"H-how?" Their wide eyes were filled with horror, disbelief etched into their ashen faces. Mouths hung agape, jaws trembling as if trying to form words that refused to come. Trembling hands clutched at their robes, knuckles white, reflecting the shivering of their very souls.
They were none other than the disciples of the Black Thunder Emperor himself, now powerless witnesses to the carnage unfolding before them. Blood splattered like morbid droplets of rain, hanging in the air for haunting moments before staining the deformed, weathered stone ground of Kunlun's Lower Level a deep crimson.
What unfolded was a waking nightmare—something they could never have imagined, not even in their darkest dreams that found them bolting upright, sweat-drenched and gasping for air.
The towering, muscular figure of the Black Thunder Emperor, their revered Master, one of the legendary Five Emperors of Jianghu, was... a pitiful sight that carved lines of anguish into their hearts.
He was being battered, kicked, his massive frame jerking with each cruel impact, and cornered—his mighty halberd, a symbol of his unparalleled might that had felled countless foes, now used more as a shield than a weapon.
The Black Thunder Emperor's powerful arms shook with the effort of deflecting the relentless onslaught, his calloused knuckles whitening around the haft.
His once-proud body was broken and battered, flung around like a ragdoll, leaving sickening trails of blood that dyed the gray stone beneath his staggering feet into a sickening crimson sea.
Dust filled the devastated battlefield, swirling like a shroud of despair around their crumbling master, stinging his squinting eyes.
Even the storm and lightning, which had always raged as his instruments of terror and power, now seemed almost cruelly twisted against him.
The swirling black Qi surrounding the Black Thunder Emperor—once a force of domination that filled his enemies with dread—was being turned into a weapon by his opponent, slamming into the Black Thunder Emperor's body with concussive force.
That opponent...
A mysterious, dreadful figure. His long, moon-white hair cascaded like silk, swaying gently despite the maelstrom around him.
His strikingly handsome face, with high cheekbones and full lips, contrasted sharply with those unnaturally crimson eyes—a shade much too similar to the freshly spilled blood pooling at his feet.
He wielded his jian with an ease that belied its deadly precision, slashing through the Black Thunder Emperor's every desperate defense. His smile was calm and unyielding—mocking the Black Thunder Emperor's futile efforts. Worse yet, that Demon, no that Whtie Demon, remained entirely unscathed, not a single hair out of place.
"Master!" came the anguished cry of one disciple, unable to contain his rage any longer at the sight of his teacher's torment. His face contorted in a snarl, narrowed eyes blazing with determination as he shot forward in a blur, his figure distorting from the sheer speed of his execution of the Void Flash Step.
A crackling halberd was raised high above his head, smaller and less commanding than the Black Thunder Emperor's own legendary weapon, yet deadly in its own right.
The disciple lunged at the White Demon, which no one other than Ji Wuye, his killing intent palpable, a crimson haze of wrath clouding his vision as he aimed for the White Demon's seemingly impenetrable form.
But...Ji Wuye's blood-red pupils immediately shifted, locking onto the incoming attack with eerie calm. A faint, cruel smile played on his lips as he prepared to meet the disciple's wrath head-on, utterly unfazed.
"Y-YOU FOOL!" Several zhang away, the battered Black Thunder Emperor froze in disbelief, his hoarse voice cracking with anguish.
Fresh blood spilled from his lips as he erupted into a violent coughing fit, his pallid face twisted in despair. Despite his broken state, he mustered enough strength to shout a warning, though his cry was hopelessly futile.
In stark contrast to the desperation etched onto the Black Thunder Emperor's features, Ji Wuye merely smirked, "Thanks for delivering me a weapon." His jian had shattered moments earlier, the blade splintering into fragments that fluttered to the ground like wilting petals.
Now, Ji Wuye's crimson pupils gleamed with a faint shimmer. Like guiding arrows, they manifested within his vision, charting the precise movements he needed to make to dodge the attack effortlessly with practiced ease.
Then...
The disciple's crackling halberd descended in a blazing arc, aimed directly at Ji Wuye's heart. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, the weapon's razor edge leaving a shimmering trail of energy in its wake.
But Ji Wuye did not flinch. With incredible fluidity, he spun on one heel, his long white hair fanning out behind him as he allowed the halberd to pass just cun from his body, the blade missing its mark by a mere hair's breadth.
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GRAB!
As the halberd swept past him, Ji Wuye's hands moved like striking serpents. In one impossibly smooth motion, he seized the weapon's haft with a flawless grip, his long fingers clamping down with vise-like force as he wrenched it effortlessly from the disciple's white-knuckled grasp.
The young man's face contorted into a mask of shock and disbelief, his mouth working soundlessly as his prized weapon was stolen right from his hands.
There was no hesitation in Ji Wuye's movements.
STAB!
Even as the halberd was ripped away, Ji Wuye struck immediately. His free hand, the palm sharpened to a lethal edge and cloaked in a faint azure aura of crackling Qi, cut through the air with blinding speed.
The knife-hand cleaved into the disciple's exposed throat with terrifying force, fingers piercing deep to lock onto the vulnerable neck bone beneath the yielding flesh.
The next moment...
SNAP!
A chilling, meaty crack echoed through the devastated battlefield like a thunderclap. The disciple's body went instantly limp, his eyes rolling back as his grip on the halberd went slack. He crumpled bonelessly to the blood-stained dirt at Ji Wuye's feet.
Ji Wuye stood motionless for a breathless moment, his crimson eyes gleaming with icy calm as he held the stolen halberd firmly in his grasp, its tip stained a fresh crimson.
"NOOOO!!" The Black Thunder Emperor's already pallid visage twisted further in agony at the brutal execution of another of his beloved disciple. Blood tears welled in the corners of his eyes as he roared his grief and desperation to the uncaring heavens.
His own body was utterly mangled—deep, grievous wounds riddled his once-mighty flesh, and blood streamed endlessly from countless gashes scored across his torn muscles—but the pain of watching another disciple coldly slaughtered before his dimming eyes seemed to wound him deeper than any blade.
His cry, raw and wrenching, echoed across Kunlun's Lower Level as if the very foundations of the holy mountain might crack from the force of his anguish and fury.
BANG!
At the same time, Ji Wuye, who had so effortlessly crushed the disciple of the Black Thunder Emperor and wrested the halberd from his grasp, found his figure momentarily obscured by an explosive cloud of dust and debris.
The thunderous blast hadn't been of Ji Wuye's making; it had originated from the failed attack of the slain disciple moments earlier.
The residual crackling Thunder Qi channeled into that lethal strike had struck the ground behind Ji Wuye's position, sparked by the young man's death throes into a violent explosion that sent debris fountaining into the air.
Meanwhile...
"UNFORGIVABLE! HOW DARE YOU CLAIM TO WALK THE RIGHTEOUS PATH?" The Black Thunder Emperor's voice echoed like the peal of thunder itself, dripping with fury and defiance that seemed to make the very air tremble.
His mangled, bloodied form had been collapsing beneath the weight of his grievous wounds just moments ago, yet now he stood tall once more, feet planted in a wide stance. His towering and powerfully muscular frame was partially obscured by a dense, roiling shroud of inky black Qi.
But it was no ordinary Qi—it crackled with violent arcs of azure lightning that danced across his body, pulsating and surrounding him like a living membrane of raw power.
Each surge of Thunder Qi radiating from the Black Thunder Emperor seemed to distort the very air around him, forcing everything nearby to either submit or shatter under the sheer, oppressive force of his presence.
His raven-black hair, wild and wavy, whipped violently through the charged air, hovering unnaturally as if caught in a perpetual windstorm under the chaotic influence of the Thunder Qi enveloping him. His eyes blazed with determination, gleaming like chips of golden topaz beneath his furrowed brow. And then—
RUMBLE!
The heavens themselves seemed to respond to the Black Thunder Emperor's defiant stand.
The dark thunderclouds that had been momentarily driven away by the slash of the Kunlun Patriarch's blade began to reform above with startling swiftness.
Black, swirling masses grew thicker and denser by the second, rapidly choking out the daylight to plunge the entire expanse of Kunlun's Lower Level into a deep, foreboding gloom.
Forks of lightning, blinding and violet-white, lanced across the roiling clouds, leaving the acrid tang of ozone in the air. The very mountain itself seemed to tremble in the face of the Black Thunder Emperor's rising power.
Ji Wuye, however, stood completely still in the face of the unfolding chaos before him. He observed the Black Thunder Emperor's gathering might with an eerie calmness, his faint, mocking smile utterly unwavering.
His crimson pupils glowed with an almost feverish vibrancy, shimmering countless transparent screens flickered. His smile didn’t falter, even as his opponent gathered his overwhelming power for what was clearly an ultimate strike or rather why should he?
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[>> QUICK ADAPTATION (C) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
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[>> QUICK ADAPTATION (C) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
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[>> QUICK ADAPTATION (C) <<]
The proficiency of your passive skill has slightly increased!
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'Ah...This is why... they call martial artists of the Ninth Realm as legends—no, as divine beings,' Ji Wuye mused to himself.
Before him, the Black Thunder Emperor was transforming into a true force of nature, his very being transcending the limitations of mere mortal flesh.
His eyes—and now even his entire eye sockets—glimmered with the raw, scintillating power of lightning itself, flickering and crackling like violet storm clouds contained within the cradle of his skull.
The massive halberd gripped tightly in his calloused hands no longer resembled a mere weapon fashioned by mortal hands; it had become something primal, an extension of the Black Thunder Emperor's vast power over the fury of the storm.
Lightning crackled across its razor edge in blinding arcs, branching out like dancing streaks of raw, boundless power.
In addition, the Black Thunder Emperor's wild raven hair flared outward, behaving like a tempest itself as it whipped and swirled with a mind of its own, as if it were some living entity born of pure elemental force.
This entire awe-inspiring transformation lent the Black Thunder Emperor an aura utterly unlike that of any mere mortal martial artist Ji Wuye had ever encountered. He no longer resembled a humble practitioner of techniques and forms—instead, he appeared as a true cultivator unbounded by such limitations.
A being who could manipulate the primal forces of Qi freely, without the constraints of martial moves, the channeling of energy through meridians, or the need to draw from the Dantians.
Then, the Black Thunder Emperor suddenly reared back his head and roared—a sound that shook the very foundations of Kunlun as if the mountain itself trembled in the face of such primal fury.
And in that moment, something unexpected occurred within Ji Wuye's inhuman perceptions.
Out of nowhere, his entire field of vision became filled with a blizzard of guiding arrows, flickering trajectories and angles painting the world around him in a dizzying kaleidoscope of shimmering paths.
This was not the attack trajectory he had been expecting from his observations. It wasn't the Black Thunder Emperor himself charging forward or launching a direct strike as anticipated from his gathered power. Instead...
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[!] Your passive skill, Quick Adaptation (C), has been triggered!
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'From the sky...' Ji Wuye muttered inwardly, his brow furrowing ever so slightly as the second effect of his Quick Adaptation immediately activated.
Within his glowing crimson pupils, under the second effect of the Quick Adaptation skill where he could trace and see any form of Qi, Ji Wuye witnessed something extraordinary unfolding high above.
The volatile Thunder Qi that had been crackling around the Black Thunder Emperor's transformed state like a living shroud now manifested into a colossal display of raw, elemental power.
Bolts of lightning, blindingly bright and pure white, began to gather across the dense, roiling storm clouds, their thunderous energies coalescing into a devastating, celestial form.
The guiding arrows—an ethereal manifestation of the third effect of his Quick Adaptation skill—stretched from the heart of the storm's churning darkness down towards the ground far below, clearly delineating in Ji Wuye's vision where the lightning would strike , and where he would need to move to avoid that.
And in the next moment...
BANG!