Why is My System Glitching
Chapter 149: First Blood

Chapter 149: First Blood

Ruru’s situation was no better. Though injured from the sudden betrayal attack, she had summoned her crimson-threaded Golden-Winged Centipede. The battle-scarred Gworm hovered protectively, fangs bared, claws ready. NovelFire

Shirley’s soul, already half-devoured, recoiled instinctively, as a Gworm master, she knew well that this centipede creature was a natural counter to soul wounded cultivator like her. The monstrous beauty’s mind raced: "This young guy and Ruru Rosa won’t fall easily. If I don’t kill Cade now—when will I get another chance?"

Seeing Cade on the verge of death, Ruru Rosa couldn’t stand idle. She couldn’t stand by while her comrade teetered on death’s edge. With a sharp flick of her wrist, her crimson-threaded whip snapped forward, its barbed tip slicing through the air toward Shirley Quinn with lethal precision.

Shirley’s lips curled into a sneer, her half-rotted face twisting with disdain. "Predictable," she murmured, her voice a venomous purr. In a single, fluid motion, she snatched the whip mid-strike, her fingers closing around it like a vise. She yanked—hard. Ruru, caught off guard, clung to the whip’s handle, her feet skidding across the slick earth as she was dragged into Shirley’s deadly killing range.

Shirley’s hand reared back, crimson energy coiling around her palm, ready to end Ruru with a single brutal blow. But before the strike could land, a bone blade wreathed in blood-red light tore through the air, its edge aimed straight for Shirley’s eye.

SLASH!

The killing intent was suffocating, a wave of malice that seemed to choke the very marsh.

Shirley’s smug expression faltered, her one good eye narrowing.

What the fuck is this blade art?!

As a Peak Ninth-Layer Outer Sect cultivator, she had scoured and studied the Pavilion of Myriad Arts across mountain peaks, memorizing every technique worth knowing. Yet this ferocious slash, this suffocating martial blade art pulsing with raw malice and hatred, was alien to her. And the weapon itself—the Blade of Life-Hater, a notorious Dao artifact whispered about in dread.

Even Rodney Luther, at his peak full strength, had balked at facing its edge head-on. Shirley, though stronger in cultivation, was already wounded, her soul frayed and her body strained.

She couldn’t risk taking the blow.

With Blood Burning Technique enhanced speed, she twisted sideways like a phantom, her silk robes fluttering as she dodged the blade by a hair’s breadth. Her right arm, bending boneless and wreathed in pink mist, lashed out like a striking serpent. It slammed into Lordi Payne’s chest with a force that shook the ground.

BANG!

Lordi hurtled backward, his body skidding through the mud, kicking up clumps of rotting earth. But then he rose, dust clinging to his torn robes, his stance unbroken. Not a single bone cracked. Not a drop of blood spilled. Shirley’s gaze sharpened, disbelief flickering across her ruined features.

The Jade Tier Bones—our Holy Sect’s Bone Tempering Art!

But what she didn’t know was this: Lordi’s bones weren’t even reach to average Jade Tier.

They were Perfect Grade Refined Tier Bone—best to the pinnacle, on the verge of ascension.

The ultimate defense.

Lordi’s eyes burned with murderous intent, the Blade of Life-Hater gleaming in his grip. He didn’t speak—his silence was answer enough. Covered in dust but unbroken, the young man was already charged again, the blade slicing upward in a brutal arc, its bloodlight casting eerie shadows across the marsh. The air screamed as the strike aimed for Shirley’s throat.

"Damn you, brat," Shirley hissed, her voice a low growl, half fury, half unease. "You just won’t stay down."

Shirley Quinn, her half skeletal half beauty frame a grotesque blend of beauty and rot, abandoned her assault on Lordi in a heartbeat. Her form blurred in a blink, a phantom streaking past Cade’s dented bronze shield, materializing before him in the span of a single breath.

Cade, propped up by Ruru and Lordi’s desperate efforts, barely managed to steady himself. His chest heaved, one hand gripping the shield’s edge, the other tracing shaky battle array seals as he muttered incantations, his voice hoarse and faltering. But when Shirley appeared before him, the half-rotted face twisted in a cruel smirk, making Cade’s blood turned to ice.

He didn’t even have time to blink.

KRACK-SPLAT!

Shirley’s palm slammed into his skull with sickening force, caving it in like a ripe melon. Blood and brains sprayed across the marsh, splattering the dirt in a grisly arc. Cade’s headless body crumpled, lifeless, his shield clanging uselessly to the ground. Correct content is on NovelFire

Without pause, Shirley’s delicate fingers plunged into the steaming corpse’s severed neck. With a vicious yank, she tore a translucent soul free—a shimmering wisp of light writhing in her grip.

As a Peak Ninth-Layer cultivator, dispatching a weakened Eighth-Layer like Cade should have been child’s play. Yet Ruru and Lordi’s interference had cost her precious time, and now her once-pristine and graceful right side festered, flesh peeling like overripe fruit. Her hate-filled gaze snapped to Ruru and Lordi, her eyes—one gleaming, one clouded—burning with malice.

With a guttural snarl, Shirley slammed Cade’s soul into her decaying left half. The air pulsed with unnatural energy as flesh regrew, knitting together in grotesque patches.

But it was wrong—pulsing, uneven, a mockery of life. Worst of all, her newly formed face began to shift, reshaping itself in a horrifying mimicry of Cade Barret’s features, his familiar jawline and hollow eyes staring out from her monstrous form.

"Senior Brother Barret!" Ruru’s scream shattered the silence, raw with grief and rage. Her Golden-Winged Centipede let out a piercing shriek, its crimson-threaded body lunging like a bolt of lightning, claws slashing toward Shirley’s warped figure.

At the same moment, Lordi erupted into motion, his body wreathed in blood-red light. The Blade of Life-Hater screamed with a suffocating aura, its edge slicing through the air in a deadly arc aimed at Shirley’s neck. His face was a mask of ice, his silence a vow of vengeance.

"You! Monster!" Ruru spat, her voice trembling with anguish as she cracked her whip, its barbed tip whistling toward Shirley’s chest. The centipede’s claws followed, a blur of razor-sharp fury.

Shirley Quinn, her form a haunting blend of seductive beauty and grotesque decay, danced through the chaos with an eerie grace that belied her monstrous nature. Her flawless half gleamed under the fading light, while her rotting side oozed with a sickening aura, the contrast searing itself into the minds of any who dared witness her. The blood mist swirling around her seemed dull compared to the lethal allure of her sneer, a curl of lips that promised death as much as desire.

She moved with eerie grace, her beauty intoxicating—a lethal allure wrapped in the scent of blood. Men would kill for a glimpse of her face, yet the horror of her rotting half made the sight unforgettable.

The world should have recoiled at the madness before it.

Yet all anyone could see was beauty—dripping with murder.

Cade’s stolen face twisted into a sneer on Shirley’s lips. "Come, then," she taunted, her voice a warped fusion of her own malice and Cade’s stolen timbre.