The black-clad warrior cursed inwardly. His strength, already diminished, seemed a paltry match for the figure ahead. Doubt gnawed at him. He held no certainty of victory. Better to withdraw, he reasoned, than waste precious moments in a futile struggle.

Wang Lin’s eyes narrowed. He had met the onslaught of shattered swords and infernal skyfire by invoking his Mark of Life thrice over, a triple aegis against the combined assault.

Yet, the black-clad warrior was no mere fledgling. A cultivator of the Nascent Soul’s Late Stage, his power and solidified essence dwarfed Wang Lin’s own. His spells were no common cantrips. Though Wang Lin had withstood the barrage, one of his precious Marks of Life had shattered, dissipating into nothingness!

Each Mark was a hard-won safeguard, forged from bitter labor. To have one destroyed by this dark figure was a deep wound, a pang of loss intertwined with a rising tide of murderous intent.

Seeing his foe retreat, Wang Lin’s gaze hardened. He surged forward in pursuit, hand flashing to his storage pouch, summoning the Kunpeng Whip.

Wielding the whip, he lashed out. A series of resounding cracks echoed through the void as the weapon unfurled, becoming a black, serpentine dragon, weaving and snapping towards the fleeing black-clad figure.

The man’s face darkened. He spun, reaching for the whip with a snarl. “You court disaster! Very well, ’tis time Luo taught you the lesson your master neglected!”

As his hand lunged, crimson points ignited on each fingertip. These five red embers pulsed and shifted with his movement, possessed of an unsettling aura.

From afar, it would seem not his hand that moved, but five drops of blood, imbued with a dark purpose.

His hand, swift as lightning, grasped the furiously lashing Kunpeng Whip. The moment of contact unleashed a blinding radiance from the crimson points, light weaving and connecting until they formed a five-pointed net, a seal of arcane power!

“Bind!” the black-clad warrior growled.

A cold smile touched Wang Lin’s lips. Instead of struggling with the whip, he surged forward, blurring into a burst of speed, directly towards his enemy.

In that very instant, as the black-clad warrior’s binding incantation left his lips, a tendril of obsidian light erupted from the tip of the Kunpeng Whip, racing with unimaginable speed along its length.

The darkness reached the warrior’s hand, and a scream tore from his throat. A hissing sound erupted from his grip, accompanied by tendrils of acrid smoke.

He released the whip in shock. He knew his Crimson Pentacle, a forbidden art, was designed to seal away the magic of weapons. Throughout his long years of cultivation, it had never failed him. This was a first, a breach in his defenses!

His fighting spirit shattered, he retreated, preparing to teleport away once more. But the Kunpeng Whip lashed out with blinding speed, striking him squarely across the back.

The blow stole the color from his face, but in his eyes, an unnatural light ignited.

“A treasure… designed to wound the spirit!”

He inhaled sharply, but did not pause his retreat. He fled. As he broke through into the spiritual storm, Wang Lin, now even faster, chased after him, cutting off his escape.

The black-clad warrior’s gaze hardened. He spat forth a plume of inky vapor, which billowed and roiled, enveloping Wang Lin.

With that done, he did not wait, he vanished into the raging spiritual storm.

Enshrouded in the venomous miasma, Wang Lin felt a piercing sting.

Without hesitation, he wove a hand seal and whispered: “Wind!”

A violent gale materialized, tearing a hole into the poisonous cloud. Before the aperture could close, Wang Lin had transformed into a wisp of smoke, slipping free.

His respect for the black-clad warrior deepened. The man possessed a myriad of spells and likely more treasures yet unseen. His retreat, Wang Lin surmised, stemmed from fear. Word of his confrontation with a Void Refinement cultivator, of his defeat and rumored trove of powerful artifacts, had preceded him.

“Though I know not his sect, he must be of the Sky Plume Star to venture here. Likely he knows that the direct disciples of Sky Plume’s Chosen possess life-saving treasures. ‘Tis no secret. With his cunning, he must have weighed the odds the moment he knew my identity. He retreats… to strike when victory is assured!” Wang Lin thought, a grim certainty settling in his mind.

“He must not live!” Cold fire burned in Wang Lin’s eyes, and he pressed on.

They were two silhouettes against the dark, weaving through the storm.

Deeper within the heart of the turbulent currents, more powerful spirits emerged, shifting and changing, though they were always marked by a horn upon their brow.

The number of horns denoted the spirit’s strength.

Wang Lin and the black-clad warrior were on the periphery of the spiritual storm, where the spirits were weaker, where the black-clad warrior could survive and absorb spiritual power.

As they raced on, they occasionally met with those spirits, but they were all easily destroyed by the duo.
With each demise of a creature steeped in dark sorcery, a wisp of that fell essence would seek a new vessel, drawn to the slayer’s heart.

The sable-clad figure hurtled through the twisted wood, his brow furrowed in grim concentration. Abruptly, his body contorted in an impossible manner, bones seeming to dissolve as he twisted aside like a thing of liquid shadow. A bolt of pure night cleaved the air where he had been, a whisper of destruction that passed within a hair’s breadth of his form.

He hissed, righting himself, his arcane senses reaching out. Behind him, the relentless Wang Lin remained in pursuit, a shadow dogging his steps.

“Foolish mortal,” he spat, “this Wang Lin clings like a burr. And that accursed scythe! Its speed defies belief. Had I not foreseen this, I would be bleeding already! If not for the trinkets he wears, I would claim his soul today, and feast upon his dark crystal!” Shadow darkened his features as he wove a counter-spell, hands dancing in intricate patterns. Around him, the miasma of the enchanted forest recoiled, as if in fear.

From the ether, strands of black smoke coalesced around his hands, weaving like phantom serpents. He inhaled deeply, then slammed his right hand against his chest. The moment his palm made contact, the swirling tendrils plunged inward, disappearing beneath his skin.

Agony bloomed on his face, veins erupting like writhing worms beneath his flesh. His eyes became bloodshot pools, his features twisted in a mask of torment. He endured, teeth gritted, as the dark energies burrowed deeper.

Finally, he could bear it no longer. He threw back his head and unleashed a roar that shattered the very air.

The force of the sound ripped apart the swirling sorcery, creating a momentary void within the forest. Where moments before a churning sea of dark power had raged, there was now a circle of stark emptiness, a hundred paces wide.

Wang Lin halted at the edge of this clearing, his eyes like chips of ice as he observed the scene.

The black-clad figure stood at the center, lifting his head, his gaze locking onto Wang Lin. In a voice rasping with pain and power, he said, “You court your own demise!” His left hand rose, fingers twitching, and the black smoke surged around it, writhing like a nest of dark tendrils.

“The Demon Edict! The Fourth Shade of the Sky-Fiend, arise!”

With these words, his agony intensified. More veins bulged upon his skin, throbbing with dark power. It was as if an army of phantoms clawed their way from his very soul, surging through his arm and into the waiting tendrils. On his left hand, the smoke twisted and churned, taking form with terrifying speed. A monstrous, black visage emerged, a twisted parody of a face.

It opened its phantom jaws in a silent roar that sent the encroaching dark energy surging back.

Wang Lin recoiled. The sound was imperceptible to the ear, yet his very soul felt the force of its unholy utterance, a scream that threatened to tear the fabric of existence.

“Loose it!” the dark sorcerer croaked, his voice trembling. Even in that single word, Wang Lin heard the immense strain he endured.

The shade on his hand launched itself forward, its eyes burning with an unholy light, fixating on Wang Lin. With unnatural speed, it lunged.

Wang Lin’s eyes narrowed. At his command, the celestial blade materialized before him, flashing with light, but as it struck the shade, the abomination merely opened its maw and devoured the blade’s energy whole.

The curved scythe followed, slicing through the shade, but it passed through without effect. He tried to strike at the sorcerer, but his foe was now shrouded in a dense cloud of the black tendrils, forming an impenetrable barrier.