Wu Ling did not move because he was cautious. His Mind's Eye and technique could locate the leopard's real body and wound it, but he had no way to defend against the Netherworld Ghost Leopard's clone substitution. If the leopard switched places with a clone after he used Swallow Reversal, Wu Ling himself might be injured instead.
So he had to hold his stance and wait until the Netherworld Ghost Leopard lost patience and threw itself into the net.
The Netherworld Ghost Leopard did not move because of instinct. As a fellow assassin, its instincts let it vaguely sense that if it entered a certain range around Wu Ling, even it might be killed.
So it had to maintain that distance and wait until Wu Ling lost patience, then kill him in one strike.
And so, with different thoughts but the same decision, the human and the leopard stared each other down from sunrise until the sun fully rose.
During that time, Wu Ling and the Netherworld Ghost Leopard seemed to understand each other perfectly.
"Both of us are assassins. One strike decides the outcome."
Far away, as the sun rose higher, a drop of dew fell from a yellowing leaf onto the Blue Silver Grass below. Under the droplet's impact, the blade of grass bent low. The dew slid along its tip and finally touched the ground.
The instant the droplet met the earth, Wu Ling and the Netherworld Ghost Leopard moved at the same time.
The Netherworld Ghost Leopard and its two clones surrounded Wu Ling in a triangle. Then, with a gap of less than a second between them, all three lunged at Wu Ling from three directions and three angles.
"Front right, 20 degrees off the ground, the fastest of the three.
"Front left, 35 degrees off the ground, the slowest.
"Behind me, low to the ground, medium speed.
"The main body is the one behind me, but it may switch places with either of the other two."
The moment the Netherworld Ghost Leopard moved, Wu Ling read its attack pattern through Mind's Eye.
The Netherworld Ghost Leopard likely believed Wu Ling had only one blade. Even if he attacked, he could only strike one target. As long as it attacked from different directions, even if Wu Ling endured the attacks and cut down two of them, the real body could still kill him.
Against an ordinary person, that thinking would have been correct. Unfortunately, Wu Ling was not ordinary.
"Swallow Reversal!"
Yes, it was still Swallow Reversal. Swallow Reversal was a technique that used godlike skill to attack a single opponent from three angles at the same instant.
Then if those three angles were adjusted slightly, could it not attack three different directions at once?
During those two and a half years, Wu Ling, with a modern person's way of thinking, had once imagined a three-direction Swallow Reversal.
After two months of refinement, he succeeded, but the result disappointed him. The three slashes of Swallow Reversal existed to restrict a single enemy and achieve certain kill. If the target changed from one to three, the attacks could indeed hit, but the slashes became nothing more than three sword swings in three directions at the same time.
As a result, that sword technique was useless in single combat. In one-against-many combat, it consumed too much stamina, making it less practical than ordinary swordplay.
Wu Ling had once felt disappointed and regretful about that three-direction Swallow Reversal. He never expected that it would be used in this exact situation.
Centered on Wu Ling's position, three purple-black afterimages and three slashes flashed past. In the next instant, three Netherworld Ghost Leopards appeared with their backs to Wu Ling in three different directions.
"Whew. Thank you for the match."
As Wu Ling exhaled, two of the three Netherworld Ghost Leopards dissolved into motes of starlight. The real Netherworld Ghost Leopard had been split in half by Wu Ling's slash.
"Back then, I said you might never use that move in your life. I did not expect you to use it now."
Ghost suddenly appeared and sighed with self-mockery. He had also been one of the people who did not think highly of that move. Now reality had slapped him in the face.
"No, Grandpa Ghost was right. This is probably the first and only time I will ever use it."
Wu Ling gave him an easy way out, and Ghost's embarrassment eased considerably. Ghost then looked at the Netherworld Ghost Leopard's corpse and the purple Spirit Ring floating above it.
"A Netherworld Ghost Leopard close to fifteen hundred years old. That is much stronger than a thousand-year Ghost Tiger. With your physical condition, however, you do have a chance of absorbing it successfully."
"Good. I will absorb it now. Grandpa Ghost, please protect me."
Ghost nodded, full of confidence. "Absorb it without worry. If even one Soul Beast gets near you, that counts as my failure."
"Having a Titled Sage protect me for only my second Spirit Ring is shamelessly extravagant. But I like it." The slight curve of Wu Ling's mouth revealed both his mood and his overwhelming sense of safety.
The Spirit Ring absorption went smoothly. It was all thanks to the body he had strengthened over two and a half years of constantly tearing muscles apart and letting them heal again.
"Fifteen hundred years is not my limit. My current limit should be around eighteen hundred or nineteen hundred years."
As he estimated this, Wu Ling gradually opened his eyes.
"How is it, Wu Ling? Is the Spirit Skill what you wanted?"
Wu Ling raised a thumb and gave Ghost a brilliant smile. "Perfect!"
Wu Ling immediately summoned his Unregistered Spirit Origin. Beside his first yellow Spirit Ring was a purple Spirit Ring, a full circle larger than the first.
"Your second Spirit Ring is purple. This old man has truly seen something new. At this rate, as long as you can endure the soul shock, your fourth Spirit Ring may be able to reach ten thousand years."
Wu Ling was just as excited as Ghost. Under his control, the purple Spirit Ring lit up. A woman's shadow appeared inside the energy sphere at the center of the Unregistered Spirit Origin. She had black skin and wore a thin, tight outfit.
"So this is the person summoned this time?"
Ghost and Yue Guan had spent a great deal of time with Wu Ling. As time passed, they had also gained more and more of Bibi Dong's trust. Because of that, they had heard a little about Wu Ling's Martial Soul's true ability and the Age of Gods.
"She feels like someone of my kind, a resident of the darkness where light does not reach."
Looking at the woman and reading the Spirit Skill information transmitted into his mind, Wu Ling's satisfied smile grew wider.
"Grandpa Ghost, your eye is sharp. She is the nineteenth leader of the Order of Assassins to inherit the name Hassan-i-Sabbah: Hassan of the Hundred Personas."
As he spoke, Wu Ling let the shadow of Hassan of the Hundred Personas possess him.
His entire aura changed. If he had not been standing directly in front of Ghost, Ghost might have thought he had vanished.
"We are many and one. We are one and many..."
As Wu Ling chanted, the shadow behind him began boiling violently.