The atmosphere in the subterranean cavern shifted violently. Perhaps sensing the sheer density of Luo Zhen's spiritual power, the two blood-red mantises abandoned their previous targets and coordinated a pincer movement directly against him. Meanwhile, the enigmatic Qing Yang—a cultivator whose serene title of "Realized Person" belied his monstrous nature—drifted effortlessly toward the Green Wolf King and Xie Jun like a specter of death.
Panic erupted. The Green Wolf King and Xie Jun, realizing they were suddenly the focus of a monster far beyond their league, scrambled to unleash their defensive skills. In a heartbeat, a chaotic explosion of spiritual lights engulfed Qing Yang, drowning his silhouette in a cacophony of energy.
Luo Zhen didn't have the luxury of watching them die.
He tightened his mental grip on the Crimson Essence Fire swirling around him. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he didn't just swing his blade; he unleashed a cataclysm. A green blade-shadow, stretching over a hundred meters in length, cleaved through the stale underground air.
Tyrant Emperor Slaughter.
The impact was deafening. Boom!
The massive green spectral blade slammed into the carapace of the incoming blood-red mantises with the weight of a falling mountain. Dust and debris exploded outward, obscuring vision. Yet, as the shockwave cleared, Luo Zhen's pupils constricted.
The insects were unharmed.
Their exoskeletons hadn't even cracked. With a grotesque, fluid twist of their segmented bodies, they shook off the kinetic force of a blow that should have leveled a city block and continued their trajectory toward his throat.
A cold drop of sweat traced Luo Zhen's spine. He had underestimated them. If the Tyrant Emperor Slaughter couldn't even scratch their armor, a prolonged battle wasn't brave; it was suicide.
His decision was instantaneous: Earth Escape.
He had to run. It was a cold calculation, devoid of heroism. Whether it was the nigh-invincible Qing Yang or these nightmare insects, the power scaling here was absurd. Saving the Green Wolf King or Xie Jun was impossible when his own survival was hanging by a thread.
But the insects were too fast. He couldn't simply phase into the ground with them breathing down his neck. He needed a distraction, a barrier.
With a thought, Luo Zhen manipulated the Crimson Essence Fire, weaving the sentient flames into a tightening net that ensnared the two lunging mantises. He watched, horrified, as the flames—hot enough to melt steel—licked harmlessly against their red shells. They were biologically impossible, resistant to both physical trauma and elemental incineration.
Still, the net held them for a fraction of a second. That was all he needed.
A heavy, khaki-colored aura enveloped Luo Zhen, the signature glow of the Earth Escape technique. The solid rock beneath his feet rippled like water, ready to accept him.
But just as his boots sank into the stone, a premonition of death screamed in his mind.
It wasn't a sound; it was a visceral instinct, a chilling spike of adrenaline warning him of annihilation from behind. Luo Zhen didn't think. He didn't look. He simply detonated his remaining reserve of Crimson Essence Fire, expanding it into a thick, compressed wall of heat directly at his back.
Bang!
The sound of metal striking a high-density energy barrier rang out.
Four scythe-like, blood-red blades materialized from thin air, piercing halfway through his fire wall. They stopped inches from his spine. If the wall had been a fraction thinner, he would have been skewered.
The impact disrupted his concentration, shattering the Earth Escape spell. Forced to abandon the retreat, Luo Zhen transformed into a streak of azure light, flashing several hundred meters away to reset the engagement.
Breathing heavily, he turned back to where he had just been standing.
There, hovering in the space he had occupied seconds ago, were two blood-red mantises.
"Zhi zhi zhi."
The insects let out a high-pitched, chittering sound. They tilted their triangular heads in unison, large compound eyes blinking with an almost childlike curiosity, as if puzzled why their prey hadn't popped like a blood blister.
Luo Zhen's face went ashen.
He glanced at his fire net, which was still suspended in the air fifty meters away. The "mantises" trapped inside began to fade, their forms dissolving into smoke and air.
Phantoms.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. The creatures trapped in the fire were mere afterimages. These beasts possessed speed that defied logic, offensive power that could pierce magical barriers, and a carapace harder than diamond. But worse, they possessed intelligence—the ability to project realistic decoys to bait out defensive cooldowns.
Luo Zhen's expression darkened. He had attempted to scan them with his system interface multiple times, but the only data returned was an error message: Bloodline too unique. Skills unreadable.
That lack of information had nearly cost him his life.
"I need to immobilize them," Luo Zhen thought, his mind racing. "I can't channel the Earth Escape technique if I'm constantly dodging execution strikes."
His eyes darted around the cavern, formulating a plan.
Once again, the khaki glow of the earth element rose around him. He sank partially into the floor, his shins merging with the rock. Simultaneously, he split his Crimson Essence Fire into two rotating shields, covering his blind spots front and back.
Seeing their prey attempt to flee again, the mantises vibrated their wings. In a blur of motion that the human eye couldn't track, they vanished.
There.
A sensation of impending doom crashed down from the void directly above his head.
"I was waiting for you!" Luo Zhen roared, his voice echoing through the cavern.
He hadn't been trying to escape. He was bait.
With a violent upward thrust of his will, the Crimson Essence Fire exploded upwards, not as a wall, but as a complex, layered canopy.
Whirrrrrr!
The air was filled with the frantic buzzing of insect wings. The flames solidified into layer upon layer of mesh, wrapping around the distorted space above him. As the fire tightened, the optical camouflage failed, revealing the true bodies of the two mantises.
They thrashed wildly, slamming against the fiery constraints, but this was a containment web, not an attack. They were trapped.
Suddenly, a strange crimson light pulsed from the insects' bodies. In a display of biological absurdity, their forms rapidly compressed, shrinking from the size of wolves down to the size of a human finger.
They aimed for the gaps in the fire net, buzzing toward freedom.
"Oh no, you don't," Luo Zhen gritted his teeth.
His reaction speed was nearing the realm of the divine. The moment they shrank, he collapsed the massive net into a dense, solid sphere no larger than a palm. The fire was compressed so tightly it looked like a solid ruby orb.
Trapped.
Without hesitation, Luo Zhen opened his mouth and swallowed the orb whole, storing the contained beasts within his internal dimension where the fire could be maintained indefinitely.
"Ahhhhh!"
A curdling scream shattered the moment of victory.
Luo Zhen snapped his head toward the source of the sound. The sight that greeted him froze the blood in his veins.
In the distance, Qing Yang was no longer fighting. He was feeding.
The cultivator had his arms wrapped around Xie Jun. Qing Yang's jaw was unhinged, buried deep in Xie Jun's throat. There was a sickening, tearing sound as arteries were severed. Blood sprayed across the cavern floor like a macabre fountain.
Nearby, the Green Wolf King stood paralyzed. He was missing an arm, his artifacts lay in shattered ruin around him, and his eyes were wide with the kind of terror that breaks the mind. He watched, catatonic, as his ally was drained dry.
Even Luo Zhen, a veteran of countless battles, felt a surge of nausea. This wasn't a battle between cultivators; this was predation.
He shook off the shock. The Earth Escape. Now.
The khaki light enveloped him again. He didn't look back.
Behind him, Qing Yang finished his meal. Within seconds, Xie Jun had been reduced to a desiccated husk, skin pulled tight over bone. Qing Yang tossed the corpse aside like a used napkin and wiped the fresh blood from his lips, his eyes gleaming with vitality.
He scanned the cavern. His eyes landed on the spot where Luo Zhen was sinking into the floor.
"Where are my Tai Xuan Demonic Mantises?!" Qing Yang bellowed, his voice distorted by rage. "What have you done with them?!"
Luo Zhen didn't answer. By the time the words echoed off the walls, the ground had swallowed him whole. He was gone.
Qing Yang's face twisted into a mask of fury.
"You steal this master's pets, leave their fate unknown, and think you can simply leave?" He laughed, a low, grinding sound. "Let us see how far you can run."
A moment later, Qing Yang's body glowed with the same earth-colored light. He dove into the rock, cutting through the stone like a shark through water.
Back in the cavern, silence reigned for seven heavy breaths.
Finally, the Green Wolf King's brain rebooted.
"Ahhhhh!"
Screaming to purge the terror from his soul, the Wolf King turned and fled back toward the entrance, running until his lungs burned.
Deep underground, the sensation of soil and rock flowing past his skin was oppressive.
Luo Zhen pushed his speed to the limit, putting miles between himself and the Corpse Mountain. He was thousands of meters below the surface, navigating the crushing pressure of the deep earth.
But he couldn't shake the feeling.
A cold, predatory signature was tracking him. It was erratic, angry, and closing in fast.
"How is this possible?" Luo Zhen thought, panic edging into his voice. "I'm miles deep. How can he still have a lock on my position?"
"Qing Yang possesses the Earth Escape technique as well," the System's automated voice rang out in his mind, cool and detached. "Furthermore, his mastery of the element exceeds yours. Based on current velocity vectors, he will intercept you in approximately twelve breaths."
Twelve breaths.
Luo Zhen's fear crystallized into cold, hard resolve. If he couldn't run, he would turn and fight.
"Fine," he snarled. "If he wants a war, I'll give him one."
He angled his trajectory upward, surging toward the surface. He burst from the ground in a shower of sand and stone, landing lightly on the air itself.
He found himself hovering over a gray, endless desert, a desolate wasteland that stretched to the horizon. He stood in the sky, looking down at the sand, waiting.
Ten seconds later, the ground exploded.
Qing Yang shot out of the earth, hovering at eye level with Luo Zhen. Blood still stained the corner of his mouth, a remnant of his earlier meal.
"You damned little thief!" Qing Yang screamed, pointing a trembling finger. "Tell me! What have you done to my Tai Xuan Mantises?!"
Luo Zhen didn't waste breath on words.
He closed his eyes and triggered his ultimate ability.
Summon: Descent of the Demonic Shadow.
The air behind Luo Zhen warped and tore open. A darkness darker than night spilled out, forming a colossal silhouette that blotted out the sun. The Nine Infants—the Jiuying—manifested. It was a hydra of legend, a nightmare of ancient times.
Under Luo Zhen's mental command, two of the Nine Infants' massive snake heads lunged forward, jaws unhinging to reveal throats glowing with blinding light.
They exhaled.
Two streams of golden, liquid fire erupted, converging in mid-air to form a singular, massive torrent of destruction. It roared toward Qing Yang with the force of a collapsing star.
Qing Yang's eyes went wide. He had no time to dodge. He barely managed to manifest a black energy carapace before the world turned gold.
BOOM!
The desert shook. A mushroom cloud of golden fire rose into the sky.
Inside the inferno, explosions detonated in a chain reaction. Amidst the roar of the flames, Luo Zhen could hear Qing Yang roaring in pain.
Luo Zhen didn't let up. His face was a mask of grim determination as he poured his mana into the shadow, forcing the Nine Infants to maintain the bombardment until the summoning timer ran dry.
Only when the shadow faded did Luo Zhen stop.
He looked down.
Where Qing Yang had been floating, there was now nothing but a crater so deep the bottom was swallowed by darkness. The sand around the edges had turned to glass.
Luo Zhen extended his spiritual senses into the pit. His heart skipped a beat.
He's still alive.
Luo Zhen was genuinely stunned. Since his journey began, the Nine Infants' summon had been his trump card, the unstoppable force that punched through enemies a full realm stronger than him. Even at the Second Level of the Demon Emperor Realm, this attack should have vaporized anyone in its path.
Yet, from the bottom of the pit, a figure rose.
Qing Yang stepped onto the air, a ruin of a man. The golden torrent had burned away the entire left side of his torso. Half his head was missing, exposing skull and brain. One arm and one leg were gone.
But he was laughing.
From the cauterized stumps of his limbs, black demonic smoke billowed out. As the smoke churned, flesh began to knit together. Bone grew white and slick, muscles wove themselves over the bone, and skin sealed the wounds.
He was regenerating in real-time.
"Undying..." Luo Zhen whispered, horrified.
Qing Yang, now fully healed but naked from the waist up, stared at Luo Zhen with eyes full of venom.
"Good kid," he rasped. "To think you could summon the Nine-Headed Fierce Serpent. If this master hadn't deployed the Demon Armor at the last microsecond, I might actually have been in trouble."
"So it was the armor," Luo Zhen said, exhaling loudly. "I actually thought you face-tanked that attack with your bare skin."
While he spoke, his mind was navigating the System store. Purchase: Wind Escape Talisman.
With the talisman secured in his inventory, Luo Zhen adopted a posture of arrogance.
"Qing Yang," he called out, his voice steady. "We have no blood feud. Why force this into a death match? Why don't we call it a draw and walk away?"
It was a bluff. A classic tactic. By acting unbothered after his strongest attack failed, he hoped to make Qing Yang hesitate. Doubt was the only shield he had left.
It worked. Qing Yang paused, his eyes narrowing. He couldn't gauge Luo Zhen's depth.
"You are right," Qing Yang said slowly, his voice smooth but dangerous. "There is no need for us to die here. But... you must return my mantises."
"Mantises?" Luo Zhen feigned ignorance. "What are those?"
"The red insects," Qing Yang said, his patience thinning. "They are rare demonic beasts. I have raised them for centuries. They are a mated pair, and the female is pregnant. They are my life's work. Give them back, and I will leave. I swear it on my cultivation."
The story sounded plausible. The emotion in his voice felt real. Luo Zhen hesitated, then nodded.
He opened his mouth and spat out the compressed fire prison. The two mantises were visible inside, suspended in stasis.
"Tai Xuan energy... yes, that is them!" Qing Yang's eyes lit up with greed as he stepped forward.
Luo Zhen's focus shifted to the fire prison, preparing to release the seal.
It was exactly the opening Qing Yang was waiting for.
Without a change in expression, Qing Yang raised his regenerating arm and slashed downward.
Sizzle.
A blade of condensed black vacuum—the Yin Demon Slash—tore through the air. It moved faster than sound, faster than thought.
Luo Zhen's instincts screamed. He couldn't dodge. He swung his Green Glittering Knife in a desperate parry, releasing a wave of green energy.
It wasn't enough.
Crash!
The black slash shattered Luo Zhen's defense like glass. It slammed into his chest, hammering him out of the sky. He hit the desert floor with the force of a meteorite, throwing up a cloud of dust.
"Cough!"
Luo Zhen lay in a crater of his own making, clutching his chest. He vomited a mouthful of thick, dark blood.
His Beast King Armor was dust. His outer robes were shredded. Across his chest lay a horrific gash, deep enough to expose his ribs. Black demonic energy fizzed inside the wound like acid, eating away at his living tissue.
But Luo Zhen was not normal. His Cyan Jade Spirit Body activated automatically. A soothing green light bathed the wound, warring with the black corruption. Visible steam rose from his chest as the demonic Qi was purged and the flesh began to stitch itself back together.
Qing Yang floated down, landing softly on the sand. He looked at Luo Zhen with genuine surprise.
"Eh? You took my Yin Demon Slash, and you're still breathing?"
Qing Yang stood there, fully healed. His regenerative capabilities were clearly superior to Luo Zhen's. He looked like a cat playing with a particularly durable mouse.
Luo Zhen gritted his teeth and staggered to his feet. With a wave of his hand, he recalled the fire prison, swallowing the mantises back down.
He looked at Qing Yang one last time—a look of pure, unadulterated hatred.
Then, he triggered the Wind Escape Talisman.
His body lost cohesion. He dissolved into a formless breeze, vanishing from the visible spectrum and the physical plane in an instant.
Qing Yang blinked. He extended his senses, frowning.
"So fast," he muttered. "That speed rivals a Fourth Stage Demon Emperor."
A cruel smile slowly spread across his face.
"But you are just a mid-stage King. Your mana reserves are shallow. You can run fast, little mouse, but you cannot run for long."
Qing Yang licked his lips, transformed into a streak of black light, and shot into the horizon, resuming the hunt.