Merin's spirit breathes like a living body, drawing in spiritual energy with each pulse.
His spirit consciousness now mirrors his true body in every detail, but its growth inside him has reached a limit.
He realises that refining it with the laws he understands won't serve his purpose—if it cannot evolve within, then it must be tempered outside.
Let's see how it fares in the outside world.
With that thought, his spiritual consciousness detaches.
His body sits still, but his spirit walks out, eyes perceiving the flesh left behind like a lifeless shell.
A sudden wind sweeps through, fierce and invisible.
His spirit staggers, nearly blown apart, before he forces stability and hastily returns to his body.
Pain courses through him—fragments of his spirit consciousness torn, damaged.
He calms, begins absorbing spiritual energy, repairing what was broken.
Yet amid the damage, there is gain—the wind has refined his spirit, toughening what survived.
Once restored, he steps out again, braving the current, testing, retreating, healing.
Again and again, through the long night, he repeats this cycle of destruction and recovery.
By dawn, his spirit is steadier, sharper, refined through countless tempests.
Morning light filters through the cracks of the abandoned house.
Merin rises, leaving the shadows of his cultivation behind.
One by one, his fellow disciples emerge as well.
They are still in the first village they entered the day before—once alive, now nothing but silence and sorrow.
Yesterday, they had cut down the demons infesting it, buried the villagers whose bones littered the streets—from children to elders alike—and claimed shelter in its empty homes.
Now, stepping outside, the weight of that massacre hangs over them, cold and heavy like the mountain wind.
The morning meal passes with chatter, but Merin remains silent, his mind turned inward.
He chews demon meat, forcing it down despite its heaviness.
The flesh carries energy, but its essence clings stubbornly to his stomach, slow to yield, difficult to digest.
How can he speed up the process?
His thoughts flicker back—Spirit Fire.
The technique Xiao Yan had practised, born from the dream world, was delivered to him through the last connection with his conscious clone.
That memory, like a gift, rests within him—the Spirit Fire that uses vitality and spirit to form inner flames, refining food and treasures alike.
But here, he cannot simply follow what was once written.
This world, this body, this path—all are different.
The technique needs more than ninety per cent transformation to suit him.
So he begins reshaping it.
He sets his aim not on spirit and vitality, but on Qi alone—Qi that can burn within.
He recalls the principles of Sanzi Spiritual Fire, a flame woven from three essences: matter, energy, and spirit.
He remembers how each interacts, how each consumes, how each sustains.
With that, he starts forging something new.
A fire of Qi, a flame that will live within his body, digesting, refining, transforming.
The thought takes root as the day unfolds.
He hunts demons alongside his fellow disciples, blades and Qi flashing in the snow-swept wilderness outside Wu City.
The group's plan is simple: cleanse the outer perimeter first, wipe away the lurking threats before they press deeper.
But for Merin, every clash, every kill is a backdrop.
His mind keeps circling the technique, turning laws into fuel, insight into sparks.
The snow-filled skies tremble with the beat of enormous wings.
Three giant eagles descend from the clouds, each vast enough to blot out the light for an instant.
On their backs, robed figures chant and weave spell after spell, raining power down on Wu City.
The disciples on the ground look up, hope flaring.
Yu Lei points skyward. "Sect Master and the elders have come. Let's go and help them."
On the lead eagle, beside the Lanshan Sect Master, stands a young man whose hands never cease moving, fire and light surging from his fingertips toward the demons below.
But his eyes, unlike the elders' calm focus, are shadowed by turmoil.
"Devil," he whispers inwardly, his lips never moving, "are you certain the spirit stone is in the city?"
A low, confident voice stirs in his mind.' Yes. Its resonance is unmistakable, hidden in the City Lord's mansion.'
The young man's eyes narrow, determination glinting. "But how can I take it with Master and the elders who came for the spirit bead?"
Do not worry, the voice assures him. 'When the moment comes, I will cast the illusion. No one will see your hand move.'
Before he can reply, a thunderous roar splits the city, shaking walls, rattling ice, and chilling the air itself.
The giant eagles shudder in mid-flight, their wings faltering as primal fear grips them.
From the heart of Wu City strides a monstrous figure—a leopard standing upright, its body clad in human robes, a massive staff gripped in its clawed hands.
Atop the staff glimmers a blinding white gem.
Gasps ripple across the eagles.
"Spirit Bead…" the elders whisper, voices tight with awe and dread.
The leopard slams the butt of its staff against the frozen earth.
A wave of brilliance surges outward from the bead, cascading across the city like ripples in a pond.
Every demon touched by the light lets out a deafening roar as their bodies swell, muscles doubling, claws thickening, fangs gleaming.
Their roars shake the walls; their leaps reach the skies.
The empowered demons spring upward, clawing at the eagles, dragging down feathers in showers of blood and snow.
Without hesitation, the elders leap from their mounts, bodies blazing with Qi as they crash into the streets below, meeting the tide of demons head-on.
The Sect Master, his eyes locked on the leopard, descends like a falling star, sword flashing with boundless intent.
The battlefield splits in two—the disciples holding the walls, the elders carving through the demonic horde, and above them all, the leopard with the Spirit Bead, watching with cold eyes.
The elders do not waste attention on the leopard's beastly form.
Their eyes fix on the staff in its claws, more precisely on the gem at its tip—its radiance bending the air, warping the flow of Qi, pulling the gaze of every cultivator like a lodestone.
The Spirit Bead.
Even while demons roar and crash against them, even as the city trembles with violence, the elders' hearts beat in unison around that single point of light.
The Sect Master's blade lifts, its glow sharpened into a line of killing intent that stretches from him to the gem.
Not at the beast, not at the demons, but at the bead, pulsing like a heart of snow-white fire.
From the eagle's back, the young man narrows his eyes as six figures leap into the fray below.
Disciples. They must be the ones who came earlier and sent word.
But his attention snags on one in particular.
Without raising a hand, without drawing a blade, every demon that nears him erupts into blood and gore—silent bursts of annihilation that leave the snow red.
The young man stiffens. "What… is that?"
The devil's voice curls in his mind like smoke. "Your talent is nothing compared to that man."
The youth scans the battlefield again, baffled. No fluctuation of Qi, no obvious technique—yet slaughter spreads around the disciple as if the world itself bends to him.
"How is he able to do that?" he whispers.
The devil chuckles. "He is channelling the laws."
"Laws?"
"Yes. Laws are the framework of existence itself."
The young man's breath catches. His pupils dart, then steady. "…Is Jun Qing his opponent?"
"No. Jun Qing could not even touch him. If strength were divided into tiers, you are C, and Jun Qing is B."
"And that disciple?"
"A."
The young man swallows, but the voice corrects itself, deep and grave.
"No. He is S."
On the battlefield, that very disciple—Yu Feng—joins hands with the Sect Master. Together, they press the leopard demon, a being of Grand Master might, into a corner. Though Yu Feng's realm is only Great Master, his presence overshadows even the Sect Master himself.
The leopard falls beneath their combined assault. Yu Feng seizes the Spirit Bead from its broken staff, its pale brilliance dimming within his grip.
On the eagle's back, the youth's nails bite into his palms. When are we going to take the Spirit Bead?
"Not while it rests in his hand," the devil replies coldly.
Below, Yu Feng lifts his palm, emerald fire blooming from his flesh. The flames sweep across the battlefield, devouring the leopard's corpse, then rolling outward, burning through every last demon in the city.
When the fire returns, sinking into his body, Yu Feng's aura swells, climbing higher, sharper, heavier.
The devil's voice hisses with urgency. "That fire—it burns demon essence and feeds it back into him. You must obtain that technique."
The young man's throat dries. His gaze clings to Yu Feng, no longer with awe, but with greed.