As I looked across the battlefield at Wei Lin, that unnervingly wide grin on his face and the faint red tint in his eyes, I frowned. The guy I had seen as my best friend for a year had transformed into someone, or something, I didn’t recognise.

  I flung more seeds across the room with a quick flick of my wrist and watched them roll and bounce off the polished surfaces and settle into position. Wei Lin watched the seeds with interest; the slight swaying of his body told me he was ready to counter whatever I threw at him.

  "Master," Azure whispered to me quietly in my mind, "he has a fractured energy signature. The demonic qi has distorted his judgment more than we thought."

  I nodded and quickly decided on my strategy.

  What was the point playing defence against someone who could absorb all my techniques?

  It would be better to stay close and overwhelm him in martial arts to finish this fight as fast as possible.

  I vanished.

  Green light swirled around me as I activated Verduring Step and my consciousness traveled through the dimensional space between one seed and the next. I materialized directly in front of him and had already set my body in motion for a Phantom Strike to his solar plexus.

  Wei Lin’s eyes widened in surprise, but his fighting instincts took over very quickly.

  He crossed his arms and raised them just as my palm strike contacted with his chest.

  The impact sent shockwaves through the chamber, creating spider web cracks that spread outward from where we stood.

  Wei Lin skidded backward several feet, his boots leaving furrows in the polished floor.

  I didn’t give him the chance to recover.

  I lunged forward and punched him directly in the solar plexus.

  Wei Lin twisted to the side and countered with an elbow strike directed toward my ribs.

  I ducked and swept his legs.

  He leaped over my kick and tried to land a flying knee to my face.

  Rolling backward, I sprang to my feet and lunged forward again.

  My movements were guided by my memories of the Mortal Martial Realm.

  Wei Lin responded to me with a rapid-fire series of punches which I deflected with my forearms.

  He tried to grab my wrist to execute a throw, but I twisted free and delivered an elbow strike to his neck.

  Wei Lin leaned back just enough to avoid serious damage and the elbow strike merely grazed his neck instead of crushing his windpipe.

  His counterpunch caught me in the shoulder, and the force spun me around.

  But I used the momentum to deliver a back-fist that struck his cheek, snapping his head to the side.

  Blood welled at the corner of his mouth, but he was already moving, his leg sweeping toward mine.

  The exchange continued at breakneck speed. Punch, block, counter, dodge.

  My feet moved according to the patterns that Master Hong had instilled in Jinghui's body for years, and my hands flowed through the techniques that I had learned from the various echoes in that mountain temple.

  Wei Lin’s style was much more aggressive than I had remembered; his typical measured and calculated approach had been replaced by something hungrier.

  Then he activated his void stall.

  His body became transparent, and my punch passed through his chest.

  I stumbled forward and lost my footing just as he solidified his fist to deliver a strong strike to my kidney.

  The impact folded me sideways, pain exploding through my torso.

  I rolled away and immediately activated Verduring Step to teleport to a seed behind him.

  However, Wei Lin was already beginning to turn, and his lightning stall was activating, causing his speed to double instantly. His elbow caught me in the ribs before I could fully materialize.

  The strike propelled me across the room, and I hit the crystal wall hard enough to crack it.

  When I looked up, Wei Lin was already closing the distance toward me with inhuman speed.

  I rolled to the side as his fist cratered the wall where my head had been.

  Crystal shards rained down around us as I quickly scrambled to my feet.

  My injured ribs screamed in protest.

  This wasn’t working.

  How could I hope to defeat him using martial arts if he was able to modify his physical properties whenever he wanted to?

  It was time to mix things up.

  I reached into my storage ring and released the qi-infused vines I had prepared, and I sent them spreading out across the battlefield in twisting green lines. Wei Lin had to jump backward as they erupted from the ground around him.

  I charged forward again, and this time, the vines moved with me.

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  Wei Lin blocked my punch, but a thick vine wrapped around his ankle and pulled him off-balance, allowing me to knee him in the stomach, doubling him over.

  With a roar of pain, he activated his fire stall, and flames erupted around his body to incinerate the vines holding him.

  I teleported behind him as he broke free, but he was ready for me this time.

  His void stall activated as I struck, and my palm passed through empty space.

  But I’d expected that.

  Two vines erupted from the ground on either side of him the exact moment he solidified.

  They caught his wrists and held him in place for the few seconds I needed.

  My Phantom Strike connected with his back, and the force-transfer technique sent a ripple of energy through his body. Wei Lin gasped and stumbled forward, but the vines held him upright long enough for my follow-up strike to connect.

  He activated his lightning stall once again, and the electrical energy burned away the vines.

  His lightning-enhanced spinning backhand caught me across the face and sent me stumbling to the ground.

  I got back up spitting blood, my cheek numb from the electrical discharge.

  Wei Lin was panting now, his robes were torn and bloody, he wiped a streak of crimson from his split lip and gave me that too-wide grin I was starting to hate.

  "Not bad," he said with a hint of madness in his voice, "but let me show you what real versatility looks like."

  He pressed his palms together, and I felt his spiritual energy increase.

  An enormous hand materialized above us, and each finger radiated a different type of energy. The thumb pulsed with fire essence, the index finger crackled with lightning, the middle finger swirled with water, the ring finger writhed with death qi, and the pinky finger dripped with the dark corruption of demonic energy.

  I frowned as I sensed the true potential of the technique. This was not simply tenth-stage Qi Condensation anymore; the spiritual pressure emanating from that construct was equivalent to Elemental Realm.

  The hand descended toward me with remarkable speed considering its size.

  I activated Verduring Step and teleported to a seed twenty meters away.

  But the hand simply rotated in mid-air and continued to chase after me.

  I teleported again. The hand still followed.

  My eyes narrowed as I realized the truth. This wasn’t simply a powerful attack. Wei Lin had somehow embedded a tracking mechanism into the construct, most likely using his knowledge of transaction flows to create a lock-on effect.

  Wherever I went, it would follow until it completed its "transaction" of smashing me.

  The fingers of the hand expanded as the hand descended toward me, each finger trailed by its respective element like ribbons of destruction. I knew I couldn’t continue running forever, and I was already running out of seeds I could teleport to.

  Just as the fingers were about to grab me, I made my decision.

  I reached deep inside my inner world and grabbed hold of the connection to my Realm Stabilizing Tree.

  A transparent branch formed in the space between me and Wei Lin’s attacking hand, and its surface sparkled with silver spiritual veins. The tree segment was roughly six feet long and bore the absolute spiritual stability of its parent tree.

  The elemental hand smacked into my manifested branch in a cacophony of conflicting energies. Fire, lightning, water, death qi, and demonic energy all assaulted the tree’s stabilization simultaneously.

  However, the tree held.

  For several seconds, the two techniques battled each other.

  Wei Lin's chaotic elemental mixture trying to overwhelm my tree's perfect stability.

  Lightning arced between the fingers, fire scorched the crystal walls, water turned to steam, death qi withered the air itself, and demonic energy tried to corrupt everything it touched.

  Then, the tree began to win.

  The absolute stability of the Realm Stabilizing Tree was created to counter precisely this type of spiritual chaos. One after another, Wei Lin’s various energy types were neutralized, absorbed, and stabilized. The massive hand began to disintegrate as its fundamental base was destroyed.

  In a single blast, the entire construct shattered.

  The manifested branch dissipated into spiritual energy and returned to my inner world, leaving both of us standing in a room that resembled a natural disaster zone.

  Wei Lin swayed on his feet, and his face was pale from the extreme amount of energy he expended. That technique had obviously exceeded his normal limits, and the resulting backlash was taking its toll on him.

  I didn’t give him the chance to recover.

  I activated Verduring Step one last time, teleporting to the seed right in front of him, and extended my palm in preparation for a Phantom Strike that would end this battle.

  Wei Lin’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, but his depleted spiritual energy reserves and exhausted body meant he couldn’t respond in time.

  My palm struck his chest, and the force transfer technique sent a wave of kinetic energy through his torso.

  Wei Lin’s feet left the ground, and he flew backward through the air, his body somersaulting end-over-end before crashing into the opposite wall with such force that he carved a Wei Lin-sized hole in the crystal surface.

  Breathing heavily, I stood there watching my friend’s motionless form. Some part of me wished that this would not cause an irreparable rift in our relationship, but I knew better. The demonic influence had made him increasingly competitive and resentful. And a decisive loss like this would only make it worse.

  “Wei Lin,” I called out. “You need to give up. The match is over.”

  There was a pause. Then a low chuckle came from the crater in the wall.

  I frowned as the chuckling escalated into full-blown laughter.

  Wei Lin slowly pulled himself out of the crater in the wall, moving stiffly and unnaturally. His robes were ripped, and there were cuts and bruises on his face and arms.

  Even then, he continued to laugh.

  There was something wrong with his laughter. It had a maniacal quality to it that reminded me of the seriously unhinged cultivators I’d met in a different world. Had the defeat finally sent him over the edge of sanity?

  “Wei Lin?” I asked cautiously. “Is —”

  That was when I noticed that he was healing.

  Not slowly, as normal spiritual energy recovery does, but quickly. Cuts closed themselves, bruising disappeared, and the bleeding ceased. In a few seconds, he appeared to be almost fully recovered.

  But it wasn’t the speed of recovery that made my stomach plummet.

  It was the energy that surrounded him.

  Blue sun energy swirled around his body in recognizable patterns, enhancing his cellular regeneration. But that was not the extent of it. As I watched in growing horror, a red aura began to manifest around him as well.

  He became leaner, with defined muscle mass visible beneath his shredded robes. His facial structure sharpened and his eyes developed a feral glint that had nothing to do with demonic corruption.

  This was the same enhancement pattern I had seen throughout the Two Suns world. Red sun for physical “perfection”, blue sun for ‘mental acuity and healing’.

  But how was that possible?

  “Ah, interesting, don’t you think?” Wei Lin asked, flexing his new, enhanced fingers. “I was wondering when you’d push me hard enough for me to reveal this.”

  I stared at him in utter disbelief.

  “When?”

  Wei Lin’s smile expanded, revealing teeth that now seemed too pointed. “You really believed you were so clever, didn’t you? Hiding your mysterious energies from me, making me agree not to attempt to absorb them while we fought.” He laughed again. “The truth is, Ke Yin, I’d already done it.”

  My mind leapt back through the past few days, trying to determine when he might have ...

  “The Fallen Realm,” I whispered.

  “Excellent!” Wei Lin applauded slowly, mockingly. “When that shapeshifter lost control and unleashed those magnificent red and blue energies, I managed to absorb some of the remaining essence into my marketplace before it dissipated.”

  All of the pieces fell into place.

  The personality changes.

  The promise to not absorb the sun energies.

  “It was never demonic qi,” I whispered.

  “Demonic qi is child’s play,” Wei Lin shrugged. “Your lovely energies, on the other hand, are quite a handful...and do you want to hear something funny?” His eyes sparkled. “They’re even better with my marketplace system than with your tree method. All of those separate stalls, all of those energy transformation paths? They’re perfect for handling and assimilating external power sources.”

  My mind recoiled. This changed everything. Wei Lin hadn’t been influenced by demonic qi. He had been influenced by the same dark forces that had driven entire civilizations mad in the Two Suns world. And whereas I possessed the Genesis Seed’s purifying properties to shield me from such influences, he did not.

  This was bad. This was very, very bad.

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