The air in the Northern Ravine was gloomy.
Mo Jue stood perfectly still. The Howling Shadow was manifesting into the world, its necrotic essence coiling around his legs and rising behind his back like a cloak made of smoke.
Ten paces away, Mo Lin shimmered.
His Lunar Dagger Phantom wasn't a physical blade held in the hand. It was a graft that manifested directly from the bone of his forearm.
The light it emitted was different from the Eye Shard's glow, it was a flat light, one that seemed to swallow the darkness around it. This was the essence of a specialist.
A tool built for the singular purpose of ending a life.
"You talk too much, Mo Jue," Mo Lin spat. He didn't charge; he simply vanished.
The Lunar Dagger's primary trait was Veiled Step. By vibrating the light around the host's body at a specific frequency, it rendered them invisible to a mortal's sight.
But Mo Jue was not a Mortal nor a normal Grafter.
The pupil on his forehead began to spin with erratic behavior.
He looked for the distortion. In the thermal spectrum, the body heat of Mo Lin was like a bonfire in a snowy night.
A streak of heat moving at high speed toward his left flank.
Mo Jue side stepped and raised his arm.
CLANG.
The sound was similar to that of metal on metal. The Howling Shadow had manifested a claw, intercepting the silver blade of the Lunar Dagger, only inches from Mo Jue's throat. The force of the impact sent a ripple.
Mo Lin reappeared, his face contorted "You blocked it?"
"You move with the grace of a falling rock" Mo Jue said, his voice calm
Mo Jue's hand shot forward, the Shadow coiling into a whip-like lash.
Mo Lin grunted, throwing himself backward. His agility trained by his father. He performed a mid-air twist, the Lunar Dagger flashing in a wide arc, sending three razor sharp feathers flying toward Mo Jue.
Mo Jue tilted his head. Two feathers whistled past his ears, slicing through the thick bamboo behind him as if it were parchment. The third struck his shoulder.
The robe tore, and a line of crimson blossomed on his skin.
It drew blood but the damage was superficial.
The sight of blood increased Mo Lin's confidence. "Your capacity might be high, but our gap is not something I can't traverse"
He dived back into the shadows, his form blurring once more.
Mo Jue touched the blood on his shoulder with two fingers. His body's reaction is not as fast as he liked.
Mo Jue dropped into a low crouch. He didn't use the Shadow to defend this time. He closed his two natural eyes, leaving only the eye on his forehead open.
He slammed his palms into the ground. It sent shockwaves to the ground resulting to Mo Lin being off balance.
Mo Jue followed with a massive burst of the Shadow's scream. The dark energy echoed, stunning the ten-foot radius around him.
The Hidden Leech, still hiding in the black water of the pool, let out a terrified chirp and fled deeper.
Mo Lin was caught in the middle of his Veiled Step. His mind ringing, and his legs wobbling. The subsequent attacks interfered with his Lunar Dagger's manifestation.
He flickered into visibility, stumbling as the shadows rose up to wrap around his ankles like skeletal hands.
"What... what is this?!" Mo Lin screamed as he hacked at the shadow with his blade. "This isn't a clan technique!"
"You are amusing" Mo Jue said, walking slowly toward him.
Mo Jue reached out. The Howling Shadow surged up his arm, forming a jagged gauntlet. He seized Mo Lin by the throat, lifting the boy off the ground.
The Lunar Dagger flashed, stabbing repeatedly into Mo Jue's shadow arm, but it was like stabbing a cloud. The essence simply parted and reformed.
Mo Lin's face turned blue. The light of his eyes began to dim as the Shadow began to eat away at his internal essence.
This was the one of the most painful forms of violence: the stronger soul literally consuming the weaker one.
"Wait... please..." Mo Lin wheezed, his eyes bulging. "My father... the Soul Jades... I'll give you everything..."
Mo Jue looked into Mo Lin's eyes. He saw the same thing he had seen in countless enemy over two millennia.
"Your father's influence ends at the edge of the village" Mo Jue said.
Mo Jue tightened one of his shadow hands to stab Mo Lin. He could feel the Lunar Dagger Phantom within Mo Lin's arm thrashing in terror. It wanted to jump ship and find a stronger host.
Mo Lin is floating between life and death
Suddenly, a massive vibration rocked the waterfall. The black water surged upward, and the seam behind the falls began to part.
A pulse of Rank 5 pressure radiated from the cave.
It was so powerful that even Mo Jue felt his heart skip a beat. The Howling Shadow and his Third Eye whimpered and retreated back into his Reliquary.
Mo Lin fell to the ground, unmoving but with weak breath.
The Hidden Leech re-emerged from the water, but it was no longer hopping. It pressed its calcified heel against the stone, its feelers vibrating with frantic urgency.
The cave was opening.
A cloud of Soul Pale billowed out from behind the waterfall. Any plant life it touched instantly turned to white stone.
"This is unstable," Mo Jue muttered as he scanned the cave entrance. "The Blight Walker left a trap for the Mo Clan"
Mo Lin, seeing his chance, exerted all his energy and scrambled to his feet. He didn't try to fight again.
However, Mo Jue didn't give him a chance. He did his best to remanifest a shadow arrow that pierced Mo Lin's heart.
Mo Lin's corpse dropped hard to the ground.
Mo Jue stepped toward the black waterfall.
He didn't use the Shadow for protection. Instead, he pulled out his second vial of Bitter Root Extract and smashed it against his own chest.
The scent was overwhelming.
The Hidden Leech turned toward him. Sensing the familiar scent, it didn't attack. It hopped toward the waterfall and walked directly through the veil of black water.
Mo Jue followed.
The world behind the waterfall was not a cave of stone. It was a pocket dimension that had been tethered to the physical world by the Blight Walker's will.
The walls were made of solidified gray mist. The floor was a mosaic of human bones arranged in geometric patterns. In the center of the chamber sat a figure.
It was the Blight Walker.
Or rather, what was left of him. He was a skeleton encased in a shell of resin. In his lap sat a box made of Soul Jade Iron.
But it was what was above him that caught Mo Jue's attention.
Hovering in the air, held in place by three spinning rings of bone, was a Phantom unlike anything Mo Jue had seen in this life. It was a mass of liquid that occasionally formed the shape of a human heart.
Shapeshifter's Heart. This is a Spatial/Vitality Attribute that was originally rank 5 but has weakened to Rank 2.
Mo Jue's third eye throbbed. This was the ace that the Walker had left behind. A Spatial and Vitality Phantom was worth more than the entire Mo Village.
Mo Jue didn't expect that he would encounter this here. Luckily, it wasn't taken by the Mo Clan.
"So," a voice echoed through the chamber. "The first one to find me is a child of those traitorous wretches. How disappointing."
Mo Jue didn't flinch. He walked into the center of the bone circle.
"You died a failure, trapped by our clan" Mo Jue said, his voice echoing in the mist.
The skeleton creaked loudly. The heart above it stopped spinning.
"Bold words for a brat with a Shadow in his gut," the voice hissed. "If you want the heart, you must prove yourself. Make an eternal promise to destroy your clan or face death!"
The floating Heart Phantom shattered. The dazzling liquid surged toward Mo Jue like a tidal wave.
Mo Jue stood his ground. He didn't use his hands. He opened his Reliquary wide, collapsing the barriers he had spent time building.
"Eat" Mo Jue commanded the Howling Shadow.
Inside Mo Jue's soul space, a three-way battle began. The Shadow wanted to consume the Heart; the Heart wanted to dissolve the Shadow; and Mo Jue's 2000-year-old will was refining both phantoms