Gen's Eternal Body didn't just flare; it **ignited**. The serene jade-white light transmuted into a blazing, solar gold. He became a miniature star in the bright night, casting long, stark shadows across the broken ground. This time, there was no banter, no challenge. There was only the target and the need to erase it.
He didn't wait for an invitation. He struck, a golden meteor carving a line of heat through the air directly at Yuan.
"Gen, wait!" Madame Su's cry was ragged, but it was too late. He had moved, a streak of vengeful light. Gritting her teeth against the agony in her chest and ruined arm, she mustered the dregs of her Qi. A final, sparse whirl of razor-petals coalesced around her good hand, and she launched herself not at Yuan, but at the waiting, smiling figure of Kirin. She would buy time, even if it was the last thing she did.
Gen arrived before Yuan. He did not wind up. He did not shout. His right hand, glowing with the condensed fury of a sun, simply shot forward—the **End of the World Finger**, aimed not to wound, but to replicate the utter disintegration he had delivered moments before.
Yuan's lips curled into a sick, knowing smirk. "Too predictable."
His own Qi flared, not with golden light, but with a swirling, violent grey. **Shidow** spun around him in a sudden, personal vortex, distorting the air. He didn't block. He *flowed*. As Gen's annihilating finger arrived, Yuan's body seemed to become smoke, side-stepping with an effortless, floating grace that carried him in a spiraling arc around Gen's blinding charge.
At the same moment, Lorel, her confidence beaten back into a sharp, desperate edge by Gen's anger, flashed in. Her **Supremacy Sword** was a line of pure pink intent, slicing a clean, horizontal arc meant to bisect Yuan as he evaded Gen.
Yuan was not just fast. He was **stronger**. His aura pulsed with a sickening pressure. He didn't even bother to fully dodge. He flipped backwards, his body passing *over* the humming blade as if it were a low fence. He landed behind her, and his fist—sheathed in crackling, dark-grey energy—shot out in a vicious, short-range jab aimed at her kidney.
*Thwump!*
A dazzling arc of corrupt force slammed into Lorel's side. She cried out, skidding back a dozen steps through the dirt, her sword flickering. Fortunately, she knew a little **Jingdao**. Just enough to reinforce her body at the last instant, preventing her spine from snapping. Pain blossomed, hot and nauseating, but she remained standing, barely.
"He's fast!" Gen snarled, pivoting in a shower of golden sparks. "That was always the problem! But apart from that, he's weak!"
From behind Gen, Liang attacked. The **Kalash of Elements** materialized. From its dark mouth, not a single torrent, but a rapid, precise volley of **white lightning bolts** shot forth, streaking towards Yuan from multiple angles, seeking to pin him down.
Yuan laughed, the sound raw and exultant. "Go on! Send seventy at me! It will not matter! I am not the same!"
His aura flared like a madman's corona. Then, something vile happened. A dark, oily Qi seeped from the pulsating marks on his skin. It spread, contaminating the swirling grey vortex of his **Shidow**. The controlled winds around him darkened, turning from grey to a deep, ominous purple-black, like a thunderhead born of poison. The very air felt heavy and wrong.
Now, Yuan moved. He became a series of afterimages, a zipping, zigzagging blur in the open space. Liang's white lightning thundered down, shredding ancient trees into splinters and carving smoking furrows in the earth, but Yuan was never there. He flowed between the blasts like smoke through a grating.
Then he appeared beside Chubbs. "You first, big man."
His fist, wreathed in the dark, devouring wind, drove into Chubbs's chest. Chubbs roared, lifting his massive forearms in a desperate cross-block.
***CRACK!***
The sound was of breaking stone. Chubbs's reinforced guard held, but the force did not. He was lifted clean off his feet, a gout of blood spraying from his mouth as he was hurled backwards. "You bastard! A little warning—!" he cursed, flailing through the air.
Before he could crash, Yuan was there again. He caught Chubbs by the ankle mid-flight and, with a contemptuous heave, flung the large man like a sack of grain directly into the path of Lorel's recovering **Supremacy Sword** thrust.
Lorel's eyes flew wide. She stumbled, wrenching her blade aside at the last second to avoid impaling her own ally, her attack dissolving into a shower of harmless pink sparks.
Seizing the opening, Yuan burst towards Liang. His right palm came up, and the dark wind coalesced into a crackling, miniature abyss—the same terrible, familiar technique. "Remember this, 'Jade Anchor'?"
Liang's face darkened. He didn't have time for the Kalash. Instantly, he summoned the **fire**. It bloomed from within the vessel's mouth and, with the crude but potent layer of **Shidow** he knew, he wrapped it around himself in a roaring mantle. He became a living furnace and met Yuan's **Marojav's Palm** head-on.
***WHUMPF-BOOM!***
Fire met devouring darkness in a cataclysmic detonation. Their robes ignited at the edges. Both were thrown back, skidding across the scorched earth, smoke rising from their bodies. Yuan stared, shocked, at the singed but standing Liang.
"The weakling… you've made progress," Yuan spat, wiping soot from his face. "How pathetic. It is still too little."
*Whoosh.*
Gen appeared above him, having used the explosion as cover. His golden fist descended like a falling hammer. "Stop bragging and die already!"
But Yuan was ready. He didn't try to block. He tilted his body at an impossible angle, letting the fist graze past his shoulder. In the same motion, his corrupted palm slapped flat against Gen's chest.
Gen's **Jingdao** flared, the dense jade-white light meeting the devouring darkness.
A strange, sickening sizzle occurred. The brilliant light of the Eternal Body didn't just dim; it seemed to *rot* at the point of contact. Gen felt his reinforcement—the unyielding foundation of his power—being actively **consumed and unraveled**. He was forced back several steps, a violent shudder wracking his frame, before his legs gave out. He fell to one knee, coughing, a mouthful of bright red blood splattering the blackened grass.
Yuan smirked, holding up his own hand. The skin there was cracked and weeping a dark fluid. "How do you like the **Marojav's Palm of Annihilation**?" he purred. "Does it feel good?"
Gen's heart hammered against ribs that suddenly felt fragile. His **Jingdao** was reacting strangely, spasming within his channels as if his core defense was fracturing. *It's the same skill… the one he used on Kaito.* His eyes darted to Yuan's arms. The corruption was worse, the marks deeper, the damage more pronounced. *The price.*
Yuan laughed, the sound unhinged with triumph. "*This* is power! See? In the past, with my single, pitiful Wheel, I could never take you alone! But now… all four of you can barely hold a candle to me!" He took a step closer, reveling in the sight. "How does it feel, Gen? To be weak? To be underneath? To be the one at the bottom of the ladder?"
Gen's vision swam with pain and rage. He forgot about Madame Su's distant struggle with Kirin. The world narrowed to the man before him. His sole, burning desire was to chop Yuan's head from his shoulders. He *needed* to die for Li Fen, for Kaito, for the betrayal.
He pushed himself to his feet, the golden light of his Eternal Body guttering uncertainly. His **Jingdao** was weakened, its structure poisoned by that corrosive touch.
So, he let it go.
With a sharp, internal shift, he pulled the energy from his Root and sent it coursing to his Sea. The brilliant gold faded. In its place, a mercurial, shimmering silver sheened over his skin. He reached back, his hand closing around the familiar shaft of the **Bamboo Cane** slung across his back. He didn't need it to walk. He needed it to *focus*.
"If you want to see our progress that badly," Gen said, his voice a low, deadly calm as he leveled the cane, its tip beginning to hum with gathered, volatile **Shidow** energy, "then see. You shall be served."