096 The Stumbling Block

09

6 The Stumbling Block

Hei Mu’s voice echoed across the battlefield, her song weaving a melody of despair and triumph. The Shadow Clan’s suffering was not a sight she relished, but it was necessary.

For too long, they had been nothing but remnants of a bygone era—forgotten, weak, hidden in the dark corners of the world.

No more. She would see them rise once again.

She remembered the cold nights spent huddled beside Hei Ma, their stomachs empty, their robes thin. The Shadow Clan was a mighty name in the past, but in her time, they were little more than ghosts lingering in obscurity.

Their island home, meant to be a bastion of darkness, was nothing more than a rotting husk. The great halls once filled with warriors were empty, the shelves of their libraries covered in dust, and the few elders who remained clung to old traditions with stubborn futility.

She had always known—if they continued like this, they would disappear.

She was born with strength. She had been trained to kill, to fight, to hide in the darkness. But it wasn’t enough.

So, when she came of age, she made a vow.

She would restore the Shadow Clan to its rightful place.

She would do whatever it took.

Even if it meant embracing something greater than shadow itself.

Hei Mu’s eyes burned with resolve as she sang.

“Cry not, my kin, for sorrow is naught,

The world is but dust, and life but a thought.”

Her father, the former Patriarch, stood like a lifeless puppet, his body responding to her will. Through him, she commanded the Mirage Dragon, its serpentine form twisting in the sky, its mist-covered body gliding through the air.

She saw the glow build within its throat—the sign of an imminent breath attack.

It would be beautiful.

”Let flesh be broken, let spirit be freed,

A song of the abyss, a hymn of the seed.”

It would be the rebirth of the Shadow Clan.

But then—

The sky darkened.

Something else was coming.

A golden divine sword peeked from the heavens, parting the clouds like an omen of destruction. Its sheer presence made the very air tremble, its holy aura oppressive even from a distance.

Hei Mu’s eyes flickered downward.

A figure stepped out onto the wooden harbor.

The outsider.

Da Wei.

Hei Mu’s voice never wavered. Instead, she poured more qi into her Shadow Song, amplifying its power, making the very air vibrate with her melody.

“Surrender, surrender, let darkness devour,

The shadow’s embrace, the final hour.”

But Da Wei did not flinch.

His fingers moved to his robes, discarding them in a single motion.

Beneath the cloth, he wore rustic blue and golden armor, an ethereal green cape billowing behind him. It was a strange thing—almost like mist, almost like water, as though it refused to fully exist in this world.

Hei Mu narrowed her eyes.

She had underestimated him once before. She would not do so again.

Da Wei raised his hand.

A holy spear formed in his grasp, glowing with radiant energy. Without hesitation, he hurled it toward her.

Hei Mu’s scythe pulsed with power.

With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed Negative Pulse, a surge of abyssal energy that collided with the spear mid-air. The two forces canceled each other out, dispersing into nothingness.

Da Wei’s expression did not change.

Instead, he raised his left hand, fingers curled.

The golden divine sword hanging in the sky descended at once.

Hei Mu’s instincts screamed at her.

With a flicker of motion, she flapped her wings and vanished, reappearing deep within the forest, far from the blade’s reach. The earth below pulsed with electricity as if magnet and the sword was the lightning.

She exhaled sharply.

Her father sank into the depths of the shadows, the Mirage Dragon dispersing into the fog, blending with the mist once more.

Hei Mu was not done yet.

Raising her scythe, she channeled her power into its form.

At the tip of its pole, a sphere of death began to coalesce, its darkness pulsing like a dying star.

She sang louder.

“Fear not the end, nor the breaking of bone,

For in silence eternal, we all are alone.”

She would level the entire island.

She would make it her offering to the new age.

But then—

She frowned.

The dark clouds above began to part.

Something was tracking her.

She looked up.

The giant golden divine sword had locked onto her presence, moving as if bound by fate itself. It was following her, its descent relentless, a homing technique.

Hei Mu grit her teeth.

The outsider was more troublesome than she thought.

Hei Mu flapped her wings with all her might, her figure flickering through the sky like a phantom. Every time she thought she had escaped, ominous clouds and the golden divine sword found her once again.

She clicked her tongue.

Annoying.

Hei Mu had never thought highly of Da Wei.

To her, he was nothing more than a troublesome outsider with an overdeveloped sense of arrogance. True, he possessed a stealth technique beyond comprehension, capable of masking his cultivation so well that even the elders had misjudged him. But that was all he amounted to.

A trickster. A coward who refused to stand in the open.

And yet—

Hei Mu flickered through the air, her movements unpredictable. The heavens themselves darkened as she wove between the twisting mists, a blur of black and white wings.

But no matter where she went, the golden divine sword was there.

Tracking her. Hunting her.

Like an executioner’s blade descending without pause.

Her breath hitched.

Hei Mu’s grip tightened on her scythe, its form still brimming with dark energy.

She had thought herself strong enough to contend with the outsider.

When she received the grace of her master—the One True Death—she believed she had surpassed the limits of her former self. The old Hei Mu, the one burdened by weakness, had been stripped away, leaving only her new self, empowered and reborn.

And yet—

Wherever she fled, it followed.

The golden sword closed in with every passing second.

Hei Mu clenched her jaw.

She had no choice.

With a sharp turn, she dived toward the lake.

The shadows stirred beneath the surface as she extended her will, calling forth the Mirage Dragon.

“Come, my beast!”

The waters split apart, and from the abyssal depths, a colossal serpentine form emerged. The Mirage Dragon’s scales shimmered, its massive body twisting like mist, as if existing between reality and illusion.

Without hesitation, Hei Mu flew into its maw.

The dragon swallowed her whole.

Inside, she let out a slow breath, her connection to the beast solidifying.

She could not control the dragon directly, but through her father’s body, she could.

Her Abyss Sight burned as she reached through the shadows, weaving her power through the former Patriarch’s lifeless form. He was nothing more than a puppet now, but through him, she could act.

Her command surged through the void.

Empower the dragon.

The Mirage Dragon let out a roar, its body swelling with power. Black mist spread from its scales, coiling around the battlefield like a living nightmare.

And yet—

Through her father’s eyes, she saw it.

The divine sword had found them.

It descended like a decree from heaven, impaling the Mirage Dragon straight through the skull.

The beast’s roar was drowned in an explosion of golden light.

A divine pillar of radiance erupted, consuming everything in its path.

And deep within the dragon’s body, Hei Mu screamed.

The light was burning her—!

Her grip tightened around her scythe, her blackened wings trembling under the force.

She gritted her teeth, refusing to let go of the power she had gathered.

No.

She would not fall here.

The Mirage Dragon’s death cry echoed through the battlefield, its massive body dissolving into nothing but scattered ash and mist. The lake, once roiling with its presence, became eerily still, as if mourning the loss of the ancient beast.

Yet—

Hei Mu lived.

She hovered in the air, her body trembling, not from pain, but from hunger.

Such a great loss.

The Mirage Dragon had been a cornerstone of her plans. Without it, the battle had shifted into uncertainty.

But—

“I can still salvage this.”

She exhaled, then inhaled.

From the fading remnants of the Mirage Dragon’s body, Hei Mu dragged forth its shadow, forcing it into herself. The black miasma coiled around her like living veins, sinking into her skin.

And then—

She turned to the empty husk that was once her father.

“Rest, Father.”

With a single motion of her hand, she pulled forth his essence, consuming it whole.

Power surged through her veins like wildfire. Her cultivation erupted beyond its limit, crashing into the Eighth Realm—the Heart Path.

Unstable. Chaotic. Terrifying.

Her back arched as she screamed, her body warping under the weight of so much raw energy. A serpentine tail burst from her spine, flickering between corporeal and ethereal. Her wings darkened, taking on a black glass-like sheen, reflecting the dying battlefield like shattered memories.

And her body—

Exposed.

Every fiber of her being was laid bare under the waning moonlight, her very existence reshaped into something beyond human.

She panted, her gaze locking onto Da Wei.

A slow, creeping smile curled her lips.

“You’re done for, Da Wei.”

With a flick of her wrist, she raised her scythe, a pitch-black orb forming at its tip—small, unassuming, yet so dense with death that the air itself trembled around it.

One attack.

That was all it would take to erase him from existence.

But—

Hei Mu was not without mercy.

“Surrender.” Her voice rang clear, carrying over the battlefield. “I will grant you the honor of kneeling before me. If you do, I may even spare your life.”

Da Wei merely tilted his head.

And then—

He laughed.

“Why are you so confident?” asked the arrogant man.

Hei Mu’s grin widened.

She raised a hand, gesturing to the horizon.

“Because I have an army.”

As if on cue—

The undead stirred.

The Eternal Undeath Cult moved as one, their eyes glowing with eerie malice. The battlefield shuddered under their combined killing intent, an overwhelming tide of bodies and rotting souls prepared to drown any resistance.

And yet—

Da Wei simply let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Finally,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders. “You stopped clucking that stupid song.”

Hei Mu froze.

Her smug satisfaction wavered as she finally took in the state of the battlefield.

The Shadow Clan cultivators—her kin—

They were—

Crying. Trembling.

A broken mess of bodies, their spirits shattered by the twisted lull of her Shadow Song.

A twinge of something foreign stirred in her chest.

Doubt?

No—impossible.

She clenched her fists, pushing the thought away.

But then—

A whisper.

A hum.

Lips curled and stretched on her own cheeks, ones that were not hers.

And from them, the Shadow Song began anew.

Hei Mu’s breath caught.

Her own face—singing back at her.

The Shadow Clan cultivators, still broken, still shaking—

Yet they sang.

Their own mouths moved against their will, their expressions twisted in horror as they became her chorus.

Hei Mu grinned.

“I have an army…” She spread her arms, her scythe glowing with death.

“And a song.”

She narrowed her eyes at Da Wei.

“What do you have?”

For the first time, Da Wei’s eyes darkened.

And then—

He whispered.

“Lion’s Courage.”

A flicker of silver light. Multiple times, scattering to the others.

“Bless.”

A second, golden and silver radiance.

“Shield of Faith.”

The battlefield erupted.

Flashes of holy light surged across the Shadow Clan cultivators. Silver and gold burned away the despair, wrapping around their bodies like armor, like shields, like hope.

Hei Mu’s grin faltered.

And then—

Da Wei spoke.

“I have an army too…”

He took a step forward.

And then, softly—

“And a Lion’s Roar.”

The air shattered.

The very qi of the battlefield shook as Da Wei’s voice boomed like divine thunder, shaking souls to their core.

“STEEL YOUR HEARTS! EMBRACE YOUR DUTIES!”

The Shadow Clan cultivators stirred.

“TODAY—”

Their hands tightened around their weapons.

“WE EITHER DIE WITH HONOR—”

The despair in their eyes faded.

“OR WE BECOME VICTORIOUS!”

A war cry erupted, shaking the very heavens.

Hei Mu hissed, baring her teeth.

But Da Wei merely raised his hand.

And with a single flick of his wrist—

A longsword materialized in his grasp, its silver sheen radiant against the darkened sky.

For the first time—

Hei Mu felt cold.

And then—

Da Wei murmured.

A whisper—almost lost amidst the battle cries.

“His Lordship was not alone in his journey to gain more strength.”

The sword trembled.

“Witness my evolved—”

A golden light ignited.

“Heavenly Punishment.”

And with a single leap—

Da Wei appeared right in front of her face.

Hei Mu’s pupils contracted.

Da Wei’s blade gleamed with divine radiance, its sheer presence suffocating.

He was too fast. Too decisive. Too dangerous.

She had to end this now.

"Dimensional Slash!"

With a cry that tore from the depths of her soul, Hei Mu swung her scythe, slashing through the black orb at its tip.

A slash beyond the constraints of reality manifested.

A cut that could sever anything—flesh, qi, space, time.

Invincible. Absolute.

But then—

Da Wei exhaled.

His stance shifted.

And in the quietest whisper—

"Flash Parry."

His sword moved.

Not with force, nor with power—

But with precision.

A single, elegant movement, and the Dimensional Slash—the attack that could cut anything—was deflected.

Hei Mu’s mind reeled.

Impossible!

Her cultivation was higher! Her technique was absolute!

Yet Da Wei had brushed it aside like nothing.

Her chest heaved.

But there was no time to process it.

Because—

“Thunderous Smite.”

A surge of lightning coiled around Da Wei’s blade—no, not just lightning—heavenly wrath given form.

Hei Mu flickered away.

But—

Too late.

Her arm—the one wielding her scythe—

Severed.

Pain exploded through her body.

Her blood—thick, dark, corrupted—splattered against the ground.

She screamed, clutching at the wound, trying to stop the surge of her escaping essence.

And then—

Da Wei’s hand closed around her scythe.

She reached for it instinctively—

But before she could even form a thought, the weapon vanished into his Storage Ring.

No.

No!

Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps.

She couldn’t feel it.

Not just the connection severed—it was gone.

Her artifact. The scythe blessed by her master. The vessel of her Shadow Song.

Gone.

This couldn’t be real.

This couldn’t be happening!

She staggered back, trembling.

And then—

Da Wei raised his sword.

For the first time—with both hands.

His voice, steady. Unshaken. Absolute.

“Divine Smite.”