Shit!
A choked protest rose in Jorge's throat, but before he could utter a sound, the scary sword array rippled. The air tore open with a sound like splitting bone, revealing a narrow, shimmering fissure. Emma's name died on his lips as an unseen force wrenched her body upward.
She crashed onto the pond's shore, her pulse a frantic drum against her ribs. The moment her fingers sank into the damp earth, the gap sealed behind her with a wet, gulping noise.
The breach of the sword array was closed.
Rodney and Jorge were trapped inside with it.
The red sword floated lazily in the moonlit air, its blade drinking in the silvery glow like a parched tongue lapping at water. A soft, almost contented hum vibrated from its steel—until it spoke, and that voice cut through the night like a razor through silk.
"Maaaaster always said~" it sang, tilting playfully side to side, "humans are bad and cunny, like filthy little rats in the sewer. Give them time, and they'll chew through the walls to scheme your way free." Its crimson eyes pulsed, bright with amusement. "So let's make this simple! Three nights. Starting... now~" The blade spun in a sudden, dizzying circle, moonlight flashing along its edge like a grinning mouth. "Bring me my master, all safe and sound... or oooooh, I'll have such fun with you."
The temperature dropped as its voice dropped to a whisper—the sound of a new born devil sharing a secret in the dark. "I haven't fed on fresh blood in ages. And you two? You look delicious." It drifted closer to Rodney, then Jorge, its tip tracing invisible lines over their throats.
"Tick-tock, little mouse. Hop to it." the sword chirped at Emma, "before I decide your friends look extra tasty in moonlight~"
A pause. Then, brightly: "UnderSTOOD?" The last word rang through the clearing like the toll of a executioner's bell.
Emma took a deep, shuddering breath, her resolve hardening despite the fear clawing at her chest.
"Aye!" she said, her voice low but firm. She cast a final, lingering glance at the pavilion, where Rodney and Jorge stood ensnared by the sword's formation, their faces etched with desperation. With no time to waste, she turned and vanished into the manor's shadowed depths.
——
Beneath the Twin Peak Hill, the northwest of rear mountain.
In the shadowed depths of a weird courtyard beneath the Ancient Stone Well.
The air hung heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and something older, something that whispered of sorrows long buried yet never truly gone. The crimson threads binding Krogh Hanz pulsed faintly, their eerie glow casting long, writhing shadows across the garden's unnatural vibrancy.
Lordi Payne stood before Krogh respectfully, his heart pounding but his voice steady as he probed for answers. "Senior Brother Hanz, this humble one seeks your wisdom. Where might the Hanz Clan Treasure House lie? And your Soulbound Artifact, the Sword of Red Run—does it bear any distinct marks to guide us? Or a sign by which we may recognize it?" His words were careful, each one a step on a precarious path, wary of the bound cultivator's enigmatic aura.
Krogh's gaze was glacial, his voice a blade wrapped in silk—soft, yet sharp enough to draw blood.
"The Treasury House lies beneath the Driftdream Loch—some outsider fools call the Water Lily Lake. Its gate rises only when the moon kneels at its zenith. My Sword of Red Run stands sentinel there."
A pause. His next words were not a request, but a decree.
"You will go to the pavilion at the lake's heart when the Treasury House opens. You will meet my sword there."
The air thickened, the very walls leaning in to enforce his will. Lordi could almost feel the weird courtyard's bones shifting—agreeing—as if the house itself obeyed Krogh's unspoken command.
Lordi's brow furrowed, a shadow of suspicion passing through his gaze.
"If Senior Brother you already know its precise location," he began, voice measured, the words edged with quiet caution, "Why did Your Honor not retrieve it personally?"
The question lingered, heavy in the damp air. He needed answers.
But more than that—he needed to know why Krogh Hanz, bound yet still dangerous, had left such a prize untouched.
And what game they were truly playing.
Krogh's lips peeled back—not in amusement, but in silent, predatory warning. His eyes gleamed like smoldering embers, alive with something primordial, something starved.
"The Ninefold Malice binds me to this earth vein," he intoned, every syllable a nail in a coffin. "Without their chains... do you truly believe sect vermins like you would still scuttle unchecked in my place?"
The scarlet threads writhed around him, a tempest of contained fury, whispering of violence deferred. Lordi did not hear a threat—he felt the inevitability of it, like the slow crush of tectonic plates.
The Ninefold Malice? The name alone coiled in his thoughts like a venomous serpent. What twisted thread binds it to the Cosmic Path Foundation Establishment Technique?
His instincts hissed warning—this was no mere cultivation method. It reeked of something older, darker, as if the very syllables carried the weight of drowned screams.
Titles that coiled through the air, thick with the musk of forbidden power, intoxicating and lethal. Krogh Hanz spoke of it as if it were a key... or a curse. This man stood at their center—not just their prisoner, but their dark apostle.
Lordi committed Krogh's words to memory, his breath steadying, his voice measured—layered with the careful deference of a junior addressing a senior. Yet beneath the surface, his thoughts churned like storm-tossed waves.
"This humble one thanks Senior Brother for his wisdom," he murmured, bowing slightly—a practiced motion, smooth with respect.
But his gaze flickered—just for an instant—toward the woman standing in the shadows.
She was a specter of opulence and dread.
Towering yet elegant, she was draped in black lace, her silhouette carved from shadow and splendor. Every line of her was a paradox: the cruel curve of her lips softened by their fullness, the glacial sharpness of her gaze offset by its allure. Hers was a beauty not meant to comfort, but to ensnare—a weapon as deliberate as the claws sheathed at her fingertips.
Her figure defied nature—a decadence woven from temptation and terror.
The swell of her bosom, ripe as winter's first snowfall upon the vine; the sinuous taper of her waist, cinched as if by the hands of an envious god; the languid sway of her hips, a rhythm whispering of seduction and slaughter. The air around her thickened with the scent of crushed roses and iron—a heady poison.
Even in stillness, she was a storm.
Moonlit hair framed a face of marble and malice—cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, lips dark as a bruise yet tempting as sin. To look upon her was to understand the allure of the guillotine's blade: terrible, exquisite, inescapable.
And beyond her, unseen but ever-looming, pressed the suffocating weight of the Souleater Kodama—its hunger a palpable force, even from afar.
"This junior dares to ask…"
Lordi kept his tone light, almost idle—as if it were mere curiosity and not survival that shaped the question.
"Are this honored elegant lady and the sacred Kodama tree above also bound to this courtyard? To the Ancient Stone Well's domain?"
A pause. His pulse hammered against his ribs—a trapped bird frantic for flight.
If they are confined… if they cannot follow—
The thought struck like a spark to dry tinder. Then the moment Krogh permits me to leave, I run. I do not look back. I do not stop.
Krogh's smirk was a dagger pressed against Lordi's throat—casual, effortless, lethal. His gaze stripped away pretense, laying bare every desperate thought of escape before it could fully form.
"If they depart beyond my reach," he mused, voice thick with cruel amusement, "the Ju-On's bewitch will hunt them down." A slow, deliberate pause. "The ghost being wears my face. My cultivation strength. My spirit aura. Even my sword's will. Its venom will slither into their ears, twist their devotion... until they kneel to a shadow, never knowing they worship a ghost."
The silence that followed was a noose tightening.
Then—a laugh, bone-dry and final, like the scrape of a coffin lid.
"But if you imagine that breaks your chains... if you fancy this grants you freedom..." His eyes gleamed, cold and mocking. "Try run away—and let us see how far the estate allows you to crawl before it drags you back."
Lordi's heart sank, but he swiftly smothered his unease beneath a veneer of fervent devotion.
"Senior Brother!" His voice rang with earnest admiration, warm as sunlight on polished steel. "Why would you ever doubt this junior's loyalty? Your name thunders through the Holy Sect's millions of outer disciples—a legend I revered even before I joined. To stand in your presence, to imagine the days when your sword painted rivers of crimson across heaven and earth…" He pressed a hand to his chest, the picture of awed reverence. "This is an honor beyond measure. To serve you now? A privilege I would never forsake."
A pause, then a bow so deep it nearly hid the sharpness in his eyes. "Rest assured, Senior Brother Hanz—we will reclaim your Sword of Red Ruin without fail."
Krogh's gaze flickered—just once—with something resembling approval. A single, measured nod.
"Kinson Wexford." His voice was steel wrapped in silk. "Your talent in cultivation is undeniable. Your cunning in wisdom... noted." A dismissive wave—time for talk had ended.
"The woman remains. You will retrieve my Soulbound Artifact Sword." No request. No negotiation. "Succeed, and the Cosmic Path Foundation Establishment Technique is yours. Fail..."
The unspoken threat coiled in the air like smoke.
"Hmph, do this task," he said, "and I will permit you both to leave Hanz Estate—alive."
Final. Absolute. The word of an heir who had never needed to raise his voice to command obedience.
Before Lordi could respond, Krogh flicked his sleeve, and a single crimson thread detached from his body, moving with serpentine grace. It lashed out, coiling around Lordi's limbs and torso, binding him with an icy, invasive force that seemed to pulse with malevolent intent.
The world around him shimmered, the garden's vibrant facade rippling like a mirage. A wave of disorientation swept over him, and when his vision cleared, he stood once more beneath the gnarled boughs of the Souleater Kodama.
The tree's bark twitched, its countless eyes stirring as if eager to fix their paralyzing gaze upon him. Lordi's instincts screamed, and without hesitation, he channelled the Blood Spectre Footwork Art. His form blurred into a streak of crimson light, fleeing the Ancient Stone Well oppressive grasp as the Kodama's malevolent presence loomed behind him, its whispers chasing him into the night.