Kai moved first.
He shot forward, sword drawn, Metal Qi flaring in a razor arc. Shen responded instantly, his sleeve flicking—and a wall of corrupted flame erupted, blocking the strike. The two blades clashed behind it, sending a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath them.
Yin followed, weaving through the side with the Peerless Sword glowing brilliant silver. She struck in concert with Kai, their blades forming mirrored crescents, the Dual Harmony pattern dancing between them.
Shen roared and countered with brute force. He moved like a hurricane, spinning with the momentum of his corrupted Qi, lashing out with long, sweeping strikes. Despite his madness, his cultivation was still terrifying.
Han moved last through the shadows, silent and deadly. He struck from behind, his bestial Qi coiled like a serpent, targeting Shen's exposed flank.
But Shen spun mid-air, anticipating it, and drove a burst of dark energy into the ground—an eruption that hurled all three attackers backward with brutal force.
Yin landed hard, rolling through ash. Kai hit a boulder and coughed blood. Han staggered to his feet, his lip torn and bleeding.
Shen laughed, lifting both hands. The ground split open, and black vines of corrupted Qi rose, writhing like serpents. They lashed toward the trio, each tendril seeking to bind, choke, devour.
Yin shouted a Peerless Sword technique—"Radiant Sundering!"—and her blade burst with blinding light, severing two of the tendrils cleanly.
Kai called, "Celestial Edge: Mirror Divide!", and his sword split into three reflections, each slicing through the incoming vines.
Han growled, summoning a beast form of his own—a spectral wolf forged from will and desperation. It tore into the vines with savage efficiency.
Together, they broke free.
And then, as if on instinct, they converged.
Yin leapt high, blade poised like a comet. Kai surged low, driving upward. Han moved laterally, a blur of speed and shadow.
Shen raised a wall of Qi to counter.
But the wall cracked.
Because for the first time, the three were aligned.
Their attacks landed as one. Yin's blade carved a burning arc down Shen's shoulder. Kai's sword drove deep into his side. Han's strike shattered the Qi at Shen's waist, driving him to one knee.
Shen screamed—not just in pain, but disbelief.
"No! I am Shen Zhenhai! I cannot be—"
Yin stood over him, her sword glowing. "This is not your world anymore."
And with one final strike, she drove the Peerless Sword downward—not into his body, but into his core, into the very heart of his Qi.
The sword pulsed.
And Shen Zhenhai's Qi shattered.
He collapsed screaming as the last of his power unraveled. The black aura dissipated. The vines crumbled into dust. His eyes rolled back.
Yin stood over Shen, her blade raised, glowing with righteous energy. Kai flanked her, his sword at the ready. Han knelt at Meng Yao's side, shielding her with his body. The battlefield lay still around them, charred trees, cracked stones, shattered Qi.
Shen Zhenhai was on his knees, coughing blood, his body trembling violently. The darkness that had once pulsed so fiercely around him now flickered like a dying flame. His robe was torn, blood pooling beneath him, his right hand clutching his chest where Kai's strike had pierced through layers of his meridian defenses.
His head lifted slowly.
And he smiled.
Not a grimace of pain. Not the delusion of a dying man.
But a genuine, wide and terrible smile.
"You think this is over?" he croaked, his voice gurgling with blood.
Yin's eyes narrowed. "Accept your defeat, Shen Zhenhai!"
"Defeat?" Shen coughed, then laughed—a hoarse, hollow sound that echoed like wind through tombstones. "You've seen only the surface. You think I clawed my way to the peak with poison and schemes alone?"
Shen Zhenhai knelt amid the cracked earth and smoking embers, blood pooling beneath him. The Peerless Sword had pierced through his last defenses, and the Qi of three formidable cultivators had driven him to his knees. His body trembled. Pain screamed from every torn muscle. His breath rattled, shallow and failing.
And yet… his eyes burned.
Not with defeat.
But with fury.
Why…?
Why had it come to this?
Had he not borne the burdens no one else dared shoulder? Had he not sacrificed—friends, disciples, honor, and love—for the sake of a better world?
He had once knelt at the feet of revered elders who whispered pious platitudes while the cultivation world rotted from the inside. Hypocrites cloaked in ceremonial robes, too afraid to make hard decisions. They had spoken of balance, justice, and spiritual purity—all while turning blind eyes to the rise of darkness in the outer provinces, to the bloodshed in rival sects, to the slow decay of discipline among younger generations.
They had lacked conviction.
But not him.
I did what was necessary.
He had taken the Peerless Sword not out of greed—but because he could not let its power fall into hands unworthy of guiding the future. He had poisoned Jiang Xue not out of malice, but because her presence had become an obstacle—too beloved, too idealized, too unwilling to see the greater truth that power had to be seized, not hoped for.
They called me tyrant. They called me heretic.
Shen Zhenhai's vision blurred, but not from blood loss.
All I ever wanted was to unite them. To guide them. To save them.
And now, the very disciples who had once bowed to him with reverence stood over him, blades drawn, eyes cold. Yin Shuang—the daughter of Jiang Xue, the embodiment of that foolish, unreachable ideal—dared to look at him with pity.
Pity.
He could not bear it.
I was the one who saw the darkness coming. I was the one who made the first strike. Why must I be punished for the courage others lacked?
He spat blood to the ground, chest heaving.
If this world will not accept me as its leader…
His fingers trembled as he reached inside the folds of his robe, retrieving the black lacquered box—small, unassuming, but warm to the touch, as though it housed something alive.
Kai stepped forward cautiously. "What are you-?"
His answer was to reach slowly into the folds of his torn robe.
From within, he drew a small black lacquered box, no bigger than a palm. Its surface was etched with an ancient rune, glowing faintly in a sickly green hue. The sigil shimmered like oil on water—wrong, unstable, and thrumming with a rhythm that made Kai's skin crawl.
Kai's eyes narrowed on the mysterious writing on the box. "Strange rune…"
Shen opened the box carefully. Inside lay a single pill—irregular, jagged, the color of dried blood and ash. It pulsed faintly, as though alive.
He held it between two fingers and looked up at them with wild, gleaming eyes.
A whisper tickled the edges of his consciousness—low, velvet, hungry.
He smiled.
Let the cowards tremble. Let the saints avert their eyes. I will do what must be done. I always have.
And as he raised the pill to his lips, his final thought came, bitter and resolute:
If salvation requires damnation, then let damnation come.
Then, without hesitation, he swallowed the pill.
"You forced me to this," he whispered.
The effect was immediate.
Shen's body convulsed, a harsh rattle echoing from deep in his throat. The earth beneath him cracked, and the air turned foul with the stench of sulfur and rot. His veins darkened. His limbs jerked unnaturally. He began to chant, his voice a guttural snarl in a tongue lost to time.
Shen's body convulsed violently. A pulse of pitch-black Qi erupted from his core, knocking Yin back. She stumbled, bracing herself with the Peerless Sword, but the ground beneath her cracked as if recoiling from the sudden shift in energy.
Kai felt it instantly: a twist in the world, like reality warping.
Yin's voice dropped to a whisper. "That… that's not normal Qi."
It wasn't. The air thickened like oil, the scent of sulfur and blood rising sharply.
Then Shen Zhenhai began to chant—words that scraped against the air like rusted blades.
Old words.
Words no righteous sect dared speak.
Yin's eyes widened in horror. "That language—it's… from the Lost Tongue of the Nether Realm!"
Han backed up, pulling Meng Yao with him. "What the hell is he doing?"
The answer came too late.
Shen Zhenhai's body arched, his limbs snapping backward at unnatural angles. Veins turned black beneath his skin, bulging like worms. His eyes rolled back, revealing only the whites. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
And something answered.
From the shattered earth beneath him, black tendrils of pure demonic Qi erupted like roots breaking through stone, wrapping around his body, entering through his mouth, his eyes, his wounds.
His body shuddered violently—and then stilled.
The ground trembled.
For one breathless second, all was silent.
Then Shen rose.
But it was no longer truly Shen Zhenhai.
His eyes were now solid black, his body crackling with chaotic energy. His skin pulsed with dark runes that hadn't been seen in years. The very laws of spiritual cultivation twisted around him like a cloak of nightmares.
Yin staggered backward, clutching her sword. "That's… That's a possession technique."
Shen's inhuman voice shrieked. "Demonic Possession!"