Chapter 400: Ms. Rabbit’s Shadow

Hearing Ms. Rabbit’s startled cry, Suolang Baima froze for a moment, then quickly retreated to her side and asked in a low voice, “You know this crazy woman?”

Ms. Rabbit glanced at Suolang Baima, her gaze lingering for a moment on his bloodied, mangled eye, then she nodded slightly. “I know her, and I’m very familiar with her…”

Upon hearing this, Suolang Baima felt a surge of joy in his heart. He opened his mouth, just about to say something to Ms. Rabbit, when he saw her suddenly push off with both feet. With a loud crack as the ground split, her figure shot out like a nimble rabbit, fire axe raised, sweeping horizontally at the girl charging toward her.

The axe blade and the flexible sword clashed, producing a piercing, explosive hum.

After their first exchange, the two figures briefly separated. After a short buildup, they collided again with even greater force.

“Clang-clang-clang-!”

The sound of metal striking stone rang out continuously. Clearly it was a sword and axe colliding, yet it reminded Suolang Baima of the morning bell ringing in his hometown temple, with shards of stone flying and thick smoke billowing.

He dazedly activated his psychic energy to deflect the surging shockwave, then looked at Shu E in confusion. “Aren’t they supposed to be very familiar?”

Shu E stared ahead and said blandly, “The kind of familiar where it’s to the death.”

Suolang Baima, “…” All he did was interrupt that guy’s movie-at most, it was a conflict.

And now, it’s escalated into a fight to the death?

Ever since she killed the Dusk Maiden and regained her freedom, Ms. Rabbit’s only goal had been to personally deal with the thief who stole her Witch’s Egg.

Every time she woke from a dream at midnight, she would always recall that burning hotel, and the figure surrounded by flames that filled her with terror. Over time, this had become a lingering trauma.

Let alone that Lu Yibei’s current appearance still bore some resemblance to before, like a child of eleven or twelve growing into a girl of eighteen or nineteen-even if she turned into a pig, dog, cow, sheep, stone, or tree, as long as that aura from the Witch’s Egg remained, Ms. Rabbit could never fail to recognize her.

Now that she had recognized her, of course old and new grudges had to be settled together.

Indeed, when she first saw Lu Yibei, Ms. Rabbit’s initial reaction was fear, but after the initial terror, her emotions were gradually replaced by anger.

When I killed the Dusk Maiden, I already conquered fear once. Today, I will conquer it a second time! Ms. Rabbit thought.

So, without hesitation, she leapt forward, raised her axe blade, and brought it down in a chopping strike.

With a roar, a dark golden gleam flowed across the axe blade, and in the next instant, azure flames surged up, pouring down toward Lu Yibei’s face.

She-Jia throws herself into fire without perishing. While gaining extremely high fire resistance, she also mastered the Moon Shadow Fire-an ability Ms. Rabbit had only recently become proficient in.

For a moment, firelight spread through the cinema hall, thick smoke rolled, and the crackling of burning walls and building materials was incessant.

Since parting in Hua City, Lu Yibei hadn’t seen Ms. Rabbit for a long time. After the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts, to be safe, she had searched every corner of Hua City where a haunting might hide.

Although her goal was to confirm the life or death of the Dusk Maiden, who had become a Plague Taisui familiar, she hadn’t found any trace of Ms. Rabbit during the process.

Ms. Rabbit had vanished from Hua City as if evaporated from the world.

Now, Ms. Rabbit’s sudden appearance here caught Lu Yibei off guard, but in the current situation, she had no time to “catch up” with Ms. Rabbit.

Time was tight. In the limited time she had, killing one was killing, killing three was also killing. Whoever tried to stop her from killing Suolang Baima, she would have to kill!

Otherwise, once the power of the Hundred-Armed Giant got out of control, she would be the one to die.

“Look into my eyes!” Lu Yibei said to Ms. Rabbit in a low, seductive voice.

“Shut up!” Ms. Rabbit instantly used psychic energy to block her hearing, disrupt her vision, and at the same time expanded her psychic sense to the maximum, compensating for the senses she had lost.

She had once been a witch type familiar, had personally hunted the Dusk Maiden, and had even tried to devour the Witch’s Egg. Her understanding of the various traits and abilities of witch type hauntings was on par with the witch types themselves. If she switched careers to become a witch hunter for some unspeakable organization, she could probably make a fortune.

Look into your eyes? Like Suolang Baima, just lie down and let you charm me at will? Do you take me for an idiot? Ms. Rabbit thought fiercely, her attacks growing even more ferocious.

While sensing the flashes of premonition in her mind and carefully fending off Ms. Rabbit’s attacks, Lu Yibei was also thinking to herself.

Damn, worthy of being a Dusk Maiden’s familiar-completely different from that big oaf!

I have to think of another way.

So, seeing the axe blade whistling down at her, she raised her sword, psychic energy pouring into every inch of her slender arm. Amid the faint popping of tendons and bones, she unleashed the most exquisite move of the Taihe Gentleman Sword.

Taihe Gentleman Sword: Heavenly Symphony!

The sword blade swept out, a streak of white light tearing through the fire, shooting forward like a comet trailing a long, snowy arc.

The surging sword energy formed by psychic energy shot out like rolling clouds, swiftly surging forward. The Moon Shadow Fire and sword energy collided and instantly dissipated.

Watching that sword light, Fu Xinyi was clearly a bit stunned. As a proud disciple of the Great Pure Palace who had practiced The Diagram of the Gentleman Sword of Taihe since childhood, she knew better than anyone the power of that strike.

If not for the haunting with rabbit ears, whose axe blade spewed out strange flames with seemingly strong corrosive and unending power, that sword strike would probably have blasted half of this mall floor to rubble.

But…

Was that really a move from the Taihe Gentleman Sword?

Why isn’t this move recorded in the “Diagram of the Gentleman Sword of Taihe” from my sect? Fu Xinyi wondered.

She could clearly feel that the sword move the white-haired girl used was highly compatible with the swordsmanship she had practiced since childhood. It was almost identical to the final move of the Taihe Gentleman Sword-Taihe Gentleman Sword: Inviting Heavenly Splendor. It seemed to share the same origin, yet she had never seen this move before.

Damn it, I just can’t figure it out!

If senior sister were here, she’d definitely be able to tell what’s going on. Fu Xinyi thought, grabbing her hair in frustration.

Then, as soon as she thought of Huá Sāng, she suddenly felt even worse.

A sturdy man wielding the power of snowy mountains, a rabbit-eared haunting controlling bizarre flames, a Witch using a high-quality imitation of the Taihe Gentleman Sword…

There wasn’t a single one here she could beat. She was just a Class B Psychic, dragged into a deadly event of this level-no matter how she looked at it, it was all Huá Sāng’s fault!

Shu E watched from afar as Ms. Rabbit and Lu Yibei fought fiercely. Seeing Ms. Rabbit gain a slight upper hand but unable to secure victory for a long time, he couldn’t help but frown.

Compared to before, she had become much stronger, even able to slightly suppress Hua City’s King of Hauntings.

Unfortunately, this advantage still wasn’t enough to completely overwhelm her opponent.

Strangely enough, how did Suolang Baima get injured by that person just now? And why didn’t that person use her ability to control flames?

As Shu E pondered, he looked at Suolang Baima, wanting to ask about the details of his earlier fight with Lu Yibei. But as he turned around, he froze in place.

He saw that at some point, Suolang Baima’s body had become covered in scrapes and scratches. His lips were dark purple, and his face was so pale it had lost all color.

“You, what happened to you?”

At this moment, Suolang Baima was tormented by a searing pain invading his lungs and organs, unable to speak, not knowing how to explain his current state to Shu E.

The snowstorm barrier he had erected with psychic energy should have been nearly impossible for the chaotic currents from Lu Yibei and Ms. Rabbit’s battle to break through. Yet, for some reason, it was as if every attack found the weakest spot in his defense, leaving wound after wound.

Meanwhile, Shu E, who hadn’t even bothered to defend himself, stood by as if nothing had happened, completely unscathed.

Suolang Baima felt as if he was being favored by the malice of the goddess of fate, the pendulum of misfortune smashing into his forehead again and again.

What terrified him even more was that his blood seemed to have been affected by some force during his fight with Lu Yibei, becoming unfamiliar, stirring up psychic energy within his body and causing him immense pain.

“Psy… psychic energy, my psychic energy…”

After a long while, Suolang Baima finally managed to squeeze out a few words through clenched teeth, then raised his trembling hands, trying to use gestures to finish what he hadn’t said, to warn Shu E.

However…

“Snap!”

Shu E grabbed Suolang Baima’s hand and said seriously, “Psychic energy? What’s wrong with your psychic energy?”

“…”

Suolang Baima was silent for two seconds, then, as if in a final burst of strength, managed to say a complete sentence to Shu E: “Poisoned, my psychic energy, seems to have been poisoned by that woman…”

As soon as he finished, his psychic energy fluctuation suddenly intensified. Layers of incredibly hard frost, as if from a ten-thousand-year-old glacier, appeared on his skin, freezing his psychic energy and blood, putting him into a state of suspended animation to protect himself.

However…

Shu E looked at his own hand, now unfortunately frozen along with Suolang Baima’s, glanced at Lu Yibei, and sensed a strange force corroding his psychic energy. Then he looked at the two streaks of sword energy flying straight for his forehead, and the light faded from his face.

“…”

You’re fucking poisoned, so stay away from me!

Why are you reaching out to me?

“Little thief, you’re about to give out, aren’t you?”

After another fierce clash, as Ms. Rabbit and Lu Yibei drew close, she suddenly grinned and said this to Lu Yibei.

Hearing this, Lu Yibei’s heart trembled. In that split second of distraction, she was met with a flaming axe blade, slashing down like a raging storm.

“Clang-clang-clang-!”

Forced back by Ms. Rabbit’s fierce attacks, Lu Yibei retreated step by step, her feet shattering the floor tiles and plowing two cracks through the broken concrete.

Damn it, how did she know I can’t keep this state up for long? Lu Yibei thought anxiously.

Just as Qing Ji had taught her, exposing your weakness to the enemy in battle was a terrifying thing.

At that moment, Ms. Rabbit continued, “Heh, stop pretending. I’ve already noticed-this time, you haven’t said a single piece of trash talk. Clearly, something’s wrong with your state!”

Ms. Rabbit was too familiar with her opponent. In all their previous encounters, Lu Yibei had never been this quiet during a fight.

Not only that, Ms. Rabbit could clearly sense that Lu Yibei’s movements in battle were unusually erratic, darting up and down like a mischievous monkey.

If her psychic sense hadn’t detected any psychic energy fluctuation, she would have suspected that Lu Yibei was up to no good, setting up some large-scale spell formation.

Lu Yibei, “…”

That’s it? I’m in the wrong just for not talking? Can’t your reasoning be a little more reliable?

As Lu Yibei was thinking this, Ms. Rabbit pressed in again. As sword and axe clashed fiercely, she coldly added, “Looks like you can still hold on? But your sword probably can’t last much longer.”

As she spoke, Ms. Rabbit cheered excitedly in her heart.

Come on! Show me the power you stole from me-burn me with flames, and then I’ll let you taste true despair!

Like a phoenix reborn in fire, bathed in flames, looking down from above to complete her revenge-this was a scene Ms. Rabbit had fantasized about countless times.

The sword can’t last much longer? Hearing Ms. Rabbit’s words, Lu Yibei froze for a moment. As she put distance between them, she glanced at the soft sword in her hand, and her pupils trembled slightly.

In just a minute or two, after hundreds of fierce clashes, the soft sword was covered with dense nicks and had already become blunt, but that wasn’t the main issue.

With the Taihe Gentleman Sword’s blessing, even a wooden stick, let alone a dull blade, could kill.

What truly shocked Lu Yibei was that the soft sword had been corroded by the Moon Shadow Fire erupting from Ms. Rabbit’s fire axe, leaving cracks all over its surface.

The Moon Shadow Fire could corrode even the filthy, bloody psychic energy of the Dusk Maiden, let alone this Class C+ psychic artifact that Fu Xinyi had chosen on a whim, caring only for its lightness and appearance, never considering its durability.

The next moment, Ms. Rabbit stepped forward again, her axe blade slashing down in a wide, sweeping arc. As Lu Yibei raised her sword to block, her arms suddenly twisted at a bizarre angle as if boneless, and the curve of the axe face hooked onto the soft sword like an iron claw.

Then…

A twist, a wrench.

Ding-!

With a crisp sound, the soft sword snapped into several pieces, and before it could hit the ground, it crumbled into clusters of dark red powder, like rust.

[The rusty fire axe cut the body in half]

A terrifying premonition flashed through her mind. Lu Yibei’s heart jolted, and in that split second, she desperately twisted her body. Her spine cried out in pain, and her slender waist felt as if it might snap.

Rip-!

Thud-!

The soft sound of torn clothing and the dull thud of flesh being cut rang out at the same time.

The sharp edge of the fire axe grazed Lu Yibei’s back, leaving a hideous wound over twenty centimeters long.

The Moon Shadow Fire, carrying a surge of psychic energy, surged into her body. Lu Yibei’s vision went black, and she hurriedly used her movement technique to leap back.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With each step back, she stomped out a thunderous sound, each step absorbing and buffering the impact of that axe blow. The heavy steps made her feel as if the bones in her legs were about to shatter.

But…

Bleeding is just what I need! Lu Yibei glanced at her back out of the corner of her eye, thinking darkly.

[She walked into the “web”]

Lu Yibei looked ahead at the pale tendrils only she could see, feeling the premonition flash through her mind, a sly smile flickering in her eyes.

As Ms. Rabbit lunged to pursue, Lu Yibei suddenly infused psychic energy into the lnnate skill borrowed from Meng, weaving a net of pale tendrils as fine as silk threads.

Then…

Beads of fresh blood, like water rolling off a lotus leaf, slid down Lu Yibei’s fair back, gathering into lines, merging into sheets, and dripping onto the pale tendrils, staining them red as if cotton threads were soaked in crimson ink.

In an instant, countless scarlet threads appeared in the theater hall, as if transforming it into a spider’s nest woven from blood.

The next moment, the pale tendrils turned from illusion to reality, and Ms. Rabbit, charging forward, plunged headlong into the net woven by the tendrils.

The moment she touched the net, Lu Yibei’s gaze turned cold, and like a spider drawing in its web, she said icily, “Now, enjoy the nightmare!”

[She fell into a charmed state] The premonition flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind.

Using Meng’s lnnate skill against Ms. Rabbit-if it didn’t hit, it was useless. Using charm against Ms. Rabbit-she wouldn’t fall for it, also useless.

But Meng’s lnnate skill combined with the charm ability-that was useful!

At least, that’s what the premonition said…

The moment Ms. Rabbit was entangled by those blood-stained tendrils, she realized she’d been caught and struggled desperately to break free.

Then…

She suddenly felt the air around her stop flowing, becoming thick and strange, as if she’d fallen into a bottomless pool of blood.

Immediately after, whispers sounded in her ears-illusory, seductive, tinged with madness.

Those whispers conveyed incomprehensible messages, making her feel as if her head would explode, her thoughts drifting. Then, she saw the scene she feared most in her life.

She saw a young girl in tattered clothes, holding a brand-new Mr. Rabbit plush, happily sitting cross-legged on the grassy hillside.

For some reason, the girl suddenly started laughing, going mad, tearing the plush apart bit by bit-ripping with her hands, biting with her teeth, gutting the plush, tearing off its limbs, ripping off its ears, gouging out its eyes.

During this process, Ms. Rabbit felt a heart-wrenching pain, as if it were her own body being torn apart.

Bang-!

A dull thud rang out. A crowbar, appearing from nowhere, struck the girl’s head hard.

Once, twice, three times…

Blood splattered.

The girl collapsed, her eyes wide and round, gradually losing their light. Then her body was dragged by the shadow that attacked her, heading toward the distant woods.

Blood left a long trail on the ground.

Staining the grass, staining the wildflowers, staining the shattered Mr. Rabbit…

This is the story of a wandering girl lured and killed by a deranged preacher with a luxury toy. “Mr. Rabbit” witnessed the whole process, saw the killer’s face, but remained silent.

In the dim light, crows cawed noisily in the branches, as if saying they too were accomplices.

So, when the girl returned again, as compensation, it became her familiar and her favorite toy.

This is the story of the Dusk Maiden’s birth, and also the greatest psychological shadow in Ms. Rabbit’s life…