202 Death Throes
When the explosion began, it came as a low droning hum that crawled beneath my skin, soon followed by a violent flash.
The ground beneath New Willow ruptured like a festering wound, veins of qi-laced fire erupting in coordinated bursts. Each detonation triggered the next, turning the village into a chain reaction of destruction. The sky blazed orange as Ezekiel moved, his skeletal form expanding, wings arching before me like a dying sentinel's final act of protection. The explosions continued for several seconds, collapsing, burning, and annihilating everything that had once stood for safety.
When the final echo faded, silence descended. A suffocating stillness lingered, broken only by crackling embers.
My legs gave out, and I dropped to my knees. Half my body was seared black. The stench of scorched flesh and burnt wood filled my lungs. Behind me, Ezekiel barely held together. His ribcage was shattered, most of his wings reduced to ash. Only the faint outline of his spectral spine remained.
We were both barely alive. Or, in his case, barely un-dead.
New Willow was gone.
Fragments of stone and splintered timber smoldered among heaps of twisted corpses. A breeze carried the stench of char, sulfur, and rot. I gripped my sword for support, skin still sizzling, lips cracked and dry. If this were a game, I might have leveled up from killing so many enemies at once.
Instead, I felt hollow.
This wasn't victory. It was attrition in its rawest form.
Then I saw him emerge from the ruins.
The Yama King stood amid the ashes. His golden robes had been burned away, revealing a scorched skeletal frame. Flesh had melted from his bones, leaving behind a blackened husk that somehow still carried traces of its former grandeur. His four ghoul guards were nowhere to be seen. Their power and arrogance had become debris beneath my feet.
But of course, it wasn't that simple.
The Yama King raised a hand with eerie calm. Like a serpent shedding its skin, he stripped away what remained of himself. Flesh peeled off in writhing coils of ash and blood.
"Look," I muttered to Jue Bu. "A fellow boner. Maybe the two of you can bone together."
"This is a serious situation," Jue Bu grumbled. "Are you really making jokes right now?"
"It shows how unserious this situation is," I replied, clutching my side and silently praying my organs stayed where they belonged. "I'm going to win. Just watch."
"You're insufferable."
Ignoring him, I pressed a palm against my chest and invoked the light.
"Blessed Regeneration. Great Cure."
Warmth surged through me. Charred flesh flaked away as damaged tissue slowly knitted itself together. It hurt, but it was progress. I'd need every ounce of strength for what came next.
The Yama King's scream split the air.
"MARVELOUSLY DONE!" he bellowed, his voice no longer human. "YOU'VE DONE WHAT FEW EVER MANAGE TO DO!"
Qi erupted around him in a violent storm. Dead flesh, insects, worms, and long-buried remnants swirled together. His body regenerated from the fingertip upward, sinew weaving over bone as dark, sagging skin formed around it. The result was a grotesque parody of life, something suspended between zombie and god. His eyes were hollow voids, his face sunken, his nose entirely gone.
A smarter man might have tried to interrupt the transformation, but I was still healing. I needed time, and time was never free.
"Cure. Great Cure. Sacred Mending."
I cast spell after spell like a gambler feeding coins into a cursed well. Strength returned, but far too slowly.
When the transformation finally ended, the thing standing before me could barely be called human.
A towering mass of rotting flesh shaped into the outline of a man stood where the Yama King had been. He was larger than before, broader and grotesquely regal. Wings forged from countless splintered bones jutted from his back like rows of blades, dripping green pus that hissed against the air. Upon his head rested a white crown fashioned from polished skull fragments. Within his hollow sockets burned two green flames like maddened will-o'-wisps.
This was no longer a cultivator.
It was something else.
Something wrong.
And I was supposed to fight it.
"Right," I muttered under my breath, gritting my teeth. "This is going to suck."
Not for me, though.
I rose with all the ceremony I could muster, brushing ash from my face and leveling my sword at the grotesque king of rot and bone. The blade hummed faintly with residual qi, as if it too understood the finality of the moment.
Then it crumbled into dust.
The sword shattered with a brittle snap, fragments scattering into the wind. For a moment, I stared at the hilt in my hand.
"Well," I muttered, "so much for acting cool."
Twin green flames burned within the Yama King's hollow sockets as he regarded me with eerie calm.
"Any last words, Da Wei?" he asked, his voice like oil poured over broken glass. "I must admit, this has been far more entertaining than I expected. Few have pushed me this far. But now I can finally savor it. Your struggle, your desperation, your inevitable defeat. What a magnificent ending this will be."
I coughed into my palm. "Yo mama must be sad."
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"Your irreverence in the face of death is astounding."
"I get that a lot."
His bone-strewn wings stretched wide, trembling with unholy power. "Your trap was clever. A masterpiece of desperation. The explosion, the strange weapons, the misdirections... but in the end, it was only a man buying time against the tide."
While he spoke, I quietly fed my dwindling lifespan into what remained of Ezekiel. His fading wings shimmered with renewed light. I said nothing, letting the silence encourage the Yama King's arrogance.
His wings beat once.
The distance vanished.
At the same instant, I cast Righteous Challenge and Designate Holy Enemy. My words seemed to crack reality. A golden halo settled above the Yama King's head, followed by a reversed red cross hanging like divine judgment. As the marks took hold, Ezekiel flared with radiant power. His skeletal wings transformed into magnificent feathers of light, renewed by the life I poured into him.
The Yama King snarled and conjured a jagged obsidian scythe. Death gathered along its edge as he swung.
That was when Wen Yuhan appeared behind me.
"Castling."
We switched places in an instant. Her robes fluttered where I had stood, her posture calm and unwavering as she deflected the Yama King's attack and retreated by my side.
"I really hope I don't regret this," I told Jue Bu.
"That makes two of us."
I placed a hand against her back and activated Divine Possession. A painful chunk of my lifespan vanished in a breath, but divine light engulfed her body as I slipped into it like falling into a dream. Her memories surged toward me, vivid and endless, carrying scents, sights, and secrets that threatened to drown my thoughts. I pushed them aside. There would be time for mysteries later.
As my soul settled into her body, I spared a thought for the one I had left behind. My original body stood where it was, vacant and vulnerable, little more than an expensive corpse waiting to happen.
"Protect my body. If things go wrong, run." I ordered Dave, my Holy Spirit.
No words came back, only understanding. A faint shimmer peeled away from Ezekiel's radiance and drifted toward my abandoned form. Dave took position beside it like a silent guardian, ready to drag my unconscious body from the battlefield if everything went to hell. With that small reassurance, I turned my full attention to the fight ahead.
"I will trust you," Wen Yuhan's voice echoed within my mind. "My fate is yours. Don't waste it."
"Leave it to me."
"Then take my Destiny-Seeking Eyes. See through the filth."
Qi erupted from her dantian.
My senses exploded outward. Every detail sharpened. I could hear the Yama King's diseased heartbeat, predict the rhythm of his movements, and sense every twitch within his decaying muscles.
Wen Yuhan's body moved with effortless precision. Every motion flowed into the next without waste.
I used Flash Step and appeared directly behind the Yama King. Danger surged through my senses, and I ducked as the scythe hissed overhead. Before he could follow through, Ezekiel seized my waist and pulled me backward through the air while the Yama King lunged after us. I waited until the last possible moment, then activated Zealot's Stride.
The world blurred, and I reappeared behind him once more. This time, I wrapped my arms around his waist and locked him in place. Necrotic flesh burned through Wen Yuhan's robes and seared my skin, but I tightened my grip.
"Blessed Regeneration. Armor of the Indomitable. Shield of the Eternal."
Divine power flooded through me, containing the corruption trying to spread through our contact.
"Why so intimate, Wen Yuhan?" the Yama King sneered. "I know your eccentricities, your strange words and dances, but this seems excessive."
I leaned closer and whispered into what should have been an ear.
"I'm not Wen Yuhan."
"No," growled the Yama King. "No. One of the Seven Sages would never... You let him... Have you no pride, Wen Yuhan?"
"Believe it."
Green fire erupted from his body as rage and disbelief twisted his aura into a storm. Despite the pain tearing through my borrowed body, I smiled.
The Yama King's aura faltered, no longer the suffocating tide of necrotic malice it had been moments ago. I held him fast with Divine Might, my arms locked around his putrid torso while layers of holy magic clung to my borrowed body like armor. The stench of burnt rot, rusted metal, and something far older assaulted my senses with every breath.
Still, I didn't let go.
He struggled weakly in my grip. "What... what's happening to me?"
"It's called Righteous Challenge," I replied, tightening my hold. "A crowd-control ability cast from my main body. The effect is simple: you're compelled to fight the caster. And where is that caster right now?"
I grinned.
"Very far away."
His scythe slipped from his grasp. Above him, the golden halo and inverted red cross pulsed with steady divine light.
"There are penalties too," I continued. "Your strength drops. Your aura weakens. And the farther you are from the caster, the worse it gets."
It wasn't entirely a lie. The skill would break if someone else attacked him or if I accidentally harmed him myself. That was the gamble. Meanwhile, Dave was carrying my real body farther and farther away, crossing mountains and clouds as fast as he could.
I only needed a little more time.
The Yama King's power visibly unraveled. His jagged wings splintered apart, brittle bone crumbling into ash. Cracks spread across his blackened flesh, exposing dried sinew beneath. Even the green flames within his eye sockets dimmed to dying embers.
Through Wen Yuhan's Destiny-Seeking Eyes, I watched his qi spiral violently inward.
He was preparing to self-destruct.
Desperation radiated from every part of his decaying form.
"He's trying to escape," Wen Yuhan said grimly within my mind. "He always keeps reserve bodies. He can sever his soul and flee through death. That's how he's survived this long. His Spirit Mystery realm allows him to bear hundreds of thousands of souls. He uses them as shields, hosts, and fuel."
"I need quintessence. Give it to me."
"I have little left," she replied. "But I'll give you what I can."
I reached into her dantian and drew upon a strange, luminous force unlike qi or divine magic. It felt denser, older, something that resonated deep within my bones.
I pulled.
The Yama King exploded.
Gore erupted in every direction, drenching me in necrotic filth. Blight raced across my skin, carrying curses, plagues, soul rot, and countless afflictions meant to destroy armies. Wen Yuhan reacted instantly, her spiritual sense flooding our shared body and purging the worst of the corruption.
As she worked, I gathered the quintessence and shouted,
"Divine Word: Raise!"
The ruined corpse twitched, and then it stood whole and alive once more. The Yama King stared at his restored body in disbelief. Yet the divine marks remained, and his aura was only a shadow of what it had been.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed onto the ground like a child caught stealing.
"Please..." he whispered. "Please don't. She's using you. Wen Yuhan will discard you the moment she's done. Don't let her manipulate you the way she manipulates everyone else. I've seen what happens to those she trusts."
I was surprised by how quick he changed his tone.
"He lies," Wen Yuhan said coldly. "He'll say anything to survive. Don't listen."
I wasn't planning to.
The earth split apart.
Ghostly claws burst from the ground, followed by malformed souls twisted into wraiths and shrieking horrors. Beneath us, the Yama King's soul arts churned and gathered, preparing something vast and unnatural.
"Don't let him complete his Immortal Art!" Wen Yuhan warned. "He's almost there!"
Drawing deeply upon the remaining quintessence, I roared, "Holy Sword!"
A blade of pure light formed in my hand, crystalline and radiant, humming with divine power. I cast Exorcise, combining it with Destiny-Seeking Eyes and Divine Sense to pinpoint the core of his soul.
The Yama King's body convulsed.
Black froth poured from his mouth as something tore free from his chest.
A soul.
Or rather, a monstrous knot of thousands of souls stitched together into a single abomination. Bloated, writhing, and dripping corruption, it had no true face, yet there was no mistaking whose soul it was.
The thing was tainted beyond salvation.
I seized it by the throat.
The Yama King shrieked, his voice layered with countless others.
"I'LL TAKE YOU WITH ME! IF I DIE, YOU DIE TOO! IMMORTAL ART—KING OF THE UNDERWORLD!"
The world trembled, and a rift split open beneath us. Darkness poured from it like a flood. Vengeful spirits, bone dragons, banshees, cursed monks, and horrors beyond counting surged forth. The sky blackened.
My Righteous Challenge had ended.
The inverted cross had not.
"I don't think so, buddy."
I brought the Holy Sword down, divine power screaming through the blade as it cleaved through the corrupted soul like rotten silk. The Yama King's scream shattered the heavens before light consumed him, burning away his corruption, his schemes, his ambitions, and everything that made him what he was. When the radiance finally faded, nothing remained but silence, drifting ash, and a filthy grave large enough to swallow an empire.
