Chapter 197: March into Certain Death
Watching Lordi sit up and rise from the dead in such a miraculous way, Donovan stood stunned, his jaw nearly hitting the ground.
"What?!"
His voice was raw with disbelief as he scanned Lordi from head to toe, searching for any sign of injury, any hint that this was some kind of trick. "Junior Brother Payne, how in the nine hells did you deceive Krogh’s Threads of Fate?!"
Lordi’s expression remained calm, almost unnervingly so. "I was using the Withered Heart Technique from the Outer Sect’s Pavilion of Myriad Arts," he explained, as casually as if discussing the weather. "If you need it, Captain Valdez, I can sell it to you—though the price shall include penalty Spirit $tones."
Donovan’s brow furrowed in utter disbelief.
"Withered Heart Technique?" He barked a disbelieving laugh. "Don’t fuck with me, bro. That cheap trick only suppresses vitality—it doesn’t erase it. It couldn’t fool a half-blind Outer Sect newbie cultivator, let alone Krogh’s Threads of Fate!"
Lordi’s gaze hardened, his voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper. "Yet I did use it to sever the damn threads." He leaned in slightly, his next words carrying the weight of a dire warning. "Look, Captain Valdez, that’s not the priority right now. What matters is that I found Senior Brother Garrick Blackthorn is still alive—along with the rest of your Dominator Squad and the other missing sect members we lost on the first day of arrival at this haunted estate. They’ve all become the Ju-On’s puppets."
A shadow passed over Lordi’s face as he continued, "The Ju-On sent them to hunt me earlier. No matter how I tried to reason with them, they turned deaf to every word."
Donovan’s initial suspicion flared—was Lordi holding back? Did the kid have some secret method to sever the Threads of Fate that he wasn’t sharing?
But the moment Lordi mentioned their squadmates being turned into puppets, all other thoughts burned away in a white-hot rush of fury. His face darkened like a stormfront, teeth bared in a snarl.
"Puppets?! What the fuck?! Damn that Ju-On to the bloodiest fucking hell!" His hands clenched into fists, knuckles cracking under the pressure. Every curse was a vent for the dread coiling in his gut.
Lordi didn’t flinch at Donovan’s outburst. His voice remained steady, calm, but beneath the respect was urgency. "Captain Valdez, we need to piece this together. What happened beneath the Ancient Stone Well?" He met Donovan’s gaze squarely. "We have to share intel—right now. The longer we stall, the deader we get."
Donovan sucked in a sharp breath, forcing himself to think past the panic. He exhaled hard, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "Listen, Brother Payne. Shit’s fucked. Nine out of ten odds, the Krogh Hanz under that so-called Moon Reflection Mirror is the real deal—but he’s not some noble savior. He’s a stone-cold fucking murderer."
His voice dropped to a growl. "You said Junior Sister Lu became his hostage? Bullshit. I was down in that Frigid Sanctum—no trace of her."
He jabbed a finger toward the direction of the well, "The only reason I’m not a corpse or a mindless slave right now? Those Threads of Fate on you snapped. Krogh thought the Ju-On killed you, so he let me go—sent me sprinting to the water lily lake to fetch his godsforsaken sword!"
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped him. "Otherwise? I’d be either dead or worse—one of his fucking Sword Serfs, a hollowed-out puppet swinging a blade for him."
Donovan leaned in, grip tightening on Lordi’s shoulder. His voice was low, raw with warning. "Brother Payne, listen close. Even if that arrogant butcher sees value in you now, the best-case scenario once he gets what he wants? You end up a Sword Serf. A soulless slave. That’s the mercy he offers."
He jerked his chin toward the twisted path he’d taken. "That’s why I ran. No way in the Abyss was I going near that cursed lake. If that sword senses me, we’re both fucked."
The weight of their situation crashed over Donovan again. His shoulders slumped, not in defeat, but in the grim acceptance of a man staring down a suicide charge. "Damn bro. We’re outmatched. Every fucking angle."
He ticked them off on his fingers, each point a nail in their coffin. "A murderous Krogh Hanz who’d gut us for breathing wrong."
"A ghostly Ju-On wearing human skin, turning our brothers and sisters into meat puppets. And that fucking sword—"
He spat."And that psychotic, blood-drunk steel doesn’t give a shit who wins. The moment it’s wielded again, the first heads to roll? Ours."
Hearing the words, Lordi’s breath hitched—his chest tightening like a vice had clamped around his ribs.
Senior Sister Ruru... dead?
The words echoed in his skull, hollow and wrong. A sudden urge to deny it rising like a wave—but Donovan’s grim expression left no room for doubt. A cold numbness spread through him, dread pooling in his gut. No. No, that can’t be—
But now wasn’t the time to fall apart.
"Captain Valdez," Lordi said, his voice steady despite the storm inside him. He forced his tone to remain respectful, measured—the very picture of calm. "We need to leave. Now. This haunted estate is a death trap."
His mind raced, weighing risks.
The cherry blossom grove outside the mountain was dangerous, yes—but compared to the horrors within these walls? It was the lesser evil. The real Krogh Hanz, the evil Ju-On, the devil sword—none of them could leave Twin Peak Hill. Their reach ended at the city walls. Outside, the worst they’d face was being trapped by the Gloomwater Phantom Lily Array... and the Ju-On’s lingering mind control influence.
But trapped was better than dead.
And Lordi had a plan.
With the stockpile of Bone Tempering Pills he’d crafted before and cultivation materials he’d looted from the Hanz Clan Treasury, he could disappear. Find some forgotten corner of the grove, some hidden crevice where no one would think to look.
The AllFullOS System would do the rest. One-click-cultivation, slow but safe. No risks. No battles. Just steady, unbroken progress—until he ascended, years later, a Foundation Stage cultivator.
Donovan Valdez stood like a monolith in the gloom, his boots rooted to the cursed earth as if defiance alone could anchor him against the nightmare unfolding around them. The First Dominator was no stranger to damnation—he had carved his path through the demonic sect with bloodied hands, a man who had long since abandoned pretense of righteousness. He was a liar, a killer, a merciless cultivator who had broken oaths and shattered lives without remorse. The mortal world bore the scars of his passing, and he had never once looked back.
But this—
This was different.
The realization coiled around his ribs like a chain, cold and unyielding. His Dominator Squad—his people, the only ones who had ever followed him into hells without hesitation—were caught in the Ju-On’s grasp. And they were alive.
Fear slithered through him, insidious, whispering the old truths he had lived by: Run. Survive. Leave the weak behind. He had done it before. He should do it now.
But then—
Memories flashed, unbidden, searing.
Zoe Wright’s ragged breath as she hauled him from a burning ruin, her laughter sharp and bright even as her own kin brother spat in Donovan’s face afterward. Liam, arm shattered in the Gworm Abyss, still gripping his blade between his teeth as he fought beside him. And Ryn, the guy too young, too green, but standing at his side anyway because Donovan had asked.
Something inside him cracked.
"Payne," Donovan said, his voice a low rasp, stripped bare of its usual mocking edge. There was no flourish now, no performative ruthlessness—just the raw, ugly truth of a man who had run out of lies to tell himself. "If you’ve got a way out of this cursed place—take it. Go. Now."
He didn’t look at Lordi as he spoke. His gaze was fixed ahead, on the Twin Peak Hill’s shadow where the Ju-On’s malice coiled like a living thing. "If my squad was dead, that’s the fucking Great Dao for you—unpredictable, merciless. But they’re not. They’re still breathing, still trapped in that bastard’s grip." His jaw tightened. "And I don’t leave my people behind."
This wasn’t heroism. It wasn’t noble.
It was a ragged, desperate choice, clawed from the depths of a soul he’d thought was rotted through.
For the first time in his wretched life, Donovan Valdez wasn’t fighting for power, for survival, for himself.
He was fighting for them.
And in the suffocating dark of the haunted estate, something long buried in the ruin of his soul shone.
Dude?! What did you say?
Shock stole Lordi’s breath. He stood utterly frozen, his mind reeling as Donovan’s words echoed in his skull like a struck gong.
The Abyss Pit Sect was a den of vipers—a demonic hellhole where betrayal was as common as breathing. Backstabbing was practically a must learnt cultivation technique. And yet here was Donovan Valdez, the Dominator Squad Captain, ready to march into certain death for his people.
A bizarre mix of awe and sheer disbelief churned in Lordi’s gut.
Damn it all... Why the hell didn’t I meet someone like this back in the Outer Sect?
Back when he was scrambling in the Task Division on Ghost Shade Peak just to survive, dodging incoming assassinations and poisonings like they were daily chores—where was this kind of loyalty then?
He barely stifled the urge to let out a hysterical cry.
Instead, he forced himself steady, his voice low but urgent as he met Donovan’s gaze with wary respect. "Aye, Captain Valdez... please, be careful. The estate’s exit is guarded by the Sword of Red Run. Before, we might’ve slipped past unnoticed—but now? If we go near the Water Lily Lake, that devil sword will be stirred wake by our aura. And it will demand answers... or even interrogate us brutally."
He exhaled sharply, frustration flickering behind his calm mask. "I didn’t learn useful shit about that devil sword from the Ju-On in the Ancestral Shrine. But may I ask, Captain—what did you find out in the Ancient Stone Well?"