Chapter 63: An Azalea Seed, A Broken Dagger
Perhaps if he had enough time, Jun Meng Chen may have examined these shadows more closely and in more detail. However, though they were locked in a stalemate, Jun Meng Chen was far too preoccupied in channeling divine essence to properly analyze his targets.
A beige bubble of light emerged around him, the dagger and longsword in his hands releasing bloodthirsty cries from the constant infusion of divine essence and Jun Meng Chen's affected emotions.
Not intending on allowing the shadows to obtain any strategic advantages, Jun Meng Chen rushed forward, sweeping the longsword in a wide horizontal cut before him. Holding the dagger in a reverse grip, he positioned the blade over his back, balancing his swing.
As the longsword flashed, a thin, piercing shockwave emerged from within, causing the shadows to scatter in all directions.
Heavily stomping with his left foot, Jun Meng Chen reverted his grip on the dagger, cutting with a wide arc towards the front, releasing another shockwave towards the gathering shadows. Leveraging the accumulated angular momentum, Jun Meng Chen swung the longsword diagonally to his left, reversing his grip at the end of the swing.
Releasing his dagger and manipulating it from afar via a copious stream of divine essence, Jun Meng Chen kept the shadows at bay. Stabbing the longsword deeply into the floor of the mansion, Jun Meng Chen attempted to channel divine essence to draw an array onto the ground, using the sword as a medium.
The sword slid into the ground without any resistance, which perplexed Jun Meng Chen and caused him to inadvertently relax his grip. The next moment, however, numerous shadows streaked across the floor and into the sword at a speed beyond Jun Meng Chen's reactions.
By the time that he had noticed an anomaly with the longsword and had stepped backwards with caution, the originally grey, steel longsword had been corroded into a blackened metal.
In his moment of astonishment, Jun Meng Chen hadn't noticed that the beige bubble of light that he had been so proud of, was of no use at all.
As he slowly retreated from the quivering sword, Jun Meng Chen accidently stepped onto a shadow that had just disengaged its form of a ball. Hearing an unusual squelching sound compared to the light steps on the mansion's carpet flooring, Jun Meng Chen looked downwards before recoiling in surprise and fright.
His right foot in the middle of a dark puddle, Jun Meng Chen could see a twisted reflection of a face within. Constantly distorting and blurring of the facial features made it impossible for Jun Meng Chen to determine just who it was. It was just that he couldn't shake off the premonition that his face was being reflected back at him, thoroughly riveting and tunneling his attention.
However, when he attempted to extricate his foot from the puddle, Jun Meng Chen found himself unable to move his foot. Trapped in place, he watched in abject horror as thin, black feelers from within the pond slowly wrapped around his boots, inching up his legs.
Whatever the black feelers touched, it would instantly corrode regardless of the beige bubble, his reinforced clothing, or even Jun Meng Chen's divine essence. The moment it made contact with Jun Meng Chen's skin, the black feelers accelerated their pace, quickly wrapping around his leg within seconds.
Oddly enough, Jun Meng Chen felt no pain, only a cold sensation crawl up his leg. However, when he channeled divine essence into his leg, he discovered that the meridians within had been blocked, incurring a massive pulse of numbness to cause him to sway.
His horror resurfaced as Jun Meng Chen heard a shrill cry directly in his mind, causing his thoughts to blank.
"Help! Help!"
Screams of pain and calls for help besieged Jun Meng Chen. Young and old, male and female, vigorous and weakened, all types of voices swamped his mind, ceaselessly disrupting his train of thought.
Within moments, however, a cold shudder blazed through Jun Meng Chen, instantly bringing him back to clarity. The shadow imprisoning had attempted to probe his immortal construct!
With fear acting as the primer for wrath, Jun Meng Chen roared for his Deity Core to come alive.
"Blow it away! Destroy without a single trace!"
Releasing a fierce howl of its own, the Deity Core within Jun Meng Chen burst to activity, fiercely rotating as divine essence spilled from Jun Meng Chen's body without restraint. Jun Meng Chen did not attempt to control the surge of divine essence coursing through his body, instead cajoling the Deity Core to produce even more divine essence.
"Come on, with such weak output, do you want me to become consumed by a mere shadow? Destroy it! Or did you experience that mysterious phenomenon for nothing!?"
With Jun Meng Chen riling it from the side, the Deity Core roared successively as the divine essence coursing within Jun Meng Chen's body doubled each roar. A brilliant, multicolored glow burst from Jun Meng Chen, instantly brightening the mansion's interior with him as the epicenter.
The shadow immobilizing his leg was dissolved by the radiance, and when Jun Meng Chen gazed at his now freed leg, he could spot several, blackened streaks of corrupted flesh falling away from his body. The fierce throbbing of pain caused relief to flood through him, and Jun Meng Chen looked before him to notice that the corroded longsword had stabilized its layered existence with the imbued shadows.
A slight flash of black light, and the beige bubble before Jun Meng Chen was instantly halved into two.
Manipulating the dagger to slap at the incoming blade to divert its trajectory, Jun Meng Chen retreated as he conjured a longsword of his own. Narrowing his eyes, Jun Meng Chen could spot an indirect frame grasping at the blackened longsword.
The shadowy figure was around two meters tall, and only possessed one limb. At periodic intervals, Jun Meng Chen could even see several segments of the figure secede from the main body, returning to the small balls of coalesced shadows.
Before he could create his own conjectures, the shadow had already made its move, the black edge sweeping diagonally, seeking Jun Meng Chen's head.
Clang!
Gripping the hilt with both arms as if supporting a broadsword, Jun Meng Chen swung the longsword upwards to directly collide with the black sword. Stumbling from the impact, Jun Meng Chen threw out his left arm while stepping back to stabilizing his balance, at the same time commanding the dagger to silently streak towards the shadow's back.
Glancing at the longsword clenched in his hand, Jun Meng Chen could only gasp in admiration.
The sword had a large nick where he had parried the previous strike, almost bisecting the blade.
If he had tarried for a moment longer, he would have needed to recall the dagger to prevent injury. Taking advantage of Jun Meng Chen's weakened defense, the shadowy figure dashed at him at immense speed, and three devastating cuts slammed into the longsword to sever the tang and the rest of the blade from the hilt.
Throwing the hilt away, Jun Meng Chen conjured another longsword, this time with a serrated edge.
Clasping the longsword in a drawing stance, Jun Meng Chen poured strength into his right leg while preparing to pivot on his left heel.
Observing the obscure figure, Jun Meng Chen lowered his center of mass, angling his body slightly forward. With a soundless howl, the figure leaped towards Jun Meng Chen, the longsword grasped with its only arm aimed at Jun Meng Chen's chest.
As the blade descended with a sorrowful screech, Jun Meng Chen coiled divine essence around his left hand, tightly grabbing onto the serrated edge. When the blade was merely a meter away from his face, Jun Meng Chen drew the longsword, the steel blade flashing in a cold light.
Ting!
The blunt edge of the steel longsword collided with the corroded blade, reflecting its trajectory and causing the obscure figure to lurch backwards. With a shout, Jun Meng Chen rushed towards the shadowy figure, releasing a fierce diagonal, downwards slash from the right.
The dagger concealed in the air also made its move, releasing a pale-blue radiance as it plunged into the back of the indistinct figure with a soft squelch. After the dagger had pierced it, the shadow seemed to have lost its mobility, trembling violently as it faced Jun Meng Chen's blow head on.
Fully dispersing the momentum of the first strike, Jun Meng Chen lowered his center of mass once again, his feet nimbly pivoting in half-turns of alternating directions, the sword scything out chunks of shadowy mass from the obscure figure. With each strike, Jun Meng Chen maintained the <Seraph's End> and <Pulsar Blade Technique>'s supplementary effects, rendering the black figure immobile.
As he turned half-circle, Jun Meng Chen slowly raised his center of mass, the longswords' striking impact increasing from the additional torque. When the steel longsword had passed through the shadowy figure's chest, Jun Meng Chen abruptly stepped back, before unleashing a salvo of diagonal cuts onto the figure's shoulders, searching for a core of any kind.
The first strike fully sliced through the shadowy figure, a sweeping cut from the upper right. Firmly rotating clockwise on his left heel before transferring his weight to the right to accelerate his blow, Jun Meng Chen's second slash sliced through the figure from a perpendicular angle.
This time spinning counterclockwise and reversing his transference of weight, Jun Meng Chen dealt a horizontal blow, quickly reversing his grip to scythe once again. Reversing his rotation and leaping into the air, Jun Meng Chen relied on his accumulated angular velocity to rapidly spin midair, each spin generating a powerful vertical slash.
Landing on his right foot and unleashing two more diagonal slashes to fully negate his momentum, Jun Meng Chen gazed at the obscure figure grasping the corrupted blade, now with cracks branching out from the cuts Jun Meng Chen made.
Gently tapping on the chest of the shadowy figure, it crumbled after a few moments into a mix of black rubble and a dark liquid.
Approaching remains of the shadowy figure, Jun Meng Chen gently prodded it with the tip of his longsword, then probing it with a thin strand of divine essence. Unsure of its exact attributes, Jun Meng Chen fetched a white jade box and vial from his spatial dimension within his sleeve, before storing the rubble, corroded longsword, and the dark liquid.
Thoroughly checking himself and nearly laughing at his ragged state, Jun Meng Chen shook his head before changing into a new robe and pair of boots.
Having removed what seemed to be the guards protecting the mansion, Jun Meng Chen began to explore the mansion, his light footsteps gently echoing in the empty corridors. Suddenly, while walking in a narrow corridor while suspending a tiny globe of light near him, Jun Meng Chen came to a standstill, his eyes riveted to the ground.
There, amidst the rubble and dust, lay a moonsteel dagger missing the tip, and a azalea seed next to it. The odd phenomenon broke out within Jun Meng Chen once more, a soft surge of warmth rushing to every cell of his body as he gazed at the two objects, a pleasant and nostalgic warmth.
With a tender, helpless smile breaking out on his usually impassionate countenance, Jun Meng Chen immediately exposed his immortal construct, a hazy outline of an eye. Gently placing the azalea seed and moonsteel dagger within the center of his construct before allowing the outline to disperse, Jun Meng Chen could not help but fall into a trance.
He returned to those days where the three had roamed the mortal worlds, acting more like their appearance and less of rigid immortals. The days of warmth, love, and happiness.
Before Jun Meng Chen could immerse himself any further in his memories, a discordant, hoarse voice rang out behind him, causing cold sweat to trickle down Jun Meng Chen's spine.
"Why have…entered…domain?"
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