The Standoff in Eternal Night

They had been at a standoff for an unknown length of time.

Finally, the black-robed man broke the silence.

His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping wood, accompanied by an eerie chuckle.

“You so-called Practitioners are really something. Just borrowing a path, is it necessary?”

The twin-tailed girl’s emerald eyes remained as calm as a still lake.

Hearing this, she only tightened her grip on the throwing knives in her hands.

Her tone was serious and icy, uttering a single word: “Yes.”

The black-robed man seemed to find this extremely amusing.

He let out a chilling, grating laugh.

The laughter was sharp and hoarse, reverberating through the empty streets of eternal night, filled with endless madness and malice.

Suddenly, the laughter stopped.

The next moment, the black-robed man moved!

His form suddenly accelerated like a ghost.

Carrying his greatsword, he charged at the twin-tailed girl with astonishing speed.

His tattered black robe flapped loudly as he ran, like spread black wings.

The twin-tailed girl’s expression hardened.

A sharp glint flashed in her green eyes.

She didn’t retreat at all.

Her feet pushed off the ground fiercely.

The next second, her figure shot forward like an arrow from a bow, meeting the black-robed man head-on.

The two throwing knives in her hands traced frigid arcs through the night, aiming straight for the black-robed man’s vitals.

Facing the girl’s fierce assault, the black-robed man reacted with astonishing speed.

Almost the instant the knives flew in, he raised his ancient greatsword, holding it crosswise to block.

“Clang!”

The screech of metal clashing rang out.

The two throwing knives met the greatsword.

In the moment of violent collision, sparks flew in all directions.

A visible shockwave erupted from the two of them.

The concrete ground beneath their feet could not bear the strain, cracking and exploding instantly, with rubble scattering everywhere.

After blocking the attack, the black-robed man didn’t pause.

He let the greatsword sink back slightly to absorb the recoil.

Then his muscles tensed, veins bulging on his arms.

Using the momentum of the sinking sword, he swung the ancient greatsword down fiercely at the girl.

Clearly, the twin-tailed girl was more agile.

Facing his attack, she lightly sidestepped.

The greatsword crashed down on empty space with a boom, leaving a deep crack in the ground.

While dodging, she precisely seized the gap between his spent force and the birth of new strength.

Her wrists snapped, and the two throwing knives shot out like streaks of cold light, aiming for his openings.

The black-robed man’s heart jumped.

‘Not good.’

Hastily, he pulled back his greatsword to block in front of himself.

But it was too slow.

The two knives evaded the greatsword’s defense.

One stabbed deep into his shoulder, the other into his lower back, sinking in to the hilt.

Blood immediately seeped through his black robe, staining the already tattered fabric.

The black-robed man grunted.

The sharp pain in his shoulder and lower back froze his movements.

Before he could react further, he saw a blur.

Then an even more intense pain exploded from the wounds.

He clearly felt the knives embedded in him begin to dig upward!

The excruciating pain made his pupils contract sharply.

Veins bulged at his temples.

He forced himself to endure the pain and turned his head sharply to look behind.

Only then did he realize that the twin-tailed girl had somehow circled around to his back.

Her feet were planted on his back.

One hand gripped the knife in his lower back, pulling upward with violent force!

The screeching sound of the blade cutting through flesh was clear.

In an instant, it tore the wound wider.

The black-robed man’s flesh was split open.

Warm blood gushed down from the wounds, quickly spreading a large dark stain on his robe.

The pain enraged the black-robed man completely.

He didn’t even care about the girl on his back.

He grabbed his greatsword and slammed it hard against his own back, willing to harm himself to force her off.

The twin-tailed girl reacted swiftly.

Sensing his attack, she pushed off his back with her right hand, kicked her legs against his back, and used the recoil to leap lightly backward, landing steadily several meters away.

“Thud…”

A dull sound.

The black-robed man’s greatsword smacked solidly into his own back.

The tremendous force made his body sink, driving him into the concrete ground.

He struggled to stand up, staggering slightly, and looked down at his body.

His robe was already soaked with blood, covered with wounds large and small, some from the girl’s attacks, some from his own blow.

Now, he was riddled with holes.

Trembling, he placed his calloused, bloodstained hand over the most gruesome wound.

From his throat came a series of indistinct murmurs.

The black-robed man’s voice sounded like a pained roar, yet also like some eerie chant.

After a moment, a bizarre scene occurred.

The blood flowing from his wounds suddenly stopped.

The everted muscle tissue at the wounds writhed and twisted like living things, visibly and gruesomely sealing the wounds layer by layer, leaving only dark bloodstains.

The wounds healed.

The black-robed man slowly raised his head.

His sunken eye sockets were bloodshot.

A chilling laugh rang out.

His voice was still hoarse, but carried a terrifying excitement.

“So it’s you. I’ve heard of you.”

“Chuanjiu’s rabbit, just as agile as the rumors say.”

“Too bad…”

He deliberately drew out the tone, then shifted abruptly.

“I seem to be your natural enemy.”

With a dull, heavy crash, the black-robed man drove the door-plank-sized ancient greatsword into the ground.

The twin-tailed girl’s pupils contracted sharply.

Her hands tightened on the throwing knives.

Her whole body was tense like a drawn bowstring.

Her emerald eyes were full of gravity and wariness, staring fixedly at the black-robed man, not daring to relax.

He clearly knew a lot about her, but she knew nothing about this illegal entrant.

This feeling of being in the dark while the enemy saw clearly made her uneasy.

The black-robed man seemed unaware, or simply didn’t care about her wariness.

He only expressionlessly reached out his calloused hand, grabbed the other throwing knife in his shoulder, and pulled it out fiercely without hesitation.

“Pfft…”

But as if feeling no pain, he pulled out the knife and casually tossed it aside.

Taking a deep breath, under the girl’s horrified gaze, he placed both hands on the sword hilt and slowly closed his eyes.

His hooded head drooped slightly.

The black-robed man began to mutter, low and obscure incantations sounding one by one: “Decaying soil as your veil, you are the shuttle; bones as your stele, you are the engraver…”

As the chant began, the air around instantly turned cold and viscous, as if infused with tangible chill.

The already dilapidated street began to warp and overlap.

Hazily, a phantom of a sinister cemetery filled with desolate graves and eerie ghostly aura slowly superimposed and interweaved with the real scene, sending chills down one’s spine.

“Coffin worms gnaw your unaged frame, rotting swamps surge as you sleep eternal…”

The twin-tailed girl stiffened.

She clearly felt countless icy gazes landing on her, as if countless ghosts lurked in the shadows.

Cold climbed up her spine, reaching her scalp in an instant, making her shiver.

The black-robed man’s eyes snapped open.

Sunken sockets carried a hint of fanaticism.

His chanting rose sharply, carrying an unquestionable authority and madness.

“I knock on the gate of death with a blood pact, willing to follow the corpse tide across the Yellow Springs!”