Ah.
She emerged as the morning mist cleared and light danced amongst the leaves overhead, her presence a paradox of lethal grace. Meng Yue's beauty was as striking as it was venomous—her skin pale as jade, her lips tinged faintly purple, and her eyes a luminous, murky venomous green that glowed even in the dark. Her hair, ink-black and woven into an intricate braid, fell over her tight-fitting dark purple dress, its sleeves embroidered with the sigil of The Hundred Venoms Hall: a coiled centipede, its mandibles dripping poison.
The Meng branch, though a minor lineage within The Hundred Venoms Hall, had carved its name into the Demon Sect's history through their mastery of poisons and their infamous Primal Essence Venom Souls; specifically the centipedes forged from venom, qi, and human souls.
Tao Yiming's grin widened, though a flicker of unease tightened his chest.
The Ghostly Tao Family, a minor demonic faction specializing in rearing spectral entities and harvesting deathly qi, had clashed with The Hundred Venoms Hall for generations. Ghosts and poison made poor bedfellows, and the Mengs' reputation for turning even allies into test subjects was not unwarranted.
"Meng Yue," he purred, straightening. "Stealing my sport?"
She ignored him, her gaze passing over the dying disciple. No pity or remorse. Only the cold assessment of a predator weighing carcasses. "You've spoiled my experiment," she said, her voice flat. "That poison was meant to linger."
Tao Yiming chuckled, though his fingers twitched imperceptibly. "And here I thought you'd thank me for pruning the weak."
Meng Yue gaze drifted to Tao Yiming from the corner of her eyes as she noticed his subtle movements...
Meng Yue's hands moved in a blur, forming a series of intricate seals. Her lips parted, and a stream of shimmering violet mist poured from her mouth, coalescing into a writhing, semi-translucent centipede. The creature's segmented body glowed with venomous light, its countless legs clicking as it coiled around her shoulders. It was the Yin Soul Thousand-Legged Shade; a Primal Essence Venom Soul, its form flickering between corporeal and spectral.
Tao Yiming's breath hitched. The centipede's aura reeked of corroded souls, a hallmark of the Mengs' cruelty. Even the Ghostly Tao elders spoke of The Hundred Venoms Halls' methods with wary disdain. "A Venom Soul centipede…" he said, masking his apprehension with a smirk. "How many lives did your family bleed to forge that?"
Meng Yue's smile was a knife's edge. "Shall we test its bite?"
The Yin Soul Thousand-Legged Shade surged forward, serrated mandibles snapping with a sound like splintering bone. Its grotesque body contorted upward, segments elongating with sickening cracks, chitinous plates groaning under the strain. It loomed taller than Tao Yiming, venom dripping from its translucent form in sizzling rivulets that scorched the earth, acrid smoke curling like funeral incense.
Tao Yiming's laughter rang out; sharp, mocking, a blade honed to hide the prickle of unease in his veins.
"This is your masterpiece, Meng Yue?! A worm with delusions of grandeur?!"
Spectral energy erupted from his palms, summoning clawed ghost-hands from the shadows. They leered at the centipede, their deathly qi hissing. The forest trembled, not from fear, but from the weight of the two demonic legacies impending collision: the Tao Family's restless dead against the Mengs' soul-corrupting poisons.
Beneath the glimmers of the morning sun, neither heir retreated.