"What do you mean he just disappeared?!" a massive figure hissed. "Look at the tunnels—he only has one way to reach me. Cave in the walls!"
The Wyrm Queen barked her command to the drones.
"I need more time to digest this object," she growled in pain as more tendrils swarmed inside her.
They burned with hellfire, yet carried a spiritual radiance that enhanced her the longer the fruit progressed within her body.
Leafy vines crawled out of her mouth, wrapping around her crown like pointed joints, rooting her into the ground.
Swirr… riiipp…
She stirred, ripping the tendrils away and shifting her body—but even then, more vines forced their way out, trying to anchor her in place.
"Block him off—do it now!"
Skree! Skree!
A group of loyalists dug above the tunnel and fired fireballs, shattering its frame. The tunnel began to cave in.
"Guards, this might not hold him for long. You all need to protect me—fight him off—"
Her voice cut off as a shadowy silhouette stabbed straight through her exoskeleton.
The royal guards froze as the figure she had been preparing for shoved its claws deep into their queen's stomach.
"Oh, you don't have to go that far. I'm already here. Now tell me—how fast do you want me to kill you~" Qiren cooed as he pulled his arm free.
His flaming mane burned brighter.
"Hahahaha!" the queen laughed.
"Do you think your puny existence can threaten me?" Her body was twisted into a purple-and-black-laced inferno, accomplishing what Qiren's flares could not.
The black gas mixed with the docile poison particles in the air, turning them flammable—ensuring only she could detonate her own fumes.
"ONLY I HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DECIDE WHO LIVES AND DIES!"
ZZZZZHZZZ—
The fumes ignited. Within seconds of his arrival, the cave shook with a deafening blast.
KABOOOOOM!!!
The guards opened their mouths, sucking in portions of the blaze.
Qiren was launched back along with several of her own drones as the cave threatened to be blown wide open.
"Rift—OPEN!"
He lifted two fingers as the soul altars dimmed.
Losing light as the souls broke down, an almost endless darkness filled the room, swallowing the explosion mid-motion.
"Tch. I didn't think you'd go all out the moment we came face to face," he murmured. "Demons are truly wickedness incarnate."
He smiled as white armored plates formed over his arms and chest, following the burn marks.
Something was wrong…
Light pierced through the darkness. The sound of flowing water filled their senses.
One moment they were in their nest—their queen having outsmarted the Dao Fiend with her royal toxins and Dao flames—but…
?!!!
They were falling.
A gaping hole had opened in the floor, swallowing them and the explosion alike, sending the queen's guards and wyrms tumbling down a vast chasm.
Demons on the ledges looked on as over twenty wyrms dropped from a magical formation painted across the sky.
Their bodies plunged into the Azure Stream below, turning to dust and rubble.
Qiren rubbed his chin. "It's a shame I couldn't get all of you in one go," he said, fully engulfed in miasma.
He looked at the queen, nailed just outside the teleportation array's center. Dark miasma shifted across the floor, revealing a bright red drawing that churned and pulled at the chaotic darkness around it.
It tried to send everything in the room to its set coordinates.
Her body was being dragged toward the black vortex near her—but the tendrils bursting from her saved her life as they burrowed deeper into the ground.
Some wyrms did the same, digging in or hiding within their nests to avoid being pulled into the portal.
SKRIRR! SKREE!
They chittered, firing fireballs at the gate before being forced through.
Others weren't even sucked in—thick miasma covered them, and the next thing they knew, they had appeared somewhere else.
In a tree.
In a lake.
Near a waterfall.
Avoiding the vortex was even more deadly, sending them to destinations even Qiren didn't know—just like the explosion beneath the initial giant rift activation.
Qiren shot forward, wings spread as he dove.
He plucked one of his feathers mid-flight.
How much energy do I have? he asked himself, summoning a small sheet.
He knew he was rapidly approaching his limits, having unleashed two ultimate attacks in quick succession. He needed to deal with the invaders in his base as fast as possible.
Negative Karma: 2,143.4 ↓
Refinement Qi: 127 ↓
Refinement Realm: Middle Stage (Beginner)
That should be enough for my last draw. If this can't kill it, I'll have to take the loss.
Right now, he was in as much danger as the rest of her army. Passing through a large rift cloud could easily send him away—or mix him into the cavern under its rogue output.
He applied one unit of Qi into the quill.
Its edges sharpened as he launched it at the queen. She opened her maw and sprayed a wave of flames.
Like it had been hit by a flamethrower, the feather turned to ash. She turned her head, firing at him.
Qiren maneuvered overhead, launching quills in rapid succession—each one burned away before reaching her.
"How dare you kill my children!" she roared.
The fruit of twisted rage glowed brightly as distorted tendrils erupted from her mouth, whipping toward him.
The miasma below continued to churn, pulling at everything.
The vines were dragged slightly off course.
I'll kill you—
The walls shook as a suicide group burst from the stone beside Qiren, the queen's intent transmitted directly into them.
But before they could launch themselves, a wave of miasma slammed into their bodies, sculpting them into the ceiling.
This was what Qiren feared.
By sacrificing ten souls into the teleportation array, he had generated a chaotic backlash of bloated energy. The formation split—its center, buried somewhere in the ground, led to the chasm…
…while its edges released a constant flood of miasma, forming separate Abyssal Rifts that sent victims to random destinations until the array was destroyed.
He continued circling, throwing useless feathers.
Buying time, he reached into the pocket strap on his leg and pulled out a stack of talismans.
"Exorcist Series: Thirty Talisman Bindings."
The talismans lit up with orange light and shot from his fingers. They moved like bullets as thin strings burst forth, tethering pairs together.
The Wyrm Queen tried to incinerate them all—but failed. They moved as if possessed of their own will, evading her flames and wrapping blazing strings around her neck and body.
"Hmph. If I can't burn them, then I'll devour them," she snarled, stopping her flames and inhaling deeply.
Several talismans were dragged into her mouth, but fourteen spun free, wrapping tightly around her head.
"Don't take me lightly," she growled as the heat around her surged.
"Nine Golden Dawn: Abyssal-Dao Acupuncture."
Qiren clenched his fist. "Inverted Flames."
The heat of her own fire sealed her fate.
The talismans absorbed the flames coating her body, then released everything back in concentrated beams.
BOOOOM! BOOOOM!
"AHHHHHH!"
She screamed in agony. "How dare you!!"
More tendrils burst from her body, wailing alongside her as the vines emerging from her flesh reddened with fury. The fruit inside her pulsed, releasing twisted pressure.
Her exoskeleton blackened in incomplete patches as more burn lines cracked and charred across the surface.
Negative Karma: 1,743.4 ↓
Refinement Qi: 125 ↓
Refinement Realm: Middle Stage (Beginner)
She's merging with the curse already.
Qiren rushed in, pulling out more talismans. He hurled them, intent on maintaining pressure. A tendril lashed at him—he ducked and grabbed it.
It writhed as he seized control.
The moment he released it, the tendril snapped back, carrying the stacked talismans with destructive force.
"Argh!"
Twelve talismans marked her skin and ignited at full power, ripping through her exoskeleton like spears.
"Four Binding Seals."
He didn't let up, sending four pairs of talismans.
These didn't simply wrap around her—they sealed her to the floor.
The threads spread across her body, branching and connecting, forming tightening knots as the four talismans embedded in the ground completed his Thirty Talisman Bindings ritual.
Skreeee!
Let's end this…
He took the rift talisman he had kept on his lips until now.
The miasma shifted around it as he pointed it at the bound queen between two fingers.
His left hand pulled back. His back straightened as he focused, mimicking an archer drawing his bow.
The rift talisman trembled.
The miasma around it was dragged inward, spiraling violently as space warped and folded. Darkness stretched, condensed—then snapped into form.
A bow of fractured void took shape between Qiren's fingers, its limbs carved from collapsing rift-space.
In his other hand, an arrow formed—pure distortion, its shaft woven from tearing reality, its tip a spiraling singularity that screamed without sound.
The cavern groaned.
Wind reversed. Shadows bent, drawn toward the weapon like dying stars.
Qiren inhaled.
He poured everything into it.
Qi bled from his meridians. Karma burned away like ash in a storm.
His body screamed. His vision dimmed.
But his grip never wavered.
He drew the bowstring back.
The rift arrow screamed louder.
And he let go.
—
In that moment, the Wyrm Queen felt an overwhelming discomfort.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Something wrong.
The arrow pierced her.
There was no explosion. No tearing of flesh. No wound to her exoskeleton.
Instead, the moment the rift arrow entered her—
—it passed through her body.
And struck something far deeper.
Her soul convulsed.
The world lurched as the arrow tore through the truth of her existence, ripping apart the binding between essence and flesh. Tendrils froze mid-motion. Flames died without smoke.
Qiren shattered the barrier that separated solid flesh from her spiritual being.
Ripping through her very soul with one blow.
"Broken Void Absence."
"I think that's a fitting name for this technique," he whispered, lowering his arms as the bow unraveled.
The teleportation formation was also beginning to stop.
He looked at the talismans embedded in the queen's carcass and deactivated them with a swipe of his arm. Their patterns died down, and the bindings released. Her body twitched, half alive, as the fruit remained rooted inside her.
It pulsed with remnant heat as it continued to grow, burn, and burrow, slowly turning the queen into its own personal charred vineyard. Vines poured out unrestricted, covering her body in burning shrubs.
He stared at the corpse longer than he'd intended, watching as it was fully overtaken, before flying down and ripping the fruit of rage out.
The vines quickly withered as he removed their source of vitality.