Blossoming Path-Chapter 255: Rooted and Reeling

Chapter 255: Rooted and Reeling

As if I’d said the trigger word, they moved.

The cultists surged toward me in a single wave; some fanatics with blades, others with blood-crusted nails, howling with the sort of madness that drowns out pain and fear alike. Just the unthinking obedience of those who had already given their souls away.

Good.

That’s what I wanted.

The Envoys didn’t follow.

They couldn’t.

A jingle rang out behind me—sharp, metallic—followed by a screech like knives raking across iron. I didn’t need to turn to visualize what was occurring behind me. I recognized the sound: Ren Zhi’s hookswords clashing against claws, intercepting the Envoy just as he lunged after me. His timing was flawless, the clash loud enough to feel in my teeth. Another beat later, Xu Ziqing’s voice cracked through the din, barking orders, and I heard the shuffle of boots and the grunt of redirected momentum as our front line turned to reinforce him.

I withdrew the Phoenix Tears back into my storage ring, their job complete.

That left me with the rest.

They surrounded me in seconds, teeth bared.

But compared to the monsters I just fought? I could manage.

The regular cultists weren’t weak. Not at all. But they were weaker than me.

That, I could work with.

'Restrain them.'

The soil pulsed beneath my feet, responding to Shennong's Decree.

The grass underneath the cultist's grew, lengthening and coiling around like vines, wrapped around ankles and knees, and in an instant, half the cultists were yanked to a halt mid-charge.

The other half hesitated, clawing at what restrained them.

I moved.

Heavenly Mantra Flame surged from my hands. My breath came slow, measured. I wove between limbs and lunges, slipping past claws to bury a flaming strike into a cultist’s ribs. He screamed, but didn’t stop. I followed up with three more hits—throat, sternum, temple—each one searing through flesh and bone. Still, he clawed at me, body trembling but not collapsing.

“Just die already,” I hissed.

I ducked low, pivoted into a second cultist, driving a heel into his shin hard enough to splinter it, then shot a burst of flame into his chest as he fell. A third caught me from behind, claws raking my shoulder—but I twisted and responded with a backfist wreathed in flame, catching him full in the jaw.

They were relentless. But not invincible. And unlike the Envoys, they still needed to breathe.

I reached into my pouch, found the last two bombs.

Enhanced pepper powder. My hands moved on instinct; glass cracked, dust swirled, and I shattered both bombs into the densest cluster of bodies.

Pale orange mist exploded outward.

The change was immediate.

They inhaled mid-charge, then stopped. Coughing. Gagging. Retching like animals that had swallowed fire. One dropped to his knees to claw at his throat. Another tripped and slammed headfirst into a root still rising from the earth.

I let the flames burn hotter.

But before I could capitalize on the advantage—

'Duck!'

It slammed into my skull like a lightning bolt, cold and sharp, Tianyi’s alarm flooding through our bond. I dropped my weight instinctively, bending at the knees.

Something hissed past the back of my head.

A blur of red tore through the air where my neck had been.

The projectiles kept going, striking the coughing cultists in front of me with wet, meaty thuds. They howled as fresh wounds bloomed on top of old ones. I spun, still crouched low, eyes flicking toward the source.

And there she was.

The female Envoy that Tianyi and Windy had been fighting, closing the distance far faster than I’d expected. Her arms, pale and slick with blood, dragged across her own flesh in clawing gestures. From the torn skin, liquid welled and sharpened mid-air into curved, serrated daggers.

I’d drifted too close to their side of the battlefield. In the chaos, my sense of position had faltered. I was now deep in her reach.

The air snapped as blood-forged daggers launched toward me again, one after another in erratic, vicious arcs. I threw up both arms, forearm guards catching the brunt of the first few. Even then, the force behind each hit cracked through the plating, rattling my bones. My feet scraped back against the grass.

SHLK!

Pain exploded in my arm.

I looked down to see one of the daggers had struck true, slipping between the gaps in my motion, digging into my stomach like it wanted to stay there; twisting deeper, as if it were alive.

I gritted my teeth, grabbed the hilt with one shaking hand, and ripped it free.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The flesh tore. Heat and blood spilled.

No time to treat it. Because she was already on me.

She came like a shrieking wind, blood flying in sickle arcs, her form blurring with speed. Not strength like the black-eyed Envoy. A sheer, rabid velocity that I could barely track with my eyes, let alone react to. My arms moved before I could think; parrying, blocking, retreating one step at a time as blood daggers rained down like a storm.

They cracked against my forearm guards, dug into the earth behind me, sliced the air too close to my face.

One clipped my ear. Another nearly took my eye. I couldn’t even last twenty moves at this rate.

Instead, I pulled the Phoenix Tears back out—mid-motion, mid-dodge—into the palm of my hand. I shoved it into the path of her strike

Her reaction was instant.

The dagger in her hand melted. The strain on her body was visible, forcefully maintaining herself so she didn't shatter the vial in my palm.

And in that moment of recoil, I surged forward and slammed my boot into her stomach.

I ran.

Through the chaos. Past corpses and torn earth and the burning roots still twitching underfoot. I ran toward the one spot where the tide wasn’t against me.

Toward Tianyi and Windy.

They were still tearing through the cultists. Windy was a streak of white lightning. Tianyi hovered mid-air. But even their speed couldn’t keep up with the incoming reinforcements.

They were being swarmed.

I pushed the thought outward.

'Back. Out of range.'

They heard me.

Windy rose with a whip-crack snap. Tianyi launched upward, wings shimmering.

I leapt with them, climbing high, and then dropped.

My heel came down like a star from the heavens.

ROOTED BANYAN STANCE!

The impact split the ground.

Two cultists were crushed beneath the shockwave. The vines rose again, answering the call of my qi, tangling limbs and dragging bodies into the dirt. But my mind was already moving. Calculating.

'Tianyi. Windy. We’ve got one shot.'

I sent them the rest of my plan through our bond.

Then I pulled out a small vial.

I raised my voice. “Tianyi! Drink the Tears!”

She caught it mid-air, barely breaking flight. Windy leapt into the crowd of cultists once more. I turned to face the female Envoy as she gained on our position.

A beat.

A pause.

Realization hit her like a thunderbolt.

Her eyes widened in fury.

"NO!"

She screamed—not at me, but at Tianyi, who now held the vial in her tiny hands.

The Envoy charged.

I stepped in her way.

We clashed again, daggers against flame. She didn’t care about me now. Her strikes weren’t even aimed to kill. She was singular in her focus: get to Tianyi. Get to the vial. The vial she thought was the Phoenix Tears.

Looking for someone in Paris today

Willing to lie about how we met

Her claws raked across my shoulder. Another hit my ribs. I planted my feet and swung, flame arcing in wide bursts to stop her advance.

I couldn't use the Rooted Banyan Stance without her getting away from me. I had to hold my ground without it.

She broke through my guard, taking a strike in favor of landing her own.

I flew.

Cracked into the ground, vision shaking, lungs empty.

But through the blur—

A shadow. A blur of wings.

A fist.

CRACK!

The Envoy flew backward, spiraling through the air like a ragdoll.

Tianyi hovered where the Envoy had stood, wings trembling.

She hiccuped.

And for a second, her face looked almost serene. Until her eyes settled on the Envoy again.

Then the warmth vanished.

Tianyi’s features hardened, shifting from drunken bliss to cold fury with terrifying clarity. Her antennas twitched. Her wings beat once—then flared wide, buzzing with volatile qi.

“You hurt my family,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. Her voice was slurred, lilting with that drunkard's hum; but the words that followed came laced with venom. “You don’t get to die easy.”

She vanished from view.

The Envoy barely had time to rise from the ground before a second impact sent her skidding across the battlefield like a stone skipping across water. Blood sprayed in her wake.

And Tianyi was already on her again.

I didn’t have time to watch.

Because Windy surged beside me, a flickering blur of white and blue, coiling around my legs before launching himself into the next cluster of cultists. Without needing words, I followed.

The first cultist lunged with claws cloaked in black miasma. I slapped it aside with my elbow, caught him in the throat with my knuckles, then swept low to kick out his knee. As he staggered, Windy wrapped around the man’s arms, and I finished it with a heel drop to the face. I ignored the nauseating feeling of his skull caving in beneath my feet. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Another came from my left.

Windy hissed, his tail whipping out like a hammer, knocking the cultist off balance just enough for me to drive my palm straight into his chest, qi bursting outward in a concussive shock.

But as we continued, WIndy moved differently. His coils lashed with a flowing rhythm that rippled straight through me. Blue light shimmered beneath his scales, faint at first, then pulsing brighter with every strike. His body blurred, every whip and coil threading into the next like water carving stone. The air hummed. His body glowed faintly, not with fire or fury but with the unmistakable light of one breaching his limits. The glow radiated from within, looking exactly just like when Tianyi reached—

"Essence Awakening..?"

He had broken through, here, now.

I only had a heartbeat to register it before another cultist charged, breaking me out of my trance.

I turned, scanning.

Tianyi was still fighting the Envoy. It was no longer a battle. It was a barrage. She moved erratically, but every blow struck with terrifying precision. She swayed like a reed in the wind, ducked under a blood dagger, then rammed her shoulder into the Envoy’s chest hard enough to crack ribs. Her laughter echoed strangely, warped by rage and wine.

The Envoy was shrieking. Slashing. Bleeding. Desperate.

Good.

But she wasn’t down yet.

I felt it in the air—that tug of warning. That tension in the qi. This fight wasn’t over. The battlefield was scattered now; the cultist numbers thinned, but not gone. There were still two other Envoys to worry about.

And I knew what I had to do.

I patted Windy once, sending gratitude through our bond.

“Help her,” I muttered.

Then I turned back; toward the heart of the battlefield.

The cultists had taken heavy losses. Dozens lay dead or twitching in agony. For the first time since this nightmare began, the field didn’t feel like it was closing in on us.

But it wasn’t without cost.

I spotted Han Chen stumbling, blood streaking down his side from a gash too deep to ignore. Yu Long was worse; his breathing ragged, his footing shaky, one arm limp at his side as he tried to shield Han with the other.

They wouldn’t last long. Not like this.

Another shape caught my eye, half-buried beneath the rubble of battle and twisted vines.

A body. Robes torn, dirt-stained green. A Verdant Lotus Sect disciple.

I forced myself to look away.

Don’t recognize them. Don’t look at the face.

I kept moving.

Up ahead, Ren Zhi carved arcs of wind with every swing. His hookswords, now linked together like a chain, whipped through the air. His movements were fluid, almost effortless, and yet I could feel the strain behind them. Every slash cracked the air, bending it into pressure blasts that forced the two remaining Envoys back, step by step, into Xu Ziqing’s formations.

For a moment—just a breath—we had control.

Until the youngest Envoy lost his patience.

He broke formation in a flash of red robes, zigzagging through the ruined terrain, eyes locked on the weakest link.

Yu Long. The third-class disciple was in the worst shape.

“No—!”

I surged forward, desperate, but too far.

The Envoy raised his arm to strike—

In that split heartbeat, I twisted my body, feeling the surge of energy coming from the Envoy’s strike. My muscles moved instinctively, recalling Yu Long's Stone Mirror technique. I mirrored the blow, matching its trajectory, its momentum; letting our qi resonate to maximize the rebound.

But unlike Yu Long, I hadn't mastered it. The impact rattled through my bones, shuddering deep into my chest. Pain exploded along my arms and ribs as the shock traveled inward, my teeth gritting from the agony. But it was better than absorbing the blow head-on with Rooted Banyan Stance, which would have left me immobilized, easy prey for the monster before us.

The Envoy's arm recoiled sharply, momentum flinging it backward. I barreled into Yu Long and Han Chen, crashing into them to break their fall, sending all three of us sprawling across the blood-soaked earth.

"Kai!" Jian Feng shouted, stepping forward without hesitation, blade flashing as he shielded us from the recovering Envoy.

Ren Zhi seized the momentary chaos I'd caused. With a swift whirl, he lashed his hookswords outward, linked by their chain. From several paces away, the blade sank deeply into the Envoy’s shoulder, a hair’s breadth from severing his neck entirely. The younger Envoy howled in pain, his body twisting violently to free himself.

But the scarred one intervened, appearing like a specter. His twin swordbreakers descended with crushing force.

CRUNCH!

Ren Zhi's embedded hooksword shattered in an explosion of steel shards. The blade lodged in the younger Envoy’s shoulder remained buried, even as its handle fractured and broke. The scarred Envoy grabbed his injured comrade roughly, pulling him back, eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Careless," the scarred Envoy spat, his voice a low, guttural reprimand. He glanced around, assessing the battlefield.

For the first time, he hesitated. I could see it.

Uncertainty flickering behind those cold, dark eyes. He saw the injured Envoy struggling to stand, more than a dozen cultist corpses littering the battlefield, while our side had miraculously sustained fewer losses. A fragile hope bloomed in my chest, a faint light piercing through the oppressive darkness.

But I couldn’t afford to become complacent. Not yet.

The blac-eyed Envoy, breathing raggedly, met the other's gaze. "We can't afford to take risks," he said, his voice shaking but determined. "Not with this."

The scarred Envoy regarded him silently, understanding passing between them. After a moment, he gave a solemn nod.

"The cult will remember your sacrifice."

Cold dread surged through me.

"STOP HIM!" My scream tore through the battlefield. Every instinct screamed in alarm, my skin prickling with the imminent threat.

Ren Zhi moved instantly, but hindered by his broken weapon, he faltered, forced into a defensive posture as the cultists surged once more with renewed ferocity. They fought like madmen, throwing their lives away to shield their masters from interference.

I pushed off the ground, surging forward; but the earth beneath my feet shuddered and stilled. It darkened, spreading rapidly, viscous as blood, swallowing the world around us indiscriminately.

I turned instinctively toward the source. The female Envoy stood with her blood daggers plunged into the earth, her expression twisted into an unnatural grimace. A terrible, suffocating aura radiated outward from her, ensnaring everything within its grasp.

Tianyi and Windy were both caught in the dark tide, their movements growing sluggish as they fought against its oppressive weight.

Time slowed to a crawl as I helplessly watched the youngest Envoy pull a seed from within his robes.

"NO!" I screamed again, my voice cracking with desperation, limbs straining against the viscous shadow binding me.

The Envoy swallowed the seed without hesitation, closing his eyes in feverish devotion even amid his severe wounds.

"Praise the Heavenly Demon," he whispered fervently.

Darkness swallowed the world.