The Sickly Regent Prince Who Was Abandoned as a Substitute Bride

Chapter 580

Yun Yi knelt on the ground, his hair whipped about by spiritual energy, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth staining his jade flute. He forced himself to continue playing, each note seemingly carrying immense force, clashing fiercely with the black-robed man's incantation. Spiderweb-like cracks began to appear on the Blood Demon puppet's chest, the pieced-together faces emitting shrill screams. The black-robed man's face grew increasingly pale, veins bulging on his forehead: "Impossible... How could my Blood Demon..."

With a deafening roar, the Blood Demon Puppet's head exploded, splattering flesh and blood that rained down. The black-robed man staggered backward, letting out a defiant roar, and suddenly flung three talismans emitting black smoke from his sleeve. The talismans exploded in mid-air, instantly filling the air with a thick, poisonous mist, and his figure vanished into the fog...

Dusk fell as dark as ink, and a thick, poisonous fog swirled through the forest. Yun Yi had just breathed a sigh of relief when he suddenly felt dizzy, a metallic, metallic taste rising in his throat. He realized with a start that the seemingly dissipated poisonous fog had already silently invaded his body. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead. He instinctively covered his mouth and nose, desperately trying to expel the toxins by channeling his spiritual energy, but the poison seemed to possess a life of its own, traveling along his meridians and corroding every inch of his skin.

His spiritual energy surged through his meridians, but it was like a mud ox sinking into the sea, yielding minimal results. Yun Yi felt his vision blur, his legs weaken, and he swayed precariously. Just as he was about to give up, a white figure flashed past him like a startled swan, and a familiar medicinal fragrance instantly filled his nostrils—it was his senior sister, Su Yao!

Su Yao's expression was solemn. Her whisk danced like a silver dragon, each swing creating a sharp gust of wind that swept away the poisonous mist. Then, she swiftly took out a faintly glowing antidote pill and carefully fed it to Yun Yi: "Junior brother, hold on!" The pill melted instantly in his mouth, a cool sensation spreading down his throat, slightly relieving Yun Yi's pain.

"Senior Sister..." Yun Yi paused, a trace of color returning to his pale face. He gritted his teeth and said, "That man in black robes is unpredictable and will definitely not let this go. We must find out his identity as soon as possible!"

Su Yao nodded gently, her eyes filled with worry: "Take care of yourself first, your health is the most important thing." However, before their conversation could end, a piercing cry for help suddenly broke the silence of the night. They exchanged a glance, then simultaneously got up and rushed towards the direction of the sound.

Passing through a dense forest, the scene before them was horrifying: a group of villagers had been driven to the brink of despair, surrounded by a horde of ferocious little blood demons. These blood demons emanated a dark red glow, their claws were like hooks, and foul-smelling saliva dripped from their fangs; their appearance was hideous and terrifying.

"Protect the villagers!" Su Yao shouted, her whisk transforming into countless silver threads that swept forward like a tidal wave. Yun Yi was equally unyielding, taking out his jade flute and playing a sharp battle song. The melodious flute music instantly transformed into invisible blades, aiming straight for the blood demons' vital points. The blood demons let out piercing screams, yet still frantically pounced on the villagers.

The battle was incredibly fierce. Each swing of Su Yao's whisk sent sprays of blood through the air, while Yun Yi's sonic attacks were equally powerful. Through their coordinated efforts, the blood demons were gradually suppressed. Finally, with the last blood demon collapsing with a scream, the villagers were out of danger.

"Thank you so much, heroes, for saving our lives!" The villagers knelt down in gratitude. Yun Yi, forcing himself to stand, helped an elderly man to his feet. "It's good that everyone is alright." However, looking at the corpses of the Blood Demons on the ground, an ominous premonition rose in his heart. The appearance of these Blood Demons was too suspicious; there must be a larger conspiracy behind them. The real crisis might have only just begun…

The forest reeked of blood. The villagers' cheers of relief had barely faded when the ground suddenly trembled violently. The severed limbs of the blood demons, recently slain, began to boil, their dark red blood writhing and rising like living things, coalescing into a gigantic blood cocoon in the air. Twisted human faces appeared continuously on the surface of the cocoon, emitting piercing screams that made everyone's eardrums ache.

"Boom!"

The moment the blood cocoon burst, a torrential downpour of scalding blood rained down. A colossal figure, towering ten zhang tall and blotting out the sky, slowly rose from within, its body wreathed in flowing crimson light. Its eyes were like two burning blood suns, each blink unleashing a burst of scarlet lightning; its gaping maw, filled with fangs, split open to its ears, and wherever its saliva dripped, the ground was instantly corroded into scorched pits. The surrounding trees trembled under its oppressive power, their branches and leaves withering and falling.

"This...this is the Blood Demon Commander!" Su Yao's face turned deathly pale instantly, and the veins on her hand gripping the whisk bulged. She knew all too well how terrifying this kind of demon was—it could only be conceived by absorbing the essence of thousands of living beings, and it was not only impervious to blades and spears but could also control other Blood Demons. To make matters worse, the toxins in Yun Yi's body had not yet been cleared, and they had just gone through a fierce battle, their spiritual energy already mostly depleted.

Yun Yi, struggling to maintain his swaying body, pressed the jade flute to his lips. Familiar sound waves transformed into silver rays, shooting towards the Blood Demon Commander, only to be swallowed by crimson light the instant they touched its skin. The Blood Demon Commander let out a deafening laugh, its roar whipping up rubble: "Is that all you've got? Today you'll all become nourishment for me!" It opened its blood-red maw, unleashing a crimson shockwave carrying a putrid stench towards the huddled villagers.

In the nick of time, Su Yao rushed forward like an arrow released from a bow. Her whisk transformed into thousands of silver threads, weaving a barrier, but the power of the shockwave far exceeded expectations. Blood instantly spilled from the corner of her mouth, and she was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into the mountain wall and leaving a human-shaped dent in the rock.

"Senior Sister!" Yun Yi's eyes widened in horror, but the poison within him was flaring up violently, and his vision blurred. In this moment of despair, the eerie rhythm of the black-robed man's incantation suddenly surfaced in his mind—that peculiar rhythm bore a striking resemblance to the frequency of the Blood Demon Commander's attacks!

He bit his tongue sharply, spitting his blood, imbued with spiritual energy, onto the jade flute. The instant he adjusted the rhythm, a wondrous resonance occurred: the Blood Demon Commander's movements began to slow, each claw strike feeling like it was sinking into mud. Yun Yi seized this fleeting opportunity, channeling all his spiritual energy into the flute's sound. The sound waves transformed into tangible chains, binding the Blood Demon Commander's limbs.

"Down you go!"

With a roar, Yun Yi's clothes were torn to shreds by spiritual energy, and his hair moved without wind. The Blood Demon Commander let out a defiant roar, his massive body crashing to the ground, splattering blood everywhere. However, amidst the cheers of the crowd, Yun Yi could no longer hold on; his vision went black, and he collapsed heavily to the ground. His last conscious thought was of Su Yao's anxious calls and the ever-approaching footsteps...

Yun Yi lingered in a daze for a long time before finally opening his heavy eyelids, drawn by a faint scent of medicine. The room was dimly lit, the window frames tinged amber by the setting sun, and the flickering candlelight cast a long shadow of Su Yao. She was sitting by the bed, holding a half-cooled bowl of medicine in her hand, her brows furrowed, her eyes filled with worry as she stared at him.

"Senior sister, what's wrong with me..." Yun Yi tried to get up, but found that his whole body felt like it was being weighed down by lead, and his voice was so hoarse that it was almost incoherent. Intense pain came from his dantian, a burning pain caused by the depletion of spiritual energy and the residue of toxins.

When Su Yao saw him wake up, her eyes flashed with joy. She quickly helped him up and brought the warm water she had prepared to his lips: "Don't move. You were unconscious for three whole days." Her fingertips brushed across his pale cheek. "Thanks to the help of the village's herbalist, who used century-old Poria cocos to make a detoxifying soup, most of the toxins in your body were expelled. However, it damaged your vital energy, so you still need to recuperate properly."

Yun Yi, disregarding his weakened state, struggled to grab Su Yao's sleeve: "Where are the Blood Demon Commander and the man in black robes? They..."

Su Yao gently placed the medicine bowl on the low table, her expression instantly turning serious. She rose and walked to the window, gazing at the darkening sky: "You have already slain the Blood Demon Commander, but that black-robed man has vanished without a trace." Her voice lowered, "According to Elder Yao, this evil technique of fusing with the Blood Demon requires the essence of a living person as a catalyst, and it takes forty-nine consecutive days to complete. Since the black-robed man has already made his move, I fear there is an even greater conspiracy behind it."

Before the words were finished, a series of chaotic footsteps suddenly came from outside the window, followed by the villagers' terrified screams. "Oh no! There's a red light coming from the back mountain! Another monster is coming!" Amidst the shouts, the cries of children could also be heard.

Su Yao and Yun Yi exchanged a glance and simultaneously got up. Yun Yi struggled to hold onto the headboard, but coughed violently, a few dark red drops of blood seeping from between his fingers. Seeing this, Su Yao quickly supported him, saying, "Your body hasn't recovered yet..."

"There's no time." Yun Yi gritted his teeth and put the jade flute into his robes. "Those villagers suffered this calamity because of us." A resolute look flashed in his eyes. "Senior Sister, let's go together."

The two hurried to the village entrance, only to see the moonlight swallowed by a gigantic black shadow. The shadow was a hundred feet tall, seemingly pieced together from countless twisted, blood-demon limbs, its densely packed arms waving in the air, each gaping maw spewing foul-smelling poisonous mist. Even more bizarrely, strange runes flowed across the shadow's surface, identical to the dark patterns used by the black-robed man when casting spells.

"This is... a Blood Demon Symbiote!" Su Yao gasped. This kind of demonic creature requires the forced fusion of thousands of Blood Demons, possessing not only astonishing regenerative abilities but also the ability to share each other's memories and power.

Yun Yi gripped the jade flute tightly, feeling the remaining spiritual energy in his meridians. He could clearly sense the toxins churning within his body with each rapid heartbeat, each breath feeling like a knife cutting through him. But seeing the trembling villagers not far away, he resolutely took a step forward.

Su Yao's whisk gleamed with silver light as she stood beside him. The night wind whipped at their blood-stained clothes, causing them to flutter in the blood-soaked mist. A new, fierce battle was imminent.

The roar of the Blood Demon symbiote shattered the clouds in the sky, and the entire mountain forest trembled beneath its feet. Countless spiked arms burst forth from the symbiote's twisted body, eerie blood patterns surging beneath its dark skin, like giant centipedes coming to life, lunging at Yun Yi and Su Yao. Su Yao's horsetail whisk danced into a silvery-white curtain of light, sharp silver threads shredding the Blood Demon's arms one by one. The black blood spurting from the severed limbs congealed into tiny blood worms in the air, only to be burned away by her spiritual power. But these severed limbs began to writhe as soon as they hit the ground, regrowing at a visible speed. The endless onslaught left her forehead covered in cold sweat.

Yun Yi leaned against the ancient tree behind him, barely able to support himself, and could barely hold the jade flute when it touched his lips. A tidal wave of excruciating pain surged from his dantian, each note feeling like his spiritual energy was being forcibly squeezed through his meridians. The sound waves transformed into blades of light that sliced ​​at the surface of the blood demon symbiote, leaving only shallow white marks, which only provoked the monster to roar even more frantically. Suddenly, it opened dozens of gaping maws, spewing out a foul-smelling poisonous mist that instantly charred everything in its path.

"Junior brother, hold your breath!" Su Yao desperately waved her whisk to sweep away the poisonous mist, but distracted, an arm wrapped around her ankle, and she was violently pulled towards the symbiote. Yun Yi's pupils shrank upon seeing this, and he mustered his last bit of spiritual power to condense sound waves into chains, wrapping them around Su Yao's waist and pulling her backward with all his might. The two forces clashed in mid-air, Su Yao's skirt was torn by the blood demon's claws, and three deep, bone-revealing wounds appeared on her calves.

At the critical moment, a golden rift suddenly opened in the sky, and light like a falling sun dispelled the blood mist. An old man with white hair reaching the ground appeared, riding on auspicious clouds. He wore a Taoist robe embroidered with ancient Bagua diagrams, and the peach wood sword in his hand shimmered with starlight. "You wicked creature, die!" the old man's voice boomed. The peach wood sword sliced ​​through the night sky, ancient incantations appearing on its blade, transforming into a ten-zhang-long golden sword aura that slashed towards the blood demon symbiote.

Amidst the deafening explosion, half of the Blood Demon symbiote's body was blasted into a rain of blood, only to reform in the blink of an eye. Enraged, it turned its spearhead, countless arms surging towards the old man like a tidal wave. The old man moved with lightning speed, his peach wood sword flashing through the air, each strike precisely aimed at the Blood Demon's joints and vital points. The aftershocks of the battle created spiderweb-like cracks in the ground, uprooting trees within a hundred-foot radius and shredding them into dust in mid-air.

In the midst of the fierce battle, Yun Yi's pupils suddenly lit up—the runes flowing across the Blood Demon Symbiote's surface had a subtle frequency difference from the dark patterns on the black-robed man's incantation! He forced himself to stand up, bit his tongue, and spat his blood essence onto the jade flute, using his last bit of consciousness to capture the rhythm of the flashing runes. The instant the flute's sound resonated with the old man's sword energy, the runes suddenly trembled violently, and the Blood Demon Symbiote's movements froze for a moment.

"Now!" Su Yao, enduring her pain, threw her whisk, its silver threads wrapping around the Blood Demon's neck to buy the old man a chance. The old man leaped into the air, his peach wood sword bursting with dazzling golden light, its tip aimed directly at the most dazzling rune core on the Blood Demon symbiote's chest. With a deafening scream, the Blood Demon symbiote's massive body crashed to the ground, turning into foul-smelling blood that seeped into the earth.