I alone am the Honoured One!

682  The Night of the Bloody Invasion [1]

For some moments, the battlefield was quiet.

The wind blew through the dust, carrying with it the final traces of crimson mist, scattering the last remains of Elvoria's existence into the empty night.

Zhao Tian slowly lowered his sword and his eyes narrowed, expecting one final trick...

But none came.

It was over.

He turned, his gaze falling upon Velnorah, who was standing there gripping her scythe tightly.

Her breath was heavy, her shoulders rising and falling.

She stared at the spot where her mother had stood, but there was no satisfaction in her eyes.

No relief.

Just emptiness.

Zhao Tian took a step forward. "Velnorah…?"

Her gaze trembled as a soft whisper esaped his lips "She never loved me… did she?"

Zhao Tian blinked his eyes and he knew there was no easy answer to that question.

He didn't lie to comfort her.

He didn't offer false words of hope; instead, he stepped forward and gently pulled her into his arms.

For the first time in her life, Velnorah allowed herself to grieve.

Her shoulders shook as a single tear slipped down her cheek, disappearing into the fabric of Zhao Tian's robes.

She had killed the monster that had haunted her nightmares.

And yet...

Why did it still hurt so much?

...

*BOOOM*

The battle between Yan Zijin and Selena raged on, their clash shaking the skies above the battlefield.

Each impact of Selena's blood-forged sabers against Yan Zijin's bare fists sent shockwaves ripping outward, distorting the air with sheer force.

*flick* Selena vanished in a blur of red mist, reappearing in front of Yan Zijin in an instant, her blade already descending toward the her.

But before the strike could land...

Yan Zijin twisted her right leg and her foot collided with Selena's wrist, knocking the incoming blade off course, before she spun like a hurricane, her other leg whipping around in a devastating counter-kick.

BANG!

The force sent Selena hurtling backward, her body skidding through the air as the crimson mist swirled violently around her.

"You're quite the brute," she teased with a chuckle.

Without another word, Yan Zijin dashed forward, breaking the sound barrier with sheer speed.

Selena reacted just in time, crossing her sabers in front of her...

BOOM!

Yan Zijin's fist crashed into the blades, the impact sending an earth-shaking tremor through the battlefield.

"Damn it..." Selena gritted her teeth and her arms shook from the sheer force behind the attack.

But she wasn't about to let herself be overpowered.

Her energy surged, and in an instant, her sabers melted into liquid blood, flowing like water up her arms before forming into razor-sharp gauntlets.

Before Yan Zijin could react, Selena lashed out, her newly-formed blood claws tearing through the air.

Yan Zijin grabbed Selena's wrist mid-swing.

With that, she drove her knee into the vampire's stomach, sending her reeling backward.

CRACK!

A shockwave exploded from the impact, tearing apart the clouds above them.

Selena coughed, a mixture of saliva and blood escaping her lips as she regained her footing mid-air. @@novelbin@@

Selena prepared to launch another attack, but then... something shifted in the air.

A strange emptiness.

Something is missing.

A vague sense of unease settled in her chest and she glanced downward at the battlefield, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the chaos.

And... she saw it.

A distant patch of the battlefield, now eerily silent.

And in the center of it, a single spot where blood mist still lingered, fading into the wind.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Then she saw them, Zhao Tian and Velnorah.

Selena's body stiffened and her chest tightened, a sickening weight settling in her gut.

Her gaze turned to the spot where Elvoria should have been.

But there was nothing.

Not a corpse.

Not a body.

Just empty air.

Just... mist.

It all made sense to her.

Elvoria was... dead.

The thought was so absurd that for a moment, Selena's mind refused to accept it.

A feeling she had not experienced in centuries clawed its way into her chest.

She wanted to deny it, to convince herself that she was misinterpreting what she was seeing.

But she couldn't.

Because she knew.

The Lacrimosa pact between her and Elvoria, the invisible thread that had tied them together for centuries... was gone.

It had been severed the moment Elvoria had died.

A piece of herself had been ripped away, and she hadn't even noticed until now.

Her hands began to tremble and the grip on her gauntlets faltered.

Yan Zijin's eyes narrrowed as Selena lowered her arms and the energy around her collapsed as if something inside her had shattered beyond repair.

'What happened?'

At that moment, Selena's killing intent exploded.

*WOOSH* A pulse of pure bloodlust rippled through the atmosphere and it was so intense that people on both sides of the battle froze mid-fight, their instincts screaming at them to run.

A vampire general standing miles away dropped to his knees, gasping for air, his entire body shaking violently under the sheer weight of Selena's presence.

"Huh?"

Even Yan Zijin had to shift her stance, bracing against the sudden burst of overwhelming malice.

Selena slowly turned her gaze downward.

Her crimson eyes, once filled with amusement and arrogance, were now emotionless.

Her lips parted, and in a voice so eerily calm it sent shivers down the spines of those who heard it...

"Velnorah... you really killed her."

She took a slow step forward.

Then another.

And then...

She vanished.

*swoosh* A streak of pure blood energy cut through the sky, heading straight for Velnorah and Zhao Tian.

"Not so fast..."

Zhao Tian's eyes squinted, his grip tightening on his blade as he instinctively teleported in front of her, ready to intercept...

But before he could, another force crashed into Selena's path.

BOOM!

The sky shook violently, the impact sending a shockwave so powerful that it split the clouds apart, forcing the factions below to stumble back, shielding their eyes from the intensity.

And standing in the way of Selena's rampage... was Yao Jing.

Eh? Zhao Tian was startled and blinked his eyes in surprise "Master?"

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I hope you guys liked this chapter!