NOVEL NEXT Chapter 250: Wu Jinhai
The battlefield was still trembling from the aftershocks of Damien's resurrection-fueled slaughter. The golden floor beneath their feet was stained with blood, both fresh and spectral, and above them, threads of ancient luck swirled like startled flocks of birds, circling the corpses before being absorbed into the victors.
The once-proud members of the Celestial Blaze Sect, the Soulweavers of the West, and the Twilight Blade Sect now littered the floating platform like broken statues, stiff, scorched, and still.
Of the thirty drow who had entered the Trial of Plundered Luck mere minutes ago, only three remained standing.
Damien stood in the center of the carnage, his death energy curling around him like a patient storm. He was breathing evenly, his legendary Spear of Eternal Storms still pulsing with residual lightning, the blade faintly humming with the satisfaction of blood well earned.
Beside him, Nyxara leaned against a low stone pillar, one arm wrapped in black bandages of shadow, her other hand clutching her ribs. She was pale, bruised, but alive.
And Lyrisa sat perched on a nearby corpse, her legs swinging back and forth as she whistled her fox-and-rabbit tune, grinning through split lips and a thoroughly destroyed battle dress.
A catastrophic disaster, and yet, they had survived.
Damien moved first, kneeling beside Nyxara. He placed a single hand against her side, his death energy weaving not to drain, but to seal. Threads of cold restoration pulsed through her veins, latching onto the lingering injuries and commanding the flesh to mend. She stiffened slightly under his touch, then exhaled.
"I expected you to let me bleed," she said, voice low.
Damien shrugged without looking up. "You're still useful."
She didn't smile, but her silence was one of reluctant appreciation.
Then he turned to Lyrisa, who was already leaning toward him with mock anticipation. "Touch me gently," she teased, "I bruise easily."
"You're made of scimitars and sugar," Damien said with a smile.
"You noticed." she beamed.
He rolled his eyes and pressed his hand to her shoulder. The wounds there vanished almost instantly, the silver-pink of her skin returning beneath his palm. She grinned even wider and wrapped both arms around his neck in a sudden hug.
"You're my favorite." she whispered.
"Wait, there are others?" he replied in mock surprise and caused her to giggle cutely.
Nyxara cleared her throat.
Lyrisa winked at her and pulled away, humming again as she pulled a dagger from the corpse she was sitting on.
"To the victors," she said brightly, "go the spoils."
And spoil they did.
Damien, Nyxara, and Lyrisa moved through the battlefield with the efficiency of seasoned looters. They stripped artifacts, cultivation cores, talismans, interspatial rings, anything that could be of use or value.
Nyxara found a scroll sealed in a case of burning glass and tucked it into her robe without a word. Lyrisa pilfered a blade she'd been eyeing since the start of the battle and gave it a few experimental swings.
Damien, meanwhile, was quiet.
He stood among the dead, many of them not his enemies, not his allies, just unfortunate enough to be in his way.
And then he raised his hand again.
The death energy pulsed once.
The corpses stirred.
They rose slowly, one by one, the golden light of stolen fate still flickering above their heads, now dimmed to ghostly halos. There were nearly a hundred of them, each one an elite from the greatest sects of the current generation. Now, they bowed to him, eyes glowing faintly, their movements precise, still retaining the essence of who they were, but entirely his.
Nyxara stared.
She didn't move. She didn't speak.
Then, finally, she whispered, "What… is that power?"
Damien tilted his head and gestured to the horde of undead warriors now milling around them like an elite escort of silent death. Their armor still gleamed, their weapons still warm, but their spirits no longer belonged to themselves.
"There's no need for you to know its name," Damien said simply. "Only what it does."
Lyrisa laughed and clapped.
"I like that answer," she said cheerfully. "It's mysterious, arrogant, and very you."
Nyxara frowned. "How do you even hide with this many of them following you?"
"We don't," Damien replied.
And he was right.
For a time, they moved cautiously from around the trial space, Damien sending spectral scouts ahead to map the swirling chaos of the Nexus.
But it was pointless. Their stolen fate shone like searchlights above them, and the growing undead horde, disciplined, organized, and eerily silent, was impossible to miss. They left footprints on the very air. They left whispers in the flow of karma.
The next attack came swiftly.
A new group arrived, their robes burning with molten gold and deep crimson. They flew in formation, divine flames curling around them like lion manes, their footsteps igniting the clouds beneath them.
And at their head stood a young man with hair like liquid fire, eyes of flickering copper, and a robe that glowed with celestial runes etched in flame.
Wu Jinhai, young master of the Celestial Blaze Sect.
He descended with regal arrogance, his arms crossed, flanked by a wall of elite flame-users, all of them radiating the scent of vengeance.
Nyxara's face darkened.
"That's him," she said. "Wu Jinhai. The unkillable youth. Anyone who slays him… is marked. The Celestial Blaze Sect will never stop hunting you. Not in this life or the next."
Lyrisa stretched lazily. "So, he's like a rabid puppy with a crown?"
"Do not provoke him," Nyxara said sharply. "His Divine Fire Seed is powerful, we are not his equal."
Too late.
Wu Jinhai stepped forward with the slow, practiced precision of someone used to being obeyed.
Every inch of him radiated theatrical authority, his burning robes billowing dramatically despite the still air, golden embers curling upward with each measured stride.
His gaze swept over the ruined battlefield and the now-silent army of undead surrounding Damien, and for a moment, he merely stared, nostrils flaring slightly, like a nobleman disgusted by the stench of decay.