*Summit of Mount Hua, Monastery of Eternal Peace*
Dawn was barely breaking behind the steep peaks of Mount Hua, and this nascent light tinted the clouds with amethyst reflections that slowly stretched across the horizon. Inside the healing chamber, the air was still heavy with the scent of frosted lotus and the mixed sweat that the two occupants had left floating during the night.
Xuan BaiShe slowly sat up on the bed. He observed the sleeping silhouette of Zhi Mei. The Holy Templar, whose armor now rested neatly folded on a chair, displayed an unusual expression of peace on her face normally marked by martial discipline. Her long blonde hair was spread across the pillow like a trail of celestial light, and her eyelashes barely fluttered as she breathed deeply.
Thanks to his Omega Heart, BaiShe felt no fatigue despite the hours spent. He felt only that cold narcissistic satisfaction that inhabited him after every strategic success. By taking the saint’s virginity, he had sealed the Virgin Lotus Soul, and he knew that their destinies were now intertwined. If one died, the other would inevitably follow. For BaiShe, this was not an act of love, nor even of genuine desire. He had messed up a bit... But well, he had no intention of letting her die so it didn’t really bother him.
He leaned slightly toward her, and his breath brushed against her ear without waking her.
"Rest, Miss Mei," he murmured in a monotone voice while adjusting his monocle over his eye. The morning light reflected for a moment on the lens before disappearing.
Without making the slightest sound, he vanished into a spatial distortion that closed around him. The Sidhe remained alone on the silk bed, recovering from their intense night without even knowing she had just been left behind.
...
*Depths of the Immortal Grave*
As soon as he crossed the border of the cursed domain, BaiShe felt the Yin Qi trying to infiltrate his meridians to asphyxiate them from within. The landscape that stretched before him was only a monotonous repetition of gray ashes and bones whitened by centuries of exposure to the corrupted elements. Yet this time, he no longer needed to play the weakened young master or the naive scholar. He could finally deploy what he truly was.
A luminous signal crossed his field of vision, accompanied by a sound notification that echoed directly in his mind.
"Ding! Activation of the Primordial Devourer Physique: one hundred percent."
His silver hair immediately turned jet black, and his eyes transformed into two pits of evil purple on a black background. The transformation was total and terrifying. He no longer walked; he levitated above the ashen ground, carried by an aura of death that made the toxic mist wither itself as soon as it approached his body.
He extended his arms in front of him, and his fingers traced symbols in the corrupted air.
"Arts: Abyss of the Thousand Hungry Hands."
The space behind him tore apart with the sound of fabric being ripped. Thousands of frail arms with toothed palms burst from the dimensional rifts, and these limbs created a whirlwind of hungry flesh that extended hundreds of meters around him. BaiShe crossed the plain like an apocalyptic harvester, and no Yin entity could resist him. Every specter that dared to manifest was instantly seized by the hands of the abyss. One could distinctly hear the hiss of the death Qi being sucked in by the greedy palms, then the cracking of spiritual cores crushed by the sharp teeth that lined the inside of each hand.
In just a few hours of this methodical progression, he reached the outskirts of the Great Sealing Pagoda. The cyclopean structure stood before him, and it vibrated with such dense hatred that it seemed to pulsate like a living organ. The black stone walls oozed a viscous substance that smoked on contact with the air. BaiShe stopped two kilometers away, and he observed the divine iron chains that stretched from the top of the pagoda to the basaltic foundations sunk into the cursed earth.
He adjusted his monocle with a flick, and activated his family art.
"Art: Third Eye."
His vision instantly pierced the thick layers of Yin Qi that obscured the interior of the building. Inside the Pagoda, he saw Chong Da. The blind monk was sitting in lotus position at the center of the main hall, and his golden light fought desperately against a mass of scarlet flesh chained to the ground before him. The Ashura was there, imprisoned for millennia, and its chains creaked under the pressure of its accumulated rage.
Suddenly, a visceral roar shook the entire dimension. This cry was so powerful that it could have shattered the Dantian of a low-level expert without even touching him directly. The divine chains, eroded by millennia of concentrated resentment and hatred, began to crack one by one. The sound of the metal giving way was like a funeral knell for all those who had believed the threat sealed forever.
"This monk’s ambition has surpassed his abilities," commented BaiShe with a narcissistic smirk that revealed his white teeth. He crossed his arms behind his back and watched the spectacle with the detached eye of a theater spectator.
Before his eyes, the Ashura broke its last restraint with a powerful movement of its shoulders. The creature, a mass of red muscles three meters tall, leaped up and seized Chong Da by the neck before the latter could finish his sealing mantra. The sound of the monk’s cervical vertebrae exploding was sharp and crisp, and this crack echoed beyond the stone walls to reach BaiShe’s ears.
"Shit, he was that powerful?" BaiShe let slip, and his purple pupils dilated in surprise. His right hand involuntarily tightened on the invisible hilt of his sword.
The Ashura did not content itself with killing its prey. It opened a mouth filled with ebony fangs that seemed carved from volcanic basalt, and began to suck the essence of the Human Path directly from Chong Da’s still-warm corpse. One could see golden filaments emerging from the monk’s body and plunging into the monster’s maw.
BaiShe immediately understood that he could not let this fusion stabilize. If the Ashura completely digested the Human Path, it would become too powerful to stop. He launched himself like a black meteor straight toward the Pagoda, and his speed created a sonic boom that pulverized the ashes on the ground.
"Draconic Bone Sword."
He plunged his hand into the spatial void, and his fingers sank into a dimensional fissure before withdrawing the spinal blade. The sword crackled with tricolor energy that mixed Khao, lust Qi and his newly acquired Executor authority. Upon reaching the Ashura’s range, he delivered a massive horizontal slash that split the air with a sharp whistle.
"Arts: Myriad Illusory Swords of the Sage - Devourer Version."
A storm of black and purple blades rained down on the monster. Hundreds of virtual cuts struck the scarlet flesh from all sides. However, the Ashura reacted with a speed that defied its mass. With a lightning-fast gesture, it used its free hand to parry the blow head-on. The creature’s red skin was not even scratched by the blades charged with power. On the contrary, it absorbed the impact to accelerate its own mutation, and black veins began to run through its muscles like poisoned roots.
The Ashura’s body began to vibrate at an unbearable frequency that made the pagoda walls tremble. Under the entity’s hateful gaze, Chong Da’s remains completely liquefied and seeped into its dilated pores. The transformation was immediate and terrifying.
The Ashura’s musculature doubled in volume within seconds, and its clothes burst under the pressure of this new mass. Its hair, once dark and dirty, ignited with a black yin fire that emitted no heat but only a promise of total annihilation. Its eyes became abyssal black holes where fragments of mantras corrupted by centuries of hatred swirled. The holiness of the Human Path had just fused with the eternal hatred of the Asura Path.
"Evil Buddha..." murmured BaiShe while tightening his grip on his bone blade. His jaw clenched, and his purple pupils frantically analyzed the entity’s new energy configuration.
The entity fixed its gaze on BaiShe, and an aura of absolute superiority emanated from its new stature. The floor of the Pagoda liquefied under the pressure of its domain, and the stone transformed into a steaming mud that bubbled around its feet.
"A Dao Executor who carries the abyss within him," thundered a voice that seemed composed of millions of superimposed agony cries. This voice was not human, it was the product of all the sufferings the Ashura had inflicted and endured. "Your essence will be the first sacrifice of my new enlightenment. I will offer you in libation to the dead gods."
Without the slightest preparation, Evil Buddha thrust his right fist forward. The movement was so powerful that it created an absolute air vacuum in its wake, and one could hear the sound of the cosmos tearing apart. The punch did not only target BaiShe’s physical body. It targeted his very concept of existence, his karma accumulated over centuries of reincarnations.
BaiShe crossed his arms in front of his torso, and activated his maximum defense without the slightest hesitation.
"Primordial Chaotic Qi Explosion."
The impact was visceral and immediate. One could distinctly hear the sound of BaiShe’s forearm bones cracking under the titanic pressure of the Evil Buddha’s fist. The shock was so violent that it sent him flying through the Pagoda walls, and his body crossed hundreds of meters of solid rock before ending its course in a crater of ashes in the middle of the cursed plain. Silver blood gushed abundantly from his mouth, and this blood stained his monocle which now hung crooked on his face.
He remained for a moment lying in the crater, and his ribs cracked with each breath. Then a laugh rose from his bloodied throat.
"This fight is going to be much more delicious than expected," spat BaiShe as he slowly got up on his trembling legs. A pure psychopath’s smile stretched his lips covered in silver blood, and his purple eyes shone with an excitement he had not felt for centuries.
Before him, the Evil Buddha emerged from the ruins of the Pagoda while walking on the black flames that licked the ground without ever consuming it. The broken chains dragged behind him like dead snakes.