Realm Walker

The gambling table exploded under the young man's savage kick.

Hearing the splintering destruction behind him, Shenle broke out in a cold sweat. A Musician had no close combat abilities to speak of. If he had to face a same level Enchanting Demon, he'd be dead within ten exchanges.

He could still hear the sounds of heavy, meaty impacts, one after another. Shenle looked toward the sound and saw the berserk Nocturnal Specter pounding Seven Blades' face with sledgehammer-like fists, caving in his skull and pulping flesh and bone into a mess of red and white. Seven Blades' legs twitched with each blow. His head was an unrecognizable ruin.

Dead? Just like that? A Level 3 Fire Sage, dead just like that? Shenle's face darkened, the shock hitting him like a physical blow. Without an instant's hesitation, he pulled a pendant from inside his shirt. It was a deep blue gemstone, alive with tiny serpents of electricity writhing in its depths. He pinched it between two fingers, and the gem shattered with a sharp pop.

By then, Kou Beiyue had already circled behind him. His bayonet thrust straight and true toward Shenle's heart.

Bzzt, bzzt...

Blinding arcs of electricity danced through the air, leaping across the bayonet, leaping across Kou Beiyue's body. His frame went rigid. Every strand of his short hair stood on end.

Shenle whipped around, condensing a crackling lightning whip in his palm, and lashed out with full force.

Crimson runes ignited in Kou Beiyue's pupils.

Shenle's expression went blank.

Kou Beiyue's legs coiled and he lunged, driving the bayonet forward. Just as the blade was about to pierce his enemy's chest, Shenle's body transformed into a blinding bolt of lightning that streaked across the room, reappearing six meters away. His long lightning whip came crashing down a beat later.

Kou Beiyue threw himself sideways in a diving roll as the whip split the floor with a crisp, explosive report.

Shenle's body rose into the air. Every strand of his hair stood on end. A lightning-shaped rune had seared itself into the skin between his brows. He looked like a thunder god descended upon the mortal world.

He flicked the whip with cold indifference, forcing Kou Beiyue to roll, leap, and scramble in a humiliating retreat, like a beast tamer toying with an animal that refused to be broken.

"Hmph!" Shenle's voice was ice. "A mere Level 3 Enchanting Demon, and you dare barge into the dragon's lair? Who gave you the courage?"

The single-use item he had crushed came from a foreign class. That class had a narrow range of abilities, but it possessed a killing art that struck terror into practitioners of every other profession: lightning!

The tradeoff was equally singular. While the item was active, his own Musician skills were completely sealed.

The item was a Saint-tier item, and had a duration of fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was more than enough to kill two Level 3 Walkers, or hold out until Chi Yue'an arrived.

He had been saving this item, hoping he'd never need it. But this little brat had brought along a Level 3 Nocturnal Specter of horrifying power. In less than three minutes of combat, the Specter had killed Seven Blades outright.

Shenle turned his gaze toward Zhang Yuanqing and pronounced his sentence with imperial authority. "You're going to die too."

Kou Beiyue's expression was grim. He had never seen this kind of lightning manipulation before, but the crushing pressure and devastating lethality left little room for doubt. This was power belonging to a Saint.

He had assumed that one Enchanting Demon and one Nocturnal Specter would be more than enough to sweep a place like Bronze Sparrow Tower clean without incident. He hadn't anticipated a trump card like this.

I've failed again. Every single operation fails. I really am the unluckiest person alive. Frustration and fury warred inside him. It felt as though fate itself had declared him its enemy. Why did the heavens keep favoring the wicked?

Kou Beiyue shot a glance at "Yuan Ting," his eyes silently asking whether they should retreat. To his astonishment, the Taiyi Sect's Nocturnal Specter showed no trace of panic whatsoever. His face was perfectly calm.

"Oh, pulling out the trump card, are we?" Zhang Yuanqing remarked as he booted aside the corpse at his feet. His eyes were black as ink. His voice was flat, almost bored. "Good. Then I can go all out without worrying."

"You?" Shenle floated above them, his lip curling. "What else have you got?"

Zhang Yuanqing didn't bother responding with words. Under the watchful gazes of all three remaining Walkers, he clamped the yanagiba knife between his teeth, pulled on the Thug's Gauntlets, donned the black-framed glasses, produced the Demon-subduing Awl and Straw Doll, summoned the Red Dancing Shoes, and finally, before their stunned eyes, shook out a black ceremonial robe embroidered with flames and waves.

Kou Beiyue's jaw dropped. Is he a walking treasury? How are such wealthy people in this world?!

Qingsong and Shenle stared at the arsenal and felt the overwhelming urge to curse.

"One minute," Zhang Yuanqing declared. "That's all I need to finish you."

He tossed the Yin Yang Spell Robe into the air. The robe unfurled itself and hung suspended. The taiji fish symbol on its back began to rotate, one half sending translucent currents of water rippling outward while tongues of fierce flame erupted from the other. Water and fire balanced each other perfectly, forming a massive millstone-shaped formation that covered a thirty meter radius.

Zhang Yuanqing's body vanished.

Whoosh!

Kou Beiyue found himself in the unfortunate position of standing squarely within the fire zone. The hem of his clothes ignited instantly.

He grimaced and slapped at the flames, his skin already blistering and turning an angry red. If an Enchanting Demon's body fared this badly, the Wood Demon had it far worse. Qingsong rolled across the burning floor, screaming in agony, scrambling toward a window to escape.

Thrum!

An invisible wall of force blocked his path.

Shenle's brow twitched when he realized there was no escape, and his earlier confidence dimmed, but he did not panic. The single-use item gave him a solid foundation. He just needed to hold out for fifteen minutes, and Chi Yue'an would arrive no matter what.

"Parlor tricks," Shenle declared, gazing down at the formation of water and fire with cold contempt.

"Whether they're parlor tricks or not, you'll find out soon enough," a voice said.

Within the spectral currents of water, a figure condensed from liquid took shape. It held a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, and wore a pair of black-framed glasses on its face.

"This yellow haired punk is really full of himself. I'm pissed," growled the same voice from the other side.

Within the raging flames, a figure forged from fire slowly materialized. The fire avatar wore the Thug's Gauntlets and gripped the Demon-subduing Awl and the Straw Doll.

The water avatar ignored its counterpart and raised one palm gently upward. Spectral currents of water enveloped the patrons still trapped in the hall, including Master Wu, and swept them into the water zone.

The water was comparatively gentler. The translucent currents wouldn't cause suffocation, and ordinary people could survive within them. If left in the fire zone, they would have been charred to cinders within moments.

Once the water avatar finished its task, the fire avatar could barely contain itself. It thrust the Straw Doll forward and warped the crude little effigy's face into a likeness of Shenle. It pinched the doll's head between two fingers and squeezed.

Shenle, still suspended in mid-air, shrieked as a cloud of black miasma engulfed his face. His eyes filled with boundless rage and madness as his sanity corroded and collapsed, reducing him to a feral beast driven by nothing but raw emotion. He abandoned all strategy and hurled himself at the fire avatar.

The water avatar used the Eye of the Beholder to predict his trajectory and squeezed the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

The bullets missed. Driven by pure instinct, Shenle transformed into a bolt of lightning and struck at the fire avatar, dodging the shots from behind with his electrical form and slamming into the fiery figure.

The fire avatar smashed both fists together against its palms.

BOOM!

The fire avatar blew apart, its body scattering in a dazzling burst of flame. Shenle caught the full force of the explosion. He was a Musician, and the lightning hadn't reinforced his body. The blast left him critically wounded.

Bang! Bang!

The water avatar opened fire without hesitation, laying down a blanket of covering shots. With a crackle, Shenle's body dissolved into an electrical current, letting the bullets pass through empty air once more.

Zhang Yuanqing had never encountered this sort of speed before. Even with his mind shattered into chaos, relying on nothing but instinct, Shenle had evaded both volleys.

All this time, the Red Dancing Shoes had been chasing the horse-faced youth, hammering his body with merciless, brutal blows. Already severely burned, the Wood Demon's screams faded from shrieks to whimpers as he clung to life through sheer regenerative ability alone.

"Oi! Kou Beiyue, you piece of shit, got any way to cripple this guy for real?" the fire avatar barked in its usual belligerent tone as it reformed itself.

Before Kou Beiyue could answer, the fire avatar launched into a string of profanity. "You useless main character, you're all talk and no action. This bastard's too fast. There's no way I'm killing him in one minute."

"Blood," Kou Beiyue said. "I need his blood."

"Easy enough!" the water avatar declared as it stomped one foot down. The taiji fish on the back of the Yin Yang Spell Robe rotated, and the zones swapped positions. Spectral water surged in, layer upon layer, engulfing Shenle.

Water had no fixed shape, yet it had substance. Inside the water zone, there was nowhere to hide. No amount of speed mattered.

The water avatar snapped its fingers. A tendril of spectral water swept across Shenle's body and drew out the blood that had already seeped from his burns. Guided by the water avatar, the blood drifted down toward Kou Beiyue.

The Enchanting Demon caught it in one outstretched palm as he pulled a small bronze sculpture from his Inventory with his other hand. It depicted a snarling figure clutching a short knife.

He smeared the blood across the sculpture, set it on the ground, dropped to both knees, and slammed his forehead against the floor in a deep kowtow.

The bronze sculpture's eyes blazed with crimson light, and it slashed its miniature blade downward.

Across the room, Shenle screamed. His chest erupted in a spray of blood mist, revealing a ghastly wound that cut all the way to bone.

That single slash broke him. Seizing the opening, the water avatar followed up without mercy. Bullets punched into Shenle's body one after another, blowing gaping holes through him.

His body crumpled to the ground, and the lightning rune between his brows flickered and died.

He was gone.

The water avatar turned to the fire avatar and said in a frigid tone, "Idiot, stop gawking. The Wood Demon's still alive."

"Oh, right!"

The fire avatar snapped to attention, summoned a blazing flame blade, strode forward, and took the horse-faced youth's head off with a single stroke. The wound at the base of his neck was scorched black. Not a single drop of blood escaped.

Their work done, the water and fire avatars dissipated without ceremony as the spectral water and searing flames flowed back into the robe.

Zhang Yuanqing's body reappeared. He caught the falling robe and returned every item except the Red Dancing Shoes to his inventory.

Kou Beiyue stared at Zhang Yuanqing, his body covered in burn marks, his voice barely above a whisper. "They're... they're all dead..."

He's too strong. Too absurdly strong. Which elder's son is this? Which Taiyi Sect patriarch sired him? No ordinary Spirit Realm Walker could possibly be this loaded.

Zhang Yuanqing slowly exhaled a turbid breath. The fury that had been building inside him all night had found a measure of release.

"Stop wasting time," he said to his companion. "Bring Master Wu here."

"What about you?" Kou Beiyue asked.

Zhang Yuanqing glared at him. "Don't ask questions!"

I don't have time, because I'm about to have to start awkward dancing, he thought to himself, feeling the bitter sting of shame.

"Okay... okay..."

Kou Beiyue scanned the unconscious bodies, quickly located Master Wu, and strode over to him.

At that very moment, layer upon layer of flame surged through the window from outside, smashing through the glass. The flames exploded outward and solidified into the shape of a man in a white suit.

Chi Yue'an had arrived.

Zhang Yuanqing and Kou Beiyue's faces darkened simultaneously, their eyes glowing with killing intent and fury.