Free Web NovelChapter 30: Chapter 30—Revenge
Chapter 30—Revenge
Lin Mei’s expression changed—cycling back to that arrogant, cruel smile she had worn at the beginning.
In her vision, Lei Cheng stood before her—heartbroken, hollow, utterly unmoving. What she could not see was that every single fox around her was already dead. The illusion had turned her into their executioner without her realizing it. Each fox she had believed to be Lei Cheng had in truth been one of her own—and she had slaughtered them all with efficient, gleeful precision.
Now she flashed forward and drove her claw through Lei Cheng’s neck, snapping it cleanly. His head flew upward and landed several meters away. His body crumpled to the ground.
Thud!
To any outside observer free of the illusion, the sight would have been absurd—a Bizarre fox waving her claws furiously at empty air, grinning like a mad fox. In her mind, however, she had just finished Lei Cheng. She turned back again, reset once more to her starting expression, and resumed attacking mid-air.
Lei Cheng, meanwhile, had halted his foot directly over Mo Yong.
Mo Yong’s entire body glowed with golden light—a fox mark had already spread across his chest in a web of pulsing lines, visible even through the crimson robe he wore.
Hua Mingyue rushed toward Lei Cheng with hurried steps. He withdrew his foot and retracted his Death Intent at her words.
He asked without looking away from Mo Yong, "Is this mark powerful enough to block my Death Intent?"
’She wants me to stop... Is she worried about the lifespan cost?’
"No," Hua Mingyue said. "It’s not that. It’s because of your father-in-law."
She pointed to Lei Feng, lying fainted to the side.
Lei Cheng raised his brows. "This mark—when its host is killed, it would land on the nearest person, right?" He paused, then his eyes narrowed. "Then why are you pointing toward my father? You want me to worry about him?"
Mo Ming was near the mark compared to Lei Feng.
Hua Mingyue’s eyebrows twitched.
He caught something in her expression, and his lips curved slowly upward. "Looks like you care for my father-in-law. You don’t want to risk it landing on him, do you?" frёewebnoѵēl.com
Hua Mingyue shook her head once. "It’s not that."
He raised his brows. "All right, let’s skip past that. My father is already married—isn’t he? So how could the mark land on him? It needs an unmarried candidate."
"He can remarry," Hua Mingyue said blankly.
Lei Cheng fell quiet. He rubbed the side of his head. ’Right. I forgot.’ In this world, powerful men often had multiple wives, and powerful women often took multiple husbands. His father was a widower to top it off—in the eyes of the Bizarre Rule, he was a viable candidate.
"Your father did not marry anyone through an Eternal Bond Marriage Contract," Hua Mingyue added. "Not the way we did in our past life."
Lei Cheng murmured. ’Eternal Bond.’
Hua Mingyue continued, "The contract allows only one. This goddess, and you are bound for eternity—and because of that contract, you cannot take another wife, nor can I take another husband. That is precisely why the fox mark broke when you wanted to marry—the Eternal Bond activated."
Lei Cheng glanced down at his right wrist, focusing on the red thread coiled there. The crimson energy thread shot upward into the sky, splitting into two lines—one reaching across to Hua Mingyue’s wrist, the other vanishing deep into the heavens above.
’But why does it split into two?’ He tilted his head, turning the thought over. ’There should only be one.’ He shook his head and said nothing. Something told him firmly that raising this question out loud would be unwise. He left it to his future self.
Hua Mingyue fanned herself lightly and said in a soft, unhurried tone, "Don’t use your Death Intent against these Bizarre Creatures."
Lei Cheng frowned. "Death Intent is my only explosive offensive intent." He could use Life Intent, but it was weaker than Death Intent in attack power. He nodded. "Okay. I’ll handle everything with Life Intent." More importantly, he wanted to preserve his remaining lifespan.
He looked toward the ongoing chaos—Lin Mei still slashing at empty air, locked in her illusion loop, and Xiao Ming continuing her assault on the Ninth Elder, who was doing nothing but defending and scanning the courtyard for the real Lei Cheng.
Lei Cheng turned back to Hua Mingyue with a slow, cunning smile.
’Looks like he’s planning something. Something reckless, no doubt,’ Hua Mingyue thought, her eyes turning playful.
"Just watch," he said, before she could raise her voice.
He walked to his father, crouched, and lifted Lei Feng onto his shoulders. Without another word, he dashed out of the courtyard—moving fast, silent.
Hua Mingyue stood alone among the wreckage. She cast a slow look over what remained of the Xiao household courtyard—half-eaten bodies, hollowed remains, a baby’s head lying in the debris near the broken wall. She did not flinch. She did not look away with discomfort. She simply walked to the edge of a broken section of wall, swept the rubble aside with a wave of her palm, and sat down where she could see the whole courtyard from a single vantage point. She opened her fan and let a gentle breeze drift across her face. Her purple hair lifted softly.
A few moments passed. Lei Cheng returned—empty-handed.
He moved straight to her. "How far must the distance be to ensure the mark does not land on someone when its host is killed?"
Hua Mingyue met his eyes. "A few kilometers should be enough. But it would pick the nearest one—unless no one is in between, in which case it would travel that far."
Lei Cheng grinned.
He turned and dashed toward Mo Yong. His foot came down—green energy surging from it, dense and heavy with Life Intent. Life Intent could not harm humans in the ordinary sense, but it could drain life itself.
Crack! Crack!
The golden protective shield surrounding Mo Yong splintered under his foot, fracturing like glass struck with a hammer, shattering and dissolving.
Bang!
His foot landed full force on Mo Yong’s chest. "Life Intent can indeed attack Bizarre Qi." Lei Cheng muttered, knitting his brows and committing the observation to memory.
Mo Yong’s eyes snapped open. The pain crashed through him, jolting him from unconsciousness in an instant. He winced and grabbed at Lei Cheng’s leg, blood trickling from his lips. His vision came back blurry—rapidly fading to dark edges—but he could make out the shape of Lei Cheng standing over him, foot planted on his chest.
He clutched Lei Cheng’s leg with both hands and screamed. "Forgive me—forgive me! It wasn’t my plan! It was Xiao Ming—and my father—they planned everything! Just forgive me, Young Master, please—"
Lei Cheng did not speak. He simply drained—Life Intent flowing, steady and absolute.
Mo Yong’s skin cracked. Cracks split open across his body. Blood flooded out and pooled beneath him. His screams tore through the courtyard as his flesh began to break down—drying, blackening, collapsing inward, turning into a mummy. Within seconds, his body had become a rotting husk, wrapped entirely in green energy. Then the husk crumbled into dark dust and scattered across the ground.
Thud! Lei Cheng’s foot touched the stone beneath where Mo Yong had been.
From the settling dust, something rose.
A small female fox—no larger than an adult human palm—lifted herself from the remains. The fox mark, released from Mo Yong’s death, had taken this form: a tiny golden fox cub, blinking and looking around with sharp, bright eyes.
She spotted Lei Cheng directly in front of it.
She grinned—small and fox-sharp—and dashed straight at him, leaping onto his chest.
Lei Cheng watched her land and felt the eerie warmth of the mark pressing against him. ’Will it work?’ He waited—thinking of the Eternal Bond Marriage Contract sealed around his wrist.
Then, exactly as he had expected, a pulse of crimson light erupted from deep within his soul realm. The fox mark screamed—a thin, piercing sound—and was flung outward from his chest. Crimson scars covered the tiny fox’s body as she tumbled backward through the air, howling in pain and outrage. She hit the ground, shook herself, and immediately swept her gaze across the courtyard for a new target. free𝑤ebnovel.com
She found Mo Ming, who was unconscious and unmoving nearby.
She bared her tiny teeth and dashed at him.
Lei Cheng’s grin spread wide. "Good. Good."
The corner of Hua Mingyue’s lips curved up, just slightly. "Good revenge," she said quietly.
Bang!
The moment the fox mark landed on Mo Ming’s chest, Xiao Ming screamed.
She had been mid-swing against the Ninth Elder. The scream tore from her throat involuntarily—raw and sharp. "Mo Yong is killed—!" Genuine panic flashed across her face for the first time. She spun, golden energy blazing, and roared across the courtyard. "How dare you, Lei Cheng?!"
The fox mark’s destruction had snapped every illusion clouding her memories. She remembered everything now—clearly and all at once.
The Ninth Elder, for his part, had never been caught in Lei Cheng’s illusion in quite the same way. He had seen clearly enough through much of the battle that it was Xiao Ming attacking him—not Lei Cheng. His composure now cracked. His expression turned ugly as he ground his teeth, scowling at where he judged Lei Cheng to be.
"Puny Human—reject the faith of our Fox Clan bestowed upon you, and interfere with our plans to this degree?"
He reached into the storage pouch at his hip and withdrew a golden crystal orb, holding it up before him. His expression carried a bitter reluctance. ’I truly did not want to use this. To think a human would push me this far.’ He recalled Clan Head Nie’s words before his departure. "When you face true trouble, break this crystal. I have poured a part of my own illusion powers into it."
He closed his fist.
The crystal shattered.
Blinding golden light erupted across the Ninth Elder’s body. His eyes darkened—shifting to a deep, veined crimson as the power flooded into him. He screamed as broken shards fell around him.
"Celestial Fox Mirage!"
The entire illusory world Lei Cheng had built cracked—fracturing across every surface like a mirror struck in its center—and then shattered apart.
Lei Cheng’s smile slowly faded.
