Pathway

Apprehension dawned on Shi Lingxin as he recognize the move executed by the argonian. A mystical art.

"The Rift-World."

The argonian had used two named move in succession. Shi Lingxin decided, he would have to use a named move of his too, otherwise, he would be in dire trouble. He made a firm hold on the ground with his feet and slightly shifting, he executed his own defensive move.

"The Silent-Shade."

Although it was a Jindan level mystical art, it was a powerful one still. The thousand raging blue-white bolts collided with the walls of shadow and disappeared. There was no sound of impact but the effect on Shi Lingxin, was a devastating one. How could the argonian be this powerful?

He was still thinking of how powerful the argonian leader was, when the argonian appeared in front of him with a glaive meant to pierce Shi Lingxin's heart who quickly blocked it with his spear and deflected the glaive to the side. The deflected thrust caught Shi Lingxin across the ribs. It didn't do much damage to him but his robe was giving off large amount of shadowy smoke. A sign that the robe was loosing its potency.

Shi Lingxin whirled around and hurled gigantic shadow wraiths forward, but the argonian cut through them like water. Shi Lingxin was aware of the fleeing time. He knew they had limited time before the dawning of the Springflame for another hundred thousand years on the side of the argonians. The humans and the scavens already had their own periods. They would wait the dawn of time until it was their turn to explore the Springflame again. That was the traditional ways of things in Aalag.

That was the last day of the argonian period in Springflame and it was only a limited time now until the dawn of Springflame. No time to waste. 

Then, the argonian split into two images and one of the images flew forward to the left of Shi Lingxin while lightning bolts danced on the ground all around them. Shi Lingxin twisted with a powerful swift grace, parrying the lightning blow with his spear and filling it with more shadow essence as he swiped a mournful shadowy trail down the image's chest, but his blow was turned by an eloquent slide of the glaive. The image had already pivoted out of the way when Shi Lingxin caught a glint of enormous red bolt in the air, from the right side, and quickly manifested a shadow dome of energy.

The impact was a deafening thunder. Ju Feng, who had been achingly following the battles was on his knees, holding his head. With the pain in his head subsiding after a time, he looked around himself. There were few cultivators affected by the impact, but to his total astonishment, there were many cultivators still standing and watching.

The heaven's forsaken body cultivators and the cursed argonians. Why couldn't he have a body like that too? He had been practicing the Trueworld bodyweight technique since childhood. And the reverse one too. He looked at them again and observed their bodies.

"Tremendous bodies. They must've been practicing a great technique for thousands or millions of years."

He sighed and turned his attention towards Shi Lingxin.

The golden core dual cultivator had been, agonzingly, biding his time, as he battled the argonian leader. He had thoughtfully, observed what it would take for his ultimate move to be successful. They had two major obstacles. The hydra and the argonians alongside the scavens. He had waited for half of the hydra's head to be destroyed before he finally decided to act.

He knew the argonian was stronger than him physically. Though, he wasn't sure about the mystical arts, he knew that the argonian wasn't better than him in martial arts. Although, he was aware of the argonian's glaive as a low-grade heavenly treasure. He couldn't delay any longer. It was time to leave the Springflame. Since he didn't know the number of argonian contingents heading their way. The battle energy here would have resonated far into the distance.

Shi Lingxin had been relying on the Shadow-Lock to make his ultimate move. But the issue was to align the lock in a correct pattern around the argonians and the hydra. And now, the Shadow-Lock stones were in place. The last stone had been aligned correctly by a Jindan cultivator who managed to get behind the hydra after great difficulty. He threw six pellets of shadow into the air. Pellets that had taken hundreds of thousands of years to pack with refined shadow essence. His power at the Jindan level, couldn't activate the Shadiw-Lock, but with six pellets holding hundreds of thousands of years of shadow essence, he could activate it. The pellets would be serving a greater purpose now.

With that, he activated the Shadow-Lock.

Ju Feng watched as the whole place in front of him was quickly engolfed in a devastating shadow world. He couldn't see through the shadows and the people inside, couldn't come out either. This was a nascent soul level of mystical attack. Shi Lingxin had done this due to the shadow energy he had been storing inside the pellets. Genius. Jufeng took a glance towards the golden core cultivator in time to see him spun his spear overhead before slashing it down in an arc.

Ju Feng continued to stare at the standing figure of Shi Lingxin while admiring his brilliant thinking. He was slowly nodding his head when he saw the figure of Shi Lingxin, disintegrated into nothingness.

"Uh?"

He looked around only to see others looking at the Shadow-Lock area without paying attention to the dissipated figure of Shi Lingxin.

"Was he missing something?"

He asked to himself silently, but his expression was that of bewilderment.

"Order Of The Afterlife."

A golden core cultivator beside Jufeng, slowly muttered.

"Only his uncle, the hegemon, has mastered the art. But he's on his way to. This is a supreme martial art. Only two other confirmed martial arts of its kind, I know of. Pride of the True Glory and Oath Of The Fallen Souls."

He slowly turned his gaze towards Jufeng and spoke gravely.

"If you know a supreme martial art, then, you may be on your way to become a true legend."

Ju Feng was still lost in thought, when the shadowed area became visible. The whole place was filled with the bodies of the argonians and the scavens. But the most disturbingly unusual thing, was the bodies of the standing argonians and the scavens. They were still standing with their eyes opened, but were long dead. The leader of the argonian was covered in transparent white stone. Or was he turned to a transparent white stone statue? Shi Lingxian was standing at the other end where the hydra was few minutes before. But the hydra was no longer seen.