Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 103 Blood Leech Ghost Hand

The golden bells on the eaves of the tower suddenly rang out, shattering the silence of the night.

A figure in a blood-red robe arrived, stepping through the air.

With each step he took, he struck the Thunder Prison's nodes precisely. Lightning crackled beneath his feet, yet he was forced back three feet, as if even heaven and earth dared not touch his energy.

It was an old man with a withered face, bloodshot eyes, and holding a black bone scepter inlaid with skulls. His body was surrounded by surging blood energy like a tsunami.

The oppressive aura of a peak eighth-rank cultivator descended from the night sky like a mountain of blood.

He burst into wild laughter, a sound as piercing as the cry of a night owl:

"Thunder Blade Master?"

"You think your mere lightning array can even scratch me, 'Blood River Bone Venerable'?!"

The sound boomed like thunder, causing the horde of corpses below to cower in fear.

At the top of the tower, Chu Ning stood in the center of the lightning, his white hair fluttering wildly, his black robe billowing, and the lightning patterns in his eyes burning like gold.

He slowly raised his hand, and the Snow-Breaking Blade was drawn from its sheath.

Before the sword was drawn, thunder had already sounded.

With just one sentence, his voice was so cold it seemed to come from the deepest abyss:
"To kill you."

"Why use a formation?"

"boom--"

The Snow-Breaking Blade suddenly slashed down.

There were no frills, no elaborate embellishments, only a single, pure silver light, like a thunderbolt cleaving through the long night, striking directly at Blood River Bone Venerable.

Blood River Bone Lord grinned as he approached, raising his scepter high. At the same time, the nine skulls opened their mouths and spewed out a raging river of blood, which transformed into nine giant pythons that coiled around him.

Blood mist obscured the sky and the sun, and the stark skeletons floated and sank in the blood waves. Every drop of blood seemed to contain wails and curses.

In the darkness of night, the Thunder Blade and the Blood River clashed fiercely.

Lightning flashes pierce blood, blade energy penetrates bone.

The Blood River Python was severed in two with a single strike, its screams shattering the void.

Blood River Bone Lord's eyes finally showed horror. He tried to back away, but it was too late.

Chu Ning strode forward, sword in hand, each step sending thunderclaps for miles around.

The figure arrived with a swift movement, accompanied by a sweeping blade.

In the instant the lightning struck his body, Chu Ning saw Qing Li's smile. She lightly touched his brow with her fingertip, and her blood-stained lips moved: "Don't let hatred blind you."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then his blade flashed even more fiercely. This strike wasn't aimed at evil spirits, but at the guilt and pain that weighed heavily on his heart.

"Click——"

Blood River Bone Lord, along with the nine skulls behind him, was torn to shreds into a rain of blood.

"Bang."

His body, at the peak of the eighth rank, exploded amidst the lightning, like a rotting sack filled with blood.

"Blood River Bone Lord?"

"It's nothing but a puddle of mud."

Lightning crackled and spread from beneath his feet, like a vast thunderous tide sweeping across the entire city's night sky.

At the top of the Wuhou Mansion's tower, Chu Ning stands alone amidst the crumbling eaves.

A drop of crimson blood dripped from the tip of the Broken Snow Blade, while the corpses of the black-armored guards at his feet twisted into charred shadows in the lightning. The night wind whipped his blood-stained white hair, and the lightning pattern between his brows flickered, as if sensing ripples in the depths of the void.

"Aren't you going to get out here yet?"

The sound was very soft, yet it rolled across the entire long street like muffled thunder.

Icicles fell from the eaves with a soft rustling sound, shattering into glittering blades on the blue bricks.

"Click."

Suddenly, a black rift tore open in the sky, and putrid blood gushed out. A blood spear pierced through the void, and what dripped from its tip was not blood, but a viscous, phosphorescent soul poison.

As the spear-wielder touched the ground with his toes, the corpses within a radius of ten feet simultaneously opened their eyes, their pupils turning into blood-red vortexes.

"Thunder Blade Master," the shadowy voice sounded like fingernails scraping bone, "Do you know the extent of the damage you've done to every single corpse puppet you've killed?"

The blood-red spear swept across, and the horde of corpses rose to their feet: "They were all refined from the souls of living people."

Chu Ning's pupils suddenly shrank.

It wasn't because of this soul-refining technique, but because the empty eyes of those corpse puppets still held traces of tears from their lives.

"boom!"

The blood-red spear shadow pierced straight for his throat, but Chu Ning did not draw his sword.

Chu Ning did not draw his sword, but frost and lightning suddenly bloomed between his fingers, like a pure lotus opening horizontally, sweeping away the filth of corpses from the sea of ​​lightning.

The affected corpse puppets suddenly froze, their charred faces revealing a relieved smile before turning to ashes and disappearing.

"Forged from the souls of the dead!" Chu Ning rose with a thunderous roar, his blade tinged with rage for the first time. "You dare call yourself 'human'?"

The Blood Leech Demon Hand grinned maliciously, its spear shadow splitting into hundreds of blood bats:
“Look! These hearts once belonged to knights, mothers, children… Now, they are my strength.”

"The heartbeat of the weak," he licked his fingertips, "is the most beautiful war drum of the strong."

The moment the swarm of blood bats pounced, Chu Ning's blade trembled slightly, and lightning exploded like a thousand birds singing in unison.

The charred bat wings fell with a rustling sound, and upon landing, they sprouted into twisted datura flowers, their petals curling like human tongues, oozing a sweet, cloying stench of decay.

"You think this is salvation?" The Blood Leech Demon Hand grinned, the phosphorescent tip of the spear reflecting the empty, tearful eyes of the corpse puppet. "It's nothing but the self-pity of a hypocrite."

A sudden flash of sword light.

Chu Ning's figure transformed into a thunderstorm amidst the swarm of bats, each strike precisely shattering a blood bat.

Black blood splattered from the shattered bat wings, and twisted, blood-red datura flowers sprouted from the ground.

"The Dao you speak of—" He slayed the last blood bat, the tip of his blade pointing at his enemy's heart, "is nothing but the howl of a jackal devouring a corpse."

Blood Leech Demon Hand suddenly discarded his spear and formed hand seals.

Its blood-red wings spread out behind it, and seven beating hearts were clearly embedded in the wing bones.

Each heart was connected to a transparent thread, the other end of which was wrapped around Chu Ning's limbs.

"Look at these heart locks..." With a flick of his finger, the ghostly finger sent seven transparent threads, like silkworms with tendons, piercing through the skin of Chu Ning's limbs and nailing into the seven hearts in the void.

The lightning pattern between his brows suddenly cracked, and the lightning energy trembled wildly. Chu Ning's pupils shrank drastically, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

In an instant, consciousness was swallowed up by a black tide:

He returned to that night, to the long street where Hanshan had perished.

"The wind howled and thunder roared, and blood rained down. Amidst the ruins, frost and thunder clashed, just as his rage when he slaughtered the entire Cold Mountain had not yet subsided. But at that moment, he was not fighting."

He stood outside the stone cell, before whom stood the people he had personally rescued. He had given them hot soup, sheltered them from the wind and rain, and even protected them from the storm.

"But the next second, in the flickering firelight, he saw them sharpening knives behind their backs."

"As long as Chu Ning dies, no one will know anymore."

"He's too strong, terrifyingly strong."

He approached step by step, and all he could hear was their laughter and talking:
“'Kill him, kill him.'”

"In the next scene, below the arena, the child tattoos his lightning pattern on the straw man's forehead."

The adult sneered:
"If he were truly a good person, he should have died quietly, not flaunted his achievements."

"The final scene is Xie Mingli, sitting under the lamp, surrounded by ancient books, her hand holding a letter stained with tears."

She murmured softly:

"'Chu Ning's power will ultimately bring disaster upon the mansion... If this doesn't stop, he should be executed.'"

"In that instant, he almost knelt down. The thunderous energy was chaotic, and his soul was torn apart. He was not defeated by the enemy, but was devoured by the 'all living beings' for whom he was willing to burn himself out."

Then, a real call, like lightning, struck the nightmare:

"Chun Ning!"

Xie Mingli's voice struck straight to the soul from reality, flowing out with a tearful, blood-stained tone.

"You said you would drive darkness into the light! If you become a demon, who will illuminate those who are waiting for you?"

At this critical moment, a warm golden light burst forth from Chu Ning's dantian, and in an instant, his spiritual sense shone like the blazing sun, sweeping across the illusion.

In the Dantian, the golden light of Hunyuan surged and resonated with the soul, as if a bright sun was rising from the spiritual sea.

He saw Qingli's figure, as if she were slowly walking out from the shattered blood pool of the Cold Mountain, covered in frost and snow, whispering:

"Chu Ning, don't believe in illusions. Their evil shouldn't make you abandon your kindness."

In an instant, thunder roared.

Chu Ning broke free from the illusion, the lightning lock between his fingers snapped its threads, and his soul returned to its place.

He murmured in a low voice:
"My sister and Qingli are still waiting for me... How can I die in their mouths?"

The lightning patterns flowed upstream along the threads, burning the seven hearts to ashes:

"The more I know about the darkness of the world, the more I want to be that ray of lightning."

He stumbled into thin air, lightning surged, shattering the last lock on his heart, and the blade light poured down like a silver river:

Even if it can't illuminate the whole city, it must still pierce through the gloom before us.

The Snow-Breaking Blade unleashed a lightning-like galaxy, its blade flashing past Ghost Hand and disappearing in an instant.

"puff."

Chu Ning's figure flashed past, leaving no trace of his blade. The next instant, the Blood Leech Demon Hand's sternum shattered and its blood wings broke, like a corpse crow that had failed to flap its wings before falling into the heavenly fire, its body torn in two with a roar.

"The Realm of Returning to Origin...you can't possibly..."

Chu Ning pointed his fingers together, unleashing a reverse lightning strike that pierced through the Ghost Hand's dantian, extinguishing the ghostly flames.

His voice was deep and resonant, with a chilling undertone at the end:
"You... are nothing but a bunch of insects that tread on corpses and are afraid of the light."

The soft hum of the Broken Snow Blade returning to its sheath drew a celestial question across the silent battlefield.

The world seemed to hold its breath at that moment.

Beneath the tower, the lightning had not yet dissipated, and frost condensed into icicles between the bricks and stones.

The entire street was littered with charred corpses and traces of blood mist, and the cold light emanating from the intertwining of thunder and frost resembled the embers of hellfire that had not yet been extinguished.

Xie Mingli knelt behind the black-armored guards, gazing at the solitary white-haired figure standing there. Her chest felt like it was being struck by a thousand thunderbolts, and tears welled up but she dared not let them fall.

"He's not a god," she murmured to herself. "He's just someone who wants to save his family."

Not far away, several figures quietly concealed their auras.

"This... he's really an eighth-rank official?"

"The Returning to Origin Realm... Which sect is hiding such a monstrous talent?"

An old man quietly crushed the teacup in his hand, his expression sinister:
"This isn't talent, it's a threat."

The night wind whipped up their cloaks, as if they were concealing a deeper, dark conspiracy.

Above the shadows of the high walls, Prince Duan's personal guards quietly lowered their binoculars, gritting their teeth in a low voice:
"...Now, it seems the prince will have to take action personally."

However, the blood mist had not yet dissipated, and the tide of corpses continued to surge.

The fallen corpse puppets twitched slowly, their blood and qi seemingly drawn by some force, beginning to wriggle and converge in the same direction.

“Kacha…kacha…kacha…”

A sickeningly loud sound of bones being reshaped suddenly rang out from beneath the cracks in the blue bricks, carrying a wet, sticky, maggot-like quality, deep, lingering, and heart-wrenching.

The tattered, blood-leech-like hand... moved.

He was clearly annihilated into ashes by the lightning, yet at the bottom of the pile of corpse puppets, he let out a strange laugh, as if his soul had been spat out from the dead:

"You...think...that's all?"

“I have already dedicated myself to the ‘path of eternal sacrifice,’ and death… is only the beginning.”

Before the words were finished, tendons like blood snakes emerged from the cracked bones, intertwining and wrapping around rotting flesh and fragments of curses, as if an invisible hand was "stitching up a corpse and shaping a demon."

The lightning destroyed his vital energy, so he used the blood and energy of ten thousand corpses to rebuild his bones and muscles.

"Clatter..."

The spine stood upright, pieced together segment by segment, and a pair of newly formed blood wings burst open on both sides of the torso, the feather bones like torn silk, each one embedded with the remnants of a living person's eyes.

Just as Xie Mingli and the black-armored guards were horrified, the pair of blood wings trembled slightly, and all the broken bricks and dust shattered. The corpse puppets seemed to receive a call from their bloodline, rose up again, and gathered like a tide.

(End of this chapter)