Reborn As A Doomsday Villainess
Chapter 239

Chapter 239: Chapter 239

The rooftop cracked under the impact, flames flaring around them.

But Fengya only staggered back a step, her white robes singed but not torn.

Her smile widened, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.

Fengya’s smile turned approving. "That’s better," she murmured, before raising her hand and slamming it into Qingran’s side with impossible force. The strike sent Qingran flying across the rooftop, crashing through a stone pillar and rolling across the debris-strewn floor. Qingran coughed violently, blood spraying from her lips as she struggled to breathe. The flames flickering on her skin dimmed briefly, but she refused to fall.

Fengya walked slowly toward her, footsteps precise and deliberate. "Why don’t you beg?" she asked, her voice dripping with amusement. "I’ll give you the antidote if you beg me like the dying animal you are."

Qingran spat blood and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes flashing with defiance. "I’d rather let the flames eat me alive."

Fengya’s smile grew wider. "Then die choking on your own pride." As she finished speaking, the air behind her cracked and distorted, reality shattering like glass. Rift energy surged, and Fengya’s true aura burst free, illuminating the darkening sky. The wind howled, and her white eyes glowed brighter, like twin moons, as the space around her warped visibly.

Qingran flared her system again, but the poison retaliated, her legs giving out for a second. She dropped to a knee, catching herself with one hand as black veins spread from her collarbone to her cheek. Her vision doubled, and her heartbeat sounded like war drums in her skull.

"You won’t last much longer," Fengya said, walking without hurry. "And you know it."

Qingran forced herself up, her eyes blazing with determination. "I’m not dying today."

Fengya raised her hand, and the rooftop exploded in a dome of light. Qingran vanished in a blur, dodging with the last spark of her boost.

She reappeared behind Fengya, spinning midair and launching a wave of azure fire straight down.

The flames engulfed the space, and for a moment, Fengya vanished into the inferno.

Qingran landed hard, her knees almost buckling again.

She waited, chest heaving, as Fengya stepped out of the fire, unscathed and smiling.

Her skin shimmered, protected by a pale white glow.

"You’re strong," Fengya admitted, her voice tinged with surprise. "Stronger than I expected."

She raised her hand, and rift energy began to twist around her arm like a vortex.

"Fear not, Qingran. You’ll make a fine addition to my collection."

At that moment, the sky cracked with a distant explosion, and cultists screamed below.

Qingran’s head twitched, instinct flaring.

Ruihuang. He was fighting alone.

Fengya laughed softly. "How long until you give up and beg?"

Qingran steadied herself, her palm lighting again with flames.

Even if it cost her everything, she would burn Fengya from the face of the world.

The ground trembled beneath their feet.

A pulse.

A beat. Not from the storm above. Not from the chaos below.

But from Qingran.

The black veins pulsing under her skin glowed darker now, like ink bleeding through porcelain.

Her breath exhaled smoke.

The whites of her eyes had vanished, replaced with burning crimson.

Her fingers flexed once at her sides, and then slowly curled into fists.

The system window flickered briefly into view.

[System Notice: Resonance Distortion Achieved. Unknown Mutation Detected.]

[Codename Assigned: Riftbane Ember]

Lingquan’s voice crackled through the fading link, hoarse and urgent.

"Qingran, what did you do? The poison... you didn’t resist it... you merged with it!"

She didn’t answer.

She only laughed.

Low. Then rising.

Sharp as a broken glass.

Fengya’s eyes narrowed.

That laugh didn’t sound human.

Qingran looked up, her face cracked with black lines, her pupils ringed in scarlet fire, and smiled with a madness that didn’t belong to her.

"I don’t need the antidote.." she said, voice layered with something different, something hollow and ancient.

Something totally different from Qingran.

"You gave me exactly what I needed."

She raised her hand and the sky responded.

The clouds above twisted violently, forming a perfect spiral.

Not from lightning, but from rift energy folding inwards toward her palm.

A crimson rift bloomed in her wake, color so bright... the rift master herself was stunned.

Qingran took a single step forward, and the entire rooftop buckled under her weight.

Fengya, for the first time, didn’t smile. She launched forward, her blade of light slicing downward in a blur.

Qingran didn’t dodge.

She raised her arm and caught the blade with her bare hand.

Fengya’s eyes went wide as her rift-forged blade cracked in Qingran’s grip.

The retaliatory burst of flame came a heartbeat later.

Azure fire mixed with black voidlight erupted in all directions, the explosion blowing Fengya back across the rooftop and slamming her into the far tower wall.

The impact cratered the stone.

Qingran didn’t stop. Her feet left the ground as she launched herself forward, fire spiraling from her back like wings.

Her fists were lit with system-infused rift strikes, each one moving faster than the last, slamming into Fengya before she could fully recover.

A left hook scorched her robes.

A right knee snapped her shielding.

A twisting elbow sent her crashing into the steel pipes at the tower’s edge, coughing up blood.

Fengya landed hard, breathless. But her smile returned, shaken but not gone.

"Ah, now this is worth bleeding for.." she said, rising again, wiping the blood from her lip.

"Let’s see how far your little mutation takes you before your body tears itself apart."

With a scream, Fengya burst forward, her form vanishing and reappearing mid-strike.

Her rift aura tore through space itself, each attack shattering the environment around them.

Qingran moved like she had no weight at all, slipping between the space, her own system-fueled rift enhancements now drawing from both her flame and the very poison that was supposed to kill her.

The rooftop could no longer handle their presence. Slabs of concrete floated upward.

Energy boiled the air. Rift tears screamed through the sky like cracks in the world itself.

Their fists collided, sparks and void and flame exploding outward like a nova.

Qingran landed in a crouch, sweat dripping from her chin, flames licking at her skin.

The pain was rising now, blinding, tearing.

Her cells were burning from the inside out.

She could feel it. Her time was running out.

But Fengya was breathing hard, too.

Her robes were burned. Her eyes were no longer glowing evenly. Her strikes had begun to slow.

"You’re adapting.." Fengya muttered. "That’s not possible. That’s not how poison works."

Qingran’s voice was ragged.

"You don’t understand how I work."

Her hand lit up again, only now the fire was not just azure. It had turned violet.

The rooftop trembled beneath their feet, chunks of stone skidding off the ledge. Qingran’s body pulsed with heat, her core seething as violet-tinged black flames danced along her arms. The poison had stopped fighting her. It had fused — and something new had awakened.

Her voice cracked through the scorched air.

"You and those other four bastards—" she growled, her eyes blood-red, "—you’re the reason innocent people are suffering. Dying. For nothing."

Fengya tilted her head slightly, the breeze catching the loose strands of her silver hair. Her eyes narrowed.

"You deserve to die," Qingran said, each word like a stone thrown at the gallows. "And I’ll make sure you receive your judgment."

Fengya’s expression didn’t waver. If anything, she looked amused. "That’s no way for an angel to behave."

Qingran’s lips curled into a grim, feral smile. Her breath came slow, deliberate. "When," she asked, stepping forward as the rooftop cracked again beneath her heel, "did I ever say I was an angel?"

The light flared behind her, black and violet fire erupting in spirals from her back like spectral wings.

"I’m the beginning of your undoing," she whispered, her voice almost too calm. "Even hell is afraid of what I’ve become."

The air snapped.

Fengya’s smile faltered for the first time.

Without warning, Qingran moved. The ground erupted under her step as she vanished, reappearing midair just above Fengya.

She twisted, flipped, and brought her foot down with explosive force.

Fengya barely raised her arm in time. The impact sent a shockwave in every direction, pillars crumbled, tiles shattered, and the sky overhead turned stark white from the clash of forces.

They both rebounded.

Qingran spun, her heel sweeping low. Fengya dodged, countering with a blast of pure rift force, it grazed Qingran’s shoulder, but she didn’t even flinch.

Her blood hissed as it hit the air, burning like acid. But the fire only grew stronger.