Qiren held the spirit fragments in his claws—mentally pulling at the pain he had stored away, releasing it into the wisps.
"Suffer."
He channeled agony in its purest form.
Crimson light radiated from his talons.
The glow bathed his arm, staining it as the wyrm's spirit began to thrash violently.
Skrr… khhrr…
It shrieked as he struck it with several units of pain, scarring its spirit fragment.
Negative Karma: 6,723.4 ↓
Refinement Qi: 267.3 ↓
Refinement Realm: Middle Stage (Beginner)
Rumble… rumble.
The walls vibrated as more wyrms emerged from the darkness, their bodies burning with the same colored flames.
Yīnluò took a combat stance. "The queen's sent more guards."
Her nails extended like cat claws—sharp, lethal.
Sigh.
Qiren sighed, turning toward the two remaining royal guards.
His thermal vision pierced through the walls, locking onto six more about to burst from the earth.
Krr—skree.
He began reabsorbing the eighteen units of pain from the wisp.
The light dimmed, pulling back into his arm. Then the wriggling stopped.
He opened his hand to release the wisp—only to see it coiled in his palm, half-formed into a miniature worm.
"…Hmm?"
What is this?
He summoned his Abyssal Ash, forming it into an incomplete scroll.
Applicable Curses & Blessings
Unnamed Bad Luck Spirit Curse (Truly Fragmented)
Sorrowful Wyrm Spirit
Despair: 0.7
Hope: 7.6
Fear: 146.8
Pain: 198.3
Sorrow: 1.0
30 Years of Life Experience
(Certain emotions, conditions, knowledge, experiences, spirits, blessings, or curses may be transferred.)
Treasures
• Six Rings of Misfortune (Tier 1 – Cursed Objects)
• Demonic Parchment Ash-Strip (Tier 1 – Hellish Object)
• Twisted Fruit of Rage (Tier 2 – Cursed Object)
• Mariadal Talismans: a subcategory encompassing all demonic-type talisman treasures in your possession, ranked from Tier 1 Cursed/Hellish Objects to Tier 4 Cursed/Hellish Objects.
Dao Authorities
Contract Manifesting
Mortal-Grade Occultism
Authority:Contract Manifesting
By fully merging the rare residual ash granted by the hellish object Demonic Parchment Ash-Strip into your Azure Flames Dao, you have been acknowledged by the Endless Nether Abyss.
Authority: Mortal-Grade Occultism
A heightened state of mastery granted by the broken authority of the newly born Shamanic Dao within you over low-grade shamanic arts—granting exceptional success in curses, blessings, hexes, and ritual workings.
Rituals
Bad Luck Cleansing (Incomplete) — a flawed counterfeit ritual, but functional for those with latent spiritual affinity.
Imparting Rite (Incomplete) — a technique discovered by the demon Qìrén Vhal'Zerath: infusing miasma into objects to embed curses or soul effects.
…
A Sorrowful Wyrm Spirit?
He tossed it into the air and swallowed it in one bite.
"Not even worth half a unit of Qi."
He rolled his neck. "But I'll admit—it was delicious~"
Qiren licked his lips. "I wonder if the rest of you taste the same."
He dashed forward.
"Combat Series—Iron Spear! DRAGON DRILL!"
His fan twisted into a spear, its edges igniting with Azure Flames.
The wyrm clamped its teeth around the flames, swallowing the spear—exactly as he intended.
He forced his Qi into the Dao Flames.
Its body bulged as a blazing inferno filled it from within.
"Rift—"
He vanished, then slammed the wyrm directly into its companions.
The sudden collision caused the expanding wyrm to explode, creating a smokescreen of blood and gore.
"Suffer."
His spear pierced through the explosion, skewering the second wyrm.
SKRIEEE—!
Pain: 197.0 ↓↓↓
"Mystic Compass Strike—Hell Razor!"
The spear's bristles unraveled and reformed into a fan. Its bamboo hilt turned pure crimson, followed by a scarlet sheen over the bristles.
His Negative Karma dropped into the five thousands. Qi fell by sixty units.
He ripped through the second royal guard—
SHWESHHHH—!
A blood-red vortex erupted, unleashing a torrent of wind outward. It spun only halfway, releasing six gales of condensed emotion that cleaved through the remaining enemies.
They tore through the third guard—and three of the newly arrived reinforcements.
Yīnluò stared in disbelief.
She had known Qiren was more than capable of defending himself—but she hadn't expected such a vast arsenal.
Until now, she had only been aware of two abilities:
His Abyssal Rift—used to dash through space and teleport via formations—and his bird form.
She had thought that was the extent of his unique powers, paired with his Dao—a natural counter to these worms, able to evade their poison gas and explosions, and transform into their natural predator, as she had once seen at his peak.
With an above-average physique, honed into a complete avian-demon form.
Yet he hadn't even pushed that far.
Instead, he revealed more—his Combat Series, allowing him to shift the function of his weapon; individual techniques layered atop it; and now the ability to manifest pure pain into the air itself.
You're truly amazing…
She smiled, arms crossed above her head.
A deep cut ran diagonally across them—she had taken a rogue gale to the arms.
This power… this was nothing short of true excellence.
Her gaze followed him as he unleashed a secondary Hell Razor, uprooting those hidden within the floor caverns.
They retaliated with a wave of fireballs.
The wyrms gave him no room to breathe, launching a relentless barrage.
Swish! Swish!
He weaved through them.
"Exorcist Series—Shaman's Lashing!"
The hardened strands loosened as he pulled back the handle. Dark miasma flowed along the weapon, mixing with his red aura.
The strands extended—
TWEP!
The miasma-coated lash split into multiple branches, instantly teleporting near the four remaining wyrms.
They struck unevenly—pinning into dirt, rock, and ceiling.
But many landed true.
"Begone, lowly spirits. Your time has come. By agony, I call your end."
Qiren landed, pulling back his red demon pellet.
The skull rattled.
"I call for your sorrow."
Strapped beneath the pellet was a leather pouch—rectangular, reinforced with twigs—secured to his leg.
A stone dagger rested beside it.
"For that shall be your only salvation."
He placed a Rift talisman between his lips and opened the pouch.His talons withdrew fourteen talismans.
Rift—
He appeared on the opposite side of the tunnel, whip still embedded in the wyrms.
He placed one talisman in midair.
It bore the same five rings as the Rift talisman, etched with supreme-law imagery:
A flaming burial ground — Underworld Seal
Burning clawed fingers — Burning Hell
An insect head — Infernal Bite
And others that followed.
The reverse side was inscribed with:
Tether curses brought upon the world
Seal all spirits
Conceal prying eyes
Capture all emotions
All encircling a blazing yin-yang sigil.
The talisman ignited, hovering as two burning threads expelled from its top and bottom.
Qiren turned sharply as a wyrm lunged with its tail.
"Rift."
He vanished.
Reappearing elsewhere, he placed another charm.
He moved erratically, confusing the impaled wyrms. Each time one sensed a tug and launched a fireball, he vanished again.
Eight of the fourteen talismans activated.
The remaining six adhered to his forehead, linking together to form an upper-face mask that fluttered in the heat.
Inhale… Exhale.
"Yīnluò," he called through muffled lips, pulling back the bamboo handle. "Hold onto this."
The strands retracted to a manageable length.
He tossed the weapon to her.
She caught it, panicking. "W–What? Why would you throw away your weapon?!"
"Stay back," his second mouth spoke.
He turned, his gaze cold beneath the mask.
"I haven't tested this to completion. You might get hurt if you're too close."
The wyrms growled, fully agitated.
Qiren inhaled.
His feathers wilted. Talons blackened and softened. His height shrank as he returned to his base humanoid form.
He formed a mudra.
"Bronze Body Incineration."
The talismans ignited.
Beams of heat lanced out—
BOOOOM! BOOOOM!
An invisible barrier pulsed as continuous blasts scorched the area.
BOOOOM!
BOOM!
SWISH—!
"!!!?"
Yīnluò covered her eyes.
"How in the world—?!"
She staggered back, blinded by the heat, wincing as a burning sphere formed before her eyes.
Skrr—! Kree! Krrreee—!
Shrill screams tore through the blaze, layered and panicked, as cursed purple flames spiraled inward, feeding the inferno.
This raw power… it's beyond my expectations.
He could easily be ranked as an Abyss Adept.
If not—close to a True Adept.
If he could create a regional treasury, he could sustain this indefinitely…
Yīnluò's widened eyes tracked the formation as it completed itself.
Eight talismans had positioned themselves around the battlefield, equidistant, forming a wide circular array—eight pillars of law suspended in midair.
They weren't merely seals.
They were keystones.
Each talisman blazed at its core, unleashing torrents of fire outward—not chaotically, but with terrifying precision. The flames struck an invisible boundary, rebounding inward instead of dispersing.
At the same time, thin elemental threads erupted from the right of every talisman—finer than hair, yet radiant as molten wire.
Those threads lashed outward, striking the nearest talisman.
A faint breeze followed.
Then another.
The flames shifted.
What had once been wild torrents were subtly drawn, their trajectories bent slightly off course. The process repeated—thread to talisman, talisman to thread—faster and faster, each cycle tightening the flow.
The air began to hum.
The flames no longer surged outward—they circulated.
A spiraling motion emerged as the fires were pulled into orbit around the glowing strings of light, revolving faster with every pass. The heat intensified, compressed rather than dispersed, folding in on itself.
Within moments, a rotating wall of fire formed—a barrier of spinning flames that howled like a living storm.
It wasn't just burning.
It was refining.
The eight talismans acted as shield, ignition source, and circulator all at once—each reinforcing the others, creating a self-sustaining loop. Any excess heat was redirected, any instability corrected, the formation constantly balancing itself.
At the center stood Qiren.
His body glowed faintly—shielded beneath the inferno, ash and embers flowing around him without leaving a mark. The fire did not consume him—it acknowledged him.
Every breath he took fed the array.
Every heartbeat synchronized with its rotation.
The wyrms were trapped within the revolving blaze, their bodies scorched again and again as the flames passed over them in relentless cycles. There was no escape—no direction without fire.
No moment without pain.
This wasn't a simple incineration.
It was a Bronze Body Furnace—turning the battlefield itself into a refining crucible.
Yīnluò swallowed.
He isn't just burning them…
He's processing them.