The world was a vortex of crushing pressure and fading light. Shen Mo felt his consciousness fraying at the edges, the immense weight of Elder Jin's Qi threatening to extinguish the defiant spark in his soul. Death was no longer an abstract concept; it was a physical certainty, a suffocating blanket being pressed down upon him.
Through the swirling darkness of his shadow veil, his crimson eyes met the elder's cold, contemptuous gaze. He was a bug under a boot, a rat in a trap. And yet, he refused to break.
"You... talk... too much," Shen Mo forced the words out, each syllable a monumental effort against the pressure that was collapsing his lungs. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, a testament to the internal damage he was sustaining.
Elder Jin's eyebrow twitched, a flicker of annoyance crossing his stern features. "Insolence, even at death's door. A true demon."
"A demon... hired by a righteous sect," Shen Mo rasped, his mind latching onto the only weapon he had left: information. He needed to plant a seed of doubt, to create a moment's hesitation. "Your client... wants the twins dead... and the formula for the Foundation Firming Pills destroyed. A rival sect, the contract said."
The elder's expression didn't change, but Shen Mo felt the pressure lessen by a fraction of an inch. "Lies and desperation. You think to poison my mind with your dying breath?"
"The contract... was flawed," Shen Mo coughed, a spray of blood hitting the inside of his veil. "It failed to mention the two seventh-level protectors in the carriage. An organization like The Paid Ferrymen does not make such mistakes. The information they receive from a client is perfect." He locked his gaze on the elder. "Unless the client provided them with false information to begin with."
A flicker of uncertainty finally entered Elder Jin's eyes. The existence of the other two protectors was a closely guarded secret, a final layer of security for the twins. How could this assassin know about them, yet have it be absent from his briefing? It was a contradiction, a loose thread in the tapestry of his righteous fury.
"What are you implying, demon?"
"I am implying," Shen Mo said, gasping for air as he fought to stay conscious, "that you are a pawn, just as I am. Someone wanted the twins dead, but they also wanted the Ferryman sent to kill them to fail and be captured. Someone is playing a very long, very dangerous game."
He had done it. He had created a moment of doubt, a pause in the execution. Elder Jin's mind was now racing, considering the political landscape, the rivalries, the possibility of a traitor within his own sect who would sabotage such a mission. His absolute focus on crushing Shen Mo had wavered.
It was all the time Shen Mo needed.
Through the thin, desperate thread of his mental connection, he felt Ghost 2. It was close. It was moving with absolute stealth, using the terrain and the [Misty Shadow Form] to perfection. Elder Jin's spiritual sense, vast as it was, was now clouded by suspicion and focused on the veiled man before him. He was completely oblivious to the second ghost that was scaling the cliff face a hundred yards away, a silent shadow ascending towards a predetermined point.
"Your lies are meaningless," Elder Jin finally declared, his resolve hardening once more. "Once I have your head, I will find the truth."
He raised his hand, the crushing pressure returning with full, final force. "It ends now."
As the darkness closed in, Shen Mo unleashed the last of his will, the last of his chaotic, wounded Qi. He didn't channel it into an attack. He poured it into a final, desperate gambit.
[Mirror Soul Illusion]!
It was not the small, tactical illusion he had used before. This was a full-power, soul-rending burst. Two dozen identical, shadow-veiled figures erupted into existence on the rocky slope, each one a perfect, solid-looking copy. The sheer, sudden proliferation of auras, however faint, was a disorienting shock to the senses.
Elder Jin flinched, his powerful spiritual sense momentarily overwhelmed by the flood of false targets. His crushing Qi field wavered as his instincts struggled to identify the real threat.
It was not a long pause. A ninth-level expert could see through such a trick in a heartbeat. But a heartbeat was an eternity.
High above them, perched on a precarious rock outcropping, Ghost 2 acted. It did not attack the elder. That would have been a futile, suicidal gesture. Its target was the very ground beneath Elder Jin's feet.
The clone drew its pale gray sword and plunged it deep into a fissure in the rock, a fissure it had identified during its frantic approach. It poured every ounce of its own Qi into the blade in a single, explosive burst.
[Mountain Shattering Echo]!
It was a crude, inefficient technique from one of Kang's manuals, designed not for finesse but for pure, concussive force. The clone's sword shattered from the strain, but the blast of Qi that erupted into the unstable rock face was devastating.
The entire slope groaned. The ground beneath Elder Jin, already unstable, gave way. A cascade of scree and boulders broke loose, not a massive landslide, but a treacherous, shifting wave of debris.
The elder roared in fury, his footing gone. He was forced to abandon his attack on Shen Mo and leap into the air to avoid being swept away, his body momentarily unbalanced, his focus completely shattered.
In that single, chaotic moment of opportunity, Shen Mo moved. He didn't run. He didn't fight. He recalled his last remaining clone.
Ghost 2, its mission complete, leaped from its perch. It did not attack. It did not flee. It dove directly towards Shen Mo's incapacitated body. It became ethereal mid-flight, a stream of pure shadow that slammed into Shen Mo's chest and merged with him, vanishing back into the soul-space.
The sudden return of the clone sent another, smaller jolt of feedback through Shen Mo's mind, but it also brought with it the clone's full, untouched reserves of Qi. It was a desperate, painful transfusion of energy.
It was enough.
As Elder Jin landed gracefully on a stable section of the slope, his eyes burning with a rage that could melt steel, he looked down to where his target had been.
There was nothing. Only a scattering of loose rocks and the fading afterimages of the illusion.
Shen Mo was gone.
He had used the last of his strength, the last of his Qi, for a single, perfectly timed [Void Flash Step]. He had flickered not away, but down, into a deep, dark fissure at the base of the slope, a crack in the earth he had noticed in his initial, desperate scramble.
He tumbled into the darkness, the impact of his landing sending a fresh wave of agony through his body. He was in a narrow, subterranean lava tube, a natural tunnel that snaked deep into the earth. It was damp, dark, and blessedly hidden.
He could hear Elder Jin's heaven-shaking roar of fury echoing from the world above, a sound of pure, impotent rage. The elder's spiritual sense swept the area like a storm, but the thick, dense rock of the badlands, served as a natural shield, scattering and weakening the probe. He was hidden. He was safe. For now.
He lay in the darkness, his body a symphony of pain. He had failed the contract. He had lost a clone, a permanent third of his soul. He had suffered a grievous spiritual injury that would haunt him for years. He had revealed his hand to a powerful enemy who now had a personal vendetta against him and his organization. By any metric, it was a catastrophic failure.
But he was alive.
In the cold, silent dark, miles from anywhere, with the furious roars of his enemy a fading echo, Shen Mo allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction. He had been outmatched, outmaneuvered, and betrayed again. He had been brought to the very brink of death. But he had survived.
He slowly, painfully, pushed himself into a sitting position. He had lost the battle, but the war was far from over. He needed to recover. He needed to understand the conspiracy that had used him as a pawn. And he needed to get stronger. Strong enough that he would never be put in a position like this again.
The path ahead was dark and uncertain. He was wounded in body and soul. But as he sat there in the heart of the earth, a single, unwavering thought burned in his fractured mind.
He would collect his debts. All of them.