Chapter Six: A Bloody Sudden Change

The two were locked in fierce combat when, all at once, Soul Devourer lurched upright. He shook the demonkin in his arms, the one who had been lying limp against him, and cried out, “Fourth Brother! Fourth Brother, what is wrong with you?” Then he whirled toward Moon Ghost King and roared, “Big Brother, Fourth Brother he...”

Moon Ghost King was stunned. His second brother had always been cold by nature, detached from others, yet he had always possessed a calm that never wavered in danger. What, then, could have driven him into such panic? Could it be that the demonkin was beyond saving? But that seemed impossible. He had just examined Fourth Brother’s injuries himself; though the man had been bound by multiple spells and his spiritual power had been greatly depleted, it should not have been life-threatening. How, in such a short time, had matters come to this?

While he was still hesitating, Soul Devourer rose again, threw back his head, and let out a mournful howl. Then, with a savage laugh, he shouted at him, “Big Brother, you insisted on keeping me out of your fair fight, so be it! Fine! I will listen to you. But now I am going to settle accounts with his accomplice, and I hope you will not stop me!”

With that, he sprang forward and lunged straight at Lu Qing, who stood nearby watching the battle.

As he moved, a streak of gray-black light struck Lu Qing soundlessly, pinning her firmly in place so that she could not move at all.

The change had come so suddenly that the other three, Bloodshade and the rest, upon hearing that the demonkin had been struck down, rushed at once toward where he lay, for their brotherly bond was deep. When they saw Soul Devourer suddenly restrain Lu Qing, they could only stare helplessly; even if they wanted to help, it was already too late.

Moon Ghost King, meanwhile, was frantic. In a blaze of fury and alarm, he no longer cared about tactics or composure. Gathering every ounce of his spiritual power, he brought out his greatest treasure, the Mirror of the Netherworld’s Hundred Ghosts, and struck Shi Jun with all his might.

A series of pitch-black beams shot from the ornate ancient mirror in Moon Ghost King’s hand. Wherever those rays touched, a ghost soldier armed with a sharp blade and a savage, fanged face condensed out of the void. In the blink of an eye, dozens of spirit forms wielding all manner of weapons had appeared within that cramped pavilion, charging madly at Shi Jun.

Yet Moon Ghost King did not stop there. His figure blurred, and from one body there suddenly emerged four true forms standing at east, south, west, and north. All four traced several talismanic marks along the rim of the mirror, then flipped it over and pointed it at Shi Jun’s head.

The next instant, four strange arcs made of dazzling blue light formed above Shi Jun. From those arcs, four walls of blue radiance, shimmering like ripples on water, descended with astonishing speed and sealed off every route of retreat.

Shi Jun now faced a cruel dilemma: Lu Qing was in mortal peril, and only the power of his protective treasure, the Ice Shield, could save her life. Yet at that very moment Moon Ghost King had suddenly revealed his killing move. If Shi Jun moved to aid Lu Qing, he would most likely die here himself. But the situation was too urgent to allow any further thought. In desperation, Shi Jun instinctively used his Art of Commanding Objects to teleport the Ice Shield into Lu Qing’s body in an instant, then drove the spell to open a defensive barrier before her, barely managing to keep Soul Devourer’s body outside the Ice Shield’s protective field.

At the same time, beneath the immense light-wall conjured by the Mirror of the Netherworld’s Hundred Ghosts, the countless attacks of the ghost soldiers landed with unerring accuracy upon Shi Jun’s undefended body.

Because the damage dealt to Shi Jun was pure physical force, his mind’s eye did not erupt in time as it usually would. Shi Jun only felt his flesh ignite all at once with a searing, stabbing pain. Then all the power in his body, together with his blood, poured out in torrents from the wounds, and a numbing sensation spread rapidly to every corner of him...

Just when Shi Jun believed escape was impossible, a strange feeling quietly rose from some hidden place deep within his heart, as though the order maintaining the balance of power in his body had suddenly been broken, triggering a chain reaction one link at a time.

The three vast powers that had long lain hidden within Shi Jun, entangled and battling one another for years, all at once turned their guns outward and launched a stormlike counterattack against everyone in the pavilion.

In the same instant, the people in the pavilion were struck by Shi Jun’s indiscriminate assault. Lu Qing had been hiding behind him, and Bloodshade, Nether Schemer, Charming Jade, and the demonkin lying on the ground were all farther away and not the primary targets, so they were less affected, but even so they were swept up in torrents of energy hot as flame.

The defensive barrier of the Ice Shield around Lu Qing was melted in an instant. Fortunately, the counterforce of the Frozen-in-Three-Foots technique activated in time, just barely blocking Shi Jun’s first wave of attack. But because the pressure from outside was so great, the Ice Shield’s counterforce was crushed inward uncontrollably, freezing Lu Qing inside a huge transparent pillar of ice instead.

As the steam from the heat drifted away in waves, she looked for all the world like a block of ice being heated in boiling water, three parts ridiculous, seven parts perilous.

Bloodshade and the other three experienced something different. Because they were masters with water-aspected bodies, they did not feel much discomfort at the outset of the fiery surge. Aside from the destruction of the water-based defensive barrier they had hastily joined forces to create in their panic, their bodies suffered little damage.

But after the fiery surge came a blast of astral wind before them, as though countless blades were hidden within it. At first this astral wind was like a circular steel saw whirling through the air. After it cut down the innumerable ghost soldiers surrounding Shi Jun one by one, it split apart into several small wind spheres shining with metallic light. Riding the force of their own momentum, they destroyed everything they touched with unstoppable force and pursued Moon Ghost King’s four incarnations as well as Bloodshade and the other three.

Worried that the severely injured demonkin could not move, the remaining three had no choice but to join forces once more and throw all their power into a direct confrontation with that astral wind.

The two immense forces collided in midair. The blast sent dust from the ground swirling up into the sky, where it drifted down onto the three grievously wounded men, adding streaks of muddy yellow to the green fluid slowly seeping from their wounds. But they no longer had the strength to care about anything else. They could only support their trembling bodies to shield the demonkin, secretly tending to their injuries while staying alert for the next attack.

Among them all, the one who faced Shi Jun most directly was Moon Ghost King, and he was in the greatest peril. Although Soul Devourer had been struck harder than Lu Qing, Bloodshade, and the others, he was naturally cunning and utterly indifferent to the lives of others. At the first sign of the combined assault of fiery surge and astral wind, he had instantly realized that disaster was upon him. He immediately flashed behind Bloodshade and the others, scooped up the demonkin, and retreated to a corner.

At first glance, this seemed like he was protecting his brethren from harm, but considering that Soul Devourer had held the demonkin horizontally in front of him, it looked more like he was using him as a shield to protect himself.

Yet even with Soul Devourer’s quick reflexes, he could not escape unscathed. The sparks scattering from his collar and beard, along with the countless wounds left along his back, left him shaken and frantic.

As for the demonkin, beneath this supposed protection from his “good brother,” he was struck head-on by the force that trailed behind Soul Devourer, and was not only blasted back to his original form, but also had the tiny bit of spiritual power he had just gathered shattered to pieces. Injured upon injury, he was now perilously close to the extinction of both body and soul.

Moon Ghost King fared even worse. First, his proud and aloof nature would not allow him to retreat at such a moment; second, because he had been directly facing Shi Jun before the great upheaval, the fiery surge and the astral wind had both singled him out as the primary target, and the strongest power within Shi Jun had also locked firmly onto his body.

Under the pressure of those three immense forces, he did not dare move at all. He could only hastily withdraw his incarnations while doing everything he could to summon the power of the treasure Mirror of the Netherworld’s Hundred Ghosts, erecting layer after layer of light nets around himself in the hope of withstanding the erosion of those three world-devouring powers.

With a thunderous crash, the already ravaged pavilion was finally completely destroyed by the forces unleashed in the struggle of so many masters. The hexagonal concrete roof was torn away whole, somersaulted twice in the air, and then smashed heavily into the ground, flinging shards of tile and stone in all directions. The four pavilion pillars, also made of concrete, snapped at the waist and smashed several craters into the stone platform, which was already riddled with cracks under the tremendous external force.

Almost at the same moment, those three incomparably violent powers broke through the Mirror of the Netherworld’s Hundred Ghosts with effortless ease and hurled Moon Ghost King flying. But before he even hit the ground, another violent explosion was triggered inside his body. The shockwave sent him once more skyward, where he came crashing down heavily beside Soul Devourer, who was hiding in a corner.

A cloud of dust roiled up all around, engulfing Moon Ghost King’s battered body in a curtain of multicolored haze mixed with scorching currents of air.

During all this upheaval, Shi Jun had also been struggling desperately against the three bizarre powers that had suddenly surged within him, trying to wrest control of his body back. Yet for some reason it felt as though he had fallen into a profoundly deep nightmare, utterly unable to do anything about the changes occurring in the depths of his own flesh.

More strangely still, he dimly seemed to see another self, one that had originally been restrained by two other tremendous powers, seizing control of his body in the instant the outside force shattered the balance and the various hidden factions within him counterattacked in order to preserve his body.

And the self that had once ruled his body was, because of the grave injury it had suffered, now exceedingly weak. It could not oppose that other self at all. Instead, it was sealed off in a corner within him, able only to remain helplessly apart, like a bystander.

Moon Ghost King flew away grievously wounded; Bloodshade and the others were swept up; all of it happened in the blink of an eye.

Before Shi Jun could even feel surprise, his body had already begun moving under the control of the other consciousness. A stream of soft, flowing power sped through his whole body, nourishing every wound. Torn flesh and skin were regenerating at an incredible speed, and the injuries suffered in the battle vanished in the space of a breath. Even the most brilliant surgeon in the world would likely have stared in stunned silence.

The next moment, he seemed to hear a cry of astonishment from his own mouth, a soft “Huh?” It was the other Shi Jun, who had lowered his head to inspect his own body and now let a satisfied smile ripple at the corners of his lips.

Before Shi Jun’s confusion could be answered, he felt his hands involuntarily forming a series of intricate seals. Power flooded his entire body, surging and ebbing with the changes in the hand signs. Then, after the final line of the spell flashed through his mind, it burst forth like a flood breaking through a dam, launching a full assault once more on the ghost brothers.

It was a maddening sensation. Though he was one person, for reasons he could not comprehend he had suddenly been split into two. One half of his consciousness wielded a colossal power he had never possessed before, pursuing the six ghost spirits before him without distinction between friend and foe. The other half was trapped within his body, powerless, forced to watch this surreal transformation unfold.

Shi Jun clearly recognized the art before him as one of the techniques engraved into his mind by the Old Ancestor of the Yellow Springs in the Netherworld Green Abyss. Yet in the past he had never truly understood how to use these seals, nor had he possessed the strength to wield them freely. But now, in the hands of that other self, they were used as naturally as a giant strong enough to uproot mountains skillfully swinging a blade long familiar to him. Everything seemed utterly natural, even effortless.

A feeling of utter helplessness rose from Shi Jun’s heart. Everything before him suddenly seemed unfamiliar, and the gray moods of fatigue and frustration made him feel as though he were confronting an opponent he could never hope to match. The thought of surrender slowly began to take root within him...

The six ghost brothers had mostly already been gravely wounded. Aside from the cunning second brother, Soul Devourer, whose injuries were comparatively light, the others had essentially lost all capacity to resist. And because Bloodshade and the others had been facing Shi Jun all along, they could not see the strange movement behind them, where Soul Devourer had been using the demonkin as a shield against the attacks.

At this moment, Bloodshade, Nether Schemer, and Charming Jade saw that Shi Jun had once again gone on the offensive in a manner completely unlike his usual self, and they knew this time they were likely in grave danger. Yet in order to protect the heavily wounded Moon Ghost King and the demonkin whose life and death were still uncertain, they still prepared to stake their lives on blocking this wave of attacks.

Only Bloodshade noticed that Shi Jun’s current condition was not right. He had already formed a soul pact with Shi Jun, and from that moment on there had been a special connection between their hearts. Though he could not read Shi Jun’s thoughts, he could always sense Shi Jun’s existence through that bond, and at times he could even perceive shifts in his mood.

Once a soul pact was formed, such communication of the heart could never be severed unless one side died or the pact was broken.

But from the very moment Shi Jun had been wounded by Moon Ghost King, Bloodshade felt the connection between them suddenly cut off completely. The sensation was extraordinarily strong, as though Shi Jun himself had abruptly vanished from the world and all trace of him could no longer be sensed. And it was precisely after that that Shi Jun had erupted with such overwhelming force, striking at his own brothers without mercy and even drawing in the Lu Qing he had always respected.

Bloodshade knew that some tremendous change must have occurred within Shi Jun, but in the midst of the present chaos he had no means of resolving it. Thus he could only defend with all his strength while shouting at the top of his lungs, “Second Brother, Third Brother, Sixth Sister, take Big Brother and Fourth Brother and leave at once! Something is wrong with him!” Seeing that Nether Schemer and Charming Jade still did not move, he grew so anxious that his eyes turned red and he roared, “What are you all still standing there for? Do you want us all to die together?”

But Nether Schemer and Charming Jade exchanged a glance, and in their eyes there instead arose a look of calm, unyielding resolve. They remained standing quietly where they were, with no intention of leaving.

Seeing this, Bloodshade understood that the two of them had made up their minds not to go, and a surge of heroic spirit rose within him as well. He laughed aloud. “Good! Good! Then today let us live and die together. That will not disgrace the brotherhood we have shared! Ha-ha!”

The crisis was drawing near, yet in the corner where he hid, Soul Devourer was already making another plan. He had never cared whether the others lived or died. To him, the actions of Bloodshade and the rest seemed nothing but stupidity. At a time like this, why bother putting on such noble airs? Was his own life not worth more than all that pointless loyalty?

But he did not intend to flee either. Judging from the power Shi Jun now possessed, even if he escaped this attack, there was no guarantee that the other man would not come after him once the others had been dealt with. If that happened, with his current strength and his already injured body, he would not be able to save his own life.

And then there was the demonkin beside him, another burden. Judging by the way he had just used the man as a shield, whether or not this brat survived the disaster would make no difference to him; there would be no benefit at all.

After weighing his options, Soul Devourer finally steeled his heart and secretly activated a spell. This was an art of devouring spirit bodies, created by combining with his own constitution for the purpose of rapidly increasing strength. At this moment, caring nothing for sibling affection, he suddenly unleashed the Art of Soul Devouring on the demonkin still slumped in his arms.

Watching the demonkin’s body rapidly shrivel under the spell, Soul Devourer somehow felt an unprecedented thrill rise within him. Yet even now he did not stop. Instead, his gaze shifted once more to his eldest brother, Moon Ghost King, who was also lying on the ground, helpless and unable to resist.

Moon Ghost King had seen all of Soul Devourer’s strange actions from where he lay beside him. To see that the brother he had always protected with his life would not even spare Fourth Brother filled Moon Ghost King’s heart with utter despair. He no longer wished to resist in any way, and simply closed his eyes, quietly waiting for death to arrive...

The sight before him shocked Shi Jun to the core. He could never have imagined that Soul Devourer would betray his own brother in such a desperate moment. An anger that towered above all else swept away his former dejection. The consciousness that had been suppressed in a corner now struggled with all its might, fiercely opposing the other half of himself and desperately trying to seize control of his body once more.

At the same time, with the danger outside now temporarily relieved, the other two mysterious powers that had earlier turned against Moon Ghost King also rapidly withdrew back into Shi Jun’s body, joining the contest for supremacy over his flesh.

The covert struggle of four different forces gradually pushed the body’s limits past their threshold. Shi Jun’s body trembled violently; his hands clenched together of their own accord, and his legs swayed wildly beneath him. His heart seemed to have been struck by a giant hammer. After a pause of several seconds, it began pounding furiously as though rebounding from the blow, driving blood through every vessel in his body like arrows shot from a bow.

Shi Jun dimly felt that the next moment his entire body would explode and die. And yet the thought that he must stop the slaughter before his eyes still drove him to fight, regardless of the danger, against the three other powers...

“Stop!”

With that roar from his own mouth, Shi Jun suddenly felt his consciousness reclaim complete dominion over his body. And perhaps unwilling to perish together with him, the other three mysterious powers within him swiftly retreated. Before long, they had returned to the usual state of balance and restraint, sinking once more into some hidden corner deep within him, no longer detectable.

The tremendous dizziness left behind by the fierce struggle drained Shi Jun’s strength, but in order not to ruin everything at the last moment, he relied on the blurred impressions in his mind to change several hand seals with astonishing speed, redirecting the spell that had already shattered Bloodshade and the others’ final line of defense toward Soul Devourer, who was preparing to ambush Moon Ghost King.

Having exhausted his last ounce of strength, Shi Jun could no longer hold himself up and sank weakly to the ground...

“Second Brother, what are you doing?” Bloodshade and the other three, who had already half-stepped through the gates of death, were somewhat at a loss before this sudden turn of events. But when their gazes followed that abruptly redirected torrent of power and saw it crash down on Soul Devourer’s head, they too cried out in horror.

Bloodshade reacted the fastest. The instant the shout left his mouth, he sprang into the air, but even so he was still a step too late.

Moon Ghost King’s fate, however, was altered by Shi Jun’s final effort. Though Soul Devourer still had a chance to devour Moon Ghost King, the man, whose first principle had always been preserving his own life, was unwilling to risk death to continue his treachery. The moment he saw that the situation had gone wrong, he immediately prepared to flee.

Once again he hurled Moon Ghost King, still in his grasp, out as a human shield, and at the same time shot off into the distance at once.

But Soul Devourer never dreamed that this clever move would instead bring him ruin. When the “other Shi Jun” had earlier attacked the four of them, there had already been an element of cat-and-mouse mockery in his power. More importantly, with his strength and temperament, he would never allow an opponent any chance of escape. Thus he had long since laid down restrictive barriers around the stone platform. Once someone tried to flee and triggered them, his spell would track them instantly until the target was destroyed.

Soul Devourer had barely begun to move when he discovered that he seemed to be stuck fast by a massive, invisible force of attraction. Then one horrifying thing after another occurred. The energy torrent that had been about to collide with Moon Ghost King vanished in an instant, only to emerge like a ghost directly in front of him.

Though he knew full well that one more step forward would surely shatter him to pieces, it was as though an invisible arm of immense strength had clamped tightly around him. He could not retreat; he could not even dodge or defend. He could only watch helplessly as his body was swept into that flood of power, vast as ten thousand torrents...