"KAKEK!"
The bone-chilling sound of skeletal laughter—like brittle fingernails scraping across the area—mingled with wailing screams and mocking disdain that echoed across the battlefield.
The unholy cacophony emanated from a greenish, humanoid ghost clad in tarnished, armor that seemed to absorb rather than reflect the dim light.
Spectral rust crept along the edges of its breastplate as it relentlessly swung an ethereal halberd at Ji Wuye, the weapon trailing wisps of pale green energy with each vicious arc. Despite the ferocity of the attacks—blows that came within a hair's breadth of his flesh—Ji Wuye effortlessly twisted his body.
His long, white hair—lustrous despite the grim surroundings—fluttered in the cold, eerie valley, dancing like silk ribbons caught in a spectral wind, moving with the rhythm of his agile steps.
A slight furrow appeared between his brows as the bitter cold nipped at his exposed skin.
The thick, coiling mist that blanketed the battlefield—dense enough to taste metallic on the tongue—swirled and blasted apart with each of his leaps and movements, leaving momentary silhouettes of his form suspended in the air before collapsing back together.
The fog gathered stubbornly around his ankles as though animated by malevolent purpose, wrapping tendrils around his white shoes only to be sliced through as he stepped away.
His crimson pupils, bright as freshly spilled blood, scanned the scene methodically—dilating slightly as they adjusted to capture every detail of the horde, a veritable sea of the greenish ghost army that swarmed toward him with unrelenting ferocity.
These apparitions, though immaterial and ethereal in form—so insubstantial that occasionally one could glimpse the jagged rock formations behind them—inexplicably turned their attacks tangible just as they neared him.
The transformation was mesmerizing; weapons that had been transparent solidified with a subtle ripple effect, like water crystallizing into ice. Their ghostly weapons pierced through the translucent bodies of their own comrades with a sickening, wet sound that shouldn't have been possible from incorporeal beings.
BANG!
A deafening crash rang out—resonating in Ji Wuye's chest like a war drum—as a gigantic mace studded with spectral spikes slammed into the ground, wielded by a ghost twice the size of the other.
The behemoth's jaw hung askew, broken in death, as it roared soundlessly. Yet oddly enough, once the weapon struck the earth, there was no visible effect—no cracks, no debris—only a faint echo that seemed to reverberate from another dimension.
The weapon's impact seemed only to materialize in the moments before it would reach Ji Wuye, as though it targeted him alone. The air around the mace's head distorted, like reality itself was bending to accommodate its presence in the physical world.
Through all this, Ji Wuye remained composed, his breathing steady and controlled. He weaved between attacks with the grace of a dancer, his footwork leaving barely discernible impressions in the mist ground.
'Aside from their numbers, they seem to retain fragments of their personalities,' he mused silently.
His crimson eyes flicked to the side—pupils contracting to thin vertical slits like a predator's—as he dodged another strike, the ghostly blade passing close enough that he felt the unnatural cold emanating from its edge against his cheek.
His white martial robe billowed like a ghost itself in the misty air, the fine silk fabric making a soft whispering sound as it caught the spectral currents.
Droplets of condensation gathered at the hem where it kissed the ground, only to evaporate into wispy tendrils when disturbed by his movement.
Each evasion triggered the appearance of faint, transparent screens that materialized before his vision...
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[>> FELINE REFLEXES (C) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
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[>> QUICK ADAPTATION (B) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
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========================
[>> FELINE REFLEXES (C) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
========================
...
Of course, how could Ji Wuye miss this opportunity to increase the proficiency of his skills while carefully analyzing the entire situation?
"KEKEK!"
One of the ghosts suddenly let out a spine-chilling laugh—a sound like fingernails scraping across glass that reverberated painfully in Ji Wuye's inner ear—and rushed toward him.
Its face, once human, now stretched in an impossible grin that split its translucent cheeks nearly to the ears, revealing rows of jagged teeth that glinted with sickly green light.
At the same time, another ghost silently thrust its spear at Ji Wuye's back, the weapon leaving a phosphorescent trail through the mist as it moved with deadly precision.
The air around the spearhead rippled and distorted, as though reality itself protested its existence.
But, of course…
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"Now, let's test the weapon," Ji Wuye said—as his body contorted in a display of near-impossible flexibility. The vertebrae of his spine popped softly as he bent backward to the point where his back nearly touched the ground, defying human limitations.
Tendons stood out like cords along his neck. His front faced the overcast sky, obscured by dark, swirling clouds that churned like an angry sea, where countless ghostly weapons clashed in chaotic symphony above, creating flashes of spectral light that momentarily illuminated his pale features.
In the next moment, his hand moved with deliberate yet fluid precision, its motion as fluid and deadly as a serpent's strike.
The muscles in his forearm tensed and shifted beneath his skin. His fingers extended, coiling languidly—each joint adjusting its position with microscopic accuracy—before snapping around one of the weapons—the spear that had sought to pierce him from behind.
The shaft of the weapon, captured firmly in Ji Wuye's grasp. It was a sooty black, like charred wood exposed to endless flames—rough against his palm with microscopic ridges that bit into his skin.
His thumb traced over a series of small notches along one side, perhaps battle tallies from a long-forgotten conflict. Jagged, fiery-orange cracks fissured its surface, faintly glowing as though the remnants of ancient embers still smoldered within.
The spearhead, worn and asymmetrical, radiated brutality. Its edge was uneven, battered by countless conflicts—nicked and jagged where it should have been smooth, with a serrated section that appeared to have been deliberately crafted to tear flesh rather than merely pierce it.
Blackened scorch marks and reddish stains that could only be centuries-old blood spoke of unrelenting violence.
As Ji Wuye's grip tightened around the spear, the next instant, without warning, his vision wavered—blurring, fading, and then—his eyelids fluttered rapidly, pupils dilating to their maximum width as reality itself seemed to dissolve around him.
His world ignited.
Golden-orange hues consumed his vision, flooding into his consciousness like a tidal wave of fire, and his crimson pupils blazed like twin infernos within the searing light.
Ji Wuye now found himself standing in the midst of a battlefield ravaged by chaos. The air was suffocating, thick with oppressive heat that distorted the horizon in shimmering waves, while making each breath feel like inhaling through scorched cloth.
Sharp fragments of debris crunched beneath his feet, though when he looked down, he saw his feet stood cun above the actual ground—present, yet not quite corporeal in this vision.
Fine ash descended solemnly from a fiery orange sky—delicate gray snowflakes that burned to nothing upon contact with exposed skin—blanketing the barren earth like the remains of forgotten hopes.
At the center of the battlefield stood a solitary figure, a blazing sentinel amidst the carnage, standing atop a small rise of blackened earth like the last bastion of resistance.
The man's fiery red robes billowed against an unseen force—fabric snapping like battle flags in a tempest—and his face, lined with exhaustion and marked with a latticework of small scars.
‘Martial artist,’ Ji Wuye thought as his gaze shifted to the weapon in the man's grasp, one that starkly contrasted with the aged and fractured spear now held in his own hands.
That spear was a masterpiece of destruction, gleaming with a smoky crimson-black hue that seemed alive—pulsing with malevolent purpose as though it possessed a heartbeat of its own.
Encircling the spear was an ethereal, bluish Qi aura—serpentine flickers of concentrated energy that danced and spiraled outward like liquid sapphire flame.
And then it happened.
The man moved—muscles coiling beneath his sweat-slicked skin, his jaw clenching with concentrated power, a single vein pulsing at his temple—and the spear sprang to life as though awakening from slumber at its master's command.
With a single thrust—his body pivoting with perfect balance, the ground beneath his feet cracking from the sheer force generated—the weapon erupted forward, piercing the air with devastating elegance.
For a fleeting moment, Ji Wuye felt it—not just the searing heat of the flames that caused the air in his lungs to scorch and his spectral skin to prickle with phantom burns—but the overwhelming storm of emotions that radiated from the man who commanded them.
The sensation crashed over him like a physical wave, threatening to drown him in its intensity.
Anger and pride surged like a blazing tempest, emotions so raw and unyielding that they burned brighter than the flames themselves.
But just as quickly as the vivid memory had overtaken him, it was torn away—the transition as violent as being wrenched from deep water to dry land in a single heartbeat.
Ji Wuye's vision snapped back to the present with a disorienting lurch that sent pinpricks of light dancing across his field of view.
‘This kind of vision is too real,’ Ji Wuye muttered inwardly, a deep frown crossing his face. But then, without warning, a glowing, transparent screen materialized before his eyes…
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[!] You have equipped the remnant weapon of the well-known warrior: The Heaven-Piercing Fang!
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[!] As long as you wield this weapon, your anger and pride will continuously amplify! Your strength draws from your anger. Your power comes from your pride!
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[!] You have temporarily learned the Blazing Fang Style – First Move: Flame Fang Strike!
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[!] You have temporarily learned the Blazing Fang Style – Second Move: Blazing Crescent Sweep!
===========================
...
With each new technique listed, Ji Wuye felt knowledge unfurling in his mind like scrolls being hastily unrolled—muscle memory that wasn't his own settling into his limbs, combat stances and movements embedding themselves in his consciousness.
His fingers adjusted their grip on the spear automatically, shifting to positions that felt simultaneously foreign and familiar, as though his body remembered what his mind had never known.
===========================
[>>[WARNING!]<<]
You have equipped the cursed spear, The Heaven-Piercing Fang! This weapon constantly drains your mental clarity with every thrust or swing, corrupting your mind as it feeds on your emotions!
===========================
The warning flashed a sickly red-black, the letters seeming to drip like fresh blood. A subtle heaviness settled over Ji Wuye's thoughts—like a thin film of oil on clear water—and a whisper-thin voice that wasn't his own murmured wordlessly at the edges of his consciousness, promising power at costs yet unnamed.
SWOOSH!
“A decent set of moves,” Ji Wuye commented, his tone calm yet laced with a faint edge of amusement.
He effortlessly ducked under the oncoming strike, his movement so impossibly fluid it seemed he had anticipated the attack before it was even launched. His long, white hair whipped around his face as he dropped low, gliding just out of reach and narrowly evading yet another attack.
A spear—wielded by a particularly large ghost with a gaping wound where its heart should have been—whistled through the air with a high-pitched keening sound, aimed directly at the space where his throat had been.
But he casually shifted his body to the side, the motion as natural as breathing, letting it miss by mere cuns away.
BANG!
Once again, a heavy mace—its head adorned with spectral spikes that left trails of greenish light—slammed into the ground where he'd just been standing, sending up a spray of ethereal sparks that hissed and died in the mist. Ji Wuye leapt away with ease.
Even amidst combat, his blazing crimson eyes skimmed the text onscreen, absorbing its contents . His pupils dilated and contracted rhythmically as familiar yet strange knowledge poured directly into his mind.
Then, his lips curled into a slight, confident smile. “Let’s not rely on this weapon for too long,” he said calmly.
Now standing firm, with the mist coiling and writhing around his feet like living smoke seeking to caress his ankles, Ji Wuye raised the spear, leveling it evenly with his shoulder.
The weapon seemed to vibrate with anticipation in his grip, its weight perfectly balanced as though it had been crafted specifically for his hand.
At the same time....
THUMP...!
THUMP..!
THUMP!
A rhythmic, faint thumping echoed from his Upper Dantian—a sound only he could hear, like distant war drums calling to battle—resonating with the flow of blazing fire element Qi, or fire Qi, as it coursed through his meridians.
The fiery Qi enveloped the spear, cascading from his fingertips into the ancient metal with a soft hissing sound.
The spear's dark, scorched surface now alive with glimmering red and orange energy that rippled along its length like solar flares across a dying star.
Tiny embers detached themselves from the weapon, spiraling upward in a mesmerizing dance before fading into nothingness. The jagged cracks along the shaft filled with molten light, transforming the spear from a broken relic into a weapon of raw, untamed power.
In the next moment, Ji Wuye's voice rang out, "Blazing Fang Style – Final Move - Sky-Piercing Inferno."
As the words left his lips—his breath briefly visible as steam despite the heat—his body grew blurry, almost ghost-like, edges softening as the air around him distorted with thermal energy.
The mist at his feet was violently expelled outward in a perfect circle, revealing scorched earth beneath. Instead of running, his feet performed a quick shuffle—a small, side-step motion that seemed deceptively insignificant, the balls of his feet pivoting with precision as his weight shifted with perfect balance.
The movement propelled him fluidly forward with unexpected acceleration, his white robes snapping behind him like the crack of a whip, his movements deceptively light yet filled with deadly intent. His hair streamed behind him like a silver banner, individual strands seemingly floating in slow motion despite his speed.
The spear in his hands came to life, responding to his will as though it were an extension of his body rather than a separate entity.
Its tip, glowing white-hot now, thrusting sharply through the air with a sound like fabric tearing across the sky. Time seemed to slow as energy concentrated at the weapon's point, compressed to its limit, reality itself bending around the focused power.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion erupted—the sound so intense it momentarily deadened all other noises in the battlefield, leaving only a high-pitched ringing in its wake.
The percussion wave was visible as it traveled outward, distorting the air and pushing the mist back in concentric ripples.
A surge of ferocious fire—not the familiar orange-yellow of natural flames but a deeper, almost crimson conflagration with a core of blinding white—burst forth from the spear's tip like a solar prominence breaking free from the sun's surface. The fire roared with an almost sentient hunger, a sound like a thousand voices crying out in triumph and rage.
Waves of blazing heat consumed the area around him, melting through the spectral forms as though they were made of wax rather than ectoplasm.
The ghosts caught in the direct path didn't even have time to scream—their forms simply unraveled, dissolving into wisps of greenish smoke that were instantly incinerated by the superior power of the fire Qi.
The sheer intensity of the flames unleashed scorched the battlefield in a straight-line path of utter devastation, extending far beyond what should have been possible from a single strike.
The inferno obliterated everything unlucky enough to be caught within its reach, carving a burning swath through the ghost army like a divine blade cutting through silk.
