Chapter 70: Fall Of Shen Murong

When Shen Murong’s colossal, multi headed leviathan of corrupted vines and bone thorns slammed head on into Bai Xuan, the resulting shockwave detonated like a heavenly thunderclap. A circular wall of pure wind ripped outward across the caldera, blasting away centuries of stagnant, toxic mist in a single heartbeat and revealing a vast stretch of clear blue sky overhead.

On the ground, Lin Feng dug his heels into the trembling root platform, crossing his forearms over his face as gale force winds howled past him.

"Hold the barriers!" the Orchid Veil Sect Master shouted, her silver robes whipping violently as she thrust both palms skyward, projecting a shimmering dome of spiritual light to shield the younger disciples from falling chunks of petrified wood and boiling mud.

Beside her, Yu Mei slammed her iron spear deep into the basin floor, raising jagged stone bulwarks to deflect a spray of corrosive black water, while Bai Yan and Su Qing stood back-to-back, cutting down the last few panicking necromancers who tried to flee through the chaos.

High above them, the battle between two ancient existences escalated into pure, terrifying spectacle.

"Die! Die! DIE!" Shen Murong’s overlapping chorus of voices shrieked across the basin.

Drawing upon centuries of stolen spiritual resources and dark, heretical death energy, the towering leviathan lashed out with dozens of house sized vine heads. Each head opened wide, firing concentrated torrents of soul corroding black flame and razorbsharp bone spears that darkened the sky like an incoming swarm of locusts.

Bai Xuan didn’t even bother dodging.

Floating at the center of the storm, the pristine white myth let out a low, resonant rumble that vibrated in the bones of every cultivator below. The star like blue gem embedded in his forehead flared with blinding sapphire radiance.

CRACK.

Space itself seemed to warp around the ancient mount. A localized, crushing field expanded outward from Bai Xuan’s body, catching Shen Murong’s volley of bone spears and black flames mid air. The attacks froze for a split second before crumpling inward, pulverized into harmless black dust by sheer weight.

Before the corrupted spirit could recoil, Bai Xuan swept his massive left wing downward.

A crescent gale of pure celestial wind tore through the air, slicing effortlessly through three of the leviathan’s towering vine heads. Black ichor rained down onto the swamp floor like a storm, hissing violently where it struck the mud.

Shen Murong roared in agony and madness, coiling her remaining tendrils together into a massive, thorny battering ram to lunge directly at Bai Xuan’s throat.

Bai Xuan’s intelligent eyes narrowed wit annoyance. He flicked his tail, triggering another burst from his forehead gem. Gravity multiplied tenfold directly over Shen Murong’s bulk, slamming the entire multi headed leviathan straight down out of the sky.

BOOM!

The impact shook the entire swamp, sending ripples across the basin that knocked Lin Feng flat onto his back.

"Holy hell," Lin Feng muttered, scrambling back to his feet and wiping mud from his cheek as the system chimed rapidly in his head.

[Extreme terror and despair detected — Targets: Surviving Heretical Cultists]

[Ambient battlefield conversion bonus active]

[Rage Value: +14,200]

[Current Rage Points: 171,000]

At the center of the cratered pedestal, Shen Murong’s leviathan form collapsed inward, her outer layers of corrupted vines shredded to smoking tatters. Stripped of her defenses, her shrunken, writhing dark form lay pinned to the ancient stone, revealing a pulsing, jagged core of pure heretical malice beating frantically at her center.

Bai Xuan descended gracefully through the clearing air, touching down on the edge of the stone pedestal without kicking up a single speck of dust. Looking down at the defeated spirit with cold, ancient disdain, the white myth raised a heavy, glowing sapphire hoof, preparing to bring it down and crush her core into nothingness.

"Stop! Don’t kill her!"

Yu Mei’s sharp, urgent shout cut across the silent clearing. Bai Xuan paused mid motion, his sapphire hoof hovering inches above the pulsing dark core as he turned his head slightly to glance at her

Lin Feng jogged across the cracked stone toward the pedestal, resting the flat of his Rage Forged Cleaver over his shoulder as he frowned down at the pinned spirit.

"Look at the swamp borders," Yu Mei said quickly, running up beside him and pointing her spear toward the outer mist.

"The beasts are fundamentally tethered to her life forcenit is the only thing keeping them anchored inside the Veiled Orchid Swamp. If you shatter her core right now, that tether snaps instantly. And the frenzied beasts will stampede straight out into the surrounding villages."

Lin Feng’s brow furrowed. He glanced down at Shen Murong’s hateful, glaring eyes, then back at Yu Mei.

"So we can’t kill her, and we obviously can’t just leave her loose to try this again next day. What’s the play here?"

"We can seal her," the Orchid Veil Sect Master said, stepping forward onto the cracked pedestal alongside her senior elders.

"We did not march into the swamp unprepared. For generations, my predecessors have secretly refined an ancestral containment array specifically for the day we could strip her of her stolen authority."

Lin Feng blinked, genuinely impressed as he stepped back to give them room.

"Damn. You guys really have been holding a grudge."

"Silence, boy." a senior elder snapped, though there was no real heat in her voice as she and three other elders took positions at the four corners of the stone pedestal.

With a crisp gesture from the Orchid Veil Sect Master, dozens of glowing silver formation flags and ancient jade talismans flew from her sleeves, embedding themselves directly into the stone around Shen Murong’s pinned form.

"Ancestral Veil, Lock the Spirit!" the Sect Master commanded, her hands flying through a complex, rapid sequence of seals.

HUMMM!

Blinding silver white light erupted from the formation flags, weaving into an intricate, three-dimensional cage of spiritual runes that slammed down onto Shen Murong’s exposed heretical core.

A high pitched, screeching whine filled the air as the Orchid Veil Sect’s generational array began forcibly stripping away her dark intelligence, compressing her chaotic spiritual energy into a stable, mindless directional battery.

"No! NO! You ungrateful wretches! You dare use my own stolen spirit-stones against me?! I am the master of this—" Shen Murong’s shriek began to distort, fading rapidly as the silver runes sank deep into the stone pedestal.

Lin Feng stood a few paces away, resting the flat of his Rage Forged Cleaver over his shoulder as he watched the silver cage tighten around the core. For a brief heartbeat, a flicker of mortal hesitation crossed his face as he looked at the eternal, silent prison the Orchid Veil Sect was locking her into.

Then his instincts kicked right back in.

Ignoring the glare from the senior elder, Lin Feng sauntered right up to the edge of the glowing formation, leaning down slightly so his face was directly in front of the fading core. He flashed his widest, most shameless grin.

"Hey, lady," Lin Feng said brightly. "Maybe if you learn to control that rage of yours in, say, a few years... I’ll put in a good word with the Sect Master about a commutation. No promises, though."

Inside the locking array, Shen Murong’s dimming spiritual presence froze in absolute, speechless existential bewilderment unable to process how an mortal brat have this much audacity.

[Existential bewilderment and pure rage detected — Target: Shen Murong]

[Final emotional harvest confirmed!]

[Rage Value: +33,400]

[Current Rage Points: 204,400]

CLICK.

With a final burst of silver light from the Orchid Veil Sect Master’s palms, the formation flags dissolved into the stone, sealing Shen Murong permanently inside the pedestal as a silent, stationary anchor.

Instantly, the dark corruption bleeding into the air vanished. The turbulent, roaring mud settled into calm, quiet water, and a gentle, clean breeze drifted across the clearing for the first time in centuries.

Silence fell over the entire Veiled Orchid Swamp, however, an invisible, swirling vortex of dense, concentrated residual hostilityleft behind by hundreds of slain anomalies, desperate necromancers, and a defeated spirit hung thick and heavy in the air right above Lin Feng’s head.