232 A Sky Full of Shadows

The Hollowed World was absurdly vast, so much so that even the distance between neighbors was measured by continents. Not regions, but continents! The Grand Ascension Empire laid claim to at least eight such landmasses. That alone should’ve been impressive, but in the eyes of the ancient powers scattered across this world, the Empire was still an upstart. A cub among lions.

“Master, why are we running? And who are we running from?” Hei Mao asked, his voice drifting lazily over the wind.

“To clarify,” I replied without missing a beat, “we are not running. We’re flying.”

I was perched atop a conjured Holy Sword, slicing through the skies at super speed in true xianxia fashion. Golden light shimmered beneath me as my momentum tore through cloud after cloud, my qi radiating in heat trails behind the blade. Beside me, or more accurately, barely keeping pace, was Hei Mao riding… something.

I narrowed my eyes. “Where did you even get that cat?”

The creature he straddled was vaguely feline if one squinted hard enough, but it floated more like a possessed pillow and moved like an uncanny shadow. Wisps of darkness rippled from its fur, if you could call that fur.

“I refined it myself,” Hei Mao said proudly, patting the abomination’s back. “From the thousands of shadows I devoured.”

I frowned. “That’s very edgy... and emo...”

He blinked. “Huh? But… the cat isn’t edgy. It’s actually quite fluffy.”

As if to confirm his claim, the thing turned its head toward me, rotating upside down without turning its body. It grinned, revealing neat, triangular fangs beneath a pitch-black face. Its soulless eyes met mine, and for a second, I felt like it was trying to eat my memory of breakfast.

“…Hei Mao, are you sure that’s even a cat?”

“Nope.”

“Right. Never mind.”

I sighed, redirecting my qi to increase speed. “So, why are we running… sorry, flying… again? To answer your question, it is because we’re in a hurry. And who are we running from? Time, maybe? There. Question answered.”

Hei Mao, never one to let up, asked again, “Why do we have to… hurry?”

My fingers twitched in irritation. “Because time is of the essence, Hei Mao.”

He tilted his head. “But why?”

I was starting to lose patience. There were too many things weighing on my mind. I needed to locate David_69, reclaim Joan from the Unnamed City, reunite with the others… and, above all, I had to return to the False Earth. My family there, unlike here, was completely vulnerable. No cultivation, no divine protection, nothing but the soft flesh of mortals in a world that had long since turned unnatural.

And then there was Da Ji…

“Huh? Did you feel that, Mao?”

Without warning, everything changed.

I stopped abruptly, halting the Holy Sword mid-flight. I gripped it with one hand, redirected my power, and activated Zealot’s Stride. With a flash of divine light, I zipped above the clouds, vanishing into the mist. Hei Mao followed, dismissing his… cat… and blending into the fog.

“We’re surrounded, Master…” he said softly, the tension suddenly cutting through his earlier humor.

“How strong do you think they are?” I asked.

“Strong enough that their shadows covered the entire continent,” he murmured. “I would’ve noticed sooner if their presence weren’t so pervasive. My Shadow Sight tells me this might be a fight we can’t just walk or fly away from.”

“Any recommendations?”

He shrugged. “How about we punch them?”

I couldn’t help but let my lips twitch upward. “I’d love to do just that. But let’s try talking first. Just in case.”

We descended slowly, stepping down through the mist and touching barren earth. The land was dry, cracked, and vast. There were no trees, boulders, or cover. Just an open, empty battlefield waiting to happen. I gathered quintessence in my throat, letting my voice echo with layered resonance.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” I called, my tone deceptively light. “This personage would love to have a talk with you. And maybe a little tea.”

“No tea,” came a voice from above.

I looked up. A figure emerged from the clouds, descending like a drifting feather. His silver hair was wild, his expression calm and vaguely amused.

“Long time no see, Da Wei.”

I scoffed. “It’s Jia Sen, Sect Master of the Cloud And Mist, Yet Never United Sect… You’d think I’d forget a name that stupid?” I recognized the stealth technique immediately. It was the same school Shouquan used. Light-walking, breath-hiding, and spirit-voiding. A shadow among mist.

Jia Sen lightly touched down across from me and waved dismissively. “Oh, please. Cloud And Mist, Yet Never United Sect was too long. Just call it the Cloud Mist Sect, like most would. I have to admit, I am flattered you remember me.”

“Flattered?” I echoed, incredulous. “Please, you don’t want to be flattered… That’s not why you are here, aren’t you?”

“You jest,” Jia Sen said, stroking his beard. “Of course, I am here to be flattered.”

I figured I’d ease the tension with small talk. My tone was light, but a thread of caution ran beneath every word. “How’s your daughter, old man? I can feel Jia Yun’s presence around here somewhere… she’s not exactly subtle. What about Pan Xia? That cranky old coot from your Riverfall branch sect… he still alive or did he finally get sealed inside one of his own formations?”

Jia Sen chuckled dryly. “Talkative, just like my daughter said… You really don’t change, do you?”

He let the silence stretch for just a moment before adding, “Do you know what people call you now? After you sundered the Summit?” His voice lowered into a purr of mock reverence. “They now call you the Unholy Taint.”

I winced. “Okay, that’s... not flattering. Not even a little.”

Still, I dropped the levity and straightened my posture. My spiritual pressure radiated just enough to make the air hum. “You don’t want to pick this fight, buddy. I’m at the Eleventh Realm now. And so is my companion here.”

Jia Sen didn’t flinch. “And I am only at the Tenth Realm. So yes, you’re right. I should be scared.” He met my eyes and gave a smile that didn’t reach his cheeks. “But here’s the thing… I’m not here to pick a fight.”

I let out a slow breath, too aware of the lie. Still, a part of me relaxed, just enough to listen.

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

Jia Sen folded his arms behind his back and looked to the sky, as if searching for the right words. “I want to know how you reached the Eleventh Realm… without losing your mind.”

I exchanged a glance with Hei Mao. His face mirrored my confusion.

“Is this about the Hollowed World curse?” I asked. “The one that drives everyone who attempts the Eleventh Realm into madness?”

Jia Sen gave a curt nod. “So you do know.”

I shrugged and gave the answer straight. “I broke through off-world. The curse is bound to the Hollowed World’s spiritual law, so it didn’t take root. I’m a loophole in your tragedy. Now, if that’s all, I’ll be on my merry way.”

“No,” Jia Sen said.

The air shifted. The wind stilled. The soil beneath my feet felt suddenly heavier.

“I said I didn’t come here to pick a fight,” he continued. “But I never said I didn’t come here to kill you.”

I scoffed, not bothering to hide the amusement in my voice. “Buddy, trying to fight me is one thing, but killing me? That’s a bold claim. Praytell, how exactly are you planning to pull that off?”

Hei Mao chimed in. “With a flick of my finger, I could disable you.”

“And with a flick of mine,” I added, “you’ll be nothing but dust in the wind.”

Jia Sen laughed, a deep, throat-wrenching sound that rang too sharp for amusement. “And yet the truly arrogant ones here… are the two of you.”

He made a hand seal with a graceful flourish, and then space tore with a sigh.

Nine women stepped forward from thin air. They were garbed in flowing robes of white and crimson, each adorned with a fox mask etched in ink-black patterns. Their presence was like needles pricking the edges of my soul.

I narrowed my focus and honed in. Jia Yun. She was among them, no doubt. I could feel her qi signature fluttering faintly, hiding behind layers of suppression. “I admit it,” I said. “I’m impressed. They're all Ninth to Tenth Realm, easily. But if this is your trump card, I’ll just say it—”

“Master,” Hei Mao interrupted, his tone darker than usual. “Their shadows… they’re growing bigger.”

The women trembled. Then, slowly, the spiritual presence around them evolved. What had once been power at the edge of perfection now surged forward in an unnatural twist. Each of them radiated not just strength, but the unmistakable pressure of the Eleventh Realm.

I narrowed my eyes. “We’ll be fine,” I said calmly. “We're not just in the realm of the Perfect Immortal. We’ve stepped beyond that… to the True Perfect Immortal. The Ascended Immortal Soul realm.”

That’s when it happened.

The fox-masked women began to scream.

Not the kind born of fear, but the wrenching shriek of souls being twisted. From their stomachs, chains burst outward. It was rusted, black, and steaming with shadow qi. They whipped through the air and smashed violently against Jia Sen, and he didn’t dodge. He didn’t resist.

He absorbed them.

“Be awed,” he said, his voice reverberating with something ancient, “at the shadow of an Immortal Beast.”

I didn’t wait. I flung my Holy Sword, igniting it with Thunderous Smite, the blade howling through the air as divine lightning rippled in its wake. It struck true, aimed clean at Jia Sen’s neck.

But the impact didn’t even leave a scratch.

The sword bounced back, flung like a toy, repelled by a wall of plasma energy that shimmered and cracked with cosmic malice.

Jia Sen’s skin split down his chest. Not from blood, but from power bursting out of him, lightless, pulsating, and alive.

“Yin Summon: Nine-Tailed Beast of Calamity.”

His body convulsed, tearing apart like paper. From the rift in his flesh emerged a nightmare, a monstrous fox, nine tails lashing violently behind it. Each tail writhed like a living serpent, covered in burning inscriptions and weeping shadows. Its fur was the color of eclipse-light, and from its maw dripped energy that twisted the laws of reality around it.

Its eyes opened, twin voids without a bottom.

I felt the temperature of the world drop. Not just cold, but absence. A void of meaning.

And I whispered to myself, “Well… shit.”

The nine-tailed Immortal Beast reared its head and let loose a roar that cracked the sky. It wasn’t sound. It was force and pure will spilling from its open mouth like black thunder. The pressure alone cratered the ground beneath us and shattered the clouds above. My Holy Sword vibrated violently, resisting the instinct to deconstruct itself and flee back into my soul.

My limbs were ready. My spirit, less so.

Beside me, Hei Mao squinted at the monstrosity like he was reading the price tag on a dish he couldn’t afford. “Uuh… Master? That’s a [Level 20] Ascended Soul…”

I blinked. “Are you for real?”

“Oh, it’s real,” Hei Mao said gravely, pointing at the fox’s swirling tails. “That thing has like twenty layers of immortality.”

I turned my head slightly. “How accurate do you think you are?”

He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the beast. “I spent a lot of time in the Underworld, Master, remember? I know how to count layers of immortality. That’s definitely a [Level 20] Ascended Soul.”

The nine-tailed creature took a single step forward, and the world screamed beneath its weight. Lightning inverted. Rivers in the distance turned black. Even I flinched at the sight of this monstrosity.

I sighed, conjuring my Holy Sword back into my hand.

“Suggestions?”

“How about we run?”

“...”

The continent began to shatter.

Mountains crumbled like stale bread, breaking apart into dust and crashing down into deep valleys. Entire ridgelines collapsed, and forests vanished beneath waves of frost and void-light. The nine-tailed beast grew larger still, its form swelling until it dwarfed even the tallest peaks, cloaked in rolling white mist and trailing ruin in its wake. Each movement of its limbs tore at the sky, and each flick of its tail dragged a scar across the land.

Hei Mao and I soared high above the devastation, weaving through a storm of qi beams, each one thick as a city wall, burning with energy drawn from powerful laws. Where those beams landed, mountains turned to craters, and forests ignited or flash-froze into statues of ash.

Okay. I’ll admit it. I might’ve underestimated my chances here.

Firstly, I hadn’t replenished my Quintessence properly since I resurrected a whole city’s worth of people not long ago. Secondly, that fox thing had several layers of immortality over us. Stacked, refined, and harmonized. That also meant I would have to kill it at least twenty times… If I had even a bit more Quintessence, I could’ve considered hurling a Judgment Severance at it. Pin it to the ocean. Smite it until it gets bored or something.

But I didn’t. So instead, I had to keep dodging.

Hei Mao rode beside me, his familiar summoned again, the fluffy cat-thing darting between dimensions to evade the monster’s wrath. I stayed aloft with my Holy Sword, burning precious quintessence just to stay alive.

“Master,” Hei Mao said, trying to keep pace even as we twisted through the chaos. “We should go…”

I didn’t answer right away. My Divine Sense was flaring uncontrollably, feeding me every scream, dying breath, and crumbling home of this continent. My soul screamed with the agony of others, and I hated that I couldn’t stop it.

Below, the nine-tailed beast reared its massive, snow-white head. Its fur glistened like frost-touched moonlight, drifting with condensation. Mist coiled at its limbs like shackles made of fog. Nine tails danced violently behind it, each one wide as a canyon and crowned with a fox-like face, their own jaws twitching, eyes twitching. All of them shared the same expression: hunger.

The creature’s main face bore no malice and no emotion. Instead, there were only two void-like eyes that refused to reflect any light. Staring at those eyes, I could only feel dread.

“Master!?” Hei Mao’s voice cracked, sharp with panic. “We should go now!”

I didn’t blink. “Oh, we’ll go,” I said, lifting my hand. “But not until we cut a single tail off it.”

I summoned three more of my souls and cast Holy Sword again. Three souls took the shapes of three Holy Swords, orbiting around me.

Hei Mao snarled, “Don’t lose your sense of reason! If you fight now, you can only lose. The mortals—”

“Three moves,” I cut him off. “If I don’t get what I want by then, we’ll run.”

I dived.

If I left this Immortal Beast the way it was, it would annihilate the entire continent... Zealot’s Stride activated, turning me into a streak of golden light as I plunged downward. The first Holy Sword clashed against the beast’s barrier, an invisible dome of raw density. It was deflected instantly, exploding into particles.

I only had three swords left.

I gripped the second blade in hand, using Flash Parry to redirect a pulse of formless force, and followed up with Flash, narrowly dodging a geyser of frost that erupted beneath me. My skin burned from the near-miss. I cast Heavenly Punishment, and the sky blackened.

From above, a colossal golden sword materialized through the clouds, shaped from divine will. It struck the nine-tailed beast, pinning it for a heartbeat. A heartbeat was all I needed. But then the tails writhed. The fox-faces on each tail opened their mouths and released orbs of seething power, which combined into a single blinding ray.

I died.

Just like that, my body was ripped apart, burned, frozen, and shredded.

Then I returned. Divine Word: Raise flared in my core. My lungs filled again. I gasped.

Exalted Renewal surged through me. Two of my souls took the burden, easing the toll. I charged again.

With the third sword, I cleaved downward, infusing it with Blessed Weapon and Divine Smite, crashing against the creature’s leg. Lightning cracked. Thunder wept. A lash was left across the beast’s hide, but it was shallow. Not enough.

Another wave of frost answered. And beams of light. I died again. Then again. Then again.

Each time, Divine Word: Raise brought me back, ragged and splintering. I had died four times already, each more painful than the last. But I wasn’t done.

I lunged for the final strike.

Then something caught me.

Massive, wet, and cold… It was the tails. They wrapped around me with terrifying strength, each one thicker than a mountain’s base. My limbs were pinned. I couldn’t breathe.

The beast loomed above me. Its maw parted, revealing an abyss of stars inside its throat.

I didn’t panic.

I just smiled.

“Final Adjudication,” I whispered.

And divine power surged.