly, terrifyingly still.

The rage, the pain, the nascent power... all snuffed out in an instant.

Silence descended, heavy and thick, broken only by the settling mud and the frantic beat of Du Juan’s heart high in the cypress tree.

Lin Zhaoyue straightened, lowering her hands. The Sleep Dust shimmer dissipated harmlessly.

She looked down at the ruined head, then at the still-gleaming, but now lifeless, flower lying half-submerged in the muck nearby.

Without ceremony, she stepped towards the massive carcass and plunged her hands into the gruesome ruin of the viper’s skull.

There was a wet, squelching sound, a brief search through gore and bone fragments, and then she withdrew her arm.

Clutched in her fingers, slick with dark blood but radiating a potent, swampy green light, was a core the size of a goose egg, the core of a Nascent Soul Realm spirit beast.

Warmth pulsed against her palm, a tangible prize.

She lifted it slightly, the glow illuminating her face, highlighting the streak of blood at the corner of her lip and the cold triumph in her eyes.

I’m sure husband would be very pleased with this.

The core was very valuable. This victory was valuable.

Proof of her competence, her ruthlessness, her worth.

But just as her fingers tightened around the warm core, intending to inspect it more closely, the hair on the back of her neck prickled.

The heavy silence shattered.

Not from the carcass but from the surrounding swamp.

GRRR...