Chapter 11 #4
Alex blinked, feeling a cold shiver of dread and illumination, realizing his mistake just a heartbeat before it was too late.
He was following concepts and ideas tied so closely to the physical conceptualization of the storm that normally served him so well.
Infusing his Dark Qi to the metallic salts howling through the winds and waters of his wrath.
But there was another path he could take.
One where Dark Qi was free to strike out in directions both physical and spiritual. Even if he, too, would feel the backlash.
“Wanshi will fall, fool!” The ancient wujen chortled, now little more than a ghostly afterimage, about to slip out of Alex’s reach entirely. “And the blood of every Ruidian and mixed-blood within will be on your—”
Doom Strike!
You have channeled Black Lightning and have successfully struck your foe!
The currents of oblivion recognize no master! You have suffered: Backlash! Severe Wound minimized to Medium Wound. You have managed to choke back your own scream!
The wujen’s parting sneer turned into a look of surprised disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was blood and boiling darkness as inky-black lightning tore through his spiritual form.
The wujen’s eyes abruptly bulged open, and he began to shriek silently in ethereal currents Alex couldn’t fathom as the ancient cultivator’s body—his soul?
—seemed to twist and stretch impossibly vast distances, his flesh boiling furiously into the ether, like water splashed upon a superheated kiln.
The entire shrieking spirit twisted and stretched in hideous multidimensional knots before seeming to wink out of existence altogether.
Alex shivered, ignoring the quickly healing burns sizzling on his forearms as his prismatic bones greedily drank in the majority of the Dark Qi backlash from his most perilous attack. One that embraced Dark Qi far beyond using it to simply enhance a cleaving blow.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he had seen, but sure as hell, whatever art that man had been using, Alex wanted no part of it.
Not ever. As to whether that bastard’s allies would sense that not everything was right with their plans in Wanshi, or if his foe had effectively vanished without a trace, Alex wasn’t going to bet on a best-case scenario.
The clock was now most definitely ticking, and he feared it was only a matter of time before a certain contingent of Silver-tier killers slipped inside the city’s walls with the goal of eliminating Wanshi’s royal family before putting puppets in their place.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! I should have been quieter. I shouldn’t have given that asshole even an instant to prepare!”
Alex took a deep breath, turning frustration into focused resolve. What was done was done. There was no point in castigating himself over it. He could only learn and move forward.
He glared at the door before him. If there was one tiny bit of consolation, it was that no one had broken the sound ward.
Which meant that he had done at least one thing right, besides purging this quarter of the underground facility of every pawn of the Red Prince that he could find, in addition to rescuing another handful of victims—though sadly, he had found no girl named Jinni.
Yet all four survivors had been of mixed heritage which meant that Alex had been able to erase the horrors endured by body and mind that they had suffered for however many months it had been, and gift them all with a chance to start their lives anew, with absolutely no memory of what former version of themselves had been forced to endure.
He had given each and every girl he had rescued a fresh clean slate and didn’t begrudge the potency it had cost him one bit.
It was a price he would gladly pay, a thousand times over.
Yet the solace was bitter, because it was clear as anything that those of exotic heritage had specifically been targeted to endure the absolute worst that Dongfang Hong’s men had to offer.
Alex glared at the door now before him, knowing that the mastermind behind so much betrayal and horror could be found just beyond.
And as much as he wanted to ask questions, so many questions, he couldn’t help but fear that the wujen’s almost successful exit was thanks to an enchantment or device that perhaps all the Red Prince’s favored pawns might have access to.
A weaker, flawed version of Shalu’s original Divine-tier artifact, but effective enough, in the right circumstances.
Such as when Alex wasn’t around to channel Black Lightning through it.
Still, all it took was a single alarmed pawn giving Wanshi’s enemies an accurate account of the situation to spell absolute peril for the entire city.
So before Alex pressed his hand against the lock, aligned the tumblers into place, and slowly opened the door, he made sure his thoughts were cold and focused.
He had stepped off the stormy heights of ascension.
Now there was only the icy gaze of a man prepared to do anything and everything necessary to stop his foes from emitting even a single cry of warning, even if it meant bathing those richly appointed chambers of silk and luxurious excess in pink frothy blood.
No matter how desperately Nili might scream for him to stop.