第38章 咒胎戴天

Snap!

A white, bone-spur snake tail burst out from the soil, emitting a sharp, ear-piercing sound of breaking air.

It resembled a white bone spear, thrusting straight at Kamo Chitsubaki's undefended back.

Kamo Chitsubaki was swinging her fist to smash into the blood bat cursed spirit, her full attention concentrated ahead of her, entirely oblivious to the surprise attack from behind.

On the high-level terrace, Lu Ping's fingers had long since released.

An arrow formed of gathered black shadows shot out from the string, transforming into a pitch-black beam that tore through the mist along the way.

Boom!

The arrow struck precisely at the tip of the bone-spur snake tail.

Rampant cursed energy exploded at the edge of the plaza, and the heavy snake tail was forcefully deflected by several meters.

It grazed Kamo Chitsubaki's side waist and slammed into the ground, shattering large swathes of bluestone slabs, with stone fragments splashing in all directions like bullets.

Lu Ping lowered his long bow, his expression remaining grim.

Once an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer was injured in battle, the flow of cursed energy within their body would be obstructed, and their combat state would plummet straight down.

Although Kamo Chitsubaki was proficient in Crimson Blood Manipulation, she had not mastered the Reverse Cursed Technique.

Physical damage could not be repaired in a short time, which would directly lower her casting efficiency.

In a dangerous battlefield facing multiple Grade 1 cursed spirits, any slight opening was fatal.

Once heavily injured by monsters of this caliber, the subsequent chain reaction would become unmanageable.

Fortunately, this arrow had arrived in time.

The explosion behind her was extremely violent, and the raging shockwave whipped Kamo Chitsubaki's lapels violently.

At that moment, Kamo Chitsubaki was firmly pinning one of the monster's left arms down with her right foot, preparing to deliver the finishing blow.

Hearing the commotion, she swept her peripheral vision backward.

Familiar shadows and cursed energy fluctuations lingered in the air; that was Lu Ping's shadow arrow.

Learning that Lu Ping was not only safe but could also provide ranged support, Kamo Chitsubaki felt a slight release in her heart.

Yet this split-second distraction was seized upon by the near-death blood bat cursed spirit.

This monster had already birthed primary intelligence, and a flash of madness crossed its crimson eyeballs.

It could sense the killing intent on Kamo Chitsubaki's fist, but it was unwilling to be exorcised and purified just like that.

Squish.

The blood bat cursed spirit's right arm transformed into a bone spur, and without warning, it stabbed backhand toward its own left shoulder.

Sickly green blood splashed, and it actually severed its own left arm cleanly.

Severing its tail to survive.

The freed monster emitted a sharp, mournful cry—a piercing sound that caused the surrounding rubble to vibrate slightly.

Its feet kicked fiercely against the mud wall below, bursting out with final strength as the wall collapsed with a loud crash.

Its tattered right wing flapped frantically, its body dragging a pale-white light shadow through midair as it instantly widened the distance.

"Damn it... power..."

The monster emitted a low growl, dark red smoke spewing from its large mouth.

Instead of turning to counterattack, it utilized the momentum to dash frantically toward the dense residential houses at the rear of the plaza.

Stored there was a massive amount of fresh blood it had transported and left behind as sacrifices during its previous slaughter of the villagers.

As a monster catalyzed from the special ritual of the Snake Sacrifice Ritual, its Blood Feast: Molting technique possessed a fatal flaw despite its ability to constantly evolve.

If ordinary cursed spirits suffered injuries, they only needed to consume their own cursed energy to repair their wounds, but it could not.

All the trauma it sustained had to rely on devouring fresh blood to recover, and those pools of blood it had hidden in the residential houses were its final trump card.

As long as it could drink that blood, its severed arm could regrow within a few seconds, and it could even complete a third molt, raising its strength once more.

Kamo Chitsubaki's expression sank completely.

"Don't even think about escaping!"

She shouted coldly and sharply, her hands instantly forming seals as points of blood light gathered at her fingertips.

The scattered blood in the surroundings responded to the summons, transforming into a high-speed spinning bloody drill, and she prepared to cast Piercing Blood to shoot the fleeing bat out of the midair.

However, the tremors from deep underground erupted completely at that moment.

Rumble.

The ground split open with enormous fissures, and earth and gravel shot into the sky, completely blocking her line of sight.

The human-headed, snake-bodied monster climbed completely out of the earth fissure.

Standing several meters tall with a thick body, its dark green scales flickered with a cold luster under the firelight.

On that face devoid of facial features, only a massive mouth split all the way to the ears remained, emitting a viscous roar.

Whoosh!

The huge snake tail whipped up a ring of bone spurs, sweeping horizontally toward Kamo Chitsubaki like a meat grinder while the heavy wind pressure made her face sting with pain.

The close-range attack forced Kamo Chitsubaki to abandon her charging, and she dispersed the blood light at her fingertips.

She sank her breath, and the blood within her body accelerated its frantic surge once more.

[Crimson Blood Manipulation: Red Scale Surge].

Crimson cursed energy enveloped her slender arms, dense red spots emerging across the surface of her skin, and she set up a defense to take this horizontal sweep head-on.

Bang!

A heavy impact echoed through the center of the plaza, and the blast wave blew away all the surrounding dense fog.

This newly emerged monster possessed extremely low intelligence, seeming to understand only instinctive close combat and destruction, but its physical strength was terrifyingly immense.

Kamo Chitsubaki's feet plowed two deep trenches into the ground as muddy water rolled to both sides, and she was actually held in a brief stalemate by this immense brute strength.

Swish! Swish!

Two pitch-black arrows shot out once again from the charred tall building in the distance.

Lu Ping's movements were extremely fast, the arrows nailing precisely into the monster's tail joints before exploding violently.

The black shadows adhered to the monster's wounds like a quagmire, the shadows spreading continuously and slowing the monster's movements.

Seizing this rare opportunity, Kamo Chitsubaki slid sideways around the monster.

Her petite figure burst forth with terrifying energy, and her iron fists—wrapped in cursed energy—rained down heavily onto the monster's abdomen.

Thud, thud, thud!

The sound of fist strikes was exceptionally muffled, each punch producing the sound of an air blast.

The rampant kinetic force smashed large areas of the monster's dark green scales to pieces, debris splashing everywhere.

The human-headed, snake-bodied monster roared in pain, its heavy body firmly pinned down into the muddy water.

On the high-rise terrace, Lu Ping put away the Piercing Ox Horn Bow.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the commotion in the plaza.

Something was wrong; this monster's performance was completely unreasonable.

Its intelligence was even inferior to that blood bat cursed spirit that knew how to sever its arm and escape, yet its physical strength and total cursed energy far exceeded standard Grade 1 levels.

Combining various prior intelligence reports, a startling conclusion formed within Lu Ping's mind.

It was very likely the core itself of that Snake Sacrifice Ritual.

Or rather, it was a Cursed Womb that had been ambushed by the blood bat cursed spirit and hatched prematurely without absorbing enough blood.

This was a premature baby.

If it were a complete Snake God, the hazard rating would definitely far exceed Special Grade.

Lu Ping calculated inwardly; despite being premature, its foundation was simply too deep.

Stepping forward, he leaped straight down from the third-floor terrace while the fierce wind howled past his ears.

During the descent, his body melted lightly into the ground's shadow, sliding forward rapidly.

The shadow on the ground was like a black mirror, rippling continuously, and Lu Ping transformed into a black line speeding rapidly among the ruins.

He was fast approaching the battlefield.

Through the sharp cursed energy senses brought by the [Three Corpses], Lu Ping could clearly sense the anomaly.

Within the monster currently being beaten savagely by Kamo Chitsubaki, the cursed energy was undergoing some bizarre qualitative change.

That stream of cursed energy had turned cold and viscous, carrying malice that pierced straight to the marrow of the bone.

Its total internal cursed energy had not decreased due to injury; instead, along with its agonizing roars, that cursed energy was continuously climbing upward.

This rate of growth was extremely fast, just like a sleeping giant beast slowly awakening.

It had already touched that terrifying threshold—the boundary of "Special Grade."

All the fear and superstition accumulated by the village over the past century were converging within its body; even lacking blood as a primer, it was forcibly crossing that barrier.

Fifty meters away from the plaza.

Lu Ping burst out of the shadows within a quiet alley, his shoes stepping into the muddy water without making the slightest sound.

Reaching behind him, he pressed his uniform button, pulled open his collar, and untied the outer garment secured to his back.

Lu Ping reached out and lifted down the pale-faced little girl, who grabbed tightly onto his lapel while her body trembled continuously.

"Stay here."

Lu Ping spoke in a low voice.

His shadow wriggled bizarrely beneath his feet, the pitch-black shade spreading like ink.

Then, a shadow wolf the size of an ox, exhaling black mist from its entire body, slowly rose from the shadows.

The shadow wolf's eyes emitted a ghostly green light, and it obediently lowered its body, rubbing its huge head against Lu Ping's palm.

Lu Ping placed the little girl upon the shadow wolf's broad back.

"Protect her well, stay within the shadows."

Lu Ping issued the command.

Receiving the command, the shadow wolf gently bit down on the hem of the little girl's clothing, its figure flashing as it sank lightly into the massive shadow caused by the collapsed residential house.

Under the concealment of the shadows, the little girl's presence was completely hidden.

Having handled his rear concerns, Lu Ping held his bow in one hand and flashed out of the alley in a single motion.

His speed was extremely fast, leaving several afterimages in the air, and the next moment he stepped into the edge of the central plaza.

At that moment in the center of the plaza, the battle had entered a white-hot stage, the roaring sounds incessant.

Kamo Chitsubaki was already straddling the head of the half-human, half-snake monster, her long hair dancing wildly in the fierce wind.

Her double fists carried a sky full of red light, smashing heavily onto the monster's face; each punch erupted in a deafening roar, causing the rubble on the ground to jump continuously.

However, although the monster with the large mouth was howling in pain, it instinctively protected its head with its thick hands.

Its dark green scales were extremely hard, each scale several centimeters thick.

The bone spurs on its knuckle joints continuously parried the fist fronts, producing the crisp sound of metal collisions.

Though Kamo Chitsubaki's punches possessed immense power, she was temporarily unable to break through the defense to achieve a swift kill.

"Chitsubaki! Fall back!"

Lu Ping's voice rang out at the edge of the plaza.

His voice pierced through the dense roaring, clearly entering Kamo Chitsubaki's ears.

Advancing at high speed while drawing his bow to charge, he prepared to warn Kamo Chitsubaki of his speculation regarding the "Serpent God Curse Embryo."

They must absolutely not continue entangling with this mutating monster.

Yet, reality did not afford them time for conversation.

Hum—

A vibration of ultimate dullness came without warning from the depths of the earth, and the ground of Snakebone Village stopped shaking in that exact instant.

That was not a sound in the physical sense; it was a cursed energy resonance acting directly upon the depths of the soul.

Lu Ping felt as though the blood within his body had frozen for a fraction of a second.

Boom!

Light and shadow shifted, and an altar standing over ten meters tall appeared abruptly in the center of the plaza.

Without any warning.

The altar was piled high from countless pale-white bones, its surface carved with massive amounts of distorted human faces whose mouths were opened wide as if wailing silently.

The air emanated a nauseating stench of sulfur and blood.

The instant the altar appeared, a ring of dark green light curtains expanded outward at an astonishing speed.

The light curtain resembled an inverted giant bowl, instantly shrouding the entire plaza.

Lu Ping's pupils narrowed slightly.

His reaction was extremely fast; the moment the light curtain touched his flesh, he condensed cursed energy beneath his feet, attempting to vault backward.

Yet the expansion speed of that light curtain surpassed the limits of the physical body.

Snap.

A crisp shattering sound echoed through the void, and all the surrounding environment was ruthlessly stripped away in that instant.

The charred residential houses vanished, the dense fog across the sky vanished, and even the wet muddy water beneath their feet dried up in an instant.

There was no sky overhead, leaving only a depressing, ghostly green light curtain.

The ground transformed into a flesh carpet composed of countless writhing long snakes that tangled and bit one another, emitting a pungent, fishy stench.

Lu Ping—who had originally stood at the edge of the plaza—and Kamo Chitsubaki—at the center of the plaza—were both firmly trapped within this bizarre space.

The distance between them was infinitely stretched, yet they simultaneously felt as close as inches apart.

All around was a dead silence, with only the tooth-aching sound of countless scales scraping against the ground echoing about.

The concentration of cursed energy in the air increased by a hundredfold and more at that moment, the heavy pressure making it somewhat difficult to breathe.

Kamo Chitsubaki tumbled down from the monster's head, steadying her footing somewhat unsteadily.

She looked around vigilantly, her face turning pale to the extreme.

"What... is this situation?"

She whispered through gritted teeth, as if finding it hard to believe.

Lu Ping stood at the edge of the space, the long bow in his hand lowering slowly.

His expression remained calm, yet a hint of solemnity flashed through his eyes.

This supreme technique of materializing a Mindscape World and completely altering the surrounding spatial rules...

This is—

Domain Expansion.