“You fool! You goddamn animal! You ungrateful bastard, you sold me and the other brothers out!?”
The bandit instantly broke down.
Lying on the ground, he struggled to lift his head.
His face was twisted, his eyes full of disbelief.
The veins on his neck bulged clearly from his rage.
He sprayed spittle at Zhuanghan.
If not for Liyakade’s Blood Thorns binding him, the bandit would have lunged to choke Zhuanghan in the next second.
“Hahaha, I don’t reckon those guys in the stronghold were ever real brothers to me. Every time we split the loot, I barely got a share. The boss and his cronies took everything, and all the dirty, hard work was mine. If I had anywhere else to go, who’d want to stay in this crappy stronghold!”
Seeing the bandit break down made Zhuanghan even more pleased with his earlier decision.
He stopped pretending entirely now, grinning as he mocked the bandit, who was lying on the ground with bared teeth.
So the stronghold wasn’t exactly united.
After all, every one of them was a criminal who had ended up homeless due to their own misdeeds, gathering together to form the stronghold.
People like them only ever trampled on the weak and took without working.
Those with ability gathered more wealth, while those without were stomped on and used as labor.
Honestly, that wasn’t necessarily better than serving a few years in prison and coming out.
“You! If you hadn’t betrayed the stronghold, we’d only have lost an arm! Can’t you even do that math? You…”
The bandit wanted to keep cursing Zhuanghan, but the next second, a sharp pain drilled into his brain.
The Blood Thorns had taken root inside his limbs and began to sprout, slowly growing.
“Ahhh!!!”
“Why should I have to lose an arm? Haha!”
“Pfft…”
Watching the two bandits break down, arguing and passing the blame, Liyakade finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and laughed.
“Haha, you… pfft. Good thing I held back earlier, or I wouldn’t have gotten to see such a wonderful expression on your face. Weren’t you mocking us just now? Go on, keep it up.”
“No! Lady! Please, please spare me! I’ll work for you like a beast of burden for the rest of my life! Please, have mercy on me!”
The bandit was lifted into the air by the Blood Thorns wrapped around his limbs.
He could feel the blood in his vessels boiling, as if it were being heated, like thousands of ants gnawing at him.
With the last of his strength, he twisted his limbs and desperately begged Liyakade for mercy.
“Hehe, I actually did want to let you off.”
Liyakade smiled sweetly and looked into the bandit’s terrified eyes.
“But your good brother sold you out. Originally, you would have only lost an arm.”
With a light, cheerful tone, Liyakade pronounced the bandit’s brutal death sentence.
The casual tone didn’t sound like she was killing someone—more like she was enjoying a brilliant performance.
Not only that, she even fanned the flames between the two bandits.
Everything that led to the bandit’s death was Zhuanghan’s choice.
“You ungrateful bastard! Listen up! I’ll be waiting for you in hell!”
“Haha, dead men don’t talk!”
Facing the bandit’s final curse, Zhuanghan didn’t take it seriously at all.
He just kept laughing at the bandit’s miserable state.
Squelch
The two bandits’ shouts were cut short by a muffled tearing sound of muscle fibers.
The scarlet thorns that had lifted the bandit and entangled his limbs suddenly plunged into his abdomen like a ravenous serpent.
In the face of the Blood Thorns manipulated by Liyakade, skin and muscle offered no resistance or cushioning.
The bandit’s flesh tore like a rag, emitting a piercing squelch as it was ripped apart by immense force.
The scarlet in Liyakade’s eyes deepened.
An excited smile spread across her small face, looking even more eerie under the moonlight.
She gently raised her right hand, controlling the Blood Thorns, then clenched her fist again.
Another muffled sound exploded in the air.
The next moment, the true blooming began.
A tremendous force erupted from within the bandit’s body.
His torso and flesh, like an overripe fruit bloated with blood, slowly split apart along the direction of the Blood Thorns.
Liyakade wasn’t using her full strength.
If she did, the bandit’s body couldn’t withstand it—he would burst apart in an instant.
But Liyakade didn’t want that.
Just an instant would be too short.
From their earlier conversation, she knew these bandits hadn’t only killed Mi La’s parents—they had also violated Mi La’s mother.
Scum like them deserved more than just a moment of pain.
“Ahhh!!! No! Help!!!”
“Hehe, when Mi La’s family begged for mercy, did you show them any?”
Listening to the bandit’s heart-wrenching screams, Liyakade felt only delight.
She could imagine that when the bandits broke into Mi La’s home, her family must have begged too.
But this group of bandits wouldn’t have cared whether they begged or not—hearing their pleas would only have excited them more.
And now, Liyakade was the same.
The bandit’s lungs had already been pierced by Blood Thorns.
His windpipe was tightly wrapped, preventing him from making clear sounds—only indistinct whimpers remained.
His body convulsed from the intense pain.
Mi La watched the scene before her, listening to Liyakade’s words.
The anger and hatred suppressed in her heart finally released completely.
Yet, her face didn’t show joy—instead, it looked dazed.
She turned to Liyakade, and tears streamed down her cheeks involuntarily.
Then, the squelching sounds continued.
The bandit’s body slowly tore apart from the middle.
Pale ribs pierced through his flesh, jutting out at twisted angles, producing crisp cracking sounds.
The blood-red internal organs of his abdominal cavity spilled out, dropping beneath his body.
Dark red blood cascaded like a waterfall, splattering hotly onto the ground.
Zhuanghan, who had been smugly mocking the bandit just moments before, now stared at the scene in complete shock.
Any joy at surviving vanished instantly, replaced by endless dread and fear.
Having been a bandit for so many years, he had never seen such a brutal way to kill.
Most of the time, they just cut someone down with a single blow and tossed the body into the mountains for beasts to devour—at most, they’d cut off the head.
But now, Liyakade wasn’t just killing—she was torturing every inch of the bandit’s skin, not even sparing the inside of his body.
What terrified Zhuanghan even more was that his companion still hadn’t died, even with his organs hollowed out.
He didn’t know if Liyakade was controlling that or if the bandit had strong vitality.
All he could feel was fear.
After all, he had experienced the power of those Blood Thorns firsthand—each thorn piercing felt like a thousand cuts.
After the bandit was hollowed out, the Blood Thorns slowly sewed his body back together, then stuffed him into the same tree trunk where Zhuanghan had been tied.
Zhuanghan could feel the bandit still breathing weakly.
His eye sockets were empty, and instead, two thorns emerged from them, blooming with two blood-red roses.
“Lady… can I… leave now?”
The stench hit Zhuanghan in the face, snapping him out of his stupor.
He felt the Blood Thorns around his limbs loosen, but now he was so terrified that his limbs trembled, unable to stand, and the lower half of his body had gone numb.
Even though he knew Liyakade had signed the contract and couldn’t attack him, the brutal execution of the bandit had left a deep fear in him.
He no longer had any desire to mock—he just wanted to leave quickly.
“Ah, I almost forgot. Of course you can leave. But…”
Hearing Zhuanghan’s reminder, Liyakade slowly turned around, as if she had really forgotten he was there.
When she said “but,” Zhuanghan’s heart jumped into his throat.
However, Liyakade didn’t make things particularly difficult for him.
“But I can’t pretend I didn’t hear what you said earlier. Kneel down to Mi La and kowtow an apology.”
There seemed to be some unbreakable magic in Liyakade’s calm words.
Zhuanghan immediately fell to his knees before Mi La.
Hearing that it was just a kowtow and apology, his tense mood eased slightly.
Just a kowtow?
Compared to being killed like the other bandit, that was incredibly merciful.
“Lady Mi La! Please forgive me! I shouldn’t have run my mouth!”
Zhuanghan kowtowed several times, apologizing to Mi La with each bow.
His forehead began to bleed slightly.
After finishing, he worried that Mi La wasn’t satisfied, so he knelt and started slapping himself.
“I shouldn’t have said that! I’ve got a loose tongue! Loose tongue!”
Despite Zhuanghan’s apologies, Mi La had no intention of forgiving him.
Yes, how could she forgive him?
The murder of her parents was an irreconcilable blood feud.
She had to kill this man!
And this guy wasn’t truly repentant.
He was kneeling now not because he thought he was wrong, but because he thought he was going to die!
“Alright, that’s enough. You can go.”
Although Mi La hadn’t spoken, Liyakade made the decision herself.
“Sister Liyakade!”
Mi La was startled and tugged at Liyakade’s sleeve.
Liyakade looked at her helplessly.
“I’m sorry, Mi La. The contract was already signed. I can’t act against him anymore. Sorry…”
After hearing Liyakade’s words, Mi La fell silent.
“Now you may go.”
“Thank you, both ladies! Thank you for sparing my life!”
Zhuanghan kowtowed twice more to Mi La and Liyakade, then stood up and ran wildly down the mountain path.
He didn’t want to spend another second with Liyakade, even if she was a beauty.
After running for who knows how long, Zhuanghan finally stopped.
He felt he had run far enough.
“Whew… scared me to death. Where the hell did that demoness come from? She’s terrifying!”
Zhuanghan wiped the sweat from his forehead, panting heavily, and rested with his hands on his knees.
“I finally escaped… wait, didn’t that tigress sign a contract? Why am I scared of her? Whatever, better not mess with that tigress again.”
For some reason, Zhuanghan felt the sweat on his forehead growing thicker and even hot.
Impatiently, he wiped his head, and when he looked at his hand, it wasn’t sweat—it was dark red blood.
“Ah!”
He looked up and saw the hollowed-out bandit hanging right above him.
Zhuanghan collapsed to the ground in terror.
“Ghost! A ghost!”
“Hehe, who were you calling a tigress?”
The voice he never wanted to hear again came from behind him.
At the same time, several Blood Thorns shot out from the bandit’s body and pierced into Zhuanghan’s body.
The bandit was now pressed against him.
Not only was the bandit not fully dead, he still had some mobility.
He grabbed Zhuanghan, and his rotting, stinking face bit down on Zhuanghan’s shoulder.
A hoarse voice came from his decaying head.
“Come to hell… with me!”
“Get off! Get off me!”
Terrified, Zhuanghan tried to push the bandit’s head away, but couldn’t budge it.
A foul odor came from his lower body—he had lost control of his bladder.
His eyes caught sight of Liyakade walking over, and he demanded to know what was happening.
“You… you signed the contract! You said you wouldn’t touch me!?”
“Oh, that?”
Liyakade slowly unrolled the sheepskin paper in her hand.
The corners of her mouth stretched back as she let out a crazed laugh.
The sacred-looking parchment burned to ashes in her hand.
“I forgot to tell you. I’m from the Demon Race. Contracts don’t work on me.”
The next moment, all the Blood Thorns inside the bandit’s body stabbed into Zhuanghan.
He might have let out a short, gurgling roar choked by blood—or maybe not.
In the end, Zhuanghan and the bandit seemed to merge into one person, but not in any human form.
Like a patch of spread-open, still-twitching scarlet flowers, they hung by a tree and continued to tremble.
The air was thick with a nauseating stench, but to Liyakade’s nose, it was sweet.
“Sister Liyakade.”
Mi La walked beside Liyakade.
She finally understood that Liyakade had never intended to let a single one of them go.
This game was only for Liyakade to enjoy their mutual blame, their breakdowns, their hope ignited and then utterly dashed.
And of course, not just Liyakade—Mi La had enjoyed it too.
Despite the bloody scene, walking alongside Liyakade and seeing her delighted expression, Mi La seemed to share in her pleasure and found herself able to appreciate such a sight.
“Mhm, I never break my promises.”
Liyakade smiled slightly, hesitated for a moment, then gently tapped Mi La’s nose.
“Thank you, Sister Liyakade…”
Now I can finally comfort my parents’ spirits in heaven.
“Let’s go. We’re going to wipe out those evildoers completely.”
I thought she was going to use the “I said I wouldn’t, not that she couldn’t” and let Mi La kill him