Volume 6, Chapter 77 – Might As Well Use the Sword Occasionally

The wind sweeping across the scorched earth grew increasingly cold and biting. Black powder was whipped into a swirling aerial dance by the dark-green curse power erupting from Renoval’s body, forming a rotating black-mist tornado. The eerie whispers continued to spiral through his mind like the most venomous of curses, ceaselessly amplifying the jealousy and hatred buried deepest in his heart, detonating emotions that had been suppressed for hundreds of years.

“It’s all you! It’s all because of you, you abomination!”

Renoval’s crimson eyes locked onto Xing Wu with savage fixation, his voice so hoarse it resembled the shriek of a beast. He thrashed his arms wildly as the dark-green curse power coalesced around him into countless warped blades, each one wreathed in a black, putrid aura.

“It’s because you exist! Because of you, Master never once put her heart into me — it’s all because of you……”

“If it weren’t for you, everything would have been different.”

“If only you didn’t exist……”

With each bitter, resentful word that left his lips, Renoval’s emotions spun entirely out of control. The curse power within him erupted like a volcano.

He had clearly been drained of all his strength moments ago by Xing Wu — yet now, that strength had returned through some inexplicable means.

Not only that, it had surpassed his peak.

An aura far exceeding the Divine Departure Realm pressed down on the surrounding air, making it tremble.

At the same time, the sinister shadow behind Renoval grew ever more distinct. That grotesque smile stretching from the corner of its eye down to its jaw seemed to come alive, twisting and contorting with each of his screams, while a nauseating stench of decay began seeping through the dark-green curse power.

“Today! I will kill you! I will erase you from Master’s side completely!”

With a frenzied, unhinged roar, Renoval lurched forward. The dark-green curse power around him condensed into a pair of enormous bat wings, and with a thunderous crack through the air, he launched himself at Xing Wu like an arrow loosed from a bowstring. The black-mist tornado surged in his wake, and countless blades forged from concentrated curse power screamed out from within it — shrieking as they tore through the air, converging on Xing Wu from every direction, bent on shredding her to pieces.

“Tch……”

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Xing Wu watched Renoval hurtling toward her like a madman, her brow furrowing deeper.

The putrid aura clinging to him was growing denser by the second — entirely unlike the curse power of either of the two evil gods she had sensed before. This was colder. More diseased……

This was clearly not Renoval’s own power.

Something had granted it to him.

So he’s been entangled by a will of Corruption, has he……

What else could cause a person to suddenly burst with such terrifying obsession and strength so far beyond his own? That would only be Corruption.

A truly frightening power……

Though?

A thought seemed to occur to her, and Xing Wu’s brow furrowed slightly. Leaping aside to dodge wave after wave of Renoval’s hysterical attacks, she shifted her gaze to the indistinct shadow hovering behind him.

Corruption.

Based on what she had learned from her foul mother and from House Solrog……it was something formless — a presence that worked imperceptibly, interfering with a person’s thoughts, warping their will from within.

But that thing behind him? It seemed to have a physical form……

Well, never mind.

This wasn’t the time to be dwelling on such things. The priority right now was stopping him.

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Her peripheral vision caught the distant mountain peaks — pierced by the curse-power blades, they disintegrated in an instant, eaten away to nothing. A grave look surfaced in Xing Wu’s eyes unbidden.

If she let this go on, the surrounding area would be devastated.

To say nothing else — there was a good chance Clavino would simply cease to exist.

She had already promised her foul mother through telepathy that she wouldn’t let things spiral out of control……she couldn’t go back on her word now.

She was, after all, a child who kept her promises.

Almost the instant Xing Wu made her decision, a colossal sword condensed from curse power came crashing in from the front!

――――― “Slash!!! BOOM!!!” ―――――

Even with the exceptional combat instincts honed through years of training under Bai Lianyue, Xing Wu barely managed to twist her body aside in time — but the spreading shockwave of the curse power explosion still caught her left arm in that split second, tearing it apart.

Gazing at the mangled, blood-soaked stump, Xing Wu raised an eyebrow slightly.

Not because of pain, of course.

After all, the years she had spent as a test subject under House Solrog’s captivity had subjected her to wounds far more horrifying than this. More times than she could count.

She was simply startled by the sheer destructive force — enough to shred a Divine Graced Realm body to pieces in an instant.

“Might as well finish this quickly.”

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The silver-haired girl murmured to herself.

Naturally, those words reached Renoval’s ears.

Cloaked in rampaging curse power, Renoval’s expression instantly twisted into something savage, furious, and completely unhinged. He let out a contemptuous roar.

“Finish me?!! Do you think I’ll be suppressed as easily as I was just now?!! Bai Xingwu!! Don’t you dare underestimate me aaaaaaaah!!! I am……more deserving!! More deserving of Master’s love than you!! More than you are!!!”

As his curse power surged to even greater heights, Renoval gripped his sword in both hands and swept up tens of thousands of curse-power blades, launching the entire overwhelming torrent straight at Bai Xingwu.

“Tch.”

Faced with the onslaught bearing down on her like a raging storm, Xing Wu’s expression became completely serious. The violet Augury Force flowing around her accelerated rapidly.

No helping it. She’d have to use it.

Xing Wu mused inwardly.

Truth be told, as far back as a thousand years ago, those Celestial Augur Knight uncles and aunts had asked her this question more than once:

Why, as the daughter of Bai Lianyue, had she never learned to fight with a sword like her father? Why a scythe instead?

The reason was simple — to dodge her foul father’s endless nagging.

In order to forge her into someone capable of protecting herself, her foul father back then had been absolutely desperate to teach her every sword technique he possessed. He’d hovered around her endlessly nattering away, and dragged her into training sessions without fail.

And so, to escape all of that, Xing Wu had chosen the scythe as her weapon and taken a different Celestial Augur Knight aunt as her master.

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Her foul father had moped about it for quite a long time.

Wait, she should be saying “foul mother” now, shouldn’t she……tch……still not quite used to it~

But if she were being honest — though she had wielded the scythe for many years, her most powerful fighting style……had never changed.

“What a pain……”

With a murmured complaint from the silver-haired girl, the violet scythe in her hand suddenly blazed with brilliant light.

As Augury Force poured into it, the scythe slowly contracted and shifted shape — the curved blade straightening into a lean, upright sword body, the haft growing longer and thicker — until it had transformed entirely into a longsword radiating a violet luminescence from hilt to tip. The blade was unadorned, yet it pulsed with a resonance that was anything but ordinary.

“Since my foul mother isn’t here……using one of her techniques shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Xing Wu tightened her grip on the longsword. With a light kick off empty air high above, she shot forward like a streak of violet light, flying straight into Renoval’s charge. The Augury Force around her resonated with the sword, radiating a gentle yet unyielding radiance that stood in stark contrast to Renoval’s dark-green, putrid curse power.

In the next instant, Xing Wu’s eyes narrowed.

A brilliant violet light erupted from within those beautiful eyes.

―――――― “Moon Mercy Soul Requiem―――――!” ――――――

The words had barely left her lips before the longsword in her hand suddenly shattered, dissolving into mist.

Then — violet sword light cascaded like moonbeams, carrying with it a sacred purifying power against all Corruption, weaving through the air into an enormous net of blades. Wherever the net swept, the dark-green curse-power blades were severed in an instant. The spinning black-mist tornado abruptly slowed, and the twisted, contorted faces writhing within it let out piercing wails — then, under the crashing force of the soul-binding power, they crumbled all at once……