Chapter 119: The Sprite's Mark
The terrifying Reiatsu swept outwards like a physical storm, pressing down on the world and seeming to leach the color from the sky itself.
Huang Quan's face paled in shock. He felt as if heavy shackles had been clamped around his legs, a powerful, involuntary urge to kneel and submit surging through him.
"This feeling... it's even more terrifying than facing the Master Sprite," Huang Quan muttered, his entire body trembling uncontrollably under the crushing weight of Aizen's spiritual pressure. This deep-seated, soul-chilling fear was far more profound than anything he had felt in the presence of the otherworldly entity.
If the monster from another world was a mobile mountain of dread to Huang Quan, then Aizen was the god standing atop the clouds, sacred, absolute, and utterly inviolable.
The high-temperature flames from the combined ninjutsu could not get close to Aizen, repelled by an invisible, impassable wall of pure energy.
When Aizen took another calm step forward, the remaining flames flickered and died, and an unnerving silence returned to the desolate landscape.
"Flames of this level cannot even touch me," Aizen stated, his voice devoid of any exertion. "Now, let's discuss the matter at hand."
His gaze sharpened, the placid calm now containing an aggressive, penetrating edge.
"What is the source of the dark energy within you?"
"Who are you?" Huang Quan countered, cold sweat beading on his forehead and tracing a path down his temple. He felt as if he were facing his ultimate nemesis. "Are you from the Land of Demons?"
Years of meticulous planning, all for the grand design set to unfold in three years' time. If the details were leaked now, all his painstaking efforts would be reduced to nothing.
"The Land of Demons," Aizen mused, a hint of recognition in his tone. "A small, remote nation on the edge of the continent, the birthplace of the Shrine Maidens. It seems the monster connected to you is inextricably linked to that priestess lineage."
From a single clue, Aizen had pieced together the broader picture.
During his two months within the Root organization, he had not only absorbed intelligence on the Land of Fire but had also paid close attention to the lore of other nations. The legends surrounding the two minor countries bordering the Land of Earth—the Land of Demons and the Land of Snow—had particularly captured his interest.
"You... you know of the Shrine Maiden's existence?" Huang Quan's eyes widened, then narrowed into slits of sharp, frantic killing intent. He was now convinced Aizen possessed significant intelligence and knew the truth behind the ancient legend.
Huang Quan's anger erupted. The shuriken in his hand gleamed with a silver light. In the next second, he intended to bury it in Aizen's heart.
But his movement froze mid-air. To his horror, Huang Quan found that every attempt to move was met with a pressure a thousand times greater than before.
Before his arm could even complete its downward arc, he collapsed weakly, his body utterly pinned by the terrifying, invisible force of Aizen's Reiatsu.
"Without a blade forged from true hatred, you cannot hope to strike me down," Aizen said, his voice laced with a cold amusement. "There is no such hatred between you and me. The reason you raise your blade is likely because of this 'Sprite' that was sealed away long ago, correct?"
Aizen looked down at the prostrate Huang Quan, his calm eyes filled with undisguised contempt.
Were it not for the trace of monstrous energy he sensed within Huang Quan, Aizen would have considered any further interaction with these insects beneath him. A meaningless struggle, the flailing of insignificant ants who weren't even worthy of being stepping stones.
"Damn you! You seek to covet the Master Sprite's power!" one of the white-robed youths roared in fury. When he spoke of the Sprite, a fanatical, religious piety burned in his eyes, as if this alien monster sealed by the Shrine Maiden was their deity. "Even if you stop us now, you cannot stop the Master Sprite's return!"
In their hearts, the Sprite possessed unimaginable power. Once their king descended upon the world, it would have the strength to easily sweep across the Five Great Nations and establish a millennium-spanning empire without any difficulty. Huang Quan's careful planning over the years was all for this single goal: to travel to the Land of Demons, break the ancient seal, release the Sprite, and let the Five Great Nations once again feel the terror of being dominated by an army of ghosts.
"I never expected a monster from another world to become the god you worship," Aizen remarked, his interest clearly piqued. "Then, allow me to witness what kind of power this 'Sprite' truly possesses."
He raised a single finger. An invisible thread of concentrated spiritual power shot from his fingertip and poured directly into Huang Quan's body.
Fwoosh!
Huang Quan's face contorted in shock and confusion. As a human without any latent spiritual power, he could not perceive the Reiatsu at all. He only felt a strange, ethereal, yet overwhelmingly dominant force flooding into his body, occupying every corner. His own chakra, when it encountered this foreign energy, was instantly and effortlessly crushed, like a twig trying to hold back a raging river.
In mere moments, Aizen's spiritual power had completely saturated Huang Quan's body. No matter how desperately he struggled, it was utterly futile.
"Gah... AAAAAH!"
As Aizen willed it, Huang Quan let out a piercing scream of agony. He felt the mysterious power rampaging violently within him, tearing at his very essence, with a terrifying tendency to burst out from his skin...
"No! No! I don't want to die! I must summon Lord Sprite! I must build the thousand-year empire!"
Blue veins bulged across his pale face. His wails were heart-rending, his struggles pathetic.
"If this continues... I will die!"
Huang Quan's eyes widened in utter despair, feeling the precipice between life and death yawning before him. He gasped for air, each breath a monumental effort.
At the very moment of life and death, something monstrous responded. Huang Quan's skin suddenly became covered in countless, squirming purple lines.
These lines were deeply etched onto his flesh, forming bizarre, esoteric patterns. Stranger still, these dark, cursed seals seemed to be alive, writhing and shifting as if channeling some mysterious, malevolent power.
They evoked the absolute darkness of an endless abyss, inspiring pure despair. They were like phantoms from the deepest shadows, clinging like a curse.
Anyone who looked upon these sinister patterns felt their hearts involuntarily tempted, their innocent and kind natures abandoned as they were drawn toward decadent and corrupting grandeur.
"So, this is the power of the so-called Sprite?" Aizen murmured, a spark of genuine interest finally igniting in his obsidian eyes. "It has surprised me."
His black hair fluttered softly in the wind. He stepped forward peacefully, yet an invisible, domineering aura preceded him.
Huang Quan's eyes held only deep regret and unwillingness. He was certain Aizen was about to deliver the final blow, his grand plan of many years destroyed by a youth he had never before met.
Time seemed to stretch in the solemn atmosphere.
When Aizen finally stood directly over Huang Quan, the latter closed his eyes, resigned to his fate. Under the ocean-like pressure of Aizen's Reiatsu, the only thing left to do was wait for death.
But the killing blow never came.
Huang Quan cracked his eyes open, staring in surprise at Aizen, and saw a strange, calculating light deep within the young man's pupils.
"Get up," Aizen commanded, his voice calm yet leaving no room for refusal. "Take me to the Land of Demons. I will assist you in breaking the Shrine Maiden's seal and releasing this 'Sprite'."
A faint, chilling smile touched Aizen's lips, a harbinger of a coming storm far greater than any they could have imagined.
After a brief, deceptive calm, the true tempest was about to begin.
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