Chapter 147: Cealis Serath

Chapter 148: Cealis Serath

Lady Jade Serpent smiled into the gloom.

"Too late, General."

SHUU—!

She vanished.

Vaelric’s war-honed instincts screamed warnings. He spun on his heel, crossing both iron gauntlets in an instinctive guard!

Lady Jade Serpent materialized directly behind his left shoulder, her open palm descending like a striking cobra:

"Jade Emerald Serpent Palm."

BOOOOOOM!

The impact sounded like a siege cannon breaching a fortress gate. Vaelric’s superheated White Qi shattered, and the sheer kinetic force hurled the seasoned general backward fifty meters, his boots carving two deep, smoking trenches through the mud before he drove his knee into the earth to stop his skid.

Before Lemo or Roan could react, she had already vanished again.

She appeared inches from Estelle Argon’s flank!

Estelle didn’t turn to face her; her fingers snapped a wind-rune in pure reflex:

"Wind Step!"

SHUU!

Estelle’s physical form dissolved into a gust of razor-sharp air, reappearing sixty meters away on the parapet. Lady Jade Serpent’s manicured fingers closed around empty space, catching only a stray strand of silver hair.

Lemo blurred to Estelle’s side, his silver lightning roaring around his sword. "She isn’t relying on raw speed. She’s calculating the circulation of our meridians before we even complete the hand seals!"

Lady Jade Serpent smoothed down her emerald silk sleeve, entirely unruffled.

"You native creatures learn remarkably fast," she chuckled, her voice carrying an eerie, hypnotic sweetness. "A pity your lifespans end today."

SHHHHHK—!

Without warning, the frozen ground beneath the charging infected hosts erupted!

Dozens of thick, thorny, purple-black briars tore through the bedrock like striking vipers.

A young man in rugged dark robes strode forward from the secondary reserve line, his hands plunged into the earth:

Caelis Serath.

"Enough of this circus," Caelis muttered, his jaw clenched tight.

His Venomvines did not attack Lady Jade Serpent. Instead, the barbed roots swept through the mud, unerringly driving their needle-sharp tips straight into the sternums of the infected soldiers!

One vine. Ten. Fifty. Hundreds.

Caelis closed his eyes, his spiritual sense flowing through the plant conduits with clinical, ice-cold precision.

His superpower specialized in plant-based biological toxins—he didn’t need to overpower the palace’s corruption with brute force; he understood the biology of a parasite.

"Found you, you filthy worms."

The hollow thorns of the Venomvines expanded, injecting a counter-toxin that paralyzed the parasites’ barbs before violently ripping backward!

SLURP-CRACK!

A writhing, fist-sized black mass was violently dragged from the chest of an infected soldier, dissolved instantly by the acidic sap inside the vines!

Then another!

Then a third!

Caelis’s face went bone-white from the sheer mental strain of maintaining a hundred micro-extractions simultaneously, but his hands didn’t waver by a millimeter.

Lady Jade Serpent’s slitted eyes shifted toward him, a flash of irritation flickering across her gaze.

From the mud beside Caelis, another black parasite detached itself from a corpse, lunging through the air like a javelin aimed straight between Caelis’s eyes!

CLANG!

A fluid, shimmering wall of silver mirrored steel erupted from the dirt, catching the parasite mid-air!

Moran Bale stepped up to Caelis’s shoulder, his casual smirk flashing amidst the gore as liquid metal flowed across his forearms like water:

[Quicksilver Manipulation.]

With a flick of Moran’s wrist, the broken swords and discarded spearheads littering the battlefield liquefied, re-forming into a spinning halo of mercury shields that completely enclosed Caelis’s extraction zone!

"Keep pulling the weeds, Caelis," Moran laughed, his eyes cold and sharp. "Nobody touches the gardener while I’m holding the gate."

Caelis spat a drop of blood into the mud. "Don’t let your mouth outrun your steel, Moran."

Lady Jade Serpent paused.

Her playful, condescending expression vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, dangerous appraisal.

"A biological counter-extraction paired with liquid metal alchemy..." She tapped her chin, her golden pupils narrowing. "Crude. Unrefined. Yet... surprisingly competent for livestock."

Her emerald aura began to climb—no longer drifting like mist, but condensing into a physical, suffocating gravity that began cracking the bedrock under her boots.

BOOOOOOM!

The entire valley groaned.

Vaelric Ashford rose to his feet, wiping a line of blood from his jaw as his White Qi roared back to life.

Lemo Drackar stepped forward, his silver lightning cleaving the storm clouds in half.

Estelle Argon descended from the parapet, nine tornadoes howling around her silken robes.

Roan Blackwood placed both hands upon the hilt-seal of the Aegis of the Unbroken, his golden Metal Qi flooding the earth until the mud turned to solid, polished brass.

The four supreme heads of the Great Families stood side-by-side, their combined cultivation locking together to form an impenetrable wall of sovereign authority!

"Your games end here, serpent," Vaelric said, his voice echoing like an iron bell across the ruined valley.

Lady Jade Serpent stared at the four elders, a slow, terrifying grin stretching across her face.

"Finally," she whispered, her voice layered with primeval hunger.

Behind her back, the emerald mist boiled. A colossal, celestial serpent phantom rose from the fog, its head piercing through the cloud layer, its two golden, slitted eyes looking down upon the mortal world with ancient, merciless intent.

ROOOOOOOAAAR!

The beast’s roar shattered the sound barrier, flattening the hills in the distance.

Lady Jade Serpent’s robes whipped violently in the tempest as she spread her arms wide:

"Show me, then... show me if your little families have the spine to stand before the heavens!"

BOOOOOOM!

The mountain groaned.

Lady Jade Serpent’s emerald Qi detonated, a toxic shockwave that shredded the rocks and leveled the trees.

The four Family Heads reacted as one.

Vaelric slammed his iron gauntlets into the mud. "White Mountain Formation!"

RUMBLE!

A wall of pure, heavy white energy erupted from the earth, acting as a shield between the families and the coming storm.

At the same moment, Lemo vanished.

KRRRZZZT!

A jagged bolt of silver lightning cleaved the air. Lemo appeared above the serpent, his sword descending in a blinding arc. "Lightning Severing Art!"

SHING!

Lady Jade Serpent didn’t even look up. She casually raised her hand as an emerald flute appeared.

CLANG!

The heavy sword hit the thin flute. A violent shockwave ripped through the mountain, but the woman didn’t move an inch. She had blocked a full-power strike from a Patriarch with a piece of jewelry.

She smiled. "So predictable."​