Chapter 41
A cultivator from one of the major sect teams stepped out from the shadows of the trees, his sword sheathed but his presence sharp. Adam and his team turned as he approached, having just finished scanning the sky.
“Always nice to see another triple dantian user,” the man said with a relaxed smile, nodding at Adam. “Rare breed, aren’t we?”
His eyes trailed toward the corpse of the massive wood beast, and the golden token glinting faintly beside it.
“Oh? You even found one of the special quest items. How lucky. I’m really glad we caught you in this trap formation, then.”
As he spoke, three more figures emerged from the trees—closing in like a tightening noose.
A tall woman wielding a staff with a glowing orb, a twin-saber wielder whose armor bore light-enhancing Qi pads around his joints, and a pale woman perched atop a massive white snake, its head crowned with a red, pulsing crystal.
The sword cultivator gave them a sidelong glance and smirked.
“Minimal Qi usage, precise execution… impressive. Judging by your aura, you’ve still got at least 90% left in the tank.”
The staff-wielding woman frowned. “Let’s finish this quickly. They’ve got the quest item—we can’t let them keep it.”
The sword cultivator's gaze landed on the two unconscious minor sect disciples lying nearby.
Then he looked at Adam.
“You’re trying to walk away with clean hands, huh?” he asked with a snort of amusement. “You do realize sparing someone in pity is just another form of humiliation, right?”
As he stepped toward the fallen cultivators, his tone chilled.
“It’s more merciful to kill them before they wake up and realize just how powerless they were.”
He raised his sword, calm and deliberate, drawing it in a clean arc. The silver edge caught the light.
“Let me do them a favor.”
Adam’s body moved before he even registered it.
Flash Step.
His thoughts were a chaotic scream:
"No—no—no—I can’t let that happen! Faster—FASTER!"
Cold sweat poured down his neck.
He appeared between the cultivator and the unconscious man—too late.
SHHK.
The blade came down.
One head fell.
Blood sprayed across Adam’s robes.
His heart stopped.
Then he slashed—instinctively. A retaliatory blow toward the sword cultivator, who leaned back with practiced ease, avoiding the brunt of it and retreating a step with a flick of his wrist.
Adam dropped to his knees beside the fallen man, hands trembling. He immediately poured light-based healing Qi into the corpse, clutching the headless body as if trying to reverse time by will alone.
His thoughts spun.
“I made him unconscious. I left him defenseless. I— I contributed to his death.”
“No… no, no… this can’t be happening. This counts. This counts…”
His teammates called out in alarm, but Adam didn’t hear them.
The sword cultivator watched from a short distance, sword resting against his shoulder, tone mocking but almost amused.
“Oh my,” he said, “don’t even want him to die with dignity? That’s cold. You’re crueler than I thought.”
Adam ignored him.
He kept trying to heal—but something was wrong. His light Qi seeped into the body like water through a sieve, dissipating uselessly. The spell wouldn’t take. It wasn’t healing. It was... rejecting.
Adam’s chest tightened. He felt it—the weight of death pressing against his soul.
Zayk didn’t appear.
No frozen time. No punishment. No scythe or shadow.
Just silence.
Adam’s eyes widened.
“Why isn’t he here?”
“What’s happening? Didn't I… cross the line?”
“Why… is there no punishment?”
That’s when the sword cultivator struck again.
SHHHHK—
A clean, horizontal slash carved across Adam’s face.
He felt it—burning, blinding—
A line of pain etched into his vision like ink bleeding across paper.
Blood poured down his cheeks.
“Adam!” Mu Qing Li shouted.
Vines lashed out, coiling around his waist and yanking him backward, just before the sword cultivator’s second strike landed.
They landed hard on the grass. Adam clutched his face, red flowing between his fingers.
Mu Qing Li’s voice cracked with fury.
“What the hell were you trying to do?!”
Adam didn’t answer. He sat up slowly, trembling, blood soaking into his robes.
Golden light flickered around his eyes—his healing Qi already working. The wounds closed, vision returned.
He exhaled shakily.
“…I almost failed.”
Adam was still slightly confused, but he pushed the thoughts aside. He had to focus on the matter at hand.
Xiaoyan turned to him. “Adam, what the hell was that? Why did you—”
Adam cut him off. “Not now. I’ll explain after the match.”
The others exchanged glances but didn’t press further. The battle ahead demanded their full attention.
The sword cultivator stepped forward, casually resting his blade on his shoulder.
“You all done with your little drama?” he asked with a faint smirk. Then, pointing his sword at Adam, he added, “I call dibs on him.”
The staff-wielding woman rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for this.”
With a smooth step, she thrust her staff into the earth, sending a line of jagged earth spikes barreling toward Mu Qing Li. She dodged back easily, but the attack served its purpose—dividing the team.
A wall of earthen spikes now separated Adam from Mu Qing Li, Li Fan, and Xiaoyan.
The staff woman glanced at her team. “You three deal with them. We’ll handle this one.”
Li Fan’s eyes narrowed. “Xiaoyan! Get to Adam!”
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Xiaoyan nodded and dashed toward the wall—but froze mid-step as his instincts flared.
A sharp gust sliced the dirt inches in front of him, the ground parting in a clean arc. A figure dropped from above—twin sabers drawn, joints glowing with light-padded Qi armor.
“You heard her,” the saber-wielding man said. “You want to reach him? Get through us.”
Tension settled thick in the air.
On one side, Adam stood facing the sword cultivator and the staff wielder. On the other, Xiaoyan, Mu Qing Li, and Li Fan faced off against the twin saber fighter and the white snake-riding woman, whose beast hissed—eyes glowing beneath the crimson gem embedded in its head.
Adam silently opened his beast pouch.
In a flash of silver and white, Red—his two-tailed fox—landed beside him, fur bristling, eyes alert. The spirit beast took one look at the enemies and settled into a low, defensive stance, growling softly.
Adam stepped forward beside it, facing the sword cultivator with calm resolve.
The standoff had begun.
Adam dashed forward, eyes locked onto Jian Wuye, the sword cultivator.
Wuye responded swiftly, casting a condensed water sphere and hurling it toward Adam. Adam slipped to the side, evading the projectile, and swept in low with an underhau slash—his sword-arm coated in pulsing Death Qi.
Wuye caught the strike on his blade, and with practiced precision, channeled lightning through the metal contact—sending a jolt crackling down Adam’s arm.
Adam grit his teeth and activated Metal Qi, converting his entire body into a conductive sheath. The lightning flowed harmlessly along his metallic skin, discharging into the earth.
Wuye didn’t hesitate. He stepped in and delivered a lightning-augmented kick squarely into Adam’s chest, sending him skidding back a few steps.
At the same time, Red—Adam’s two-tailed fox—lunged toward Mei Lanyin, the staff-wielding cultivator.
Lanyin conjured a volley of rock bolts, but Red weaved through them with fluid agility. In retaliation, Red released a blinding ray from its maw. The light struck Lanyin’s face, forcing her to recoil.
In the brief window, Red unleashed a Grave Nail spell—Adam’s own technique—firing death-imbued needles toward her.
Still disoriented, Lanyin stomped her staff into the ground and raised a spiked earth wall, intercepting the attack and halting Red’s charge. Red leapt atop the wall and barked sharply—an echoing sound that masked his next move.
In a flash, Red used Flash Step, leaving behind a glowing mirage.
Still half-blinded, Lanyin reacted to the bark, firing a rock shot directly at the sound. By the time her vision returned, the mirage was fading, and Red had already vanished from her field of view.
Back on Adam’s side, Jian Wuye surged forward with an oberhau, a downward diagonal slash aimed at Adam’s neck.
Adam raised his sword-arm, catching the blow mid-air and twisting it aside. With his free hand, he went for a face-grab, but something felt… off.
His fingers met resistance, but not flesh. It was like pressing into a layer of glass—not illusion, but protection.
A faint shimmer revealed it: an artifact-based barrier, covering Wuye’s entire body like a second skin.
Adam narrowed his eyes and cast Withering Pulse, a wave of invisible Death Qi that rippled outward toward his opponent.
But the energy dispersed uselessly.
Wuye smirked, eyes gleaming with confidence.
“Surprised?” he said. “I’ve got Life Qi—the perfect counter to your Death Qi.”
Adam’s expression tightened.
Jian Wuye raised his sword and cast a spell directly in front of him—a towering water wall surged up and crashed forward, slamming into Adam like a river trying to drown him on his feet. Adam braced, but the sheer force shoved him backward, his heels carving grooves into the earth.
Wuye laughed lightly.
“Let’s see… how do I cut through that shiny metal skin of yours…?”
He paused, then snapped his fingers. “Oh! I’ve got it.”
He drew in his Qi and channeled concentrated lightning into his sword—condensing it entirely at the blade’s edge. The steel shimmered, veins of crackling voltage dancing along the surface like it was ready to split atoms.
“Shall we test it out?” he said with a smirk.
He flashed forward.
Adam met him mid-charge with an underhau slash, but Wuye lightning-stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding it. Adam twisted for an oberhau from the right, but Wuye flickered again—disappearing and reappearing beside him in a blur—and slashed across Adam’s left flank.
Sparks exploded. The searing blade sliced through the metal, cauterizing the wound instantly. Adam grunted, clutching his side as smoke curled from the scorched groove.
Wuye smiled with satisfaction. “Looks like it worked.”
Adam’s mind raced, calculating.
“Damn... only 40%, 80%, and 76% left in my lower, middle, and upper dantians.”
---
On Red’s Side
Mei Lanyin realized she’d been tricked—the earlier mirage was just that. She turned just in time to see Red dashing toward her.
Thinking quickly, she raised a massive slab of earth overhead while simultaneously pulling herself back with a surge of ground-born Qi, trying to slam the slab down on Red mid-charge.
But Red responded fast.
He fired a Withering Pulse upward, weakening the structure, and followed it instantly with an Iron Shard Shot. The pulse made the slab brittle, and the shards riddled it with fractures.
The heavy mass collapsed—but Red burst through the crumbling edge, battered and dusty, his stance unsteady. He was clearly hurt.
---
Through their bond, Adam and Red’s instincts aligned—no words needed. The rhythm of battle pulsed between them like a shared heartbeat.
Red barked once—and then erupted in a blinding white flash, his body flaring like a miniature sun.
The battlefield turned white.
Jian Wuye and Mei Lanyin staggered, temporarily blinded. Adam alone could see through the light.
He acted instantly—Flash Step: Mirror Skip.
Adam warped through space, reappearing behind Wuye, sword-arm drawn back. He slashed at Wuye’s shoulder, aiming to cleave deep—but his blow clanged off the invisible barrier of Wuye’s artifact armor.
Undeterred, Adam skipped again—this time appearing near Lanyin.
Still blinded, she reacted on instinct and summoned a spiked dome of earth around her as a defensive barrier.
Adam's sword-arm shimmered black, infused with both Death Qi and Metal Qi, vibrating at a frequency that hummed dangerously in the air.
He launched a left-side mittelhau, a horizontal cut meant to cleave the dome clean in half.
With a screech of energy and earth, the dome split apart, chunks of stone and dust raining down in the aftermath.
But Lanyin was nowhere inside.
Adam turned—only to see her emerging from underground, just beside Wuye. Both now stood side by side, their vision slowly returning.
Their expressions had shifted.
No longer cocky.
Now cautious.
While Adam clashed with Jian Wuye and Mei Lanyin, the rest of the battlefield raged with equal intensity.
Xiaoyan, Mu Qing Li, and Li Fan faced off against Wei Zhen, the twin saber cultivator, Bai Shuren, the snake tamer, and her beast, the massive white serpent known as Crimson-Fang.
Li Fan launched a bolt of lightning toward Wei Zhen.
“I’ll take him,” Li Fan called out, glancing at Xiaoyan.
Xiaoyan nodded, pivoting toward Mu Qing Li's side.
Wei Zhen dashed in, twin sabers gleaming. Li Fan responded with three rapid-fire lightning arcs, but Wei summoned Wind Blessing, channeling Qi into his legs, giving him enhanced speed and mobility. He weaved between the bolts with nimble footwork.
Li Fan pressed the reach advantage, thrusting his spear at Wei’s chest. Wei ducked low, parrying with one saber, and swung the other toward Li Fan’s legs. In a seamless motion, Li Fan twisted his spear, blocking the low strike with the shaft’s back end, then retaliated with a lightning-infused smash.
Wei rolled back just as the spear smashed into the ground, sending arcs of electricity crackling outward.
Springing back to his feet, Wei launched into a spinning horizontal assault, aiming to carve Li Fan vertically in half. The twin sabers blurred—but Li Fan parried each one, standing firm.
Wei grinned and fired arcs of wind blades toward Li Fan’s neck. Li Fan leaned back, narrowly evading the blades, and mid-motion fired off a lightning barrage of bolts in return.
Wei danced between the attacks, firing wind arcs between his evasions, their duel resembling a deadly rhythm of storm and gale.
On the other side of the field, Crimson-Fang reared up and unleashed a wave of fire from its mouth.
Mu Qing Li reacted instantly—conjuring a wall of wind that split the flames sideways, dispersing the heat.
She then coated both her and Xiaoyan’s legs with Wind Blessing, enhancing their speed.
“Go!” she shouted.
Xiaoyan shot forward.
Crimson-Fang lunged, fangs flashing—
“Too fast!” Xiaoyan thought, realizing he was nearly within biting range.
At the last second, space distorted—Mu Qing Li had cast Spatial Expansion, widening the gap between them.
Taking the opportunity, Xiaoyan leapt at Bai Shuren, slashing down with an Explosive Slash.
Crimson-Fang’s tail whipped around, knocking Xiaoyan back through sheer brute force. He skidded but quickly regained footing, eyes burning.
He launched Blazing Echo Step, vanishing and reappearing in a flash, this time targeting the serpent’s tail.
He cast Echo Bubble at the moment the tail rose to strike—locking it in a time-slowed distortion.
Bai Shuren retaliated, conjuring a barrage of flaming needles, hurling them toward Xiaoyan.
He channeled Time Qi, heightening his perception. Everything slowed.
He weaved through the flaming barrage like wind between branches.
Meanwhile, Mu Qing Li summoned binding vines, attempting to wrap around Crimson-Fang’s head and torso. The serpent unleashed a roaring fire breath—burning the vines to ash.
Mu cast compressed whirlwinds straight into its open mouth—slicing internally. Blood leaked from the beast’s jaws.
Bai Shuren rushed over, laying a palm on the beast’s scales. Fire-based healing Qi surged, closing the serpent’s wounds.
Xiaoyan leapt in again.
His Explosive Slash barely missed Bai, instead striking Crimson-Fang’s spine.
A muffled crack.
Xiaoyan channeled fire into his sword, igniting it and detonating the wound in a small explosion.
Crimson-Fang roared in agony.
Bai Shuren’s expression twisted with fury. She hurled a Flame Net, a flaming mesh that crackled toward Xiaoyan like a web of death.
But again—space warped, widening the gap.
Mu Qing Li’s Spatial Expansion had saved him.
Wei Zhen, in the middle of his skirmish with Li Fan, saw a clear alignment—Mu Qing Li stood directly behind Li Fan, both perfectly in line.
His eyes gleamed with a plan.
He poured nearly all of his Wind Qi into one saber, and with a sudden kick, launched the second saber at Li Fan.
Li Fan blocked it.
But that’s what Wei wanted.
With his remaining saber, he released a massive arc of wind, thick and honed—cutting through the air like a scythe.
The wind blade phased through Li Fan’s guard, slicing him cleanly in half.
Li Fan’s body hit the ground in two parts, his expression still frozen in mid-action.
Mu Qing Li’s eyes widened—but it was too late.
The arc of wind, still traveling, slammed into her.
She tried to step forward—but before she could evade completely—it was gone, severed cleanly at the thigh.
She fell.
Crimson-Fang lunged, seizing the moment—biting into her side and tearing her in half with a brutal shake.
Blood sprayed. Wind howled. Silence.
Now only Xiaoyan Remains
Xiaoyan landed hard near the spiked earth wall separating him from Adam.
He looked up—only to see Li Fan and Mu Qing Li's broken bodies on the battlefield.
His breath caught.
Sweat streamed down his face.
His hands gripped his sword tighter, his vision tunneling as his instincts screamed.
He was alone now—three enemies ahead, and no time to grieve.
Just survive.
Adam and Red were struggling.
We’re getting our asses handed to us, Adam admitted internally, panting as sparks still danced across his skin. If this keeps up, I might actually die.
He and Red dashed toward Jian Wuye. Just as they closed the gap, Wuye pointed his blade forward, and a cylinder-shaped barrage of lightning surged out like a growing spear of thunder.
Adam and Red flash-stepped to the sides, narrowly avoiding it. Adam landed—
—and his foot slipped into a purposeful hole.
His balance gave out.
Crash.
He hit the ground hard.
Before he could move, Mei Lanyin—smirked, her hands aglow with earth Qi. The ground morphed beneath Adam, earthen tendrils shooting up, binding his arms and legs, spreading him out on the forest floor.
Red leapt to his side, but Mei had already conjured a solid dome of earth around him.
“Got you,” she whispered.
“Finishing it,” Wuye muttered, his blade crackling with lightning.
He didn’t hesitate.
Another blinding column of lightning blasted from his sword and struck Adam square in the chest. He had tried to turn his body to metal, tried to amplify his death aura defensively—but it wasn’t enough.
The lightning tore a palm-sized hole through his chest.
He gasped.
I can still heal… he thought desperately.
But before his light healing activated, Mei raised a jagged stone pillar and drove it through the hole, pinning him further into the ground.
Both enemies took a breath. The tension eased from their stances.
“Damn…” Wuye exhaled. “That took more out of me than I thought.”
Mei nodded, brushing dust off her sleeve. “Now we deal with the fox.”
—
Adam’s mind was fading. He could feel the blood slowing, the oxygen stuttering, vision dimming.
Is this it? Am I dying?
…..
But wait… if I’m dying… then why didn’t Zayk come to claim my soul when Wuye killed that unconscious cultivator?
…..
This might not be a true death match…
But still… if I lose here… I lose the prize. I lose the chance to make life easier…
A whisper echoed in his mind.
“X_Let.@5”$+it.$&#@_out.”
A pressure stirred in his mind—familiar and yet foreign.
His Death Qi.
Not just energy—it was a presence now.
“X_Let. @5”$+It.@#”;’-A
ll). $&#@_Out.”
“x_Let@&$+ the #&fh@#$d@_madness take $&’:#(:9tiwyou.”
“@62&Bring 18_;;$#(death$:!#)@9avwi@&$7 to@_wcat47’;$( all.”
Adam’s eyes fluttered open.
Was it because I am now closer to dying that my affinity towards it increased?...
Now it's trying to manipulate me too…
What an opportunistic bitch….
Well….
If this isn’t a death match... if they really don’t die... then I can afford to risk it.
"I will let it all out, just as ‘it’ said."
Outside the dome, Red roared—a deep, guttural cry.
He exploded in size, swelling like a spirit beast unchained, now towering like a small house. He didn’t attack.
Instead, he ran.
He leapt over the earth spike wall, landing beside Xiaoyan.
“Red!?” Xiaoyan shouted, wide-eyed. “What happened? Did Adam—?”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He felt it.
They all did.
The air twisted. The light dimmed.
The wall of earth spikes crumbled to dust, revealing Adam’s body—now glowing with a deep, pulsing darkness. The Death Qi wasn’t colorless anymore.
It was pitch black, thick and rippling like smoke made of oil and malice.
Red barked—not to alert—but in fear.
Even Xiaoyan felt a shiver run down his spine.
Adam rose.
The earth bindings dissolved into dust.
The hole in his chest sealed shut, light healing blazing across his body.
Jian Wuye blinked. “What the hell—”
Flash.
Adam flash-stepped directly in front of him, grabbed Wuye by the neck, lifting him off the ground.
Wuye gasped, straining to breathe. “So… this is why… Master said… Death Elements users are dangerous…”
---
In Xiaoyan’s mind, Lunaria’s voice echoed sharply.
“Use Echo Bubble. Encapsulate yourself and Red. Now!.”
Without hesitation, Xiaoyan extended both arms and cast the largest echo bubble he could. The spell wrapped him and Red in a stasis field where time slowed to a crawl inside.
Just in time.
---
Adam’s sword-arm rose.
A massive spell circle appeared in the sky above him—etched in glowing dark lines, rotating slowly.
Then—
He unleashed it.
---
A wall of black smoke burst outward, like a dam breaking after centuries.
It expanded with terrifying speed—death-laced metal dust swirling inside the fog, invisible to the eye.
Mei Lanyin instantly tried to form a stone dome to shield herself.
Wei Zhen cast a wind tornado, swirling around him.
Bai Shuren raised a net of flames, Crimson-Fang adding a roar of fire.
But it was no use.
---
Inside the mist:
Vision was gone.
Spiritual sense was deadened.
The metallic dust clawed at skin, eyes, and lungs.
The embedded Death Qi corroded internal Qi and spiritual defenses.
Even Jian Wuye’s artifact barriers crumbled, unable to match Adam’s corrupting essence.
---
Xiaoyan watched in horror from inside the echo bubble.
The moment a strand of the mist touched the bubble’s edge—it froze in time, halted by the slow-time field.
Red trembled beside him, still slowed by the spell. Xiaoyan gritted his teeth, uncertain if what they were witnessing was survival… or the beginning of mass execution.
---
The battlefield was now choked in darkness, a killing field veiled in smoke, where even
the strong couldn’t breathe.
The entire trap formation barrier was covered with black mist upto the very top.
