...

Holy hell, is this guy a freak, crawling out from under a stone like a centipede?

He wants to use a living body to drag a dead soul back into daylight, like forcing winter into spring.

The wooden coffin floated on the blood pool, held up by a thousand blood threads like spider silk; Nana Toki’s face stayed calm, moonlight on still water.

She didn’t look surprised that Xiaoxiao Ji would show up here, like a sparrow returning to a haunted eave.

Huh. A villain boss daring to show his face at the door means he’s clutching some leverage, like a knife behind a fan.

Only...

You want me to use this moron’s body?

Arms folded like shutters against a storm, Nana Toki stared straight at the sleeping face in the coffin; her voice came cold as hoarfrost on bone.

Beside her, Lu Ming shivered like a reed in night wind; he felt Ling Jiang’s state skewed, a fox-shadow curling under her skin.

Don’t you like it? Teacher Bai lifted his head; madness warped his face like heat ripples over asphalt. This is my gift for you.

A gift for the original owner? How’s that my problem, like smoke to the clouds?

She drew her Black Great Axe from behind her back like a thunderhead unfolding, and gave Teacher Bai a crooked smile sharp as a fishhook.

You give me a gift, I must accept? Then I’ll gift you a knife—will you use it to off yourself?

Silence fell, like the whole world held its breath between thunder and rain.

Xuduo and Lu Ming stared at Nana Toki, stunned, as if cut by an invisible blade of words.

Even Teacher Bai’s face flickered with doubt, like a lantern guttering in a tunnel; the woman before him felt familiar yet foreign as a mirror in fog.

Ling Jiang, you’ve changed, like a river shifted from its old bed.

That pure, cold malice, black ice wanting to drown all light, was something Teacher Bai had never seen in her eyes.

Yeah, I changed. I turned into a ghost. You happy? She flashed him the universal friendly gesture, a hawk’s talon against the sky.

Then Nana Toki lifted the Black Great Axe, and swung for his face like lightning finding a tree.

That idiot wants me reborn in Nesting Phoenix’s body? For fuck’s sake. I came to this plane for Nesting Phoenix; if she’s gone, what’s the point—sweeping her grave under a winter moon?

The Black Great Axe howled in her hands like a storm in pines; heavy as a boulder, it moved lighter than a blade of wind.

I get it now. You’re being controlled, right? That’s why you’re so strange, like a puppet with a foreign hand.

Teacher Bai’s arm rose; dense red threads spread like a web across a cave mouth, catching the axe’s bite with a wet shiver.

It’s you, isn’t it? You—and you! You two disobedient bastard students want to take Ling Jiang from me like the others, like wolves stealing lambs?

His gaze at Lu Ming and Xuduo turned savage, a butcher’s knife licking the grain.

Relax, Ling Jiang. I’ll free you soon, like cutting a knot with one stroke. Just a moment is enough.

Behind him, the blood pool surged like a sea about to birth a leviathan; he drew a small flask from his pocket, holding it up like a relic in a shrine.

This is a special tool I’ve prepared for you, year after year, like wax dripped into a seal.

He pulled the cork. A reek of rot rolled out like swamp gas; the blood pool began to boil, a pot of venom, and countless threads rose and twined.

What is that? Xuduo’s voice trembled like a cracked bell; she clutched the amulet at her throat until nails bit flesh like thorns.

Lu Ming felt her unease pounding like drumbeats; yin energy swirled into the flask’s mouth like smoke into a chimney.

The desiccated human faces in the school walls began to wail, anger and fear mingling like rain and ash.

Wind knifed around them; a rank iron stench bled from the pool, thick as rusted chains.

Is that... Ling Jiang?

From the blood pool, a woman rose slow as the moon, face identical to Ling Jiang’s, body from the neck down bound in red threads like a cocoon.

Her skin was pale as paper; her eyes stayed shut; the threads under her back cupped her like hands, lifting a sleeping princess in a dark fairy tale.

She lay among red filaments on the blood pool like a flower drowned in a crimson pond, eerie and beautiful as a nightmare.

The wall-faces’ wails sharpened like needles; yin at the flask mouth thickened like storm clouds.

In the pool, blood threads rocked with the boiling scarlet, and the thick veins coiled round the campus thudded and swelled, as if the central pool were the school’s heart.

Sizzle—sizzle—szzz.

Sizzle—sizzle—szzz.

As the blood drained from the cocoon, the mass unwrapped, revealing a body in blood-red garb, like a cicada shedding its shell.

Fuck! That idiot’s feeding the Red Robed Wraith with the original body!

Landing lightly, the red-robed Ling Jiang looked sinfully alluring, a torch in midnight, her figure carved by crimson cloth.

But her vacant face shattered the beauty like a crack through pale porcelain.

Call it human and it’s a lie; it’s closer to a living corpse, like winter dressed as spring.

Watching from not far away, Nana Toki felt bile climb like smoke; she wasn’t truly Ling Jiang, but seeing her own body twisted half-human, half-ghost scraped her like sand.

That so-called Teacher Bai should be drowned in a pig cage, like a stone dropped into a black river.

She gripped the Colossal Axe, sighted the red waist, and drove forward; the edge drew a gleam that felt like it cut the eye.

Die.

Roar—!

As the blade neared the red-robed waist, the vacant-eyed woman erupted in a scream that speared this blood world like a lightning spike.

A surge of yin blasted out; Nana Toki’s hands hitched for a heartbeat; the wild stroke only tore off one arm, spraying silence like petals.

Nn—

At the same instant, pain drilled into Nana Toki’s left arm like a hot nail; she hadn’t expected her soul to share wounds with that corpse.

Ling Jiang! How can you hurt your own body!

Teacher Bai reeled between fury and shock; his twisted face turned beastly, a snarl carved in wet clay.

He rushed to the red-robed Ling Jiang, shoved the flask to her lips, and barked like a mad priest, Quick! Drink. Ling Jiang’s body can’t be damaged.

Mmm... mmm—

Black blood poured down her throat under his force, and the overflow dripped to the floor, sizzling with a shriek like acid eating bone.

Glug, glug, glug—

When the red-robed Ling Jiang drained the flask, the dazed fog vanished from her face, replaced by hatred rising like a black tide.

Those venom-bright eyes locked on Nana Toki’s face, a hawk fixing a hare; crimson threads gushed from her left arm stump.

They twined like vines, sprouting and knitting until a new arm unfolded, white and vicious as a fresh bone.

Hey, hey... is she really built from the original corpse? That recovery isn’t human or ghost; it’s a demon tree regrowing in a blink.

Nana Toki’s mouth twitched; watching that arm bloom soured her face like rain on lime. At this rate, she’s unkillable, a weed that won’t burn.

Roar—!

Killing intent flooded from the red-robed Ling Jiang, a blizzard of knives; in a blink she turned specter-slick, a shadow flicking between heartbeats.

Blood threads geysered from her body, and they drove themselves like barbed whips, attacking Nana Toki with cruel, feral rhythm.

Careful, Ling Jiang!

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang—!

Metal cried like winter bells; Nana Toki spun the Colossal Axe, a black wheel fending off strikes with a storm of sparks.

Useless on the side, Lu Ming burned with panic like straw to flame; for the first time he felt the abyss between them and power.

In the fight between Nana Toki and the red-robed Ling Jiang, he couldn’t help at all, only watch as the Red Robed Wraith pressed her like a tide.

Lu Ming, at this rate Ling Jiang won’t last long. Xuduo’s amulet was creased like a wilted leaf in her grip, but her eyes never left the white and red figures clashing.

With her yin-sight, she saw Nana Toki’s body thinning like mist; in the end, she was only a remnant soul, a lamp in wind before a gale.

Li Kexin toyed with her little sachet, barely deflecting stray blood threads like swatting hornets; she couldn’t spare a breath to help.

Is there really no other way...

Lu Ming clenched the last talismans, teeth grinding like stones in a mill.

In the blood pool, threads whipped like snakes in flood; beneath the coffin at the center, a great scarlet vortex began to open like an eye.

Not far off, Teacher Bai watched that change and smiled thin as a razor. Time’s about up. Bring her over. The resurrection ritual begins now.