The Heroine Must Die

Then Edmund said, “I can borrow the boundary marker’s power to purify them. But I don’t have a physical body. I’ll need to use yours.”

Lauren exhaled sharply and slapped a hand against her chest. “You scared the hell out of me. You could’ve just said that.”

So it’s just borrowing my body. I thought he was actually making me cleanse this entire abyss myself.

“Ready?” Edmund asked.

Lauren stared down into the devouring darkness. Guess it’s time to jump.

“…Yeah. Ready.”

“We fed them plenty on the way down,” Edmund said calmly. “They’re full. Jump.”

So that’s why they’d been cutting down those ancient carnivorous plants and tossing them into the abyss—feeding the spirits below.

Right. He had mentioned earlier that malevolent beings would love those flowers.

Edmund was getting better and better at keeping his plans cryptic as hell. To steady her nerves, Lauren grabbed Briar.

“If I’m jumping, you’re jumping.”

She leapt. She’d imagined a controlled descent.

Instead, Briar panicked midair. Leaves exploded outward, and it transformed into a massive tangled clump of vegetation, rolling and crashing down the cliffside like a runaway boulder.

They plowed straight through the swarm of vengeful spirits. It was chaos.

Spirits shrieked and scattered, only to surge back seconds later, surrounding them in all directions.

Lauren reacted instantly, slapping down Avoid Evil Talismans in a circle. A translucent barrier flared to life around them.

She pulled out every talisman she had—but Avoid Evil Talismans were niche and rare. She didn’t have many, and they wouldn’t last long.

She glanced upward. A thick, suffocating mass of spirits filled the sky, layer upon layer, blocking even the flow of energy.

Edmund perched on her shoulder and snapped, “Briar! Who told you to roll down like that oversized weed ball?”

“I—I—” Briar trembled, nearly in tears.

“Forget it,” Lauren cut in quickly. “My fault. Just focus. What’s the plan?”

She should’ve stuffed Briar into her spatial dimension and carried it down properly. Too late now.

The impact had stunned the surrounding spirits, but they were already recovering. Edmund scanned the battlefield and pointed. “Charge that way.”

Charge was generous. Lauren couldn’t kill these spirits outright. At best, she could blast them back. Every time she dispersed them, they re-formed seconds later.

She knew what she needed. Divine Thunder Bamboo—one of the Nine Sacred Trees recorded in the ancient library. Lightning-type power was the natural nemesis of this kind of thing. Her master’s techniques were built for exactly this.

She did have a bolt of her master’s lightning. But that was her life-saving trump card. No way she’d waste it here.

Buddhist cultivators were also good at this sort of thing. Grand Master Light, for instance…

She still had one Light clone left. The very last one. Not unless absolutely necessary.

Suddenly, the air cracked with a sharp rustling.

Lauren looked up. Briar, pushed into a corner and shaking with rage, lashed its vines through the air, carving open a narrow path through the swarm.

She followed immediately. Briar’s attribute leaned yin as well—hardly ideal against vengeful spirits—but it was still an overlord from the upper realm.

Even a weakened camel is bigger than a horse. Its vines whipped through thousands of spirits, flinging them aside like scraps of paper.

Lauren cleaned up behind it, blasting away the ones that tried to close the gap.

For a while, their coordination held. But the deeper they pushed, the worse it became. The spirits ahead were denser. Stronger. Their auras heavier and more malicious.

They weren’t picky, either. Some clung to Briar’s branches, gnawing at them with translucent jaws.

“Get off me—get off!” Briar shrieked, thrashing wildly.

They’d covered twenty miles. Still no boundary marker.

“Edmund!” Lauren shouted. “How much farther?”

“Soon.”

“Oh, fuck off with ‘soon’!”

“Briar’s not holding up. They’re chewing through its branches—it’s about to break down.”

“I can’t help,” Edmund replied calmly. “I must conserve strength.”

Lauren: “…”

Briar wailed, “I’m going to die! I’m going to die! God Venerable! Lauren! Save me!”

Its vines were covered in spirits, clinging so tightly they couldn’t be shaken loose. Edmund merely raised an eyebrow, utterly unconcerned.

Lauren’s expression hardened. “Briar! Retract the branches. Pull back—get behind me!”

Briar stumbled backward toward her. Lauren drew out a Fire Spirit Talisman and snapped it open.

Flames roared skyward in a violent column of fire, tearing a blazing path through the suffocating mass of vengeful spirits.

The Fire Spirit Talisman wasn’t ideal for dealing with ghosts—there were far more specialized talismans for that—but it was still a hell of a lot more useful than her ice spells.

Ice was completely useless against these things. At least fire could force them back.

Lauren shoved Briar straight into her inner space and sprinted into the corridor of flames.

Even with runes reinforcing the fire path, her stock of Fire Spirit Talismans was limited. She couldn’t keep this up forever. “Edmund, how much farther?”

“Soon.”

“…Damn it.”

If you say soon one more time, I swear I’ll die here, turn into one of them, and eat you first.

“I don’t know the exact distance,” Edmund finally added. “I can only sense it somewhere ahead.”

It was still vague as hell, but at least it was honest. That made her feel slightly better. This old dragon really did deserve to be cursed. He only spoke like a normal person once she started swearing at him.

Not knowing how far she still had to go, Lauren didn’t dare relax for even a second. She forced herself to endure, pushing harder, trying to shorten the distance as much as possible.

Battered, burned, and furious, she shouted, “Damn it! You’re completely unreliable! If you knew we were coming to a place like this, you should’ve said so earlier! I would’ve prepared tools specifically for vengeful spirits, and we wouldn’t be in this goddamn mess!”

Edmund replied calmly, “You can multitask?”

“…That’s not the point!” Lauren snapped. “Look at Dante—when has he ever gone out unprepared? He takes over a month just to prep for one training trip!”

Wait. She’d forgotten about Dante. Next time, no matter what, she was dragging Dante along.

“What’s the use of all that preparation?” Edmund scoffed. “Against absolute power, fancy tricks are meaningless.”

“Tch.” Lauren sneered. “Meaningless? Then remind me—how exactly did you get trapped in Sky-Covering Valley?”

Edmund: “……”

Right in the sore spot. “Focus on dealing with these things,” he snapped angrily. “Why are you spouting so much nonsense?”

Fine. Screw him. Then she saw it. In the distance stood a wall darker than darkness itself, towering like an eternal monument.

The boundary marker. She’d seen something similar in the Hidden Mist Secret Realm—but this one was on an entirely different scale.

Much bigger. Lauren’s face lit up with wild joy, and she charged forward without hesitation.

That was when disaster struck. A gigantic ghostly demon, flanked by countless lesser spirits, locked onto her and surged forward.

The monster opened its enormous black maw and exhaled a breath that felt ancient—like it had fermented for a thousand years.

The black mist reeked of decay. Even before it touched her, a bone-deep chill swept through her.

This wasn’t ordinary cold. It wasn’t weather. It was the kind of cold that made your soul tremble.

Lauren instantly activated Avoid Evil Talismans. But they barely slowed the advance. Against something like this, they were almost useless.

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