As ripples of unseen force spread, Wang Lin emerged, his face a mask of calm. He spared not a glance for the cerulean-clad youth, his gaze instead settling upon the battered form of Lei Ji and the perilously close to death, Big-Head.

Wang Lin’s eyes flashed with a chilling light as he beheld the jet-black handprint marring Big-Head’s back.

With a gesture, his right hand seizing emptiness itself, he drew Big-Head to him. He laid his palm upon the afflicted back, channeling a torrent of his life essence, his Yuan Qi, into the wounded man.

Big-Head’s face flushed with returning color as he coughed up a viscous, black ichor, its stench enough to curdle milk.

From the sidelines, the indolent youth in blue, still reclined against a rock, flicked a cherry pit from his fingers. “Sun Gouzi,” he drawled, pointing at Wang Lin with casual malice, “you’ve inhabited that ogre’s husk long enough. Your cultivation should be sufficient. Go and kill this insolent cur.”

The giant ogre beside him, a hulking brute, bowed his head in servile obedience. “As you command!”

Spinning on his heel, Sun Gouzi fixed Wang Lin with a gaze brimming with murderous intent. He took a step forward, his hands clenching into fists, a predatory grin splitting his face.

As he closed the distance, the brute chanted a spell, and a miniature ocean manifested beneath his feet. Waves surged and crashed, spanning a hundred paces in all directions, giving the illusion that the ogre walked upon the very sea itself.

“Prepare to meet your end, whelp!” Sun Gouzi roared, his right hand forming a seal. The ocean at his command roiled as if possessed, coalescing into a serpentine dragon of water that lunged towards Wang Lin with a deafening roar.

The stench of salt and brine filled the air. Yet Wang Lin, his hand still upon Big-Head’s back, paid no heed to the onrushing dragon or the ogre behind it.

Sun Gouzi, though powerful, was merely an initial Stage Explorer of the Void. Even setting aside Wang Lin’s current form as a five-star royal Ancient God, his own cultivation would suffice. While the ogres were known for their formidable physiques, they paled in comparison to an Ancient God. With a flick of his left sleeve, Wang Lin unleashed a surge of raw power.

Invisible, yet devastating, the power tore through the very fabric of space between Wang Lin and the ogre. The air crackled and snapped, as if the heavens themselves were about to shatter.

The youth in blue paused in the act of biting into another cherry, his eyes narrowing with sudden interest.

The water dragon, charged with the brute’s magic, shuddered under the incredible strength that crashed upon it. It could not advance. The dragon roared as it was slammed back on itself, scales falling away, the water itself exploding and vanishing.

Sun Gouzi reeled back, the dragon’s reversal slamming into him, the brute’s eyes widening in shock. Too late, the wave crashed against his chest. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, the dragon’s power blasting him, launching him back.

Cracking sounds came from within his body as his organs and bones were crushed one by one. Blood erupted from every pore. He flew through the air, and as Wang Lin lifted his left hand and curled his fingers into a claw, Sun Gouzi screamed.

“Young Master, save me!”

The blue-clad youth’s face hardened. He flung the cherry branch in his hand. A spray of cherries shattered, painting the sky with red juice. The seeds broke apart and transformed into glowing blue skulls, wailing as they flew forward.

But the blue-clad youth was too late. Sun Gouzi’s body froze in place, dragged back towards Wang Lin. He was helpless to prevent it.

Wang Lin’s fingers locked onto Sun Gouzi’s arm. In a single strike, the brute’s eyes grew dull. An incomprehensible power vibrated within him. His soul was blasted from his body.

Before Sun Gouzi’s soul could escape, Wang Lin snatched it from the air. His fingers closed, and the beast’s essence could not move. At the same instant, Wang Lin struck out with his foot. Sun Gouzi’s body sailed through the air and smashed into the incoming spray of blue-glowing skulls.

There was a terrific explosion. Chunks of flesh and bone flew in all directions, but the skulls snatched every piece. They consumed Sun Gouzi’s ogre form in seconds.

The entire sequence unfolded in the blink of an eye. Wang Lin’s right hand remained firmly planted on Big-Head’s back, as black smoke poured from the afflicted area.

The stench of death receded from Big-Head, replaced by a burgeoning vitality.

“Who in the heavens are you?” The youth in blue was shaken. He knew that to casually slay an Explorer of the Void, especially one inhabiting an ogre’s form, was no ordinary feat. Only a cultivator in the Ascendant realm could accomplish such a feat. Yet the man before him seemed to be just an Explorer of the Void.

Wang Lin ignored the blue-clad youth’s query, instead lifting his right hand slightly before returning it to Big-Head’s back. As his palm made contact, a faint, almost imperceptible distortion of the air shimmered into existence. The black handprint on Big-Head’s back writhed and pulsed, then dissolved into five shadowy wraiths that converged, hissing, upon Wang Lin’s palm, seeking to consume him.

Wang Lin remained unperturbed. His hand pressed down, and with the briefest of wails, detectable only by the most sensitive of divine senses, the five wraiths crumbled into nothingness.

A torrent of dark energy erupted from Big-Head’s back, and Big-Head’s body shuddered violently. His blood reversed course, expelling a clot of pure, black blood that burst apart upon exiting his body, dissolving into a cold, ominous mist.

The whole process lasted mere moments. Wang Lin withdrew his hand, his gaze locking onto the youth in blue, and took a step forward.

The youth’s face paled. Before he could issue a command, the ogre beside him recoiled, terror etched upon his features. Though this ogre was slightly more powerful than the one that had fallen, he knew that against an opponent capable of such casual annihilation, he stood no chance.

Retreating, the youth in blue, his face a mask of darkness, barked, “I am a disciple of the Corpse Sect! This is a misunderstanding. I beg you, do not pursue this matter further!” As he spoke, his hands moved in a blur of incantations, drawing emerald energy from within his body and channeling it into his right hand. In an instant, his hand pulsed with green light.

“The Corpse Sect!” Wang Lin’s gaze sharpened.

In that instant, the youth in blue bared his teeth, seeing an opening. He thrust his right hand forward, chanting, “Five Ghosts, Yin God, Wheel of Emptiness!”

Five beams of green energy detached from his hand, coalescing into five wraiths that shrieked in unison. The wraiths converged, forming a single, emerald handprint that shot towards Wang Lin.

The handprint pulsed with malignant energy, the five wraiths within contorting into grotesque visages. A powerful aura washed over the area as it closed upon Wang Lin with alarming speed.

Wang Lin, unmoved, casually flicked his right hand forward, unleashing a gust of wind that collided with the handprint.

With a muted pop, the five wraiths within the handprint shattered and dissipated. Wang Lin took another step forward, his right fist clenched, and delivered a devastating blow.

A tempest of power erupted, shaking the heavens and earth. The youth in blue blanched, but remained composed. He studied Wang Lin with narrowed eyes before laying his palm upon the ogre beside him.

The ogre shuddered, his face contorting with pain. He took a step back, hands moving in incantations, and pointed to the sky. A guttural sound escaped his lips.

“Ogre’s Art!”

His body convulsed as a seam opened upon his brow. A flash of ethereal light pierced through, but instead of attacking Wang Lin, it wrapped around the youth in blue and pulled him back. Behind the youth, a vortex materialized without warning.

The vortex spun without generating any discernible pull, yet the youth was drawn into it with inexorable force.

“The ogres’ innate art,” Wang Lin sneered, unleashing another punch, and more power flew forward, aimed at the blue-clad youth.

But now the giant ogre’s face was ashen, and he could not help but grin. He locked his power in upon himself, turning his vitality against his own soul. He screamed as he lost control, the agony shaking him to his core, and burst the soul into shreds! The unleashed destructive energy caught everything in its path, his flesh and blood all twisted and torn. All the power poured into a concentrated blast that hammered into Wang Lin, seeking to stop him from further pursuit. The whirlwind faded. The portal was closing, and there stood the dark-faced blue-clad youth.

“Whoever you are, I will discover your name! You have provoked the Corpse Sect. You will die for this!” he hissed, his form flickering before vanishing completely.

Wang Lin remained impassive. As the blast of power washed over him, he reached into his bag and drew out an object unused for too long, the third Chariot of the Gods, and flung it. The chariot erupted in a prismatic burst of light, transforming into a resplendent butterfly of five colors!