Chapter 18: The Weight of Power (Part 2)

The figured that stepped out was a familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time, this inconsistency left Zhang Yan a bit confused...

That figure was Tao Yiming.

One of the eight awakened.

But the man before Zhang Yan bore little resemblance to the disciple he'd once known. Tao Yiming's face was gaunt, his skin pallid and paper-thin, stretched taut over sharp bones. His hair, once jet-black, was streaked with premature grey at the temples, and his eyes glowed with an unnatural, ghastly green light; pupils like smoldering embers in a corpse-fire.

It seemed the cultivation manual he chose had hollowed him, refining his body into some kind of bizarre entity; something unnerving.

Unlike Wu Jian's calculated brutality, Tao Yiming radiated a slow, creeping menace. His black robes hung loosely on his frame, as though his body were dissolving beneath them. When he smiled, his lips peeled back to reveal teeth stained faintly black, as if he'd been chewing on ash.

"You must've been the one who killed Wu Jian," Tao Yiming said, his voice a rasp, like wind through dry reeds.

Zhang Yan said nothing.

Tao Yiming chuckled, the sound brittle. "No need to be shy. He was a fool; too eager to prove himself." His green eyes flickered, studying Zhang Yan. "I take it you've broken through?"

Zhang Yan's silence was his answer.

Tao Yiming's grin widened, cracks forming in his parched lips. "Good. That makes this interesting."

Without warning, he moved.

But it wasn't a movement of flesh and bone. Tao Yiming's body blurred, his form dissolving momentarily into a wisp of spectral smoke before reforming a hair's breadth from Zhang Yan.

A fist lashed out, trailing tendrils of ghostly green energy.

Zhang Yan twisted, but the strike grazed his shoulder; and where it touched, his skin burned with a cold so intense it felt like fire.

Zhang Yan leapt back, his shadow surging forward to intercept Tao Yiming's next strike. The two forces collided; shadow against ghost-light and the air rippled with a sound like distant screams.

The Wraith's Form Flesh Union Mantra was infamous among the outer disciples. Unlike Zhang Yan's shadow-based cultivation, Tao Yiming's path required binding vengeful spirits to his flesh, refining his body into a vessel for the dead. Each spirit consumed eroded his humanity, but granted him power that defied mortal limits. Speed, strength and a touch that could freeze blood and rot flesh.

Tao Yiming tilted his head, his green eyes narrowing. "You've grown stronger," he mused. "But shadows are just shadows. The dead… the dead are forever."

He raised a hand, and the forest around them shuddered. Pale, translucent forms began to coalesce in the air; wispy apparitions with hollow eyes and grasping hands. The spirits he'd bound to his will.

Zhang Yan's jaw tightened. The ache in his side flared, a warning.

He was not fully healed.

Not yet, but he had no choice.

He adjusted his grip on the dagger, his shadow coiling like a serpent ready to strike.

Tao Yiming's laughter echoed, thin and mocking. "Let's see if your darkness can devour this."

The spirits lunged.