Realm Walker

Li Xianzong's heart sank. A terrible premonition clawed at his gut. Without a word, he immediately retreated, trying to escape this bizarre zone.

Woong!

A transparent barrier was blocking their retreat. They couldn't get out.

The rat man hammered his fists against the barrier, sending translucent ripples cascading outward. "Damn it, we can't get out! We're trapped!"

Li Xianzong's face darkened, and he drove his butterfly knife into the barrier. The tip of the blade generated rapid, frantic waves, compared to the sluggish ripples caused by the rat man's punches, but the barrier held fast all the same.

The veins in Li Xianzong's temples bulged as the muscles in his arm tightened even further. Frenzied waves rippled across the barrier's surface.

After several seconds of futile effort, he withdrew the knife, his expression grimmer than ever. "There's no way out."

At those words, the rat man's composure finally cracked. His beady eyes darted around frantically, teeth bared in a snarl.

"Yuanshi Tianzun! Come out!" he hollered. "Come out, you bastard! Do you think this little cage can hold us? How long can you keep this up?"

They had fought tooth and nail to kill the dungeon boss, clawed their way through a vicious battle for the staff, and finally stood on the brink of victory, only for another curveball to come flying at them. It was enough to shatter any individuals' composure.

A soft chuckle drifted from the center of the water-covered region. "Heh heh... Cage you? You've got it wrong. Caging you isn't the point."

Li Xianzong and the rat man followed the voice and saw a mass of ethereal water rising from the heart of that zone, coalescing into a humanoid shape. Its features were faintly recognizable as Yuanshi Tianzun's. The water figure held a large-caliber handgun in one hand and wore a pair of black-framed glasses.

Then from the opposite side of the arena came the same voice. "Killing you is the point. So, are you ready to get on your knees and beg?"

Li Xianzong and the rat man whipped their heads around to find a blazing humanoid figure standing at the center of the flaming region, its body flickering and writhing with flame. In its hands were the Demon-subduing Awl and the Bloodthirsty Blade.

Twin avatars of water and fire!

At the feet of the fire avatar sat a black-shelled speaker, blaring out a song full of dramatic fervor. "You're just like a flame, a roaring fire that warms my soul. You're just like a flame, a blazing light that illuminates my world..."

The water avatar began, "Li Xianzong, I told you before..."

The fire avatar took over. "... Isn't it possible that today, the one getting on his knees and begging..."

"... will be you?!" the water avatar finished.

What Zhang Yuanqing felt at that moment was extraordinary. He possessed two bodies and two complete sets of perception, yet he felt no dissonance whatsoever. It was as though he had been born with two forms.

The only thing strange about the whole affair was that his consciousness had split into two, with very distinct temperaments. One half was combative and hot-tempered, while the other was cold and caustic.

Also, while in avatar form, he couldn't open his Inventory. Items he had already drawn could still be used, but anything left inside was effectively sealed away.

Without another word, Li Xianzong raised the staff high, the gemstone at its tip radiating a dim, oppressive halo.

Both avatars stood at a distance, perfectly still.

The fire avatar laughed. "Useless."

"Curses don't work on me," the water avatar declared flatly.

All emotion drained from Li Xianzong's face. The arrogance was gone, and so was the swagger. The hand gripping his butterfly knife trembled from sheer force.

"Impossible!" screamed the rat man "If you had an item like this, then why didn't you use it before? This can't be real!"

He still refused to accept what was happening.

The water avatar raised its gun, aimed it at the hunchbacked rat man, and pulled the trigger. The rat man recoiled in terror, dropping low and throwing himself sideways, but the ethereal currents that surged around him from every direction were like invisible shackles, pushing into him and pinning him down, locking his body firmly in place.

"Damn it!" the rat man yelped. His body writhed like a fish, and his slick, oily fur helped him to slip free of the currents' grip. At the very last instant, he managed to dodge both lethal rounds.

"Oh? A water rat, are we?" observed the fire avatar.

The fire avatar let out a cold laugh and stomped its foot.

The Yin Yang Spell Robe hanging in the sky rotated, and the water and fire halves swapped positions. Li Xianzong and the rat man found themselves in the region of blazing fire instead.

Hiss...

The rat man's fur began to smoke, releasing the acrid stench of burning hair. He squealed in agony, his shrieks sharp and piercing.

The fire avatar vanished without a sound, using Fire Walk to reappear behind the rat man. The Bloodthirsty Blade swept upward, arcing toward his hunched back.

Li Xianzong lunged forward two steps and cracked his staff down hard on the fire avatar's wrist. The flaming arm exploded on impact, sending the Bloodthirsty Blade tumbling through the air.

Bang, bang, bang...

From across the formation, the water avatar swiveled and fired round after round, each bullet tracing a dark crimson arc through the air. The suppressive fire forced Li Xianzong to duck and dodge.

The fire avatar's arm reformed. Rather than retrieving the Bloodthirsty Blade, it plunged its hand into the raging inferno and pulled out a blazing longsword radiating intense heat, then brought it crashing down.

The rat man was nimble enough to spring away on his powerful hind legs, narrowly escaping the killing stroke.

Before he could even feel relief, he heard the crack of gunfire. Pain tore through his lower abdomen as bullets ripped through his tough hide, blasting two gruesome wounds into his flesh.

The water avatar, wearing the Eye of the Observer, had predicted his movements.

The fire avatar followed up seamlessly, stepping forward and slashing the flame sword upward in a vicious arc. A blinding burst of fire erupted across the rat man's stomach.

He curled up in agony, but there was no blood. The searing heat of the sword had cauterized the external wound shut. Even so, his internal organs had been charred nearly to cinders. Death was inevitable.

"Impossible..." a bitter, defiant whisper rasped its way out of the rat man's throat as the light in his eyes slowly faded to nothing.

Li Xianzong's eyes went wide as he watched his partner fall. As if struck by some overwhelming impulse, he instinctively summoned the carved wooden box, snapped the lid open, and let its fog blanket the area.

The fire avatar threw back its head and laughed with wild, brazen arrogance. "Useless! This is my turf. My home court."

The water avatar said coldly, "Water serves as my eyes, and fire is that guy's breath."

The words had barely landed before both avatars struck simultaneously. The water avatar fired into a precise location within the fog while the fire avatar lobbed fireball after searing fireball, each detonating with the force of a high-explosive grenade.

The shockwaves blew holes in the fog, briefly revealing Li Xianzong's silhouette. He was kneeling on the ground, wearing his filthy, reeking coat. The bullets had missed him cleanly, and the explosive concussions had been absorbed by the dark aura radiating from his coat.

Li Xianzong recalled the wooden box to his inventory and summoned a stick of white chalk instead, drawing a circle around himself on the ground. It was his last resort.

A pillar of earthy golden light descended from above, enveloping him. Seconds later, the light dispersed, and he remained exactly where he was.

A flicker of despair flashed across Li Xianzong's eyes.

At that moment, the fire avatar charged in, bringing the flame sword down in a devastating overhead slash, waves of heat rolling ahead of the blow.

Li Xianzong had no choice but to abandon his Prayer. He bent backward, narrowly dodging the flame blade, and in the same motion, crimson runes blazed in his eyes.

The fire avatar froze, and an instant later, its body detonated. The savage, superheated shockwave slammed into Li Xianzong's chest.

Li Xianzong's face went white as chalk, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

The fire avatar reformed a distance away and crowed, "Good thing I reacted quickly and blew myself up first!"

"Yuanshi Tianzun, you... How did you find this item?" Li Xianzong ground out through clenched teeth.

He could not accept that a rookie he had once steamrolled was putting on a performance in this dungeon that left even him burning with envy.

"Running dungeons requires you to use your brain! All you know is fighting and killing. Back at Pingtai Hospital, you were able to bully me because my level was low. Did you actually think you were some kind of powerhouse? I've accomplished more in two weeks than you have in over half a year. What the hell are you?" the hot-tempered fire avatar spat.

A flash of rage crossed Li Xianzong's face, but beneath it was a surging undercurrent of helpless defeat.

Bang! Bang!

The water avatar fired with clinical precision, forcing Li Xianzong into a desperate roll.

"Idiot," it scolded its other half with a sneer. "Why are you wasting time talking to him? Just kill him already. The Demon-subduing Awl's purification power requires a blood sacrifice, and you don't have a body of flesh and blood anymore. What's the point of holding it? Throw it away."

"Good point, good point!" the fire avatar replied as it tossed the Demon-subduing Awl aside without a second thought. "Switch sides."

The water avatar stomped its foot. The formation rotated again, placing Li Xianzong inside the domain of churning water. Invisible, surging undercurrents pushed against him from every direction, instantly crippling Li Xianzong's agility.

"You handle the shooting!" the water avatar said as it tossed the gun and glasses across the divide.

It clenched both fists. With a great rushing roar, the ethereal currents converged on Li Xianzong from all sides, pinning him in place.

At the same time, the water avatar skated across the surface, rocketing toward Li Xianzong. Halfway there, it leaped up, driving its knee forward.

Held in place and unable to dodge, Li Xianzong sank his weight into his heels and braced the staff horizontally across his chest.

The water avatar shattered itself against Li Xianzong's torso, drawing a pained grunt from the Enchanting Demon. On the opposite side of the arena, the fire avatar seized the opening and squeezed the trigger in a frenzy, unleashing a hail of bullets.

Hampered by the currents around him, Li Xianzong's reactions were a beat too slow. He evaded most of the rounds, but one punched clean through his right chest. His face went white, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans erupted across his forehead.

"Let me give you something really fun!" the water avatar announced.

It snapped its fingers, and a few meters away, the river erupted in towering geysers, surging upward like snow-white lions and pale dragons.

The water avatar absorbed the river water and swelled into a three-meter-tall colossus, wrapping Li Xianzong in its embrace.

Bang, bang, bang...

The fire avatar hammered the trigger, pouring bullets into the target.

Dark crimson streaks flew through the air and converged on Li Xianzong, who was engulfed in water with nowhere to run. The rounds punched through the water avatar's body and slammed into him one after another, each hit blossoming in a spray of red.

Within seconds, the towering water avatar was stained scarlet.

Gurgle, gurgle...

A stream of bubbles erupted from Li Xianzong's mouth. His body was riddled with raw, bleeding craters.

His consciousness quickly began to blur. Memories flashed past as though he were watching a revolving lantern. He thought of the mother who had abandoned her husband and child. He thought of his gentle, kindhearted father, a good man who'd been trampled underfoot by a cruel world. He thought of all those bitter years the two of them had scraped through together. At the very end, those memories curdled into a searing blaze of fury and defiance.

His fading awareness surged back in one final, desperate rally. I'm going to die at his hands.

With the last shred of his will, Li Xianzong wrenched open his Inventory. The next instant, the filthy coat, the butterfly knife in his right hand, the Staff of Decay in his left, and the piece of chalk in his palm all vanished back into his Inventory.

Summoning and recalling items required nothing more than a thought.

With that done, Li Xianzong surrendered to the water that swirled around him. His head drooped lifelessly as the stream of bubbles from his mouth and nose grew sparse, then faint.

Bang!

The fire avatar put one final round through Li Xianzong's skull. Only then did the water avatar release its towering form, letting the river water crash back down.

Immediately after that, Zhang Yuanqing dismissed the formation. The taiji fish on the robe's back reversed its rotation. Tongues of fire spiraled upward, flowing into the white fish, while the ethereal currents streamed back into the black fish.

The Yin Yang Spell Robe drifted down and landed squarely on Zhang Yuanqing's shoulders.

***

In a narrow alley far from the riverside, Guan Ya and Queen sat slumped on the ground, catching their breath and recovering what strength they could. Grass Upon the Plains tended to Fire Virtue, who remained unconscious from the poison.

Li Chunfeng stood watch at the mouth of the alley.

Lotus Eater had woken up and was slowly regaining his energy. Looking at his silent teammates, their faces tight with worry, he offered an apologetic murmur.

"Sorry. I wasn't any help at all."

No one answered him. Every heart remained suspended in anxious silence. They were waiting for news. Waiting for a verdict.

At last, a familiar chime rang in their ears.

【Ding! Congratulations on completing the multiplayer Spirit Realm dungeon Yin Yang Town, No. 2273, Difficulty Rating: A. Calculating rewards...】