The two Taoist practitioners didn’t hesitate. Seizing the moment created by their leader’s desperation, they ignited their own escape talismans and blurred into streaks of light, fleeing toward the horizon.

Ethan’s eyes tracked them with cold precision. "You think there is anywhere in this world you can run?"

He crouched, preparing to launch himself after them, but the black talisman in the Celestial Leader’s hand suddenly erupted. A wave of nauseating, dark-red energy—the color of rotted, stagnant blood—exploded outward, forming a massive, pulsating dome that cut Ethan off from his targets.

"Death Seal: Cursed Blood Sacrifice!" the Leader screamed, his voice bubbling with gore.

Ethan came to a halt, staring at the shimmering, foul-smelling walls of the dome. Inside his mind, Crul’s voice was sharp with warning.

[ Master, caution. This talisman is at the peak of the Spirit Gathering realm. While it does not reach the power of a Half-Step Spirit Core, its nature is corrosive. It is a suicide-type relic; it can wound you. ]

The Celestial Leader saw the flicker of calculation in Ethan’s eyes and let out a manic, wet laugh. "You forced me to use my family’s greatest relic! You should be proud, you bastard! I’m taking you to the grave with me...!!!"

The dome began to contract, and the peak of the ceiling sprouted thick, writhing tentacles of rotted blood. They lashed out, burrowing into the Leader’s own back and chest. He shrieked in agony as his eyes turned a void-like black. His veins bulged and thrashed like worms dancing beneath his skin, eventually rupturing the surface. His skin peeled back in ragged strips, exposing raw, pulsing muscle fibers as he transformed into a flayed engine of destruction.

"DIE...!!!!"

The swollen, gore-slicked monster moved with a sudden, explosive speed—faster than anything Ethan had faced yet. He was nearly as fast as Ethan himself. The Patriarch lunged, his claws whistling through the air, but Ethan twisted his body mid-flight, the strike missing his chest by a fraction of an inch.

Frustrated, the Patriarch slammed his palms together. From every inch of the cursed dome, thousands of blood tentacles erupted simultaneously. They wove together into a suffocating net, seeking to bind Ethan’s limbs while the maddened Leader pursued him relentlessly through the crimson haze, striking with the strength of a dying sun. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Ethan dodged and parried, his Amethyst armor sparking as the rotted blood hissed against his spiritual shield.

"Is this all your ’Ancestor’ taught you?" Ethan taunted, his voice echoing with the vibration of a Spirit Core. "To die like a dog in a cage of your own making?"

"I am not dying alone!" the flayed Patriarch shrieked.

He lunged, his gore-slicked fist colliding with Ethan’s spiritual armor. The impact sent a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath them. Ethan didn’t retreat; he leaned into the blow and countered with a thunderous hook.

CRACK!

The Leader’s jaw shattered, hanging by a thread of muscle, but the rotted blood from the dome hissed and stitched the bone back together instantly.

"More! Give me more!" the monster gurgled.

Suddenly, a dozen tentacles wrapped around Ethan’s ankles and waist, their barbs digging into his amethyst shroud. They couldn’t crush him, but they held him fast for a heartbeat—long enough for the Patriarch to rain down a flurry of blows.

"Got you!" the Leader yelled, his fists hammering against Ethan’s chest like a jackhammer.

"You’ve got nothing," Ethan growled. He stopped dodging and let his energy flare. "Thunderburst!"

A shockwave of violet energy erupted from Ethan, vaporizing the tentacles into ash. He stepped forward, grabbing the Patriarch’s throat. Ethan’s fist became a blur, delivering twenty strikes in a single second. With every punch, a chunk of the Leader’s torso exploded, the rotted blood struggling to keep up with the sheer destruction.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The dome began to flicker and dim with every impact. The spiritual pressure Ethan was exerting was literally starving the talisman of its fuel.

The Patriarch, now a mangled pile of regenerating meat, let out a hysterical, wet laugh. "I knew... I knew this wouldn’t be enough to kill a monster like you! But I didn’t need to kill you, Ethan... I just needed to hold you!"

He reached into the gaping hole in his chest, his fingers wrapping around something glowing with a terminal, obsidian light where his heart should have been. He ripped a jagged, pulsing talisman from his very core.

"My soul for your life! DIE WITH ME...!!!!"

The talisman began to expand, its surface cracking as it prepared to detonate the entire dome into a localized black hole.

"Crul, shield the convoy!" Ethan commanded, his eyes narrowing as he gripped the Leader’s wrist. "As for you... you aren’t worthy of taking me with you."

[ ALL UNITS: FULL RETREAT! SHIELD PROTOCOL ZETA! ]] Crul’s voice screamed through the comms of every soldier, her digital avatar flashing a frantic red. [[ TAKE COVER! NOW! ]

In the center of the crimson dome, the black talisman began to collapse in on itself, creating a miniature singularity—a localized black hole that began to devour the air, the light, and the ground beneath them. The Patriarch, his body dissolving into the void he had summoned, let out a final, deranged cackle.

"You’ve finally reached your end, you arrogant beast!" he shrieked as the darkness clawed at Ethan’s feet. "Even if this forbidden relic is suppressed by the limits of this world, it is still more than enough to erase your soul! Perish in the abyss!"

Ethan didn’t move. He stood at the edge of the devouring darkness, the violet lightning around him stabilizing into a calm, rhythmic hum. He closed his eyes, taking a deep, steady breath. The energy of his Spirit Core began to vibrate at a frequency that made the very atmosphere of the dome grow heavy.

"You’ve given up? Hahaha! Smart choice!" the Leader mocked, though his own voice was being distorted by the gravity.

Ethan’s lips curled into a thin, lethal line. "You’re right about one thing," he said, his voice cutting through the roar of the singularity like a razor. "You can’t show your true power because you’re a slave to your tools. But I am the master of mine."

His eyes snapped open, and for a split second, they weren’t just amethyst—they were twin voids of infinite depth. An invisible shockwave of pure, unadulterated spiritual pressure erupted from his body.

"STILLNESS."

The black hole, which had been hungrily expanding to swallow the convoy, froze. The swirling rotted blood, the lashing tentacles, and the gravitational pull of the singularity—everything stopped as if time itself had been nailed to the floor.

The Patriarch’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping in a silent scream of disbelief. This was the Ancestral Trump Card his family had guarded for generations, a weapon meant to slay gods, and it had been halted by a single word from a young man.

"Impossible..." the Leader gasped, his flayed body beginning to crumble into ash as the spell failed. "How... how can a mortal...?"

"I told you," Ethan whispered, stepping through the frozen darkness as if walking on a calm lake. "I’m not the one you should have been worried about. It’s what I’m becoming."