Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 318 – The Love-Hate Relationship of My Cheap Old Man

At the edge of the Death Swamp, gray mist rose like a wall connecting heaven and earth, drawing an unmistakable line between the realms of life and death.

The originally desolate entrance was now sealed off by a uniformed contingent of black-armored guards.

Several hundred elite Dragon Guards of level four and above had formed a blockade stretching several kilometers along the swamp’s perimeter.

“Stay sharp, all of you!” A guard captain brandished his longsword. “By order of the City Lord, the swamp is sealed today—not even a single fly gets in! Violators will be executed without mercy!”

The killing intent radiating from them kept the adventurers hoping to scavenge for spoils at a wary distance, none daring to cross the line.

What they couldn’t see, however, was a nearly transparent ripple gliding silently through the air less than a hundred meters above their heads.

Lin Fan hovered in mid-air in her spiritualized form. The “Phantom” necklace around her neck emanated a faint chill, sealing her aura completely within her body.

She glanced down at the heavily guarded formation below and curled her lips.

“Tsk. Quite the show of force.”

A blockade like this might stop others, but it couldn’t stop her—not with her Spirit-Flesh Unity talent.

Unless she wanted to be seen, even a peak level-seven expert would struggle to sense her presence.

She didn’t linger at the perimeter. Following the increasingly thick scent of sulfur and blood in the air, she shot straight toward the depths of the swamp.

…

Deep within the Death Swamp.

The environment here was a hundred times more treacherous than at the edges.

Beneath her feet was black mud bubbling with toxic gas. Above, gray mist blotted out the sky. Occasionally, withered tree trunks stretched skyward like ghostly claws, draped with the bones of unknown creatures.

Suffocating. Stifling.

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Even a level-seven expert would need to constantly divert a portion of their power to ward off the miasma that pervaded every corner.

“Cough, cough…”

A muffled cough shattered the deathly silence.

Long Jingtian led the way, his boots sinking into the black mud with each heavy, strained step.

His face was pale, and his normally sinister eyes were shot through with red veins.

These were the aftereffects of forcing his power while old wounds had yet to heal.

“It’s just ahead.”

Long Jingtian stopped and pointed toward a region shrouded in black and crimson mist. His voice was hoarse and ragged. “That beast’s lair—I’d recognize it even if I were reduced to ashes.”

A few meters behind him followed a man and a woman.

Long Teng, clad in green robes, gripped a longsword in hand. His expression was unreadable as he surveyed their surroundings with deep, inscrutable eyes.

Walking half a step beside him was none other than Fifth Elder Long Xuan.

She wore form-fitting dark purple soft armor that accentuated her strikingly voluptuous figure. Her black-purple wavy hair cascaded over her shoulders, and a complex, alluring charm swirled within her purple-gold vertical pupils.

Yet at this moment, the female elder who commanded respect and fear in the outside world seemed unusually cautious.

“Brother Teng…”

Long Xuan hesitated for a moment, then produced an exquisite jade bottle from her Storage Ring and offered it to Long Teng. “The miasma here corrodes Mental Strength. I brought some pills from the Dragon Emperor Hall. Keep one in your mouth, and it can—”

“No need.”

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Long Teng didn’t even glance at the jade bottle. His pace didn’t falter in the slightest as he spat out two icy words and walked straight past her.

Long Xuan’s hand froze mid-air, a flicker of humiliation and dejection crossing her face.

“I’m just afraid you’ll get hurt…” she murmured softly, her voice so low that only she could hear it.

Long Jingtian, walking ahead, turned back and caught sight of the scene. He frowned impatiently.

“Enough!”

Long Jingtian let out a cold snort, his tone brimming with irritability. “With a great enemy before us, can you two put aside your petty affairs for now? Once we’ve slaughtered that beast and avenged Jingyun, you can cling to each other all you want!”

Long Teng’s brow furrowed slightly, a flicker of disgust passing through his eyes, but he didn’t retort.

Long Xuan, on the other hand, let out a bitter laugh and silently tucked away the jade bottle, hurrying to catch up. Yet her gaze kept drifting, intentionally or not, toward Long Teng’s back—the obsession and regret hidden in those eyes were so thick they could hardly be dissolved.

“Third Elder.”

Long Teng suddenly spoke, breaking the awkward silence. “You said the Demonic Dragon is severely wounded, but the aura I sense, though violent, is far from weak.”

As a sword cultivator at the peak of the seventh rank, his sensitivity to auras was extremely sharp.

The dormant pressure ahead was like a volcano on the verge of eruption—how did that look anything like a creature on the brink of death?

“Hmph, that’s just it putting up a bluff!”

Long Jingtian gnashed his teeth, the hatred in his eyes nearly spilling over. “A month ago, I burned my own origin essence and shattered its Dragon Heart Armor with the Soul-Devouring Power, leaving behind Death Qi inside it that it can’t expel. At best, it can only muster seventy percent of its strength now!”

With that, Long Jingtian turned around and stared hard at the two of them.

“I may not have fully recovered from my injuries, but I still have the combat power of the eighth rank. Add the two of you, and as long as we coordinate well, we can absolutely pin it down in the mud and kill it!”

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“When we strike, I’ll take the lead and draw its attention.”

Long Jingtian quickly assigned the tasks, his tone brooking no argument. “Long Xuan, use your Mental Strength to disrupt its judgment and restrict its movements. Long Teng, your sword is the sharpest—find an opening to sever its Dragon Tendon. Whatever you do, don’t let it take flight!”

“As long as it can’t fly, in this muddy pit, it’s nothing but a sitting duck!”

Long Xuan nodded, her gaze instantly sharpening. “Don’t worry, Third Elder. Mental control is my specialty.”

Long Teng said nothing, merely silently drawing his longsword half an inch from its sheath.

Clang—

A crisp sword cry instantly dispersed the poisonous mist around them.

“Good!”

A glint of bloodlust flashed through Long Jingtian’s eyes. “Then let’s go—send that beast to its grave!”

Without another word, the three formed a triangular formation and surged forward at full speed into the black-red haze.

…

Atop a massive withered tree several hundred meters away.

Lin Fan sat on a horizontally growing branch, her long, slender legs gently swinging back and forth.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Looks like this cheap dad of mine has quite the tangled history of love and hate with that Fifth Elder.”

Lin Fan watched the three distant figures receding into the mist, her golden eyes brimming with amusement.

That woman called Long Xuan—her gaze was practically glued to Long Teng.

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What a pity. The flowers fall in love, but the river flows on without a care.

Lin Fan licked her lips, a flicker of greed passing through her eyes.

A seventh-rank peak mental-type Dragon Clan member.

That was something she urgently needed right now.

Now that she had Spirit-Flesh Unity granting physical immunity, her only weakness was Mental Strength. As long as she could reinforce that…

“But that Demonic Dragon isn’t exactly a pushover either.”

Lin Fan stuffed the last potato chip into her mouth, patted the crumbs off her hands, and fixed her gaze on the deepest part of the swamp.

There, she sensed an extremely cold, cunning presence.

It didn’t feel like a beast wounded and on the verge of death at all.

Rather, it was like a hunter who had spread a wide net and was patiently waiting for prey to take the bait.

“Who’s the hunter and who’s the prey… that’s not so easy to say.”

Lin Fan rose to her feet and stretched. Her youthful, vibrant outfit rustled in the eerie wind, her twin ponytails swaying with the breeze, making her look like a girl next door who had wandered into a demon’s lair by mistake.

But in those eyes, there was no fear—only the excitement of watching ingredients drop into the pot.

“Well then, let the show begin.”

Boom!!