“Took you long enough to call for backup, kid.” Guhai’s voice was a low thrum against the roar of the rift, a sound that seemed to vibrate directly in Mingyu’s bones. He stood, not quite solid, a living shadow made of midnight flames, his sharp gaze cutting through the chaos to Moqiu’s stunned form.
“Backup?” Mingyu hacked up a glob of dark phlegm, the searing ache in his chest momentarily eclipsed by the sight before him. “You’re… you’re the curse!”
Guhai chuckled, a dry, raspy sound that held no malice. “A curse? Perhaps. But more accurately, an anchor, young Tu. My spirit has been… tethered to your unique constitution since birth, a living seal against the encroaching void. A rather clever setup, if I do say so myself. Had to ensure you’d grow strong enough to bear my… influence, before making a proper appearance.” He glanced at Moqiu, who was slowly pushing himself upright, stark terror contorting his withered features. “And it seems my timing is impeccable.”
“Influence?” Lord Cangyan’s ethereal voice, sharper than a winter gale, sliced through the air from the switch still clutched in Mingyu’s hand. “You call parasitic possession ‘influence’? The audacity! I have been meticulously guiding young Mingyu through the noble path of the Radiant Soul Blade, cultivating his spiritual fortitude, teaching him discipline and grace!”
“Grace?” Guhai arched a spectral brow, his eyes twinkling with dark amusement. “He beats enemies with a janitor’s broom and a broken chopstick, old man. Your ‘noble path’ seems to consist primarily of him ignoring every elegant instruction you’ve ever given. And ‘discipline’? He just raged his way through an entire tournament, breaking half the rules and demolishing the pride of every pampered scion in the sect. Clearly, my more… direct methods were far more effective.”
“Direct methods? You inflicted a life-threatening curse that almost tore his essence apart!” Cangyan shrieked, the wood vibrating with indignant fury. “I, Lord Cangyan, a master of the ancient Blazepoint Sword Arts, was preparing him for the legendary Firmament-Cleaving Slash!”
“And I, Guhai, prevented a cosmic catastrophe!” Guhai retorted, his flaming form solidifying slightly, radiating more power. “Your ‘Firmament-Cleaving Slash’ wouldn’t puncture a wet paper bag against the horrors lurking beyond this realm. This boy’s rage, his unyielding spite – that’s the true power. I merely cultivated it.”
“Cultivated it? You nearly *killed* him, you fiend!” Cangyan’s voice reached a fever pitch, sounding less like a revered sword master and more like an exasperated wet nurse. “He required my subtle guidance, my unparalleled wisdom!”
“Your wisdom led him to parry a jade sword with a twig and shatter it, then proceed to mop the arena floor with elites using a broom. My tether let him survive having his core nearly ripped out by this overgrown worm over here!” Guhai gestured casually at Moqiu, who was now stumbling backward, fear coiling in his eyes.
Mingyu felt a vein throb in his temple. His entire body still screamed from Moqiu’s assault, his chest a pit of raw pain, yet these two ancient, all-powerful entities were bickering like children. “ENOUGH!” he roared, a guttural sound torn from his raw throat. The stone vault shuddered with the force of his anger. “I don’t care who’s a better mentor, who’s more noble, or who’s a bigger fiend! He’s trying to tear the world apart, and my heart feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder! Both of you, shut your pie holes and give me everything you’ve got!”
Guhai paused, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. Cangyan, for once, fell silent, the switch still vibrating, but with a different kind of energy. A deep, abyssal black fire surged from Guhai’s spectral form, not burning, but intensely cold, wrapping around Mingyu’s body. Simultaneously, a blinding, emerald-green sword intent erupted from the birch twig, pure and sharp, a stark contrast to the darkness, yet strangely harmonizing with it.
The twin energies rushed into Mingyu, intertwining, battling, then merging in his core. He felt his time-dilated core, once a source of agony, now become a conduit, a swirling vortex of black fire and green light. He poured it all into the wood in his hand, transmuting it. It pulsed with a malevolent emerald glow, licked by tendrils of frigid black flame. It didn’t look like a sword, or even a sophisticated weapon. It looked exactly like what it was: a splintered limb, now supercharged with enough spite and power to obliterate a mountain.
“This… this is a crime against all that is sacred,” Cangyan muttered, his voice a bewildered whisper from the stick. “The Nine Heavens Dragon Form… now this… this abomination.”
“An abomination that’s about to put an end to this overgrown leech,” Guhai rumbled, his presence fading slightly, his power now fully channeled into Mingyu. “Now go, Tu Mingyu. Show him the true meaning of a bad day.”
Moqiu, having regained some of his monstrous composure, lunged, his corrupted claws extended, roaring like a wounded beast. “You insolent worm! I will rip that power from you!”
Mingyu met him head-on. The Flaming Spite Stick whistled through the air, imbued with Cangyan’s precision and Guhai’s raw destructive force. It wasn’t an elegant parry, nor a graceful thrust. It was a pure, unadulterated, overhead smash. The stick connected with Moqiu’s towering shoulder with a crack that echoed like thunder, sending shards of tainted flesh flying. Moqiu howled, stumbling back several paces, a black-green ichor oozing from the impact point.
“What… what is this power?!” Moqiu snarled, his voice a strained gargle of disbelief. He tried to regenerate, but the black flames clinging to his wound seemed to devour his own essence.
Mingyu didn’t answer. He just moved, a blur of motion fueled by pure, righteous anger. The stick became a furious blur, a maelstrom of emerald green and freezing black. He hammered Moqiu’s knee, cracking the bone with another sickening crunch. He swung it like a baseball bat, slamming into Moqiu’s midsection, sending the giant careening into a jagged rock formation, which crumbled into dust. Each blow was precise, devastating, and delivered with the full, unbridled fury of a man pushed too far.
Moqiu, once a towering, confident giant, was now a groaning, stumbling wreck, his monstrous form visibly shrinking and tearing at the edges from the relentless assault. He couldn’t land a hit, couldn’t regenerate fast enough, couldn’t even grasp the concept of being so thoroughly outmatched by a teenager wielding a glowing twig.
“Inconceivable!” Moqiu screamed, clutching at a splintered ribcage. “You… you are nothing! You cannot defeat me with… with a stick!”
“It’s not just a stick, old man,” Mingyu spat, standing over the groveling giant, his chest still burning but his resolve absolute. “It’s a Flaming Spite Stick. And it’s got your name all over it.” He raised the staff for another crushing blow.
Moqiu’s eyes, filled with desperation and a terrifying, calculating madness, darted to the swirling nexus of the abyssal rift behind him. A horrifying realization dawned on his face. He let out a shriek that was less pain and more a primal, guttural sacrifice. “So be it! If I cannot claim godhood, I shall drag this world into oblivion with me!”
He plunged his remaining, uninjured claw into his own chest, tearing through his corrupted flesh with a sickening wet rip. A geyser of black-green energy erupted from the wound, not just his life force, but his very soul, pouring directly into the heart of the spatial rift.
The hollow groaned. Not just a rumble, but a deep, mournful wail as if the very stone was screaming. Gravity reversed instantly. Mingyu felt his feet lift from the ground, rocks and debris raining upwards towards the collapsing ceiling. Lian Xinyue, having just severed the last of the puppet-patriarch’s tendrils, screamed as she was yanked skyward. The entire subterranean chamber began to tear itself apart, not from an explosion, but from an unholy, internal rending.
The swirling nexus of the rift, once a contained anomaly, now pulsed with an unbearable, blinding violet light. It expanded with terrifying speed, devouring the hollow, the earth, and the very fabric of reality. Through the rapidly expanding void, a single, colossal eye, the size of a mountain, slowly opened. It was a sickly yellow orb, veined with black, utterly alien and unfathomably ancient. It stared, unblinking, through the tearing spatial veil, and its gaze locked directly onto Mingyu, the last anchor of its prison.