“Briar. I won’t make a move until I find my senior brother. Killing these idiots is your job.”
Briar’s voice perked up instantly. “Can I eat them?”
“Of course,” she replied coolly. “If you’re not afraid of demonic energy.”
A low chuckle vibrated through her sea of consciousness. “Afraid? I’ve eaten worse.”
Briar had never cared about such distinctions. Back in the Upper Realm, it devoured whatever had flesh—righteous cultivators, demonic cultivators, humans, beasts. It didn’t discriminate. Only Ghost Cultivators were troublesome.
The vines burst outward. Red tendrils spread in every direction like wildfire. The forest erupted into chaos—crows screeching, wings flapping frantically as they tried to escape.
Lauren had intended for Briar to only eliminate the birds that attacked them. Instead, it slaughtered everything in sight.
Vines lashed through the canopy, impaling and shredding. When it was done, only feathers drifted down like black snow.
“Briar,” Lauren said flatly, “dial it back. If someone sees you rampaging like this, we’ll have trouble.”
The vines shrank slightly. Briar projected an innocent air that fooled absolutely no one.
Edmund murmured, “Let it kill them. These Bloodthirsty Black Crows weren’t just tailing us. They were gathering—waiting for the right moment to ambush.”
Lauren glanced at the restless shadows between the trees. After a pause, she nodded. “Fine. Leave it.”
......
A short while later—
“What the hell happened here?” The ground was blanketed in black feathers.
One demonic cultivator crouched and touched the blood staining them. “Still warm. They were killed recently.”
Another frowned. “These Bloodthirsty Black Crows are usually fourth-level beasts. Massive numbers. Extremely cunning. They hunt in coordinated packs. Even a True Demon Realm cultivator wouldn’t kill them lightly. How were so many wiped out at once?”
“Shut up,” someone muttered. “We’re going around.”
They had a bad feeling. Maybe some demonic cultivator had lost control and come here to vent their madness. Whatever it was—they wanted no part of it.
Lauren didn’t realize that Briar’s bloodbath had cleared the road ahead. Feathers and gore marked their path, and anything with survival instinct avoided it.
The demonic beasts here were nothing like the spirit beasts in righteous territory. At the same level, these were stronger—more vicious, more violent.
Few demonic beasts ever successfully transformed into human form. Those who did always carried visible abnormalities—horns, scales, unnatural eyes.
They covered dozens more miles in what felt like minutes. Lauren barely lifted a finger. Briar was enjoying itself far too much.
The destruction it left behind was impossible to ignore. Ancient trees were ripped from the earth. The ground looked like it had been plowed by a moving mountain.
Demonic cultivators spotted them from afar. None approached.
Still, Edmund hadn’t pinpointed Tarot’s location. Lauren’s chest tightened. “It’s been nearly a hundred days since the soul lamp first showed instability…”
Just then, a sword talisman flared at her waist. Her heart skipped. For a split second, she feared the worst—that it was news of the soul lamp extinguishing.
She crushed the talisman open. Relief flooded her veins.
“The sect received Senior Brother’s distress signal,” she said quickly. “He’s three hundred miles north.”
At last. They accelerated immediately.
Briar no longer bothered restraining itself. It expanded fully—red vines surging outward like an avalanche. It crushed demonic beasts in waves, leaving nothing but desolation.
The commotion alarmed countless demonic cultivators in the surrounding region. Still, none dared step forward.
Until one did. A lone figure appeared ahead, blocking their path. He stood calmly amidst the devastation.
“Senior,” he called out lightly, “where are you headed?”
Lauren’s gaze sharpened.
He was standing exactly in their route north. Intentional.
“Attack,” she transmitted coldly to Briar.
The red vines lashed forward instantly, engulfing the man’s body from head to toe.
His expression changed. Black mist erupted from him as he roared. A crimson glow pulsed beneath his skin, and violent demonic energy surged outward.
“True Demon Realm,” Edmund noted. Equivalent to Spirit Severing.
Lauren didn’t even blink. “End it quickly,” she instructed.
The vines tightened. Black mist seeped through the gaps, accompanied by blood-curdling screams that echoed through the forest.
Moments later— Silence.
The vines loosened and withdrew. All that remained was a stripped skeleton, picked clean.
Lauren didn’t slow down.
Not long after, several more Demonic Cultivators stepped out and blocked her path.
One of them raised a hand. “Whatever your purpose is, those people ahead have nothing to do with you. Do us a favor and turn back. The Demonic Lord will remember your goodwill.”
Lauren’s brows knit tightly. The Demonic Lord.
In the Demonic Cult, that title was equivalent to a Mahayana cultivator—an existence on the same level as her master.
What the hell had Senior Brother gotten himself into that even someone at that level was involved?
No… that didn’t make sense.
Figures like that didn’t casually show up in places like this. They were like her master and Silent Fang—rarely leaving their strongholds, delegating everything to subordinates.
These idiots were just throwing the Demonic Lord’s name around to scare her.
Lauren glanced at Edmund. Tarot was close. She could feel it now—a faint thread of connection pulling her forward.
A deep, mature male voice came from beneath her hood. “Anyone who blocks my way… dies.”
The three Demonic Cultivators instinctively stumbled back, exchanging uncertain looks.
They looked ahead.
A massive, grotesque creature loomed in the forest—countless crimson vines writhing like living serpents. Atop those vines stood a slender woman in a black robe, only half her pale face visible.
They had never seen her before. Yet that powerful male voice had come from her.
The pressure in that voice was suffocating. It froze their instincts in place. The scene was absurd. Sinister.
One of them whispered urgently, “We’re almost there. We can’t afford to fail. Stall him.”
They nodded and attacked at once.
“A firefly dares compete with the sun and moon?” Briar’s voice boomed mockingly. “Devour them.”
The vines exploded outward, multiplying tenfold in an instant.
The three were forced into a frantic retreat, stumbling, rolling across the ground just to avoid being impaled.
“What the hell is that thing?!”
“Isn’t it obvious? A tree spirit!”
“Spiritual plants that gain sentience are rare as fuck—I’ve never seen one like this!”
“And why does it have so many vines?!”
This? This was nothing.
At its peak in the Upper Realm, Briar had stretched across an entire ravine for thousands of miles. Dark Souls Land wouldn’t have been enough to contain it.
One of the demonic cultivators reacted a split second too slow.
A vine pierced straight through his chest and yanked him upward. By the time it released him—
He was a skeleton. The other two went pale.
“The master hasn’t even made a move and the spirit plant is already this strong?!”
“Run!”
Lauren’s lips curved coldly. “Running now? Too late.”
She shot forward like a streak of black lightning. Her sword pierced through the back of the fleeing man, shattering his core instantly.
The last one stared at her in horror. “You’re also… from the righteous sect… you—”
Before he could finish, Briar wrapped around him and drained him dry. Bones clattered to the ground.
Edmund soared upward. “Hurry. It’s below us. I smell blood. A lot of it. And many people. They’re performing some kind of ritual.”
Lauren’s heart dropped. A ritual. Were they sacrificing Tarot?
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