406 What's Wrong?

"So what if curiosity killed the cat?" I asked quietly. My voice rippled across the lake, thin but steady. "If someone had to die for it, why did it have to be me?"

The eyes in my shadow didn't blink.

"I sealed my memories for a reason," I continued, forcing the words out before fear could choke them. "I erased Earth. I buried my past. I locked it away so I could move forward, so I could accept this reality and build a life that didn't revolve around what I lost."

The shadow laughed, low and amused, but I didn't stop.

"That wasn't cowardice. That was survival."

I needed time.

That much was clear. Fighting him like this was suicide. The only way out was to stall, to wait for a fracture, a mistake, a moment where his attention slipped. My mind raced, branching into possibilities, each worse than the last.

Two paths remained. Burn everything I had in a single, desperate confrontation, or talk until the world shifted to my favor.

I chose the latter.

I quietly ignited Immortal Art: Divine Appointment of the Faithful. A thin spark of divinity flared within me, barely there, but enough. If it came to it, I could cast Exalted Renewal, but the thought made my core ache. That spell solved problems by erasing pieces of myself, and I didn't like the odds.

The Void's shadow scoffed, laughter echoing over the water. "You're just like them," he said. "Clinging to a false world. A true disappointment."

"Then tell me," I replied, keeping my incorporeal form steady, "what does the real world look like?"

The eyes narrowed.

"I've seen inside you," I said. "There's nothing there. No memory, no attachment, no soul! Just emptiness. You severed everything yourself. So why destroy everything else, when there's still so much that exists?"

"You don't get it," the Void snapped. His voice sharpened, stripped of humor. "You accept wrongness as normal."

"Explain it to me."

"The dead should stay dead," he said flatly. "What became nothing cannot become something again. An ending should be final."

I tilted my head. "Then is living a sin?"

He laughed, sharp and cutting. "Don't confuse categories. Sin is relative. Wrong is not."

The shadow gestured to itself, to me, to the reflected sky. "It is wrong that I exist. It is wrong that you exist. That is fact, not belief."

My heart pounded with anxiety.

"Then who decides what's true?" I demanded. "Who defines wrong and right? An emperor? A father? A teacher? A god?"

My voice rose despite myself.

"And who was even god to begin with?"

My words landed harder than I expected. Even the lake seemed to still, the shadow on its surface rippling as if struck.

"Face it," I said, my voice steady despite the pressure gnawing at my Ghost Soul. "You didn't arrive at the truth. You hollowed yourself out and called it enlightenment." I tilted my head, letting the spite slip through. "All that edgy void-ness fried your brain, and now you're disillusioned with everything. That's not wisdom. That's burnout."

The shadow didn't answer immediately, and in that brief silence, I pushed forward. What if all this talk of wrongness was nothing more than decoration added after the fact? A label slapped onto reality to justify despair. People were wrong all the time. Sometimes they were right. Most of the time, they were just muddling through. There was nothing sacred about certainty, and nothing sinful about being unfinished. That was life. Dealing with that fact, without trying to erase the board, was what growing up actually meant.

I pointed at the shadow on the lake, posture exaggerated, and tone sharp. "I'm an adult," I declared. "And now I'm going to teach you how to be an adult." I jabbed the air again. "When was the last time you actually lived? Touched yourself, got stupidly lovey-dovey with someone, drank too much with friends, obsessed over a hobby, or—hell!—did real work and contributed something to society instead of sulking at the universe?"

Even as I spoke, I knew I was leaning into theatrics, letting my arms move too much, and my words spill too freely. I was buying time, throwing noise into the air, and praying he wouldn't notice how much of this was improvised bravado layered over desperation.

"Enough."

The lake exploded.

Void tore himself out of the water, shadows collapsing inward as flesh reasserted itself. The pressure doubled, crushing down on my incorporeal form. I didn't hesitate.

"Ru Qiu," I sent through Qi Speech, sharp and urgent. "Clean up your mess."

I activated Castling.

The world lurched. Space inverted, and suddenly I was standing amid the utterly ruined sacred grounds of the Heavenly Divine Cult, rubble stretching to the horizon. The air still reeked of scorched qi. I counted in my head, calm and methodical.

One. Two. Three—

Void reappeared before me in a ripple of darkness.

I smiled inwardly and triggered the second switch.

I had left a Manasoul by the lake.

Castling targeted the Manasoul. I reappeared above what remained of the lake. The lake evaporated into steam and mist with Ru Qiu lying cratered at its center, the earth spiderwebbed beneath him. In roughly three seconds, Ru Qiu confronted the Void and was utterly walloped. I hovered in the air as rain began to fall in heavy drops, barely enough to form shallow puddles where water once lay.

I snapped my fingers.

From the Manasoul's position as a result of Castling, Heavenly Punishment descended. It was a colossal golden sword, tearing through the sky, divine radiance splitting the clouds. Through the Manasoul, I watched Void raise his gaze, simply receiving the strike as if testing the weight of my resolve.

Then I blinked back to the lake.

Ru Qiu stood up from the crater, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, dark fury rolling off him in waves. He looked absolutely livid.

I landed lightly nearby and shrugged. "Told you so."

Ru Qiu didn't look at me at first.

When he finally did, the anger in his eyes dulled into something closer to irritation. It was directed at himself more than anything else. "I miscalculated," he said. It sounded like an apology, stripped bare and filed down by pride. "But don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same if you were offered the truth."

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"I'll never know," I shot back. "Because it wasn't me who screwed up."

His jaw tightened. Dark flames flared as he unleashed his Immortal Art in full, the sky above us dimming as an eclipse swallowed the sun.

"Are you insane?" I cursed. "You're practically announcing our location!"

"I'll clean it up," Ru Qiu snapped. Without shame, he added, "But I'll need your help."

The irony almost broke me.

Right now, escape would've been preferable, but he didn't know the stakes. He was already dead by the time the Void started tearing into me, pulling pieces apart like he was browsing shelves. The stress coiled in my chest until I wanted to vomit, except I couldn't. I was barely corporeal, a ghost clinging to form through sheer will.

The Void appeared without warning.

His fist slammed into my chest. I tried to phase, ghostly intangibility slipping over me like a habit, but his hand ignored it. Fingers closed around my heart and tore it free.

I screamed.

Runes ignited around my heart, ancient scripts crawling over it, weaving into a curse so dense it made my vision blur. Enslavement? Torment? Both? I didn't wait to find out.

Black flames erupted.

Ru Qiu's fire consumed my heart, and I triggered Castling.

We switched places.

Ru Qiu drove a dark, blazing kick into Void, who blocked it with a single arm effortlessly. His eyes never left me as something shifted.

I tried to cast, and nothing happened.

"What the—" My skills were locked, like someone had slammed a door inside me.

Void vanished and reappeared in front of me.

I was already gone, switching again with Ru Qiu through Castling. Space folded. We traded places… and Void followed.

He stood before me an instant later, smiling faintly. "You're getting predictable."

I spat bloodless saliva. "You're not exactly creative yourself."

Dark, fiery runes erupted around us. Ru Qiu slammed both palms together, and chains of condensed flame shot out, wrapping around the Void, biting into shadow and flesh alike. They held for a breath.

I had one chance.

I needed something fast and absolute.

"Divine Word: Rest."

The word rang out like a verdict. Void's eyes fluttered. His posture dipped, just slightly, like gravity remembered him.

That was enough.

My throat burned as I forced the next command out, soul screaming with it.

"Divine Mandate of Proximity!"

I felt it settle the instant the words left my mouth.

A golden dome bloomed outward with me as its axis. It wasn't a barrier in the conventional sense. More like a command of divine power. Anything hostile caught within its reach was bound by proximity itself. Power diminished with distance, unleashing debuffs and stat penalties on the offender. Ignore me, and suffer.

Divine Mandate of Proximity was basically the ultimate taunt skill..

The dark chains around Void shattered like brittle glass. His eyelids fluttered, irritation bleeding through the drowsiness Divine Word: Rest had forced upon him. I didn't wait for him to fully wake.

I ran.

Zealot's Stride ignited beneath my feet, Flash Step bursting in uneven pulses as I tore through the air. The farther I fled, the tighter the mandate bit down on him. I felt feedback along the golden tether, like a strained bowstring humming with violence.

This was the best I could do.

Anything less and we were finished.

This wasn't the time for cleverness or experimentation. But instinct told me there was room just enough to bend the rules. Paladin Aura techniques for example were never meant to be narrow and compressed. They thrived on breadth and presence. However, with my aura born from martial arts, I was able to reshape it.

The same should be possible for Divine Mandate of Proximity. With my soul's ability to perceive branching outcomes, I forced the possibilities inward, pruning everything else away.

Area became point. Command became chain.

The dome collapsed inward, shrinking violently until a single golden chain erupted from my chest and lashed onto its target.

Void.

I shot skyward, burning qi and mana alike. When I dared to look back, the world was ending.

Dark, fiery dragons poured from the eclipse Ru Qiu had summoned, screaming as they descended. Explosions of formless energy tore upward, splitting clouds, carving mountains apart, boiling seas into steam. The sky itself warped under the strain.

Then Void appeared behind me.

Half his face was gone, burned to the bone. His lower body simply wasn't there, cauterized into absence. He smiled anyway.

"You're not going anywhere," he said calmly.

I tried to Castling with Ru Qiu, but nothing happened.

My stomach dropped.

He'd died again.

I triggered the Manasoul I had hidden within Ru Qiu earlier and barked, "Divine Word: Raise."

Void's hand clamped around my face. His grip tightened, crushing not bone, but concept. I felt Divine Mandate of Proximity unravel as he squeezed the command itself apart.

I forced Qi Speech through the pain. "Trust me," I sent to Ru Qiu. "Put faith in me. We can still make this work."

Castling activated, aimed at Ru Qiu.

The world inverted.

I reappeared in a scorched forest, ash drifting like snow.

Void was there an instant later.

"This won't work twice," he said, amused.

I met his gaze and smiled thinly.

"Watch."

I reached inward, past pain, past fear, and cast Divine Possession on the second Manasoul I had quietly left inside Ru Qiu.

"Get ready for a counterattack."

I blinked awake inside Ru Qiu's body.

The sensation nearly tore me apart.

Power flooded every fiber of my being. It wasn't refined like mine, nor layered with careful restraint. It was vast, tyrannical, and unapologetic, like standing inside a raging star and realizing the star obeyed me.

For a fraction of a second, I understood why Ru Qiu had never learned to bend.

I felt his faith tug at me. It was faint, but stubborn. It wasn't reverence. It wasn't submission. It was trust forged through shared violence, shared stubbornness, and an unspoken understanding that if the world had to burn, at least it would burn honestly.

That was enough.

I had done this before. With Da Ji. With Alice. Different vessels, different laws, but the principle remained the same. Faith as catalyst. Understanding as anchor.

I whispered, almost reverently,

"Divine Transformation: Ghost."

The divine spark within me roared.

The eclipse above screamed in response.

Blue fire ignited across Ru Qiu's body, cold and violent. A silver halo formed above his head, then twisted, thorns erupting outward like a cruel crown. His eyes burst into blinding white, pupils erased. His arms darkened into inky charcoal, veins of blue flame pulsing beneath the surface as if his body were barely containing what flowed through it.

Above us, the eclipse burned brighter as a massive blue pentagram ignited across the sky, staining the heavens the color of ghostfire.

I felt Ru Qiu's delight crash into me.

"Do a beam attack with me," he said eagerly, like a child discovering fire for the first time.

Of course he would say that.

He slammed his palms together, then slowly drew them apart. Immortal Art: Defying the Heaven's Decree ignited, a sphere of dark, furious quintessence forming between his hands. The air warped and screamed, space itself blistering under the pressure.

I poured myself into it.

Immortal Art: Godslayer answered my will. Golden qi surged forward, colliding with the dark core. Instead of clashing, the colors dissolved into something new.

Ghostly blue.

Since when did gold and black make blue?

Apparently, right now.

Void appeared before us, fully restored, faster than thought. An invisible blade tore into our shoulder, but we reacted without hesitation, pain meaningless beneath the flood of power.

I used Castling with a Manasoul I had scattered earlier.

The world folded.

We reappeared beneath the dense canopy of the forest. From afar, through the Manasoul's eyes, I cast Divine Word: Rest again. Void staggered midair, fighting the command with visible irritation.

"Good."

My Reflect never triggered once during this entire nightmare.

This was payback.

We unleashed the sphere.

The beam erupted. It was vast, screaming, and incandescent, tearing through the sky like judgment given form. Ghostly blue flames erased everything in their path as Ru Qiu and I shouted the first name that came to mind.

"Heaven-Slaying Ghost Flame Destruction Beam!"

That name was absolutely Ru Qiu's fault.

The power ripped away from us, carving a ruin through the horizon.

Then it ended, violently.

The divine connection snapped, ripping me free as I separated from Ru Qiu's body. The eclipse faded. The pentagram burned out. The sky returned to its rightful color, as if embarrassed by what it had just allowed.

Ru Qiu stared at me.

"You made that name up," he accused flatly.

I rubbed my temples. "Did it feel good?"

He tried to remain stoic.

He failed.

The smallest smirk betrayed him.

Fragments of the Void lingered in the air, in the ruins, and in the spaces between breaths. His voice spilled from everywhere and nowhere at once, layered atop itself, overlapping like broken reflections.

"Not yet."

The words crawled across my mind.

"I'm impressed," the Void continued, almost conversational. "Do you know what it's like to face six Supreme Beings at once? I do. I fought them simultaneously."

I scoffed, wiping blood from my lip. "Then congratulations. You still lost. How about you shut your trap and take the L?"

Ru Qiu stepped forward, eyes cold. "I won't become like you. A prisoner rotting inside his own corpse, mistaking emptiness for enlightenment."

I added, unable to resist, "You're honestly just childish. Move on. Find a life. Touch grass. Anything."

That was a mistake.

"How about," the Void said softly, "you experience what it's like to be a prisoner?"

A chill ran through me.

"Run," I snapped at Ru Qiu.

Too late.

A black orb bloomed before us, smooth and lightless, swallowing space itself. I felt my body refuse to move, as if the very concept of direction had been revoked.

"Void Imprisonment of Eternal Darkness."

The veil erupted outward.

Darkness crushed down on us. It was not the absence of light, but the erasure of everything. Sight vanished first. Then sound. Then sensation. I opened my mouth to speak and felt nothing.

Qi Speech failed.

Thought itself felt muted.

"Ru Qiu—!" I tried to call.

I staggered forward, hands grasping at nothing, feet finding no ground. I couldn't hear my own movement. I couldn't feel air, or heat, or cold.

If I couldn't speak, I had to scream.

If I couldn't hear, I had to feel.

If I couldn't see, I had to guess.

There was nothing.

No up. No down. No time.

Just me.

Fuck.

I screwed up.

I really needed to stop insulting people so much.