Xiao Heng

Hua Shu had gotten a bronze sign up token, so she was still on the sides of the arena, watching the battles inside the illusion world unfold.

As she saw Li Zhu fight against the young woman with the stealth techniques, Hua Shu gasped, worried for him. On Archery peak there were a few elders, and the woman Li Zhu had fought was the disciple of one of them, which gave her a very high status.

Hua Shu herself was the disciple of an elder on Archery peak, so she had fought against the woman many times, and they were always evenly matched. Although Hua Shu's attacks were much more powerful, she could never find the location of the young woman, making it impossible to win the fight, which always resulted a long, painful stalemate.

Fortunately, Li Zhu had managed to win the fight, albeit in a very risky manner.

The spectators could see the inside of the illusion world, laid out flat in the arena. Although it was the smallest of all the arenas, there was still enough space for the entirety of the large forest to be seen.

At that moment, most of the spectators had their eyes on one particular spot in the arena, where Xiao Heng was standing, in the middle of three enemies.

This was everyone's chance to see the methods he used to fight, which could potentially help them with their own strength and fighting skills.

Xiao Heng was standing in the center of a small clearing, three disciples having surrounded him. They were not working together, and they had each encountered Xiao Heng at the same time, coming from different directions.

This was a strange coincidence, but the disciples could technically attack Xiao Heng at the same time without being disqualified, since they were simply fighting an enemy, not helping other participants.

Xiao Heng did not seem particularly worried, though, as he stood there with his usual gloomy expression.

Tired of the tension building up, one of the three disciples, crouching in a tree, launched himself towards Xiao Heng, wielding a deadly double bladed axe, which was surrounded in flames.

"Erupting Yang Chop!"

In Flaming Saber Sect, most of the disciples used fire related skills, which were very abundant in the sect library, though still quite costly.

The young man with the axe had probably saved up spirit stones by completing missions, to buy the Erupting Yang Chop skill. Because most elders in the sect also used fire techniques, asking for guidance on such skills was much easier, and progression would be faster.

Xiao Heng did not even turn around, though, simply extending his hand towards the young man. The moment his hand pointed towards the man, an eery aura suddenly erupted from him, followed by sounds of wailing.

As much as this phenomenon creeped the axe wielding disciple out, he ignored his instincts, charging forwards.

As he reached a few yards from Xiao Heng, the young man abruptly froze, his whole body beginning to shake uncontrollably.

His fierce expression began to change into one of terror, as he began looking around himself, fearing something that the spectators could not see.

"Nooo, don't do it! Don't do it! I give up... I... GIVE... UP!" he began yelling hysterically, turning around to run.

Just as Xiao Heng was about to strike again, an elder descended from the sky, picking up the terrified young man, before saying, "This is enough, now release him from your spell!"

The young man had given up, so Xiao Heng was not allowed to harm him any further. Respecting the rules, he performed a pulling motion towards the young man, causing his panicked expression to gradually relax, though his body was still shaking.

As the elder brought the frightened disciple out of the illusion, the two remaining opponents of Xiao Heng began to run away, shocked by how quickly he had defeated the first person to attack him.

What scared them the most was that they did not see what had happened, rather they had just witnessed the axe wielding disciple fall to the ground and begin to yell in fear. This caused their imaginations to run wild, thinking of what could possibly scare a ninth stage cultivator so much.

"Where do you two think you're going?" just as they thought they had successfully retreated, Xiao Heng spoke up, before turning around towards the two fleeting figures.

"You should've just given up!" he said, extending both his arms towards the two disciples.

Xiao Heng's long black hair began to flutter, as his whole body was slightly raised from the ground, an aura of death surrounding him.

A dark cloud began to form above his head, as his eyes turned white.

_____

Li Zhu was gradually recovering from the arrows he had received in his back, which he had removed right after his close victory.

He was now traveling in the shadows as before, trying to find another disciple to eliminate. He had not encountered any enemies since the close fight from before, so although he was alert, he was also trying to enjoy his time in the competition, having already eliminated four people.

At that moment though, Li Zhu was engulfed by a deathly energy, making him shiver.

Turning around, he saw the sky turn gray in the distance, from where an eery aura had formed. Though he did want to avoid taking too much risk, he was also extremely curious at the source of this energy, so he immediately changed his course, quickly approaching the cloudy clearing.

'Who could release such powerful yin energy?' Li Zhu asked himself, almost thinking that it may have been an elder, who could have gotten angry for some reason.

Yang energy was connected to heat and life, while Yin energy was connected to cold and death. Because of this, Death energy was of the Yin alignment, and acted in a very similar manner.

As Li Zhu reached the clearing from which this energy was being released, a shocking sight appeared in front of him.

Two disciples were running towards him, panic on their face.

'Can they see me in Shadow Lurk?' Li Zhu wondered, though he was soon proved wrong, as they ran right past him, not even glancing at his location.

The two disciples, as fast as they were, had no way to escape Xiao Heng, as they suddenly fell on the ground, having the same reaction as the first person who had attacked this incredibly powerful man.

"Please, let us go! We give up, really!" they began yelling, one of them even starting to cry.

'It can't be, those are ghostly spirits! I need to get out of here, now!' Li Zhu, staring at the two disciples, was gripped by fear, and immediately escaped at the best of his ability.

While others could not understand what happened to Xiao Heng's victims, Li Zhu was extremely clear about it. The two disciples were being haunted by ghostly spirits, that were having them live their deepest fears.

'How can a member of the Ancient Spirit sect be here?' Li Zhu wondered, not slowing down his pace by one bit.

The Ancient Spirit sect founder had discovered a new method of cultivating, hundreds of years earlier. When he was a kid, he had been in a great war, and killed enemy soldiers. One time, he had accidentally absorbed the spirit of a fallen soldier while cultivating, and this had introduced him to a whole new path of energy growth.

From then on, he killed spirit beasts and humans, and absorbed their spirits, which boosted his power significantly. Not only could one use the spirits to boost their own cultivation or certain skills, they could also use them as minions, each of them maintaining the skills they had when alive, albeit greatly weakened. Each spirit would have different skills, but all of them could make people imagine their deepest fears, and think they were living through them.

Using these skills, the founder of the Ancient spirit sect had grown tremendously, quickly reaching the peak of the continent.

He had exaggerated, though, and he sometimes slaughtered entire cities, all for the sake of cultivation. The major forces in the continent took note of him and his cruel ways, so they sent a team of the most powerful people on the continent to hunt him down.

A great battle had ensued, and although the founder of the Ancient Spirit sect had managed to kill a few enemies at the same cultivation, he had eventually perished under the sword of the emperor of the Heavenly Dragon Empire.

Before the great battle in which he had died, though, the insane man had founded a sect, passing down his techniques to his descendants.

Of course, the "righteous" sects of the continent hunted down the sect, wanting to avoid this tragedy, which had left them incredibly weakened, from reoccurring, if ever another member of the sect grew as much as its founder.

This was all in the past, and hundreds of years had passed. Although the Ancient Spirit sect still existed, they sent their disciples all over the continent as kids, to avoid total extermination in case of an attack on their headquarters.

Although many disciples died on their journey to adulthood, the ones who succeeded could return to the Ancient Spirit sect, bound to achieve great things.

In this way, the evil sect managed to stay alive, though its disciples went through a rough life and its numbers dwindled.

'He must be a member of that sect!' Li Zhu told himself, as he turned his head, where Xiao Heng was standing.

Suddenly, the gloomy young man snapped his head towards Li Zhu, looking him straight in the eyes, from hundreds of yards apart.

A feint smile appeared on his face, as he mumbled, "Interesting, someone who can hide in the shadow realm!"

Li Zhu did not dare look back any more, for fear of being chased down, so he just kept escaping, realizing Xiao Heng's spirits could see him, even in shadow lurk.

'I better stay away from that man... he spells trouble!' decided Li Zhu, having been constantly warned by his master to be careful around cultivators of the Ancient Spirit sect.

Not all of them killed humans to grow in power, in fact most of them only gathered the spirits of beasts.

That said, Li Zhu was not willing to take the risk of finding out whether Xiao Heng was actually an evil cultivator, at least not now.