Chapter 207 Claws and Demonic Beast

Claws and Demonic Beast

Seana shifted her gaze toward the elite zombie standing before Leon.

It wore a plain, featureless mask.

The zombie stepped forward. Its intent was unmistakable; pass over its corpse, or die trying.

Unlike the other zombies she had fought, its movements were unnaturally smooth. Dark, knotted veins spread from beneath its collar, coiling along its arms down to its wrists. There was no rot-induced stiffness in its stride, only the cold, measured control of a veteran fighter.

The pressure radiating from its frame made Seana’s eyes narrow.

Early Stage Core Formation. The Zombie Lord certainly poured effort into this one.

The creature vanished in a blur.

Its speed was startling.

Seana leaned back as her Blood Moon Sword slashed across the empty air. A thin streak of crimson cut through the gloom.

The zombie raised its forearm to parry.

Clang!

Sparks scattered against dead flesh. The blade opened a shallow cut, weeping black blood, but the creature didn’t flinch. Instead, the veins along its forearm pulsed with a dull, bruised light.

A violent shockwave erupted from the limb.

Seana twisted her wrist, withdrawing the blade as the redirected force tore through the stone where she had stood a heartbeat before.

The zombie gave her no room to breathe.

Its left claws swept toward her neck, cutting the air with a dry whistle. Seana ducked beneath the strike, but the creature pivoted instantly, driving a heavy knee toward her ribs.

She snapped her sword down to block.

BOOM!

The concussive blow drove her backward, her boots carving two shallow grooves into the cracked stone.

A force-redirection art.

The veins beneath the creature’s skin were still glowing faintly. It wasn’t simply withstanding her strikes; it was taking the kinetic impact, circulating it through its necrotic meridians, and discharging it back into its own attacks.

[Corpse Art: Abyssal Ironblood!]

The zombie’s frame bulked, dark Qi hardening over its flesh like hammered iron. Its shallow cuts knit shut, and a metallic black sheen spread down both forearms.

It lunged again.

This time, Seana held her ground. She angled her blade, letting its claws slide harmlessly along the steel, then snapped her left wrist forward.

[Blood Art: Crimson Needles Array!]

Dozens of thin, crystalline needles formed in the air, shooting from multiple angles toward its joints—elbows, shoulders, and knees.

The zombie twisted, but three needles sank home: two in its right shoulder, one in its thigh.

It snarled.

The dark veins across its torso flared violently. A burst of stored kinetic force tore out from the wounds, shattering the needles into red dust.

Seana’s eyes cooled. It can even discharge the force locally to clear foreign Qi.

The creature closed the gap once more.

Seana retreated half a step, the Blood Moon Sword tracing an elegant arc through the mist.

[Crimson Blood Sovereign Art — First Form: Crimson Lotus Burial!]

Petals of concentrated Blood Qi blossomed across the clearing. They drifted forward, intersecting one another in a dense, interlocking pattern that closed in from all sides.

The zombie raised both forearms, relying on its hardened flesh.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The petals struck in a relentless rhythm.

Some scratched the metallic Qi over its arms, while others slipped past, opening bloody furrows across its ribs and calves.

The creature roared, forcing its way through the final petal. It drew its right arm back, its veins swelling to twice their normal thickness, and threw a heavy, straight punch.

A concussive blast of stored power erupted forward, obliterating the remaining petals and gouging a trench through the dirt.

Seana’s face remained still.

She raised her sword towards the carven ceiling.

The air above the clearing warped. A heavy, suffocating crimson light spread overhead, coalescing into the shape of a massive blood-red moon.

[Crimson Blood Sovereign Art — Second Form: Crimson Moon!]

The moonlight fell across the ground.

Wherever the red illumination touched, stone and soil dissolved, liquefying into a deep pool of fresh, churning blood.

The punch struck the transformed surface. Instead of tearing through stone, the kinetic blast dispersed across the liquid, sending massive red ripples toward the edges of the pool.

The plain-masked zombie looked down.

Its footing was gone.

Before it could leap clear, the pool beneath it surged upward.

Seana closed her hand.

The blood gathered like a massive, five-fingered claw, latching onto the zombie’s legs and dragging it down into the mire.

The creature roared, its claws thrashing as the veins along its arms pulsed, releasing another blast of stored force.

BOOM!

Blood sprayed in every direction, and for an instant, it broke the grip.

But the liquid didn’t splash harmlessly away. Suspended by Seana’s will, it coiled in midair, forming heavy, writhing tendrils that lashed back down.

One slammed into its shoulder, driving it to its knees. Another pinned its right arm, while two more wrapped around its waist.

The creature thrashed, its Abyssal Ironblood flaring to tear the tendrils apart.

Seana was already moving.

She crossed the pool in a red flash. Her sword swept horizontally, biting through the creature’s protective Qi and tearing a deep line across its chest.

Black blood sprayed across the crimson surface.

The zombie staggered, but its left arm shot forward, jagged claws aimed straight for her eyes.

Seana tilted her head. The claws whistled past her cheek, severing a single strand of hair.

Her left hand formed a two-fingered sword seal, pointing downward.

The blood beneath the zombie spiked upward in razor-sharp columns, piercing both shoulders and its right knee before dragging it deeper into the pool.

The creature was submerged to its chest.

Seana stepped back, holding her blade level. The blood around the zombie began to spin, forming a heavy, crushing vortex that pulled it down whenever it struggled.

The veins across its neck glowed with an erratic, blinding light. It discharged its stored force once more, but the swirling pool swallowed the shockwave, trembling without breaking apart.

Seana swept her blade downward.

The blood behind the trapped creature rose into an executioner’s broadsword, towering ten feet tall.

It descended.

BOOM!

The earth shook. The massive blade crushed the zombie deeper into the red mire, silencing its snarls beneath the surface.

Yet its hands remained above the pool, clawing wildly as its black veins continued to pulse.

Seana prepared to sever the arms when a savage howl tore through the air behind her.

A massive spectral wolf formed from black Qi leaped out of the dark, its jaws wide enough to swallow her whole.

Seana pivoted on her heel, pulling the blood pool upward into three overlapping shields.

BOOM!

The phantom beast crashed through the first two layers, its momentum carrying it straight toward her chest.

Seana sprang backward, letting the claws miss her by inches.

The wolf twisted midair, snapping at her flank. At the same time, the blood pool behind her erupted—the plain-masked zombie had broken through the surface, its claws thrusting upward from below.

A pincer attack.

Seana’s blade flashed, cutting through the spectral wolf’s foreleg, but the heavy kinetic shockwave numbed her fingers.

The plain-masked zombie seized the opening, its claws tearing across her lower robes.

Before the two could close the distance again, the spectral wolf dissolved, revealing the second elite zombie—the one in the wolf mask.

It landed lightly on the stone, its claws dripping with foul Qi, and immediately sprang forward.

CLANG!

A brilliant ray of golden sword Qi slammed down between them.

The heavy impact drove the wolf-masked zombie skidding ten paces back, its claws smoking from the golden light.

Seana turned.

Asher stood at the entrance of the clearing, his sword resting in his grip, still humming with golden radiance. Behind him, Rowan, Justin, Nyren, and the others fanned out, their weapons drawn.

Leon glanced at the newcomers from beside the altar. "More flies."

Gong Sihe, however, merely straightened his jade crown with a faint, mocking smile. "Let them come. I rarely travel without adequate preparations."

He brought his hands together. His right index and middle fingers extended while the remaining fingers folded towards his palm. His left hand formed a different seal, its fingers interlocking with the right as he rotated both wrists.

A sequence of intricate series of ancient seals followed.

The ambient energy in the clearing curdled.

Behind Gong Sihe, the air fractured. A jagged black tear opened in the fabric of space, and from within its depths came the heavy, guttural breathing of beasts.

Massive hounds with calcified bone armor and three-jointed limbs poured from the rift, their claws gouging deep furrows into the bedrock as they formed a perimeter around the platforms.

Seana’s eyes narrowed to slits.

A few paces away, Lothe lowered his spear, his dark eyes locking onto the creatures emerging from the tear.

He recognised that Qi. The same sinister energy.

The same oppressive aura.

They had encountered it before, during their previous clash with someone who wielded that power.

Lothe’s fingers tightened around his spear shaft.

Seana’s voice was barely a whisper, cold and flat against the wind.

"Demonic Qi..."?