Nearly a hundred miles northwest of Black Soil Town.
Towering mountain ranges sprawled across the horizon, vast and magnificent.
Looking into the distance.
Rugged peaks rose and fell in steep, jagged contours against the sky.
Dense layers of mist swirled around the summits, draping over the ridgelines like endless silk ribbons.
Veiled beneath this heavy shroud of fog, the mountain depths seemed all the more unfathomable and treacherous.
And Calamitas was currently strolling through these deep ranges, cutting through ancient woods and rugged paths just to track down that sword-riding elder.
Along the way, she noticed the jagged gaps between the peaks were not just barren stone, but overflowed with lush greenery.
Towering ancient trees with deep roots and sprawling branches blocked out most of the sun's glare.
Fractured beams of sunlight pierced the canopy, casting mottled shadows across the thick bed of decaying foliage below.
This dense, dark-brown humus layer was deceptively deep, concealing who knew what underneath.
Perhaps hollow sinkholes, ancient snares, man-eating insect swarms, or beast dens.
An ordinary mortal stepping on it would likely sink within breaths, utterly doomed.
Yet for Calamitas, whose peerless lightness technique allowed effortless, perpetual levitation, the terrain was completely irrelevant.
Unlike the String Swarm space-time, this world possessed no conventional universal gravitation.
Based on Calamitas's deductions, the gravity here was likely an attractive force materialized from various types of [Qi], such as Earth Qi, Terrestrial Magnetism, and Earth-spirit energy.
These mechanisms could be seen as fine-grained rules branched from the Desolate Ancient Swarm's Source Rule across different space-times, the very [Dao] governing all life and matter in this world.
With her acute perception and transcendent intellect, every single second Calamitas spent in this realm allowed her to perceive and harvest this endless flow of [Dao].
In other words, she was in a perpetual state of [Enlightenment], constantly growing stronger with every passing breath.
As for that so-called True Qi, it was at most a crutch in Calamitas's hands, hardly a benchmark for her true strength.
Theoretically, even if Calamitas did nothing and merely sat in silence for thousands of years, or even hundreds of millions, she could fully decipher and master the Desolate Ancient Swarm's Source Rule.
After all, her true primordial body was far too magnificent and lofty, making such an effortless feat only natural.
Had the native beings of this realm known of this, they would be struck with incomprehensible terror.
Yet a celestial dragon soaring beyond the highest heavens pays no heed to the crawling insects of the earth; they were simply unworthy of understanding.
To interfere with and manipulate this terrestrial attraction was effortless for Calamitas, an entity akin to a natural-born child of the Dao.
All it took was circulating a wisp of True Qi to influence the rising earth-qi attraction.
Calamitas deduced that in regions where Ether was denser and True Qi martial artists gathered in greater numbers.
Battles between practitioners would likely appear far more theatrical.
As for where those Ether-rich domains lay, she would probably have to ask that cultivation elder.
At least in this barren territory, Ether was remarkably sparse.
From Calamitas's perception, the Ether concentration here was barely higher than that of Earth prior to its Ether revival in the String Swarm's Prime space-time.
Indeed, within this space-time of the Desolate Ancient Swarm, Ether was not merely a phenomenon, but an energetic matter far closer to the concept of 'Qi'.
Thus, describing the Ether presence in a given region as [Dense] was far more accurate than calling it [Active].
Perhaps this was precisely the fundamental divergence between different Swarms.
Even their Ether manifested distinct characteristics.
"So where is that cultivation old geezer hiding?"
Having scoured the mountains without turning up a single trace, Calamitas casually raised her hand and unleashed a technique:
Holy Fist First Slaying: Reverse Raging Rivers and Seas.
BUZZ!
In an instant, the atmosphere across the entire mountain range turned viscous.
With the White Empress True Intent as the river's soul, and White Empress True Qi as its body.
Under Calamitas's conceptual strike, the sky and earth across tens of thousands of meters plunged into a ceaseless, roaring phantom river.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The mighty river boiled and raged, its spectral waves surging with ferocious roars.
Every drop of water, every wisp of waves, and every layer of breakers seemed to turn into living entities, rapidly spiraling into a vortex centered around the poised Calamitas.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Simultaneously, thousands of raging astral winds erupted above the surface of the ethereal river, swirling madly with the roaring vortex below, continuously gathering destructive momentum.
Even before the lethal strike fully unleashed, its mere prelude crushed the terrain across tens of thousands of meters, rupturing the land inch by inch.
Finally, the vortex of the mighty river surged upward while the ferocious tornado slammed downward.
In an instant, heaven and earth collided in cataclysmic impact.
BOOM!!!
As if a thousand meteors had struck the mortal realm at once, plunging the mortal expanse into its final apocalypse.
Centered around Calamitas, everything spanning tens of thousands of meters, above, below, left, right, before, and behind.
Whether towering cliffs, dense ancient forests, birds, beasts, or even the solid, massive foundation of the vast earth.
All of it, in a single heartbeat, was violently pulverized into infinite dust by the converging fury of the White Empress's Raging Rivers strike.
RUMBLE!
The resulting storm of crushed rock and dust billowed out like an overturned ocean, instantly swallowing the surrounding mountain ranges nearly ten thousand meters wide.
SWOOSH! CRASH!
Turbulent dust and grit surged wildly.
Like impenetrable storm clouds, it blotted out the sun entirely.
SWOOSH!
Suddenly, a blurred silhouette shot out from the towering dust cloud like a piercing arrow, rocketing skyward within half a breath and hovering gracefully beneath the clouds.
It was Calamitas herself.
She looked down coldly, her sharp gaze piercing through the heavy veil of smoke and dust.
Right at the heart of the undulating mountain range, a terrifying abyss had appeared, a perfectly symmetrical crater measuring nearly 9,999 meters across.
The peaks and dense forests that once stood within that perimeter were erased without a single trace.
Indeed, this was the sheer destructive power of Raging Rivers.
"Still no trace of that old man."
Calamitas scanned the terrain with cold eyes, detecting neither anomaly nor presence. "Did he already leave this place? Or is he still hiding in another part of this mountain range?"
After a split second of contemplation, she raised her hand and circulated the White Empress True Qi once more, locking onto another massive expanse of peaks adjacent to the crater.
Holy Fist Second Slaying: Overturning Mountains and Boundless Ravines.
BUZZ!
Within Calamitas's palm, a bowl-sized pitch-black sphere instantly condensed, spinning at extreme speed.
Right at that moment, several hundred meters from the crater's rim, out from a jagged crag veiled in thick dust, a thousand-meter-long centipede shot into the sky. A blood-red gem embedded in its crown turned black as it slithered through the air like a colossal dragon, thrashing its tail and shrieking in a raspy human voice:
"Waaagh-ya-ya! Which dog-shit cur dares disturb this King's, gah?!"
Catching sight of the massive 9,999-meter crater right before its eyes, the thousand-meter centipede froze mid-air, completely dumbfounded.
"Well, aren't you a massive centipede?"
A rough, booming voice dripping with amusement suddenly rang out right above its head.
Accompanying her voice, a sky-smothering, earth-crushing ferocious aura instantly enveloped the thousand-meter centipede from head to toe.
"Wh-what... what is going on?"
With a series of frantic clicks, it struggled to raise its head. Its eight compound eyes locked onto Calamitas, who was slowly drifting down with a savage grin, and stammered, "Wh-what... what kind of thing are you?"
"Huh?" Calamitas's grin widened. "You dare insult me, claiming I'm not human?"
With that, she delivered a brutal slap straight down upon the centipede spirit's head.
BOOM!!
Thunder erupted across the sky as a thousand meters of airspace detonated into a vacuum.
Under Calamitas's casual backhand, half of the colossal centipede's head caved in entirely; knocked dead unconscious, it plummeted and smashed violently into the ground below.
CRASH!!
The earth shuddered violently, trembling non-stop.
SWOOSH!
Calamitas touched down on the ground at that moment.
Coiled across the earth, this centipede, measuring roughly the length of the Bird's Nest Stadium, was undeniably imposing to any regular eye.
Yet to Calamitas, who had witnessed true, cosmic-scale majesty, the creature before her was still nothing more than a puny little bug.
With utterly calm eyes, she stepped up to the massive thousand-meter beast. Without uttering a word, she thrust two thick fingers mercilessly into its fractured cranial armor, piercing deep into its pale, tender brain matter.
She began reading its memories.
"Let's see how you managed to grow this massive in such an Ether-barren wasteland," Calamitas murmured softly.
BUZZ!
In an instant, the centipede's centuries of memories were completely plundered.
Throughout its vast, sprawling recollection, this beast had started as an ordinary little bug, spending a long stretch of time in mindless, primitive ignorance.
Until one day, beside an ancient pool deep in the mountains, it accidentally crawled onto the surface of a mysterious pitch-black orb.
From that moment on, everything changed.
That Black Orb overflowed with an extraordinary miraculous power capable of turning the mundane into the divine.
Simply resting atop it brought boundless comfort.
Even though its primitive brain lacked the very concept of comfort.
Driven by raw instinct, the tiny creature clung tightly to the pearl, greedily absorbing the soothing essence.
Thus, through endless seasons and an unmeasurable passage of time, the tiny centipede grew into a gargantuan monstrosity.
It kept that Black Orb clasped inside its jaws day and night, never letting go.
And after another vast stretch of time.
This centipede miraculously developed consciousness, gaining true intellect.
And the very first moment its wisdom awakened, it bestowed upon itself a name,
The Thousand-Legged Dragon King.
"A puny little bug daring to style itself a Dragon King... what laughable arrogance."
Calamitas spread her five fingers, clamping down on the dark cyan orb embedded in the thousand-meter centipede's crown. With a slight exertion, CRACK!, she ripped it free.
"Hmm, let's see what's tucked away in here."
Her sharp eyes studied the Black Orb as she slowly channeled her perception inside.
And then, she caught sight of a tiny... dead dragon.
"This is a..."
Calamitas raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Dead Dragon Embryo?"
...
Time flowed like water.
Dusk fell swiftly across the land.
Having studied the Dragon Ball for most of the day, Calamitas soared across nearly a hundred miles of wilderness, returning to Black Soil Town.
Under the fearful, curious, and bewildered gazes of thousands, she swaggered straight into the Town Governor's Mansion.
There, Zinai, who had been waiting with bated breath, quickly led a group of pale, trembling local squires forward, fawning over Calamitas with immense flattery.
Even though these wealthy elites clearly wanted nothing to do with this gathering.
Before the absolute command of Governor Zinai, their personal wishes were entirely irrelevant.
If ordered to attend, they had to attend.
To Zinai, who held absolute sway over the military, civil administration, finance, taxation, judiciary, policing, and prisons like a feudal marquis over a hundred miles, these prominent merchants were no more significant than ants.
Even if Calamitas decided to play at the dinner table and skewer one or two wealthy squires for fun, Zinai could likely sweep it under the rug.
Though it would cost him quite some effort.
And while Calamitas was living it up in the governor's mansion, feasting and drinking to her heart's content.
Strange things were brewing at the shipyard by the docks, over a dozen miles away from Black Soil Town.
...
The sun had already dipped below the mountains, and the shipyard's boatmen had long called it a day.
Only a half-blind, elderly watchman remained in the gatehouse by the entrance, slouched in a half-sitting daze, snoring softly.
A shipyard was filled with massive components and heavy timber, meaning thieves rarely bothered with such heavy goods under normal circumstances.
Thus, the old man's watch was essentially a sinecure, a way for the yard to toss him a daily meal so he could survive his golden years.
CLANG!
A sharp, ringing gong suddenly split the night, startling the old man awake.
He hastily poked his head out the gatehouse window to look.
Under the shadow of a tree just outside the gates, a shadowy figure stood motionless, its face obscured.
"Huh, who's still hanging around?"
Squinting, the old man hollered into the dark, "Who's there? What are you after?"
The silhouette didn't flinch at the sound.
It was as if the person were stone-deaf, offering zero response.
"Are you sick in the head? Banging a damn gong in the dead of night!"
The annoyed old watchman barked a curse toward the tree, paid it no further mind, closed his eyes, and leaned back to resume his nap.
CLANG!!
The gong rang out again, perceptibly closer.
"Hey! You son of a mangy dog!"
Woken up before he could even finish a snore, the old man snapped.
He thrust his head out the window and let loose a torrent of curses:
"Motherless cur! Are you hungry or thirsty? Do you want your granddaddy to serve you a steaming bowl of hot piss?!"
After screaming his lungs out, he rubbed his cloudy eyes and strained his gaze toward the stranger.
Wait... why did that person look like a consumptive ghost?
The figure that had been standing dozens of meters away was now hovering a mere seven or eight meters from the gatehouse.
With the distance closed, the old watchman finally saw clearly.
Beneath the eerie, pale moonlight, the figure wore bulky dark teal garments and a black skullcap, holding a brass gong in its left hand and a mallet in its right; on its bloated, chalk-white face painted with crimson cheek marks, two ash-gray, glass-like eyes stared dead at him.
"Holy shit, that's not a person!"
Terrified down to his marrow, the old man bolted out of the gatehouse, stumbling and scrambling in sheer panic as he fled deeper into the shipyard.
CLANG!!!
This time, the gong sounded right against his eardrum.
The deafening chime rattled the old man's brain, sending him crashing down onto his backside with a barrage of pained groans.
Yet as he struggled up from the dirt, that rouge-cheeked, lifeless face suddenly loomed directly in front of him.
He could even smell a pungent, suffocating stench of decay.
This time, the old watchman finally saw the clothes for what they were.
That bulky attire was clearly a burial shroud!
This was a ghost!
Terror seized his chest with blinding pain; his eyes bulged as he wheezed frantically for air.
Just as he gathered breath to scream for help.
CLANG!!
The gong ghost brutally smashed the brass gong directly onto the old man's face.
The blow landed with savage violence.
It slammed his entire body flat against the dirt.
Squatting beside the fallen watchman, the gong ghost gripped the mallet with both hands and began frantically hammering the brass plate.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
Beneath the brass plate crushing his face, the old man's body convulsed with every thunderous strike.
Staring with lifeless, glassy eyes, the gong ghost grinned with soundless malice, raining heavier and more ferocious blows onto the gong.
CLANG!
The brass gong sank several inches into the dirt.
CLANG!
Blood and gore began spraying from around the edges.
CLANG!
The old man's limbs gave one violent, final jerk before going entirely still.
CLANG!
CRACK!
The brass gong crumpled completely inward.
The surrounding ground turned into a crimson-and-white mess.
The old man's skull was crushed flat.
...
At that very moment.
A few miles away from the shipyard, strange horrors were also unfolding within a rural village.
With the wheat ripening and local hands running short, the village landlord had recently hired a crew of itinerant wheat reapers from out of town to help with the harvest.
These itinerant wheat harvesters, wandering from farm to farm for meager wages, usually traveled in tight-knit crews.
Carrying dry rations, scythes, and bedrolls, they migrated like flocks of birds across the provinces.
Harvesting fields as they journeyed from south to north, their timing was so precise that their own home crops would be ripe just as they arrived at their doorsteps.
Year in and year out, they never wasted a single day.
"Ah... hmm."
Lying in the landlord's spacious courtyard, Sandi let out a long yawn, glanced around, and called over to his second brother, Ernuo, who was resting under a quilt near the courtyard wall: "Second Brother, Eldest Brother stepped out to take a shit half an hour ago. What's taking him so long?"
"Just go to sleep,"
Ernuo muttered gruffly, "You want to police heaven and earth, and now you're tracking another man's shits and farts?"
"Nah, I'm just not tired," Sandi grinned foolishly. "Just wondering why a dump takes this long."
"Curious about what? Not tired? It just means you slacked off today."
Ernuo grumbled irritably, "Don't bother me. If you want Eldest Brother, go look for him yourself. I'm going to sleep."
With that, he pulled the quilt over his head, ignoring him completely.
Seeing his brother like this, the restless young Sandi got up shirtless and headed for the courtyard gate, calling back over his shoulder: "Second Brother, I'm heading out to take a leak."
Quiet darkness answered him; no one cared.
Scratching his head, Sandi stepped out of the yard and plunged into the dark.
In the countryside, lamplight was a luxury.
Once the sun went down, pitch-black night swallowed the entire village without a sliver of light.
Every household slept early to prepare for the backbreaking work the next day.
Yet Sandi was naturally bold.
Unafraid, he strode briskly through the dense shadows, scanning the paths for his eldest brother.
Back in the courtyard, an inexplicable foreboding had crept into his chest.
He had a nagging gut feeling that Daran hadn't returned after so long because... he had run into something bad.
The more time ticked by, the stronger that dread grew.
Until,
"Huh?"
Having walked half a mile, Sandi spotted someone standing on the riverbank dozens of meters ahead near the village edge.
The silhouette swayed rhythmically from side to side.
Without overthinking, he jogged over to check it out.
As he drew near, Sandi realized the figure was indeed Daran, who had slipped out an hour earlier.
His own blood brother.
Yet right now, Daran stood with his back turned, shuddering uncontrollably without uttering a single sound.
It was eerie to the extreme.
"Eldest Brother, what are you doing?"
Puzzled, Sandi walked over and patted Daran's shoulder.
No reaction.
So he stepped around to the front of Daran.
And then, he saw his brother's usually cheerful, honest face twisted in boundless terror, mouth stretched wide.
His eyeballs bulged so far from their sockets that tears mixed with dark blood streamed steadily from the corners of his eyes.
GURK!!
Daran finally made a sound.
And with that noise came a massive mouthful of black blood and shredded flesh, spraying all over Sandi's face.
"You... you..."
Scared out of his wits, Sandi collapsed backward onto the dirt, completely incoherent.
As he scrambled in blind panic, an owl-like screech of laughter drifted from the dark river behind him.
That laughter sounded identical to his brother Daran's everyday voice.
Sandi slowly turned his neck, staring with wide eyes into the pitch-black river.
"Heh heh heh heh heh~" The icy laughter echoed.
Following the sound, he saw a gaunt, skeletal freak, also shirtless, submerged in the river water, tilting its head right at him.
The monster's head was bald and flattened, with only a few wisps of brownish-white hair clinging to its temples; it had no nose, only a jagged maw slit from ear to ear; no eyelids, only a pair of pitch-black eyes staring dead at Sandi.
"Ugh... haha, hahaha, heh heh heh!"
Looking at the monstrosity, Sandi began to laugh uncontrollably, "Heh heh heh heh, haha, hahahaha!!"
Yet the more he laughed, the quieter his voice became.
In the end, his jaw was stretched wide, gasping desperately for air, but the laughter meant to come from his throat vanished into thin air.
In contrast, the freak's chilling laughter in the river gradually morphed, taking on the exact pitch and timbre of Sandi's own voice.
Even more chillingly, while the horrifying laughter poured ceaselessly from its maw, the creature's chest remained completely still.
Only Sandi's chest heaved violently, convulsing with greater ferocity with every passing second.
It was as though the monster had ruthlessly stolen his laughter, cackling on his behalf.
With his jaw stretched wide, Sandi desperately wanted to turn and flee for his life.
Yet his limbs felt frozen solid, rooted to the spot.
His eyes were hopelessly bewitched, locked in a dead trance with the monster's pitch-black pupils, unable to tear away.
Suffocating from the non-stop laughter, Sandi choked for air as a tearing agony gripped his chest.
It felt as if his very lungs were about to rupture from his own laughter.
Until,
Sandi's chest suddenly bulged:
SPLAT!!!
Convulsing violently, he tilted his head back, vomiting a massive fountain of black blood and shredded flesh toward the sky.
He crashed heavily to the ground.
Etched with unbearable agony, his eyes remained wide open in death.
...
Half a mile away in the landlord's courtyard, wrapped in his ragged quilt, Ernuo was fast asleep.
SNORE~ SNORE~
Amidst his drowsy slumber, he hazily sensed that dawn had arrived.
With a long yawn and a crack of his spine, Ernuo pressed a hand against the green-stone wall and hauled himself out of the bedroll.
"How did the night go by so fast? I'm still beat."
Rubbing his bleary eyes, Ernuo looked up and froze, there sat Fourth Sister, his younger sibling.
She was perched cross-legged atop a flat grindstone across the yard, holding a long silver ear pick, digging gently into her ear.
Behind the grindstone stood the old mud-brick cottage of Ernuo's family.
The very house where his family of six had lived for decades.
"How the hell did I end up back home?" Ernuo muttered, entirely bewildered.
"Second Brother~"
Fourth Sister turned her head toward him, pouting playfully. "Come over and clean my ears for me."
"Ah, sure."
Scratching the back of his neck, Ernuo dazedly walked over to his sister.
"Here."
He carefully took the ear pick from her hand.
Gauging its length, he realized it was longer than an open palm.
"Hurry up and clean it!"
Fourth Sister urged impatiently, and Ernuo hastily replied, "Alright, alright, right away."
With that, he began carefully digging into his sister's ear as she rested her head on his lap.
"Go deeper."
"Huh? Alright."
"Go deeper in!"
"Huh?" Ernuo held his hands steady, baffled. "B-but... it's already hit the bottom."
Right then, his eldest brother Daran poked his head out from behind the grindstone, staring down at them with dead eyes:
"Cowardly Er, Fourth Sister told you to dig deeper. Are your ears clogged?"
With that, Daran slammed a heavy fist straight down onto the exposed end of the long silver ear pick.
SPLAT!!
A massive spray of blood splattered across Ernuo's entire face.
"Ah!"
Ernuo snapped his eyes wide open and bolted upright from his bedroll, cold sweat pouring down his face as he gasped in pure terror:
HOO~ HOO~ HOO~
Beside him, his sleeping wife was startled awake; propping herself up, she asked through sleepy eyes:
"What's wrong, honey? Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yeah!"
Ernuo stammered, his chest heaving, "I dreamed... I dreamed of Fourth Sister, and the ear pick went clean through her skull."
"Is that so?"
The woman reached out and placed a cool palm against his forehead, gasping in surprise, "Oh my, you're burning up. You wouldn't happen to have a fever, would you?!"
"Ah, what should I do?"
Ernuo panicked, "I still have to harvest the fields at dawn..."
Reaching out instinctively to clasp his wife's hand, his fingers closed around thin air.
Ernuo's entire body went rigid as stone. He slowly, agonizingly cranked his neck to the right, only to be met by the cold green-stone wall.
To his right, there was no second bedroll at all.
A freezing realization struck Ernuo's mind.
He had no wife.
He had never even been married.
Then who, or what, had just spoken to him?
"Aaaagh!!"
Ernuo scrambled backward on all fours until his back slammed against the opposite corner wall, trembling from head to toe.
Sweat poured from his pores, drenching his clothes in seconds.
Hugging his knees and shivering violently, he stared at that lonely, ragged bedroll from across the yard, his mind reeling in dizzying terror.
The familiar courtyard now felt alien, suffocating, and dripping with dread.
Right then, a pair of cold arms wrapped around his neck from behind, a whisper brushing softly against his ear:
"Husband, let's head home~"
GASP!
Ernuo practically leapt ten feet into the air, scrambling desperately across the courtyard toward the front gate.
He yanked the wooden door open, desperate to bolt into the night.
Yet the moment he stepped forward, he froze dead in his tracks.
Lined up right outside the threshold were his eldest brother, third brother, fourth sister, mother, and father, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in complete silence, eyes shut tight, smiling with sickening malice.
"You guys..."
Ernuo's voice broke into a terrified whimper, "What kind of fucking monsters are you?!"
Driven by sheer primal terror, he spun around to sprint back into the yard.
He barely took half a step before his heart stopped.
There, standing inside the courtyard, were the exact same five family members, lined up with closed eyes and wicked grins.
He was trapped dead in the middle.
"No, please, no..."
Ernuo's legs gave out, dropping him heavily to his knees. "Mercy! Someone help me!!"
In unison, the two rows of sinister apparitions snapped their pitch-black eyes wide open, their expressions contorting into rabid ferocity as they lunged upon Ernuo in a ravenous frenzy.
"Aaargh! Help! Aaaagh!!"
Following a chorus of desperate shrieks, all sound ceased.
Nothing remained but the sickening, wet crunches of gnawing, tearing, and slurping flesh echoing into the dead of night.
Yet throughout the sprawling village, not a single soul stirred; everyone slept on in tranquil silence.
...
Right at that moment.
Three miles away, bathed in the pale, chilling moonlight at the village entrance, the Taoist-robed cultivator who had appeared in Black Soil Town earlier that day emerged once more.
"Hahaha."
Grinning ear to ear, he stroked his goatee with pride, "After wasting so much blood, sweat, and time, I've finally refined the Gong-Banging Ghost, the Lung-Organ Sprite, and the Phantom Courtyard! From this day forth..."
"From this day forth, what?"
A rough, booming voice suddenly dropped right behind his ear, "Will you be invincible under heaven?"
That single sentence nearly scared the Taoist cultivator out of his skin, for he immediately caught the scent of that unfathomable monster from earlier today.
Without looking back, the Taoist bounded a dozen meters away in a single desperate leap, his fingers rapidly flashing through hand seals as he shrieked out incantations:
"Soul-Loss Curse! Spirit-Dispersing Curse! Heart-Rending Great Art! Three arts unified, Bewilder the Heart and Scatter the Spirit, Strike!"
SWOOSH!
An invisible, intangible ripple erupted, instantly lashing toward the massive silhouette looming in the darkness behind him.
Still scrambling backward, the Taoist's hands blurred into another complex seal, chanting at breakneck speed:
"East turns to West, South turns to North, those who pursue me shall find no path! Inverting Heaven and Earth Curse, Manifest!"
BUZZ!
In a flash, the Taoist's silhouette dissolved into nothingness.
Simultaneously, the surrounding landscape blurred into a disorienting haze, completely obliterating any sense of direction or orientation.
"Flashy parlor tricks, utterly useless."
Taking the full brunt of the mental curse, Calamitas didn't feel a single tickle.
She didn't even bother taking a step to search for the man, simply releasing the boundless, cataclysmic aura she had kept sealed inside her body.
BOOM!!
In a single instant, the realm across ten thousand meters was entirely smothered under a domineering, suffocating presence.
Absolute silence descended upon the world.
Even the chirping of insects and birds was crushed into nonexistence.
A hundred meters away in the barren dirt, the Taoist abruptly tumbled out of thin air, convulsing violently as white foam bubbled from his mouth and dark blood leaked from all seven facial orifices.
Crushed from afar purely by Calamitas's passive aura, he had lost more than half his life in an instant.
SWOOSH!
Crossing a hundred meters in a single stride, Calamitas appeared beside the dying cultivator. She thrust a finger clean into his skull, piercing straight into his brain matter.
She began the soul search.