Chapter 200: Why the Fuck Did You Get Out?!
The night stretched endlessly before Lordi, an infinite black canvas broken only by the ominous glow of the crimson moon. It hung heavy in the sky, bloated and sinister, its bloody light spilling across the lake’s surface like a fresh wound. The Twin Peak Hill stood as ancient, silent guardians, their jagged silhouettes cutting into the starless sky, watching over the scene with indifferent majesty.
The lake was a perfect plane of darkness, so still it might have been carved from obsidian, mirroring the gory moon with unnatural precision. Wisps of mist drifted across its surface like spectral hands, weaving between the gnarled willow trees that lined the shore, their branches hanging limp as skeletal fingers.
And there, suspended above the lake’s heart, the sword waited.
It was a nightmare given form—a blade too long, too cruel, its edge gleaming with a hunger that went beyond mere metal. The moonlight didn’t illuminate it so much as it was consumed by it, drawn into the weapon like water into a void. The sword pulsed faintly, a slow, rhythmic throb like the heartbeat of some slumbering predator. Shadows writhed around it, restless, whispering.
The moment Lordi stepped forward, the sword’s awareness snapped to him. A thread of unrestrained killing intent lashed out, coiling around him with open malice. It didn’t bother hiding its contempt—this was a predator recognizing prey.
But Lordi didn’t wait for the Sword of Red Run to strike. He unleashed his newly forged Sword Intent, letting it erupt around him in a furious storm. At the same time, he shaped his voice into Krogh Hanz’s commanding, imperious tone—a gamble, a bluff, but delivered with absolute authority.
"Red Run! Come heed my call!"
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then—
"Ma... Master?"
The devil sword blurred, its form flickering before materializing directly in front of Lordi. Its voice was a mix of confusion and hesitant recognition. "Are you really my master?"
To the sword, all humans were indistinguishable. The Blood River Sword hovered, its dimly glowing blade trembling with what passed for deep thought in its fractured consciousness. It "studied" the vaguely human-shaped figure before it—a meat sack with light-reflecting eye holes, a sound-making mouth hole, and the standard arrangement of limb hilts for upright wobbling.
Yes. This was definitely a human.
The sword’s reasoning was, in its own mind, impeccable:
Eye-Holes? Present. (Master had those.)
Nose with Sword Intent Leakage? Present. (A sophisticated feature, clearly.)
Leg-Limbs for Upright Wobbling? Present. (Only high-quality humans wobbled like that.)
Admittedly, this meat sack’s Sword Intent was weaker than its master’s, but there was something different about it—something refined. The Sword Intent seeping from the human’s nasal passages had been stripped of impurities, purer and denser than before. It carried the same root as the Crimson Tide Sword Art, but distilled, concentrated.
This had to be its master. Just... upgraded...?
"Fucking yes! it actually worked—thanks Abyss, for making this overgrown red kitchen knife dumber than a sack of carrots!"
Lordi’s confidence surged—this murderous hunk of metal didn’t give a damn about human faces. No, it recognized one thing and one thing only: Sword Intent.
And damn, was he nailing it.
Ju-On’s mimicry had been ideal. The evil ghost thing had copied Krogh’s Sword Aura down to the last flickering spirit essence, even the way the arrogant swordsmaster’s fingers twitched like he was always seconds away from drawing steel. So the Sword of Red Run couldn’t seen through that disguise.
But Lordi’s Sword Intent?
He wasn’t just mimicking. He wasn’t just borrowing.
He’d become.
The AllFullOS System had taken Krogh Hanz’s decades of brutal, battle-hardened Dao Insights—every epiphany carved in blood, every sword stroke that had split mountains—and then, because the System had zero chill, it had refined them further.
That Sword Aura Shard Red Run had given to Lordi? The final piece of the puzzle into this perfect Sword Intent.
His Sword Intent wasn’t a cheap imitation.
It was what Krogh Hanz’s should’ve been all along.
Only one tiny, inconvenient problem: Lordi’s cultivation was still too weak. His Seventh Layer body could not yet match what towering pressure Krogh Hanz normally radiated by his true sword sovereign.
"You fail to recognize my face," Lordi snapped, voice dripping with icy pissed, "and you can’t even sense me through our soul bond?"
A deliberate pause, just long enough to let the accusation sink in.
Then, with the perfect blend of fury and disappointment: "Pathetic. Don’t you even recognize my Sword Intent?"
The Sword of Red Run had swallowed his act hook, line, and sinker. Lordi could practically see the gears turning in its... whatever passed for a brain in a sentient weapon. "Good. Now let’s see if I can get this murderous toothpick to turn off the goddamn security system before it realizes I’m about as much ’Krogh Hanz’ as a rock is a diamond."
The sword’s reaction was almost comical in its panic.
Lordi didn’t just sound urgent—he commanded urgency, layering his voice with the perfect mix of authority and barely restrained fury. "Deactivate the Gloomwater Phantom Lily Array now!" he barked, as if the mere suggestion of delay was an insult.
"My Cosmic Path Foundation Establishment failed—my Dao Pillar collapsed, my cultivation realm regressed, and I’m bleeding out my damn meridians! I need to leave for treatment immediately!"
The Sword of Red Run practically vibrated with distress.
"W-WHAT?!" The steel’s voice boomed like thunder, shaking the very air.
"Master’s Foundation Stage ascension failed?! Cultivation realm regression?! Heavy wounds?!" It was only now that this sword seemed to actually look at Lordi’s cultivation level—Seventh Layer Qi Refinement, pitiful compared to Krogh’s usual might.
The sword’s concern was almost touching, "Master! Where must you go to heal?! Shall I fetch you a medic cultivator? If they refuse, I’ll slaughter their entire bloodline!" If it weren’t for the fact that its idea of "help" involved mass murder.
Lordi found himself momentarily at a loss for words. This newly forged Sword Born was even more naive and gullible than he had anticipated—its infantile intellect made it astonishingly easy to manipulate. Yet, despite the ease of deception, a cautious voice whispered in his mind: Loose lips sink ships. The more he spoke, the greater the risk of revealing inconsistencies that might betray his true intentions.
Recognizing the danger, he decided against spinning further lies. One misstep could unravel everything. Instead, he kept his command curt and authoritative, unwilling to test the limits of the sword’s limited discernment. With a tone of finality, he ordered, "Deactivate the Gloomwater Phantom Lily Array."
Better to leave no room for doubt—silence, after all, was the safest deception.
Without hesitation—without even a flicker of doubt—the Sword of Red Run obeyed.
"AYE, MASTER!"
Its voice was thunder given form, a roar that shook the earth beneath Lordi’s feet. The air itself recoiled, twisting violently as the devil sword awakened to its full, horrifying might.
One moment, it was a weapon—mere steel and hunger, a tool of slaughter.
The next, it was apocalypse given shape.
The sword unfurled, its edges splitting the heavens as it expanded, a jagged scar across the sky. It grew, and grew, and grew—until its shadow swallowed the lake whole, until the horizon bent beneath its weight. Moonlight bled into its metal, staining the night a sickly, pulsing crimson, as though the very heavens had been slit open. Below, the water trembled—then boiled, bubbles bursting like muffled screams, as if the lake itself knew what was coming.
And then—the screaming began.
Not from the living. No, these were the voices of the dead, the countless souls trapped within the sword’s abyssal core. Their wails tore free from the blade’s depths, a chorus of torment so vast it drowned out the wind. The sound was not mere noise—it was cold, the kind that seeped into bone, the kind that whispered of the void between stars. It was the last gasp of the hanged, the final shudder of the slain, the collective dread of every life the sword had ever claimed.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, the Sword of Red Run hovered—a leviathan of slaughter, a god of ruin poised above the world.
And then—it fell.
This was no mere strike. This was annihilation.
The air shattered before the blade even touched earth, splitting with a sound like continents breaking apart. The Lakeheart Pavilion—along with the two men trapped inside, Jorge Blue and Rodney Luther—ceased to exist in less than a breath. There was no explosion. No crumbling ruin. No final cry. Just dust. A hollow, soundless unraveling, as though the world itself had flinched away from the sword’s hunger.
And then—a crack.
Not in the earth.
In the air.
A jagged, shimmering wound tore open mid-sky—a vertical pool of fractured light, its surface rippling with water that was not water. Reflections twisted in its depths, warped and wrong, as though reality had been folded, broken, and left to bleed.
"Master, the breach in the grand array is open—we must—"
The Sword of Red Run’s voice was a reverent murmur, its tone laced with dutiful urgency. But Lordi didn’t let it finish.
Before the last syllable could fade, he was already moving.
His body blurred, the Blood Spectre Footwork Art flaring to life in a burst of unnatural speed. His muscles screamed, his veins burned—but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was escape. The moment the breach yawned open before him, he hurled himself through it, his form dissolving into a streak of crimson shadow.
Reality ripped apart around him.
For a heartbeat—or an eternity—he was nowhere. The world inverted, his senses shredded into meaningless static. There was no up, no down, only the suffocating sensation of being unmade and reforged in the same instant. His stomach lurched, his vision swam with fractured colors—until, at last, the chaos stillened.
The world reformed.
Cool night air brushed his skin. The cloying sweetness of cherry blossoms filled his lungs. The lake stretched before him, its surface glassy under the dim glow of a shrouded moon. No screams. No pursuit. Just silence.
Lordi exhaled—a ragged, shuddering breath.
He had done it!!
The haunted mountain estate, the suffocating death trap, the ever-looming Ju-On of malice—all of it was behind him. A giddy, disbelieving laugh bubbled in his throat. His lips twitched, the first flicker of victory in what felt like an eternity of terror.
Then—
"Master!"
The voice shattered the stillness—steel scraping against bone, a sound that should never have followed him here.
Lordi’s blood froze. His breath died in his lungs.
Slowly, mechanically, his head turned.
And there it was. The Sword of Red Run. Hovering beside him. Its blade gleamed wetly in the moonlight, as if freshly fed. The air around it warped, pulsing with the whispers of the damned.
The sword tilted slightly, as if puzzled by his silence.
"Master," it repeated, eager, "where is the medic? Point the way—I will carve us a path."
Lordi’s mind emptied. His pulse exploded into a frenzied drumbeat.
What in the bleeding hells—?!
How in the name of the fucking abyss—?!
WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GET OUT??!!!