Chapter 35: Paradise Lost
The mountain groaned beneath the weight of the giant.
Ten metres of muscle.
Black fur.
Crimson corruption.
Abyss Bear Xiong Ba spread all four of his arms wide.
The countless mouths covering his body opened together.
For one terrible moment...
The world became silent.
Then—
The great mouth in his chest inhaled.
Snow.
Mist.
Broken trees.
Even loose boulders slid toward him.
The next instant...
He screamed.
"Death Scream!"
It was not merely sound.
It was despair given form.
The mountains shook violently.
Cliffs split apart.
The sky itself seemed to darken beneath the pressure.
Every living creature within dozens of kilometres froze where it stood.
Birds dropped lifeless from the air.
Beasts fled blindly through the forests.
The scream carried only one message.
Die.
Lord Shen had already moved.
The Heavenly Wolf bloodline stirred within him.
The hairs along the back of his neck rose.
A flicker.
A warning.
A glimpse of the next heartbeat.
Danger Sense.
The Heavenly Wolf's instinct.
Before the roar could reach him...
His own chest expanded.
He threw back his head.
"Heavenly Wolf Roar!"
A magnificent spectral wolf appeared behind him.
Its silver mane danced like moonlight.
When it roared...
The heavens answered.
The two shockwaves collided.
One carried death.
The other absolute dominion.
The mountain disappeared beneath expanding rings of blue and crimson.
Ancient trees exploded into splinters.
Snow became white mist.
For a single instant...
Neither side prevailed.
Then the Heavenly Wolf's roar surged forward.
A wave of invisible pressure struck the Abyss Bear.
Its massive body stiffened.
Its limbs refused to answer.
Paralysis.
Only for a heartbeat.
But against masters...
A heartbeat was eternity.
Lord Shen's sword flashed.
He stepped forward to end the battle.
Then—
Crunch.
Tiny mouths burst from the air itself.
One bit his shoulder.
Another his thigh.
Three more clamped onto his armor.
They devoured not flesh...
But movement.
His advancing strike faltered.
His Ki circulation stumbled.
The paralysis broke.
Xiong Ba smiled.
"So close."
"So very close."
The giant slammed both axes together.
Darkness erupted outward.
"Paradise Lost."
The world fractured.
Shadows peeled away from the Abyss Bear's enormous body.
One became two.
Two became four.
Four became dozens.
Humanoid figures forged from living darkness surrounded Lord Shen.
Each carried crimson weapons.
Each possessed only one burning eye.
None possessed a soul.
They attacked without hesitation.
One blade struck from the left.
Another from above.
Two axes descended simultaneously.
Lord Shen's sword blurred.
Blue arcs of frost split shadow after shadow.
Yet every clone delayed him another fraction of a second.
That was enough.
The real Abyss Bear arrived.
Its colossal foot crashed into Lord Shen's chest.
The Heavenly Wolf Armor groaned.
The impact launched him thousands of metres upward.
The darkness pursued.
The remaining clones appeared around him in midair.
One struck his back.
Another his ribs.
A third hammered his shoulder.
Each impact altered his trajectory.
Like wolves herding prey.
They drove him downward.
Waiting beneath...
A gigantic crimson formation slowly rotated.
The Seal of Greed.
Every rune upon it resembled an open mouth.
Hungry.
Patient.
Waiting.
"Everything you possess..."
Xiong Ba whispered.
"Your Ki."
"Your bloodline."
"Your soul."
"It all belongs to me."
Lord Shen looked down.
He could feel it.
The seal was already pulling at his cultivation.
At his very life.
If he touched it...
Even for a moment...
The consequences would be unimaginable.
His eyes became calm.
Completely calm.
A single blue star seemed to ignite within his pupils.
"Starlight Velocity."
His entire body exploded into radiant blue light.
There was no acceleration.
No visible movement.
One instant he was falling.
The next...
He had already crossed the battlefield.
The mountains between those two points shattered from the displaced force.
Lord Shen crashed into a distant ridge.
The technique had carried him beyond the seal.
But...
Like every Heavenly Wolf movement technique...
It possessed one fatal weakness.
Momentum.
His body continued sliding through stone before finally stopping.
He could not immediately change direction.
His muscles screamed.
His bones protested.
Even someone of his cultivation could not fully control such overwhelming speed.
He pushed himself upright.
Too late.
Xiong Ba had anticipated exactly that.
The Abyss Bear slammed both axes into the earth.
Dark crimson mist erupted from beneath the mountains.
It spread silently.
Relentlessly.
Like blood soaking into cloth.
Everywhere it passed...
Ice melted into black sludge.
Stone softened.
Trees dissolved into ash.
Even the air became poisonous.
The crimson fog swallowed valleys.
It climbed cliffs.
It surrounded Lord Shen from every direction.
Within seconds...
The entire battlefield had vanished beneath an endless sea of scarlet corruption.
Only two pairs of glowing eyes remained visible through the mist.
One blue.
One crimson.
----------------------
The crimson mist continued to spread.
It crawled over mountains.
It swallowed rivers.
Every breath carried corruption.
Every heartbeat gave the Abyss another foothold within the world.
Lord Shen stood perfectly still.
His breathing had become measured once again.
The wounds across his body were already healing beneath the Heavenly Wolf Armor, but he knew he no longer had the luxury of testing his opponent.
This battle had gone on long enough.
Another minute...
Perhaps two...
And the corruption would spread beyond the mountains.
Toward Mistforge.
Toward the people he had sworn to protect.
His hand reached toward the sapphire necklace resting beneath his armor.
For years it had remained untouched.
His final reserve.
His emergency lifeline.
He crushed the crystal.
Blue light burst through every meridian in his body.
The necklace dissolved into streams of pure spiritual energy, flowing into his dantian like an endless river.
His exhausted Ki surged back to its peak.
The Heavenly Wolf Armor shone brighter than ever before.
Xiong Ba laughed from within the crimson fog.
"Excellent!"
"I was beginning to think you had nothing left!"
Lord Shen ignored him.
Instead...
He closed his eyes.
His consciousness sank into the mountain beneath his feet.
He could feel every frozen river.
Every buried vein of ice.
Every ancient glacier sleeping beneath the earth.
The mountain answered its lord.
Snow began falling once more.
Slowly.
Silently.
The world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Lord Shen opened his eyes.
There was no anger in them.
Only resolve.
"I know enough."
"I've seen your techniques."
"I've seen your limits."
"There is no need to continue."
He slowly raised his sword.
Blue frost gathered along its edge.
Not merely frost.
Silence.
Stillness.
The end of all motion.
"Cocytus Breath."
The mountain exhaled.
The world stopped.
The crimson mist froze in midair.
Snowflakes halted where they drifted.
Even the wind ceased to exist.
The cold surpassed ordinary ice.
It was the legendary cold said to sleep at the bottom of the underworld.
Absolute Zero.
Sound disappeared.
Movement disappeared.
Time itself seemed reluctant to continue.
The ten-metre Abyss Bear tried to move.
Its countless mouths opened together.
Devouring Barrier.
Corrosion Aura.
Seal of Greed.
Every ability erupted simultaneously.
Yet...
Nothing happened.
The corruption froze before it could spread.
The invisible mouths became sculptures of black crystal.
The Devouring Barrier could no longer devour.
There was no movement left with which to consume.
The giant's body became a statue of ice.
Only its eyes continued moving.
For the first time since entering this world...
Fear appeared within them.
Lord Shen knew this moment would not last.
Even Absolute Zero could not imprison such a creature forever.
The Abyss would adapt.
It always adapted.
He tightened both hands around his sword.
Blue stars reflected across the frozen battlefield.
"One strike."
"That is all I need."
His body disappeared.
"Starlight Velocity."
The mountain never saw him move.
One instant he stood atop the ridge.
The next...
A single line of blue light crossed the frozen world.
The slash reached the Abyss Bear before its thoughts could.
Silence.
Then...
The frozen giant split cleanly in two.
No explosion.
No roar.
The Absolute Zero prevented even destruction from making a sound.
Xiong Ba's crimson eyes widened.
Not in pain.
In disbelief and fear.
Greed had finally found something it could not swallow.
A heartbeat later...
The ice shattered.
The body became countless glittering fragments carried away by the winter wind.
Nothing remained.
Not flesh.
Not blood.
Not even corruption.
Only drifting snow.
Lord Shen slowly lowered his sword.
The mountain was quiet once more.
He looked across the battlefield.
Entire peaks had vanished.
Ancient forests no longer existed.
Valleys had become frozen plains.
Half of the surrounding mountain range had simply... disappeared.
He sighed.
"This is why battles between Spirit Transformation cultivators should never happen near civilization."
Had he allowed the fight to drift toward Mistforge...
The city would no longer exist.
Instead...
The mountains had paid the price.
His gaze lingered on the broken horizon.
"I'll have to call in that favor."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"He's going to complain for months."
Only one person he knew could reshape mountains on such a scale.
Fortunately...
That old friend owed him one.
Lord Shen finally relaxed.
His thoughts immediately returned to governance.
The city's defensive formations had held.
Captain Han had performed well.
The Frost Wolf Cavalry had exceeded expectations.
But one weakness had become painfully obvious.
"There are too few Rune Masters."
The enemy had completed most of the summoning formation before anyone discovered it.
That mistake could never be repeated.
He would establish an official Rune Hall after returning.
Training.
Research.
Inspection.
Mistforge would no longer rely upon a handful of independent craftsmen.
His gaze swept over the devastated wilderness.
"So many beasts..."
Entire bloodlines had vanished during the chaos.
The mountain's ecosystem would collapse if nothing was done.
He would have to negotiate with neighboring territories and transport new beast populations into the range.
Difficult.
Expensive.
Necessary.
His thoughts drifted back to the enemy.
"A Greed Seal..."
That final technique continued to trouble him.
Only servants directly beneath the Demon King of Greed were permitted to bear such authority.
Which meant...
That monster had stood only a single step away from becoming a true Demon Lord.
Mistforge had survived by the narrowest of margins.
Then another realization struck him.
"The Abyss Seed..."
Normally, whoever slew such a creature would become marked by the Abyss.
Lord Shen calmly touched the center of his chest.
A faint blue sword-shaped light appeared before fading.
"My Sword Intent would have purified it."
He was unconcerned for himself.
Yet...
The fact that the Demon King of Greed had taken notice of this battlefield...
That was a far greater problem.
Such beings did not forget.
His attention shifted toward the distant city.
"I wonder..."
"Who destroyed the Abyss creature inside?"
He smiled faintly.
"Tianyu, perhaps."
His son had always possessed frightening talent.
Breaking through to Foundation Establishment might have been enough to overcome such an opponent.
Satisfied that no overwhelming aura remained...
Lord Shen made one final sweep of the mountains.
Nothing escaped his perception.
Almost nothing.
Near the edge of a frozen ravine, a familiar shadow trembled.
The Shadow Python.
Gravely wounded.
Trying desperately to sink into a patch of darkness.
Lord Shen appeared before it without a sound.
The serpent froze.
Its crimson eyes trembled.
Lord Shen did not draw his sword.
Not yet.
"You poisoned my son."
The mountain seemed to grow colder around those four words.
The Shadow Python lowered its head until its scales touched the ice.
"For that, death would be simple."
Lord Shen's eyes remained colder than the snow beneath his feet.
"But simple is not always useful."
A blue rune formed beneath the serpent, wrapping around its body like a chain of frost and moonlight.
"A beast that can enter shadows should not belong to bandits."
The contract tightened.
"From this day forward, you will protect Mistforge."
The Shadow Python hesitated only once.
Then it bowed completely.