The heavy, suffocating darkness radiating from Mo Ji's body covered half of the vast black-granite stage like an ink stain spreading across clean parchment. The ambient temperature inside the arena dropped rapidly, frost forming along the edges of the shattered floor tiles while the surrounding spectator stands sat in tense, breathless anticipation.
Railin stepped smoothly into the dark domain, his dark navy robes untouched by the biting cold. His footfalls were light and completely unhurried, stopping twenty paces away from Mo Ji. His pitch-black pupils met Mo Ji's blood-red gaze with the cold, motionless clarity of an ancient abyss.
"You actually walked out," Mo Ji spoke, his voice low, raspy, and carrying a strange, reverberating vibration that rattled the granite floor. He reached up with his right hand, slowly unwinding the heavy black iron chains bound tightly around his back-slung sword sheath.
CLINK! CLANK!
The thick iron links hit the stone floor with a deafening, metallic crash, each link etched with microscopic crimson runes designed to seal and suppress heavy spiritual weapons. As the chains fell away, the dark red sheath shuddered violently, unleashing a sharp, ear-piercing scream that resonated directly within the upper dantians of everyone in the surrounding stands.
"That... that's the Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword!" a core disciple from the Heavenly Sword Peak gasped from the spectating stands, his own broadsword vibrating violently in its sheath in instinctual fear. "It's a genuine mid-tier Earth artifact forged from the marrow of dark-attribute spirit beasts! It targets mental intent and soul force directly!"
Mo Ji gripped the dark hilt, drawing the blade in one fluid motion.
SCHWING—!
The blade was long, narrow, and utterly devoid of reflection. It seemed to absorb the surrounding sunlight, emitting a thick, dark mist of soul-shredding qi that swirled around Mo Ji's Stage Five aura like a hundred weeping phantoms.
"Lu Chen was an idiot who relied on physical suppression," Mo Ji said, his crimson pupils fixing onto Railin's face with absolute, predatory confidence. "He didn't realize that your strange, devouring trick requires physical or direct qi contact. But my Abyssal Shadow Sutra operates entirely on domain control and soul slicing. Before you can even reach within ten paces of my body, your mind will be shredded into useless memory fragments."
Railin looked at the dark, screaming sword in Mo Ji's hand. Deep within his upper dantian, his three Soul-Piercing Needles—now condensed into ultra-dense, solid obsidian spikes after his Stage Three breakthrough—vibrated softly in quiet anticipation.
"A weapon that targets the soul..." Railin murmured softly, his pale lips curving into that familiar, sinister arc. "How considerate of you to bring a catalyst that speeds up my refinement."
"Arrogant rat!" Mo Ji roared!
BOOM!
Mo Ji's Stage Five spiritual pressure exploded out in its full, horrifying glory! He stomped his right foot into the granite, shattering the stone beneath his boots, and swung his sword through the air!
"Abyssal Art: Hundred-Phantom Soul Slash!"
SCREECH—!
The thick, ink-like shadow domain covering Mo Ji's side of the stage instantly transformed into a sea of roaring, phantom swords! Over a hundred dark, flying blades made entirely of condensed soul-shredding shadow energy shot through the air, completely locking down every spatial route around Railin!
The speed of the attack was terrifying, far exceeding anything Gao Yuan or Lu Chen had ever demonstrated. The pure physical wind generated by the strike cracked the stage floor before the phantoms even arrived!
Facing the apocalyptic wave of Stage Five shadow blades, Railin did not draw a weapon. He did not construct a defensive qi wall.
Instead, he took a half-step back with his left foot, his slender body floating backward like a weightless feather.
Shadow-Veil Step!
SWISH!
Railin's physical silhouette dissolved directly into the pitch-black shadows cast by the incoming phantom blades!
The hundred shadow swords slammed violently into the empty granite where Railin had stood a millisecond prior, blasting a twenty-foot crater into the reinforced stage floor and blasting sharp stone fragments across the arena!
BOOM—!
"Fleeing into the shadows against a master of the Abyssal Shadow Sutra?!" Mo Ji sneered with cold contempt. He didn't even turn around. He slammed his left palm backward into the empty air behind his shoulder! "Fool! I am the shadow!"
BOOM!
A massive, five-foot palm print woven from condensed crimson shadow qi erupted from Mo Ji's hand, striking directly toward the empty space behind him where the air was subtly distorting!
BANG—!
Railin's figure materialized out of the darkness, his navy sleeve fluttering as his pale right hand shot out to meet Mo Ji's crimson shadow palm directly!
THUD!
The collision of two violent forces generated an intense, deafening shockwave that blew the surrounding black mist forty paces backward! The black granite floor between them shattered into powder under the sheer weight of the impact!
Mo Ji's blood-red eyes widened slightly in genuine shock as he felt his Stage Five strike come to a complete, abrupt standstill against Railin's bare hand!
"What?!" Mo Ji gasped under his breath.
Standing right in front of him, Railin's arm was completely steady, his navy robes untouched by the crimson qi. His pitch-black pupils locked onto Mo Ji's eyes from mere inches away.
"Your domain is loud," Railin whispered coldly. "And your soul sword is far too light."
The Ashen Devouring Technique!
BOOM!
A terrifying, dark void vortex erupted directly from Railin's palm, wrapping around Mo Ji's crimson shadow palm art like a wild, ravenous beast!
SZZZZZ!
The volatile Stage Five shadow energy that Mo Ji had spent years refining was violently sucked out of his hand, converted through the void vortex, and dragged straight into Railin's lower dantian!
Mo Ji felt a sudden, terrifying gravitational pull dragging his blood qi and dantian reserves out through his arm! His face paled instantly as he felt a fraction of his Stage Five qi base vanish into Railin's body in less than two seconds!
"Get off me!" Mo Ji shrieked, his instinctual fear overpowering his pride!
He violently bit the tip of his tongue, spraying a mist of heart-blood onto the Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword in his right hand!
BZZZZ—!
The dark sword flared with a blinding, blood-red light, its soul-shredding field expanding violently to force Railin to let go!
Railin smoothly retracted his hand, stepping three paces backward into the air with rhythmic grace. He landed lightly on the granite edge, exalting a thin, wispy trail of dark grey residue from his lips, his newly consolidated Stage Three foundation humming with complete satisfaction.
Across the stage, Mo Ji retreated five quick steps, his breathing slightly heavy, his right palm trembling as he stared at Railin with a mixture of cold rage and deep, newfound horror.
The entire forty-thousand-strong audience sat in complete, speechbound shock.
Railin had not only dodged a Stage Five Earth-tier art, but he had also caught Mo Ji's direct strike bare-handed and forced the top-ranked disciple of Shadow Moon Peak to burn his own heart-blood just to break free!
High up on the spectator pavilion, Peak Master Bing Lian's azure eyes shone with a subtle, brilliant light from behind her frost veil, while Grand Elder Shu-Lin's face turned completely grey with mounting dread.
On the shattered stage, Mo Ji slowly raised his dark, screaming sword, his blood-red pupils burning with a wild, murderous insanity.
"You really are a monster, Railin," Mo Ji hissed through his teeth, his Stage Five aura flaring to its absolute, unrestrained maximum. "Then let's see if your void core can devour my soul!
The screeching howls of the weeping phantoms surrounding the Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword intensified, vibrating the protective barrier of the arena until fine hair-line fractures expanded across the defensive array runes.
Mo Ji's blood-red pupils dilated to their absolute limit. He was no longer fighting for the glory of Shadow Moon Peak or the praise of Grand Elder Shu-Lin; he was fighting out of sheer, terrifying instinct for his own survival.
"Abyssal Secret Technique: Seven-Hell Soul Execution!" Mo Ji screamed, his voice cracking under the intense spiritual strain!
He sliced his left palm open across the sharp edge of the dark blade, drenching the weapon in a flood of direct essence blood.
BOOM!
The dark red sheath on his back disintegrated into fine metallic dust, and the sky directly above the Central Arena turned an ominous, violent shade of bruised purple. Seven towering shadowy avatars—each over twenty feet tall and wielding translucent, soul-reaping scythes—condensed behind Mo Ji! Every single avatar exhaled a cold, soul-corroding domain that froze the pulverized granite tiles beneath Railin's boots into grey ash.
High in the spectator pavilion, Grand Elder Shu-Lin stood up abruptly, her withered hands grasping the jade railing so hard it snapped. "Mo Ji is burning three years of his lifespan to summon the Seven-Hell Avatars! He is putting everything on the line!"
Beside her, Peak Master Bing Lian's icy gaze remained perfectly detached, though a faint frost began to coat the armrests of her ice throne. "A desperate strike driven by fear. The moment a cultivator lets terror dictate their blade, their path is already broken."
Down on the stage, the seven towering shadow avatars raised their massive scythes simultaneously. The collective soul pressure was so suffocating that several inner disciples in the front rows of the spectator stands fainted on the spot, blood trickling from their noses and ears.
"DIE, YOU ABOMINATION!" Mo Ji roared, bringing his blood-drenched sword down in a violent downward vertical arc!
SWOOSH—!
The seven shadowy giants descended at once, their spectral scythes merging into a single, localized calamity of soul-shredding energy that locked onto Railin's physical location and spiritual signature!
Facing an attack that could sever the soul of even an early Stage Six Foundation practitioner, Railin's expression remained terrifyingly indifferent. He didn't flee, nor did he activate any defensive talismans.
Instead, Railin slowly lifted his left hand, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second.
Deep within his upper dantian, the three Soul-Piercing Needles—honed to absolute perfection through his Stage Three breakthrough—began to spin in a triangular formation, radiating a pitch-black, abyssal light that completely absorbed the incoming soul pressure.
"Your soul art is noisy, undisciplined, and full of flaws," Railin murmured, his voice sounding like a soft whisper directly beside Mo Ji's ear despite the distance between them.
SWISH!
Railin opened his eyes—they were no longer human pupils, but two bottomless, pitch-black voids!
"Soul-Piercing Needles: Void Piercing Tri-Array!"
THUD!
Three invisible, ultra-dense spikes of pure void mental energy shot out from Railin's forehead. They moved at a speed that completely bypassed physical distance, passing cleanly through the descending seventy-foot spectral scythes without disturbing a single thread of shadow qi!
Mo Ji's eyes widened in sudden, absolute horror as he felt three cold, needle-like sensations pierce directly into his skull!
CRACK!
The spiritual connection between Mo Ji and the Seven-Hell Avatars was severed in less than a microsecond!
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!"
A blood-curdling scream of pure, agonizing soul destruction burst from Mo Ji's throat! His blood-red eyes instantly overflowed with dark crimson blood, his hands lost all sensation, and the Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword slipped from his limp fingers, clattering uselessly onto the cracked granite floor!
The seven towering shadow avatars above collapsed mid-air, dissolving into harmless wisps of grey smoke under the morning sun!
Before the stunned forty thousand spectators could even process how a Stage Five Earth-tier secret art had vanished into thin air, Railin's silhouette flickered.
Shadow-Veil Step!
Railin materialized directly in front of the writhing, screaming Mo Ji.
Without a single word, Railin's pale right hand shot out like a strike from a phantom dragon, his fingers rigid as forged steel as they thrust straight through Mo Ji's defensive robes and buried deep into his lower dantian!
PUCHI—!
Blood sprayed across the shattered stage!
"N-No... Grand... Elder... save..." Mo Ji gasped, his voice choking on his own blood as his bloodshot eyes looked down in sheer, paralyzing dread at Railin's hand inside his stomach.
"You said you wanted to crush my dantian beneath your boots," Railin whispered coldly, his dark face mere inches from Mo Ji's trembling ear. "Thank you for the Stage Five foundation."
The Ashen Devouring Technique—Full Extraction!
BOOM—!
A violent, invisible black vortex erupted inside Mo Ji's body!
The vast, condensed Stage Five Foundation core that Mo Ji had cultivated through decades of bloody conflicts and faction resources was forcibly ripped from its housing, crushed, and dragged through Railin's arm directly into his lower dantian!
"AAAAAAGH! NOOOOO—!" Mo Ji's body twitched violently as his veins bulged, turned black, and ruptured under his skin!
At a speed visible to the naked eye, the proud, powerful first-ranked disciple of Shadow Moon Peak shriveled up! His rich crimson blood qi was drained dry, his firm muscles collapsed, his dark hair turned snow-white, and his bone structure degraded into brittle calcium!
Inside Railin's body, his lower dantian let out a magnificent, thunderous roar!
The massive, pure Stage Five energy reserve was rapidly swallowed, decomposed, and converted by the primordial void vortex. Railin's Stage Three foundation, which he had consolidated just the night before, expanded exponentially! His meridians widened further, and the pure void qi inside him condensed until it took on a heavy, metallic consistency!
THUD.
Ten seconds later, Railin casually pulled his hand back, letting Mo Ji's dried, lifeless corpse drop onto the cold black granite like a sack of dry sticks.
He picked up the abandoned Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword from the floor, examined the dark, soul-attuned metal for a brief moment, and casually stored it into his spatial ring.
The silence across the Central Sun-Moon Arena was absolute, absolute, and suffocating.
Forty thousand people stared down at the stage, completely paralyzed by the horrifying sight of the inner sect's strongest Stage Five disciple reduced to a withered husk in a matter of minutes.
Railin pulled a fresh white silk handkerchief from his navy sleeve, meticulously wiping the dark crimson blood from his slender fingers.
He slowly turned his head, his pitch-black, void-filled eyes locking directly onto Grand Elder Shu-Lin in the high spectator pavilion.
"Next," Railin said flatly, his calm voice echoing through the deafening silence of the arena.
See you in next chapter....