Chapter 40: Ambush
After a while, the elder finally managed to suppress the freezing essence, but the sheer effort had left him severely weakened.
"Little b*tch..." He cursed, his filled with an unbearable, burning humiliation and killing intent.
He staggered to his feet.
"I will shatter your soul into a million pieces!" He roared, thrusting his palm forward to obliterate her.
"Stop, Elder Drask."
The command ca from behind.
Drask halted, his lethal palm halting re inches from Seris’s face. He turned his head in confusion.
Valerius stepped forward, having just broken free from the frost. His silver-trimd robes were damp with lting ice.
"Young Master!" Elder Drask gritted his teeth, utterly unwilling to lower his hand. "This wretched girl nearly cleaved in two! Why are you stopping ?"
Valerius didn’t even spare a glance at the complaining elder.
His gaze was entirely fixed on the kneeling, exhausted figure of Seris.
He walked until he stood directly in front of her, looking down at her pale face.
"Because she is beautiful," Valerius murmured.
Elder Drask:-
Valerius turned his attention back to Drask, "Moreover, her essence is very strange. It possesses such a powerful ice attribute. There must be a secret behind her. Even Victor is nothing but trash compared to her."
He crouched down to Seris’s eye level. "I always believed I was the strongest of the young generation in Greymist Town. But you froze with a single strike and injured a Level 9 elder. The Azure Cloud Sect could not produce soone like you."
"Tell , lady," Valerius asked, his tone dripping with false gentleness. "What is your na? And where exactly did you acquire such a mysterious power?"
Seris did not say a single word.
Despite her drained, fiercely trembling body, she tilted her head up. Her pale purple eyes stared straight into his, filled with an absolute, piercing coldness.
She looked at him with the exact sa disdain one would reserve for a dead insect.
Valerius’s smile stiffened for a fraction of a second, but then he let out a low, amused chuckle.
"Stubborn. I like it," Valerius said, standing back up. "But you won’t be able to maintain that cold glare for long."
"When we bring you before my father, I guarantee you will definitely have to open your mouth. Our Ironpeak Sect has countless, unimaginable ways to make a person speak."
Valerius turned his gaze to the Drask.
"Seal her ridians, Elder Drask. Do not harm her. We are taking her with us."
"Yes, Young Master."
Drask stepped forward, his face still twisted with lingering hatred.
His hand shot out like lightning, ruthlessly striking several acupoints on Seris’s back and shoulders.
The strikes sealed whatever minuscule trace of essence she had managed to recover, rendering her utterly immobile and as helpless as an ordinary mortal.
Unable to resist, Seris’s vision darkened slightly due to exhaustion.
Rhain...was her last coherent thought before her eyes shut.
_____________
After tracking the signal for a few miles, Rhain, Bria, and Hale entered a narrow ravine.
It was the location the tailsiman had shown.
But there was no one standing there to greet them.
Instead, laying rigidly on the damp, blood-soaked soil, was a body.
The torn fabric on his back belonged to the Azure Cloud Sect.
The dead disciple’s eyes were wide open, locked in a frozen stare full of resentnt and unwillingness.
Bria stiffened.
"Tobias..." Her voice crackled as she dropped to her knees beside the corpse.
Tears welled in her eyes as she reached out and gently closed his eyelids.
Just a few days ago, they had sat and dined together in the cafeteria.
She had never, in her absolute worst nightmares, expected to see him like this today.
Hale quickly tried to comfort her.
Looking at the lifeless body, Rhain’s heart clenched.
Seris was still out there. She could be facing the exact sa danger.
The thought caused a surge of uncontrollable killing intent to flash within his pupils.
"Keep moving," Rhain ordered. His voice was bone-chillingly cold.
Bria bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. She forcefully wiped her tear-stained face with her sleeve and pushed herself up, nodding tightly.
They resud their trek through the dense woods in heavy silence.
They had only walked for a few minutes when Rhain suddenly halted.
"Stop."
Bria and Hale rooted in confusion.
"What happened?" Hale asked nervously.
Rhain did not reply.
His dark grey eyes narrowed. Deep within his pupils, faint, srizing golden rings silently ignited.
The Eyes of Truth.
Hidden beneath the damp soil and dead leaves was a subtle, intricate array. If they took one more step, they would be trapped.
"Well, well. It seems this little rat has so sharp instincts."
A burst of harsh, mocking laughter suddenly echoed.
Three older n wearing the crimson robes of the Barlowe family stepped out from the brush, surrounding them.
Rhain swept his gaze over them.
Essence Condensation—Level 3.
Essence Condensation—Level 4.
And the man standing in the center, resting his hand on a serpentine blade, was at the sixth level of the Essence Condensation Realm.
The leading man, at Level 6, looked at Rhain with a hint of surprise.
"To think you actually saw through my Blood-Snare Formation," the leader mused, his sharp, serpent-like eyes narrowing. "You have quite the observing eyes, brat."
He squinted, trying to probe Rhain’s cultivation, but his brow quickly furrowed.
He could not sense the youth’s cultivation realm at all.
The Shadow-Stealth Robe draped over Rhain’s shoulders was working flawlessly.
But the Barlowe leader quickly dismissed his unease with a condescending sneer.
A boy this age could only be at the Essence Awakening Realm.
"You..." Bria gripped her sword, her eyes burning with grief, "Were you the ones... who killed Tobias?!"
The Level 4 man laughed. "Yes. Feeling sad, little girl?"
He drew his blade, a cruel sneer warping his face. "Don’t worry. I am a deeply rciful man. If you miss your friend so much, I will send you down to et him right now!"
He shot forward like an arrow, his blade coated in a thick, lethal layer of crimson essence, aiming directly to sever Bria’s neck in a single strike.
Bria completely paralyzed.
The suffocating, tyrannical pressure of an Essence Condensation expert locked her in place, rendering her unable to even lift her sword
But before the elder’s blade could cross even half the distance— a dark figure blurred.
Rhain stood directly in his path.
The Level 4 man halted his charge for a fraction of a second, slightly surprised by Rhain’s sudden appearance.
But the surprise quickly lted into a cruel, mocking laugh.
"Oho? Playing the hero?" The man sneered, his eyes filled with contempt. "No rush, boy. Don’t be so eager to throw your life away. Everyone will get the chance to die today!"
Without breaking his montum, he aggressively redirected his strike.
He simply shifted his wrist, bringing the crimson-coated blade chopping directly down toward Rhain’s head, fully intending to split him in half.
"Rhain!"
Bria and Hale scread in terror, their hearts stopping in their chests.
Rhain didn’t even blink.
He simply raised his bare right hand.
Clang!
The deadly crimson essence coating the blade was accurately caught by Rhain’s palm.
The man’s cruel sneer vanished.
He tried to yank his weapon back, but the blade refused to budge.
Before the elder’s paralyzed mind could even begin to process what kind of incomprehensible monster he was facing, Rhain forcefully wrenched the blade forward.
The elder felt the skin tear from his palms as the sword was effortlessly snatched right out of his grip.
Without a single millisecond of hesitation, Rhain reversed the grip on the sword and swung it outward.
A cold silver arc flashed through the air.
Squelch!
Crimson blood erupted as the blade ruthlessly and cleanly slashed across the elder’s neck.
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