Divine Emperor of Death

Chapter 5157: A Revenge Served Cold

A while later, Girias awakened.

He didn’t open his eyes but found a strange contraption tied to his wrists and ankles.

Instantly, he understood he was chained!

His heart sank.

What was going on?

Suddenly, he felt itchy all over his body. It made him open his eyes and check if he was poisoned, but the first thing that entered his vision was two people staring at him.

One was the City Lord, and the other was a serpent-masked woman.

Girias wanted to close his eyes and act as though he was still asleep, but knew he was too late. He quickly took out a messaging talisman- or did he?

He found he didn’t have his spatial ring or life ring.

Instantly, he sighed, "City Lord, what is the meaning of this?"

At the same time, he saw that there were red patches of rash all over his body. They seemed to have swelled a bit, appearing unsightly. The sensation was a bit unbearable.

"..."

The City Lord said nothing.

At this moment, Harmon also woke up as his eyes shot wide.

Unlike Girias, he instantly tried to burn his blood essence to increase the power of his soul and use the devil-slaying powers to escape, but to his shock, he suddenly found his cultivation sealed.

He felt like he couldn’t circulate his energy at all, and the flow already available in his meridians were seemingly corroded by the rash poison.

Moreover, the bloodline power of his mutated Soul-Devouring Blood Vulture Bloodline and Devil-Cleaving Shadow Vulture Bloodline didn’t respond.

"You dare to kidnap us?"

Harmon glared at the City Lord, who appeared to have crouched in front of them and looked at them with a bored expression as he rested his head over his hand.

He didn’t say anything, which made the atmosphere all the more eerie.

However, Girias and Harmon couldn’t maintain their cool.

The itching spread further across their skin, creeping up their arms and chest like a living thing.

Girias gritted his teeth against it at first, determined to maintain some shred of dignity, but dignity had limits. The rashes deepened in color, swelling uglier by the second, and the sensation beneath them was no longer merely uncomfortable. It was quite maddening under the circumstances.

It felt like a crawling, burning itch that burrowed into the skin and seemed to pull at something deeper, something vital.

His fingers moved before his mind gave permission.

He unwittingly scratched. Once, twice, and then he couldn’t stop. His nails dragged across his forearm and came away red. The relief lasted half a breath before the itch returned twice as fierce, and he scratched again until thin rivulets of blood ran down his wrists.

"Ugh..."

Harmon was faring no better. He had noticed the rashes earlier but dismissed them in favor of furiously testing his sealed cultivation. Now the sensation caught up to him all at once, and his composure broke. He clawed at his neck, his shoulders, his ribs, leaving raw trails across his skin.

"What did you do to us?" Harmon snarled, his voice cracking somewhere in the middle, "What is this poison!?"

The City Lord said nothing.

He simply watched, his cheek still resting against his knuckles, his expression somewhere between bored and faintly curious, as though he were observing insects he had pinned to a board and was waiting to see how long they would squirm.

That silence was its own kind of torment.

Girias slammed his chained wrists against the floor, "Answer us! Do you have any idea who stands behind us? The Hexadra Clan will not let go of this unpunished City Lord! Do you know that they still have a use for us!?"

Harmon also barked with his razor-sharp teeth, "You think your little city protects you? You think your cultivation makes you untouchable? We have moved against greater men than you and walked away without consequence!"

"..."

The City Lord blinked slowly, his gaze focusing on them.

At that moment, the two of them knew they had somehow caught his attention. However, the itches continued, unbearably so.

Blood had begun to pool in the creases of Girias’s knuckles. He could feel it now, that faint draining pull beneath the bleeding, something being drawn out along with the blood itself. His blood essence, leaking away with every scratch he could not stop himself from making. The realization horrified him, but his hands would not listen.

Harmon seemed to understand it too. His face went a shade paler beneath his rage, "You are stealing our blood essence through this poison."

His gaze trembled, and his voice turned, dropping low and ugly, "You coward. You filthy, scheming coward!"

The City Lord slightly tilted his head.

Then, finally, he opened his mouth, "That year, you two were very bold, repeatedly picking on my woman, going out of your way to bar her path, humiliate her, and break her confidence, even going as far as to attempt to take advantage of her and kill her publicly."

He paused, letting the words settle into their heads before smilingly eerily, "Did you truly believe you could escape my grasp forever?"

Harmon’s jaw tightened. His eyes darted, calculating, searching for the angle in this as well as an escape route.

But Girias had gone still.

He stared at City Lord, really stared at him, looking past the Exalt Stage cultivation pressure and the bored cruelty and the unnerving quiet. He looked at the face beneath it all.

His blood ran cold.

"You are- ah!"

*Bang!~*

The City Lord’s foot sank into his face, crushing his head against the cold and damp wall.

"...!"

Harmon nearly jumped.

He turned to look at the City Lord, whose figure visibly changed in his perception.

From City Lord Kain to the Divine Emperor of Death!

Harmon’s breath hitched before they came in sharp, uneven pulls.

The title he had thought of made him hope that this was nothing but an illusion.

Davis accessed the spatial ring and brought out an unremarkable dagger.

It wasn’t ornate, nor was it glowing with power. It was plain and thin but wickedly sharp, the kind of blade existed to purely cut without any pretense, used in assassinations.

Still crouching, Davis didn’t wait for Girias to pull his head out of the wall. Instead, he held onto Girias’s left leg and brought the dagger, pointing it right between the toe and the nail.

"My Isabella..." He started, his voice casual, "Lost a leg because of you."

He plunged the dagger- slowly.

Girias’s eyes widened within the rubble, the whites turning bloodshot.

The first thing that registered in his mind was the shocking flash of pain that ripped through the big toe.

Davis didn’t hack nor slash. His blade moved with careful, unhurried precision as though he was peeling a fruit as though he had all the time in the world. The edge parted skin and then deeper tissue in a clean, continuous line that descended from the top of the toe to the sole of the foot, over the angle, and began its patient ascent until the kneecap.

When the end of the dagger hit a bone, Davis suddenly carved into it and slashed the kneecap out like he was pulling out a nail.

"Rraghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Girias’s scream had long started, but at that moment, his voice screeched across the entire secluded cave.