In the suffocating gloom of the Ancient Stone Well, Donovan’s face twisted with defiance, his entire being a silent tempest of rebellion against the fate Krogh Hanz had so casually carved out for him. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight, his knuckles white as bone, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached. The weight of the moment crushed down on him, a mountain of dread pressing against his ribs, but beneath it all, his pride roared like a caged beast.
Fuck this. Fuck him. I didn’t crawl through the Gworm Abyss just to kneel now.
The thought of submission was a poison in his veins, worse than death itself.
Krogh’s gaze was glacial, his expression one of bored contempt, as if the man trembling before him were nothing more than an insect to be crushed underfoot. His lips curled into a smirk, the kind pitiful to fools who didn’t know their place.
"Kneel," The arrogant swordsman commanded, his voice a slow, grinding menace, each syllable dripping with the certainty of a king addressing his lesser. "Swear yourself as my Sword Serf, and you will live—bask in the shadow of my greatness."
The idea of becoming Krogh’s Sword Serf—a mindless puppet, a blade without a will—sent a surge of revulsion through Donovan so violent it near choked him.
He had fought tooth and nail through the Dao’s cruelest trials, had dragged his squad brothers through the Gworm Abyss’s nightmares, had bled and screamed and clawed his way to this moment. And for what? To kneel? To surrender his soul to some high-handed bastard who saw him as nothing more than a tool? Like hell.
The Mister First Dominator’s stomach churned, bile rising in his throat. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to beg, to do anything to escape the inevitable slaughter. He heard rumors what happened to those genius in Vermithys who defied Krogh—bodies torn apart, skulls shattered under a single, indifferent blow. Death wasn’t just likely; it was a fucking guarantee.
Yet his pride was a wildfire, scorching through the fear. To bend the knee? To grovel like a whipped dog? The image made his skin crawl worse than the grave. He’d forseen the hollow-eyed husks of men who’d surrendered—empty shells, puppets dancing on Krogh’s strings. Follow current novels on NovєlFіre.net
No. No, no, no—I’d rather be fucking dead.
Donovan’s breath came in ragged, panicked bursts, his heart slamming against his ribs like a trapped animal desperate to escape.
I don’t want to die. Oh gods, I don’t want to die.
But louder than the terror was the voice inside him, the one that snarled, that spat, that roared—"Better to fucking burn than kneel."
After a heartbeat that stretched into eternity, his choice was made. His jaw locked, his spine rigid with defiance. I am Donovan Valdez. I do not bow. He would die on his feet, teeth bared, even if the world shattered around him.
Krogh’s icy composure cracked.
A flicker of shock, raw and unguarded, flashed across the sword cultivator’s face. "How could that young brat be dead?!" His voice was a low, dangerous growl, disbelief twisting his words as he grappled with the impossible.
That prodigy—Kinson Wexford—should have been safe.
Perfect Grade Refined-Tier bones. Mastery of the Inner Sect’s elite Blood Spectre Footwork Art. Wielder of the Blood Fiend Blade Art, armed with the high-rank Dao Artifact Blade of Life Hater. And most damning of all—he had been marked by the Sword of Red Run itself, carrying a thread of its protective sword aura.
How in the nine abyss had the Ju-On’s puppets slaughtered him?
The implications struck Krogh like a blade between the ribs. With Kinson dead and Donovan still breathing, the Sword of Red Run would know—that Krogh Hanz lairing in the Ancestral Shrine was an impostor.
What game was the Ju-On playing?
The elegant, eerily tall figure of Madam Claret glided forward with an unsettling grace. Sensing the shift in Krogh’s demeanor—the faintest crack in his usual imperious composure—she inclined her head slightly, her long, ink-black hair cascading like a silken curtain over the stark beauty of her pale face. Her plain, flowing gown, devoid of adornment, only accentuated the unnatural perfection of her features, making her seem less like a mortal woman and more like a sculpture carved from moonlit marble.
"My lord," she murmured, "what has transpired?"
Krogh’s usual aura of cold indifference shattered like thin ice beneath a hammerblow. A suffocating pressure erupted from him, warping the space around his body in visible distortions, as though reality itself recoiled from the force of his fury. His spirit energy, normally a tightly leashed current, now raged unchecked—a tempest of jagged, serpentine tendrils that lashed at the air with a hissing, venomous intensity. His face, usually an unreadable mask of disdain, darkened like a storm-wracked sky, veins pulsing at his temples as his eyes—those bottomless pits of glacial contempt—flared with something far more dangerous: astonishment.
When he spoke, his voice was a blade sheathed in ice, each syllable sharp enough to flay flesh from bone.
"The Thread of Fate I placed on that brat... has snapped."
A beat of silence, thick and heavy.
The implication was staggering. His fingers flexed, claws glinting with latent, murderous power. The Thread of Fate was no mere tether—it was the Great Dao’s own mark, an unbreakable bond between Earth Vein itself and the cultivator it chose. For it to sever so abruptly...
"There’s only one explanation," he continued, the words grinding out like stones beneath a millwheel. "His life vitality is gone. Snuffed out. He’s perished on the spot."
Madam Claret tilted her head slightly, her long black hair slipping like liquid shadow over the delicate curve of her ear, her expression one of thoughtful deference. There was no panic in her bearing, no tremor of fear—only the poised calm of a woman who had long mastered the art of navigating the tempers of greater powers.
"My lord," she began, "could it be a martial spell to feign his death? In the days I served the master in the Abyss Pit Sect, I recall encountering several such techniques within the Pavilion of Myriad Arts in the Outer Sect."
Krogh’s lip curled in disdain, his shock momentarily eclipsed by scorn. He dismissed the notion with a sharp, imperious shake of his head.
"Impossible," The sword master spat. "Feigned death martial spells merely conceal vitality, mimicking death while preserving a faint spark of life. Without that spark, how could one possibly return upon dispelling the technique?"
His voice dripped with derision, as though the very idea were an insult to his intelligence. "If that brat had used such a method, some threads of fate would still remain—not all severed completely."
He scoffed, the sound like the crack of a whip. "At his pitiful Seventh-Layer Qi Refinement Stage, he couldn’t suppress his life force to such an extreme degree even if he wished to. Those Outer Sect tricks are cheap for a reason—they’re worthless. They might fool dim-witted demonic beasts or feeble ghost spirits, but they could never deceive the Threads of Fate, nor even evade the probing senses of an ordinary cultivator."