The air was thick with a sickeningly sweet, bloody stench.
It was the product of high-purity killing intent fermenting with rotting flesh and blood.
The once alluring and enchanting Hu Liena was now completely unrecognizable.
Her eyes had rolled white, with only pinprick-sized blood-red dots remaining at the centers of her pupils—the coordinates where the "Holy Son's" will had taken root.
The nine fox tails behind her were no longer fluffy, tangible appendages. They had mutated into nine massive flesh-and-blood pythons covered in sticky scales. At the tip of each snake was a sucker-like mouth bristling with barbs, thrashing madly through the air and emitting shrieks like crying infants.
"Tang Yin... save me... or kill me?"
Hu Liena's lips did not move, yet that piercing voice exploded directly inside Tang San's mind.
The voice drifted near and far. At times, it sounded like the spoiled Saintess from Spirit Hall; at others, it became a venomous mockery from the depths of hell.
The knuckles of Tang San's hand gripping the Clear Sky Hammer turned white, and his steps faltered slightly.
The Purple Demon Eye could see through falsehoods, but it could not see through these layers upon layers of emotional shackles.
In that instant of hesitation, three flesh-and-blood pythons formed a triangular formation and sealed off every route of retreat. Their foul breath washed over him.
"Hesitation means defeat. Is that what I taught you? Is this your first day out in the world?"
A cold voice cut into the battlefield alongside a black afterimage.
Leng Yuebai did not care whether Hu Liena was a Saintess or not. Her logic had room only for removing obstacles. The short blade in her hand turned into a pitch-black streak, carving a Z-shaped line of death through the air.
Slash—!
The three pythons' heads