Jin Huang landed on a jagged ledge, golden energy rippling outward like sunlight spilling over black stone.
He caught sight of the horde still pressing forward- thousands of beasts, each more grotesque than the last, twisting, writhing, snarling, and still longing for what they once desired. Now, fear had replaced obsession, but that didn't slow them.
He grinned. "Alright, let's see how fast you really are."
With a curious thought, he guided his internal energy into a spiraling current around his fists.
A punch sent a wave of golden light straight into a massive horned demon, and the impact detonated in a shower of obsidian shards. The creature flew backward, spinning through the air like a ragdoll, and slammed into three others behind it. They collapsed in a pile of howls, tangled limbs, and wings.
The next moment, Jin Huang leapt, kicking off an obsidian pillar with a surge of concentrated energy. His feet left trails of light in the air, creating arcs that intersected with his fist strikes. He somersaulted over a charging three-headed wolf-serpent hybrid, landing on its back mid-leap, and sent it careening into a spiked chasm.
"Whoa! Sorry about that," he muttered casually, as if apologizing for demolishing the landscape itself.
The beasts shrieked in panic, unsure whether to flee or attack.
Those behind the first wave surged forward, but Jin Huang was already moving again.
He focused his internal energy, letting the currents spiral outward and, suddenly, the ledge he was standing on expanded in golden light- like a force field made of pure energy. When the nearest demonic beasts tried to leap at him, they slammed into the invisible barrier and were hurled backward with bone-crunching force.
"Yikes," Jin Huang said, hopping to another ledge midair. "Guess you weren't expecting this, huh? Neither was I. I'm new to this."
He somersaulted through the air, kicking a monstrous, armored tiger-beetle in the face.
It yelped, somersaulting past three others that had collided with it, creating a domino effect of snarling, tumbling chaos. Jin Huang barely slowed. The golden energy inside him hummed with satisfaction.
Seeing a cluster of horse-shaped demons charging as a unit, Jin Huang grinned again. He drew in a deep breath, circulating energy through his body in a pattern he'd only just learned from the journal.
The air around him thickened, shimmering with golden light. Then... he clapped.
The clapping echoed unnaturally across the cliffside. A shockwave of energy radiated outward, knocking all the nearby beasts off their feet. Horns bent, claws shattered, and the creatures tumbled backward, whimpering in disbelief. One particularly massive, grotesque hybrid froze midair, eyes wide and twitching, as if it couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
Jin Huang landed lightly on another ledge, brushing dust off his shoulder. " Always wanted to try that," he said, grinning.
The remaining horde snarled, shrieking in coordination now, but the sheer scale of Jin Huang's energy made them hesitate.
The golden currents inside him now flowed automatically, guided by instinct and cultivation combined. His fists, feet, and even his gaze became instruments of destruction without him consciously thinking about it. Every strike, every leap, every landing carried the weight of a perfected mortal body amplified by millennia of unremembered experience.
Jin Huang's eyes narrowed, a grin tugging across his face. "Let's see if the rest of you want a turn," he muttered, surging forward once more into the screaming tide of demonic beasts, golden energy blazing like a sun in the black abyss.
That was when he heard- and felt- a deep and loud growl. Following that, he heard a guttural voice rising from the lowest point on the obsidian structure. From the heart of Obsidian City, in that shadowy region amidst the jagged towers of black glass.
Jin Huang froze mid-leap, the golden energy around him humming with heightened awareness.
Then came a voice. Deep, guttural, and impossibly resonant:
"Enough!"
The demonic beasts that had been about to fight for their lives, skidded to a halt. Their snarls, cries, and shrieks of fear cut off mid-phrase as they all simultaneously lifted their heads toward the lowest, blackest reaches of the city, the shadowy chasms where no light had dared linger.
For a heartbeat, the tide of monstrous forms froze. Then, almost instinctively, they turned and retreated.
Tails tucked, limbs pounding the obsidian spires, they surged back into Obsidian City, scattering over the jagged streets, skidding over towers, and vanishing into the blackness as if they had all been called home by some unseen hand.
The entirety of Obsidian City echoed with the sound of a fleeing horde, leaving Jin Huang alone chest heaving, golden energy still radiating around him.
And then the shadows moved.
From the very heart of Obsidian City, a black mass of shifting darkness began to rise.
Tendrils of shadow coalesced, stretching upward through the rain-slick streets, curling over towers, and twisting into themselves. The mass swirled faster, spinning like a living storm, rising into the sky above the obsidian spires, until it formed a singular shape.
Golden energy instinctively flared, sensing the power in front of him.
The shadows solidified into the figure of a woman in loose-fitting, grey robes.
In her hand, she held a long staff, its ends encased in red metal, and a flowing red ribbon fluttered gently in the soft air. She was impossibly tall, impossibly poised, and felt impossibly powerful.
Her gaze fell upon Jin Huang, calm yet commanding, and the golden light around him felt almost like a child's candle against her presence. Yet she did not move to harm him. Instead, a faint smile touched her lips.
"You have grown," she said, her voice like distant thunder rolling over the city. "From the one who ran, to the one the beasts now flee."
Jin Huang's chest tightened. He had not expected to feel admiration coming from the woman.
"I…" he said, words sticking in his throat. "I didn't… I just--"
"You didn't run," she interrupted gently, though her tone carried the weight of mountains.
"You ran before. That was survival. Fear. Perhaps you were unsure of yourself. But now…" She raised her staff slightly, and the red ribbon fluttered as if it had a mind of its own. "Now, you are not the hunted. You are the predator. And the abyss, the beasts- they know it."
Jin Huang swallowed hard, golden energy flaring in response. He felt his pulse, his energy, and knew that he was afraid,
"Congratulations, student of the Interplanetary Academy," she said, voice ringing with authority and something closer to warmth than he expected from such a figure. "It seems you have taken the first true step toward mastering what you are. You have made the beasts bow. Not many of your peers from the academy can say they have done this."
Her eyes glittered, like shards of obsidian catching the storm-lit clouds above. Jin Huang felt a strange, soothing vibration in his chest, as though her words and presence had anchored him in a way.
Jin Huang squared his shoulders, golden energy dancing along his limbs, and let a small grin tug across his face. "Well… if the beasts are scared of me now," he said, more to himself than to her, "just wait till I finally start properly cultivating."
The woman frowned peculiarly at that. "What do you mean? I sense that you are at the Energy Gathering realm, but possess bodily power equivalent to the latter stages of the Dao Integration realm. Are you saying that you have yet to properly cultivate, yet possess such strength?"
Jin Huang nodded, grin widening. "Let's just say that I've only just figured out how."
The woman scoffed and shook her head. "You are an interesting one. Feel free to harvest as many of the beast cores as you want. The demonic beasts will not trouble you further. Go back to the academy in peace."
Jin Huang gave an sharp bow, then the woman smiled and said, "Also, good job on your fight with that villain. Had I not taken a neutral stance as Obsidian City's Keeper, I would have killed him myself."
Jin Huang smiled and nodded again, then left to finally fulfill the mission.