Chapter 124: Double Blades

Chapter 124: Double Blades

The Blood Moon Sword thrust forward like a striking serpent, aimed straight at the core beneath the executioner’s sternum.

The executioner crossed its scimitars in an instant ’X’.

CLANG!

The thrust was intercepted.

Seana’s wrist flicked with fluid mastery. Her blade slid along the inner edge of the right scimitar, violently altering its leverage. The construct’s right arm was deflected upward, exposing its torso.

Its left blade immediately lashed out from below to disembowel her.

Seana lifted her heel. The dark scimitar sliced through the air beneath the sole of her boot; she came down lightly on the flat of the enemy’s steel, using it as an instant foothold.

Before the construct could register the weight, crimson Qi exploded beneath her soles!

BOOM!

The concussive force launched her straight into the air.

Mid-vault, she spun a full circle, her long ink-black hair trailing like a dark silk banner.

The Blood Moon Sword cleaved downward in a blinding crimson crescent!

CLANG!​

The double-wielder crossed its blades overhead, the impact driving spiderweb fractures through the floor beneath its feet.

Seana did not pause for breath.

One strike! Two! Three! Four! Five!

Her swordplay unfolded like an endless, rushing cataract. Every parry flowed directly into a counter; every deflection carried the momentum for the next lethal arc.

The double-blade executioner blocked the first. Deflected the second. Parried the third. Dodged the fourth.

But the fifth strike defied physical geometry.

Seana’s wrist snapped in an unnatural spiral.

The Blood Moon Sword curved around the construct’s defensive cross, riding the air currents like a leaf in an eddy.

SHING!

The executioner wrenched its torso backward, but it was too slow. Crimson Qi severed the front of its hooded robe, carving a deep, smoking gouge across its chest.

Seana landed softly on her toes, her posture completely unruffled.

The executioner glanced down at the fissure across its chest. Then, the grip of its pale, gaunt hands tightened around the twin scimitars.

It crossed the blades once more.

BOOM!

A tempest of pitch-black sword shadows erupted from its twin edges, screaming through the air toward her like a flock of shrieking crows!

Seana did not take a single step back.

Dense crimson Qi blossomed around her frame. Her blade danced in measured, hypnotic rhythms.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Every dark crescent was cleanly met and shattered in mid-air. Her footwork was light, minimal, and terrifyingly efficient.

One step. One deflection. One cut. One counter.

Suddenly, the executioner dissolved into a shadow, reappearing at her left flank with both scimitars descending in an executioner’s guillotine!

Seana swept her sword overhead horizontally.

CLANG!

The brutal kinetic shock drove her boots half an inch into the flagstones.

The executioner bore down with all its mechanical weight, attempting to crush her.

Behind the red mask, Seana’s eyes narrowed into icy crescents.

FWOOSH!

A volatile surge of crimson Qi detonated from the Blood Moon Sword, forcefully blasting the twin scimitars apart. In the same breath, she closed the distance, slamming her shoulder directly into the construct’s sternum!

BOOM!

The executioner’s heavy frame staggered back two paces.

Seana’s blade followed like a shadow. A brilliant crimson arc parted the darkness, cleaving clean across the construct’s guard.

The dual-wielder barely brought its weapons up in time, the kinetic backlash hurling it skidding six meters across the basalt floor.

Seana did not pursue. She settled back into a low, poised guard, her blade humming with steady, lethal intent.

Across the chamber—

CLANG!

Golden sparks exploded as Asher’s single sword met the heavy executioner’s massive broadsword.

SHING! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

This was no longer a frantic brawl. It had elevated into a raw clash of intent, willpower, and comprehension.

And Asher Blackwood was not a man who yielded ground.

With every collision, his strikes grew cleaner, sharper, and more synchronized. Golden arcs of Metal Qi peeled off his blade, meeting the crushing weight of the black broadsword not with stubborn resistance, but with refined, structural deflection.

His breath settled into the cadence of his steel.

Inhale. The golden Qi refined through his meridians.

Exhale. The blade became an indivisible part of his soul.

For a brief, suspended second, the deafening noise of the surrounding battle faded into static.

No palace. No enemies. No allies.

Only him. And his sword.

A streak of pure, luminous gold flared deep within his irises. Asher’s movements suddenly stopped.

He stood entirely motionless, his expression settling into an eerie, profound tranquility.

A Trance.

The heavy executioner, an unfeeling construct driven purely by lethal algorithms, instantly registered the stillness as an opening.

Thick, oily black Qi flooded its colossal broadsword. The air around the dark steel rippled with a foul, necrotic stench that rotted the stone dust hovering in the air.

BOOM!

The executioner lunged forward, trailing plumes of black smoke as its heavy blade drove straight for Asher’s unmoving heart!

Arvessa and the others caught the movement, but their own opponents gave them no room to intervene.

"Has this palace turned him into a drooling idiot?!" Jules barked, frantically weaving beneath a thrust from the assassin executioner. "Who the hell spaces out in the middle of a deathmatch?!"

But then a wide, venomous smirk carved across Jules’s pale face.

Die.

Just die right there, Asher Blackwood.

If Asher fell here, there would be one less monstrous competitor to contest the final inheritance.

Jules had harbored a festering hatred for the Blackwoods for years—especially Asher. Even before the sky split open and the apocalypse happened, Jules had despised him.

He hated Asher’s effortless grace. He hated the way women looked at him. Most of all, he hated Asher’s cold, aloof detachment—how Asher acted as if the social hierarchy of the four noble sects was beneath his notice, while Jules fought tooth and nail for every scrap of recognition.

Why him?

Why does it always have to be him?!

Aren’t I strong?! Aren’t I brilliant?! Isn’t the Drackar bloodline just as powerful and noble as the Blackwoods?!

Jules flung a wild bolt of silver lightning toward his opponent, his bloodshot eyes entirely fixated on the dark broadsword descending upon Asher’s chest.

Yes... closer. Just an inch closer! Cut him down! Erase this bastard from my path!

A grotesque, twisted grin split Jules’s features from ear to ear.

He was so utterly consumed by his own petty malice that he failed to notice what was happening to his own meridians.

The ancient, sacrificial miasma woven into the palace’s stones fed voraciously on raw, festering hatred.

The silver lightning crackling around Jules’s fingers began to rot.

The bright electrical arcs turned pitch-black and oily, hissing with a foul, necrotic frequency that smelled of grave soil.

His blue irises dissolved into gray static. His pupils vanished entirely, leaving behind two vacant, horrifying pools of absolute blackness.

The assassin executioner paused mid-stride, its hooded head tilting in mechanical confusion.

Something was fundamentally wrong. The human before it no longer carried the scent of an intruder. He smelled like the rotten, primordial core of the palace itself.

Jules’s twisted smile froze on his face.

And then—

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A thunderous detonation ripped through the center of the hall, shaking the very foundations of the Ancient Palace!​