Chapter 205: 205- A widow’s sorrow [3]

Lin Zhaoyue’s hair hung loose, matted with sweat and soot.

Her eyes, red and swollen, carried the blazing madness of grief.

She raised her hairpin and pointed it toward the cowering crowd, her voice shaking with barely contained fury.

A widow bereft of reason, a wife robbed of her husband before the Wu Clan, she looked less like a grieving woman and more like an avenging ghost.

"Fang Yuan... my husband was devoured before your very eyes..." Lin Zhaoyue’s voice broke, trembling like a sword on the verge of snapping.

Her gaze swept over the Wu disciples, and then she screamed, the sound tearing from her throat like thunder,

"Why did you stand there and watch him die, why didn’t you lift a hand to help him!?"

Then it hardened, sharp as steel. "If my husband has fallen, then your Wu Clan shall be buried alongside him!"

Her jade hairpin flared with a searing green light, roots and vines tearing out of the cracked earth beneath her feet.

They lashed outward like vipers, ripping apart shattered beams and dragging them into the air.

Each pulse of her qi spread waves of suffocating vitality that twisted into destruction.

The Wu disciples screamed as vines coiled around their bodies, constricting until bones cracked and blood sprayed across the broken courtyard.

"Matriarch Wu!" Zhaoyue’s voice thundered like rolling stormclouds, her grief painting every syllable.

"You schemed against the man who came to your aid! You stood idle while beasts devoured him! Do you think I will let this go unpunished?!"

Her fury rolled across the battlefield, amplified by the controlled Saberfangs, who snarled and roared, as though enraged on her behalf.

To the Wu Clan, it was calamity incarnate, nature and beast united against them.

The Matriarch staggered backward, pale as ash, unable to form a proper defense against the wrath of Fang Yuan’s widow.

Lin Zhaoyue’s eyes shone with tears that dripped down her cheeks, each drop burning into the earth as if her sorrow alone could scorch the world.

"You took him from me!" she screamed, her voice raw. "So your Wu Clan shall die with him!"

The vines thundered forward, a tidal surge of living fury tearing the courtyard asunder, sweeping toward the Wu Matriarch’s hall with unstoppable momentum.

A flash of sword-light split the chaos.

"Stop this madness, woman!"

Three figures descended from the sky, their auras blazing, each one pressing down with the authority of a peak Golden Core.

Zhao Ming of the Zhao Clan, robes scorched from his hurried flight. He Long of the He Clan, eyes sharp as steel.

And Wu Shun, the pillar of the Wu Clan, face twisted with rage and desperation.

Their combined strikes collided with the tide of vines, blades, spears, and talismans igniting in unison.

The earth shook as destruction met defiance.

Yet even in unity, their power barely held.

The flood of greenery slammed against their defense, tearing apart walls and reducing stone pillars to dust.

Blood sprayed as cracks spider-webbed across their protective shields.

"Madwoman!" Zhao Ming roared, veins bulging in his neck. "Do you mean to bury us all with your grief?!"

"You dare lay waste to a clan hall, to strike at your fellow clans, have you lost all sense?" He Long’s voice was cold thunder, though his arms trembled beneath the pressure of vines thicker than pythons.

Wu Shun spat blood, his teeth bared. "You dare rampage in my clan’s grounds?!"

His fury cracked like a whip but beneath it lay a naked tremor of fear.

Because before them, Lin Zhaoyue did not stand as a grieving widow alone.

She stood as a force that eclipsed them utterly.

Her aura surged, raw and unrestrained, every breath drenched in Nascent Soul might.

They were Golden Core, powerful in their own right.

But against her?

They were ants trying to bite down an elephant.

The vines writhed and pressed harder, their green glow suffused with the ache of sorrow and the madness of vengeance, forcing the three patriarchs back step by step, until it seemed the very city itself might be swallowed.

Just then, an earthshaking boom erupted from the Fang Clan’s side, flames and dust spiraling into the night sky.

The sudden blast shook the valley, and Lin Zhaoyue froze mid-strike.

Her killing intent wavered for the briefest heartbeat before she spun on her heel.

The Wu Matriarch collapsed to her knees in relief, chest heaving.

Surviving Wu disciples clung to life, their eyes wide with gratitude for the timely reprieve.

Lin Zhaoyue’s figure blurred, darting away like lightning.

The Zhao, He, and Wu patriarchs bloodied and pale from barely surviving her fury, exhaled as though released from death’s noose.

When she returned to the Fang Clan’s side, the sight that greeted her was grim.

The clan’s protective barrier trembled violently, hammered by a relentless storm of attacks.

Hundreds of golden core cultivators outside had surrounded them, striking in unison.

But instead of despair, a smirk tugged at Zhaoyue’s lips.

Without hesitation, she slipped through a hidden gap in the barrier’s weave.

Her presence passed unnoticed by the besiegers.

Inside, the Fang courtyard was a nest of fear.

Elders huddled together, voices hushed, faces pale beneath the trembling glow of the barrier.

They were cultivators, yes, but their foundations were fragile.

Of them, only two Golden Cores stood tall amid the frightened crowd. The rest were hopelessly outmatched.

When Lin Zhaoyue appeared, her robes still glistening with blood and tears, the elders startled as if seeing a ghost.

Then, as one, they rushed toward her, careful, respectful, their voices low and urgent.

"Lady Lin... where is Clan Head Fang?" one elder asked, bowing deeply, though his voice quivered.

"Patriarch Fang Yuan... did he..." another trailed off, dread choking his words.

They didn’t dare voice the fear aloud.

They all still preferred their heads firmly attached to their shoulders, yet their eyes betrayed what they dreaded most: that the man they relied on, their pillar, had likely died outside if he hadn’t returned back despite the chaos that occurred.