Chapter 64: Shadow

Out of basic decency, Lu Yang did not strip Qin Yuanhao entirely, leaving him a single pair of undergarments to shield what remained of his dignity.

……

The storage ring—a magical treasure widely circulated among cultivators.

The Falling Gold Chamber of Commerce had conducted several polls regarding the "Most Popular Magical Treasures," and the storage ring had invariably claimed the top spot by a landslide.

Whether traveling abroad, roaming the continent, or concealing treasures and secret stashes of money, it was an indispensable staple of daily life.

Furthermore, storage rings were remarkably inexpensive, affordable even for cultivators at the Qi Refining stage, though their internal space was considerably smaller.

Every year, countless Qi Refining cultivators purchased these rings, filling the coffers of the Falling Gold Chamber of Commerce to the brim, making it one of their primary revenue streams.

The Chamber also introduced upgraded editions annually—though the improvements were strictly cosmetic, as the internal space never actually changed.

For most people, the very first magical treasure they used upon entering the path of cultivation was a storage ring, investing it with great sentimental value.

Both the righteous paths and the demonic sects utilized them, and Qin Yuanhao was naturally no exception.

Such was the impression Qin Yuanhao held regarding storage rings.

In all his decades of life, he had never once heard of anyone using a storage ring to harvest an enemy's clothes!

How was this reasonable!

In truth, it was perfectly reasonable; what a storage ring could not contain were spiritual objects possessing a master, such as living creatures, ghosts, or spirit artifacts, and Qin Yuanhao’s garments clearly fell into none of these categories.

Fortunately, as a dignified member of the demonic sect, Qin Yuanhao's sense of shame had long since scattered to the wind; even clad only in his underpants, he could fight just the same!

Then, he watched as Meng Jingzhou produced a recording orb.

"What the fuck! Which sect do you lot belong to? What kind of bitter grievance do you hold against me!" Qin Yuanhao was now convinced that Lu Yang and his companions were fellows from one of the other three demonic factions.

At this point, even if Lu Yang and the others claimed to be from the righteous sects, Qin Yuanhao would not believe a word of it.

He simply could not fathom it; though he had made enemies over the years, he had always acted with careful measure, never pushing conflicts to the point of irreconcilable deadly feuds.

Meng Jingzhou and Mangu cast rather peculiar glances at Lu Yang as well, seemingly surprised that he could devise such an eccentric method of psychological warfare.

"Against wicked miscreants, there is no need to observe the rules of chivalry. Together, now!" Lu Yang called out to the other two.

If the three of them struck in unison, even a half-step Golden Core tiger demon would perish, let alone Qin Yuanhao, who was merely at the late stage of Foundation Establishment.

They had previously considered fighting Qin Yuanhao one-on-one; as geniuses, they possessed the confidence to triumph over opponents of a higher realm.

However, for the sake of absolute certainty, it was far better for all three to strike together.

Casting his shame aside, Qin Yuanhao plunged into a fierce melee against the trio.

Sword light surged like water, spilling across the battlefield like splashed ink with boundless, soaring heroism; Qin Yuanhao retreated step after step, utterly daring not to meet the blade head-on!

Meng Jingzhou and Mangu unleashed four fists simultaneously, descending like collapsing mountains to hammer against Qin Yuanhao’s chest, causing him to cough up blood incessantly!

Qin Yuanhao flipped his palm, and three ox-hair poison needles appeared between his fingertips, piercing straight into the chests of the three youths.

To his horror, the trio acted as though nothing had happened; their swords and fists showed not the slightest sign of weakening, growing only more ferocious as the battle raged.

Lu Yang had long anticipated that their opponent might resort to poison and had ingested an antidote pill beforehand.

Strictly speaking, an antidote pill should not be called an antidote; a "toxin-expelling pill" was a far more accurate description.

The mechanism of the antidote pill lay in enveloping the poison before it could take effect, expelling it from the body along with sweat.

Since the poison never took effect from start to finish, how could one speak of neutralizing it?

Qin Yuanhao realized with sinking dread that things were going awry; the enemy was far too well-prepared, preventing him from utilizing his array of underhanded, venomous methods—and even if he could, they were seemingly no match for the sheer malice of his opponents.

Meng Jingzhou’s muscles swelled as blue veins bulged across his skin; in Qin Yuanhao's vision, a fist expanded rapidly, moving at a speed far too great to register a reaction.

Yet an anomaly occurred once more: Meng Jingzhou’s punch carried the weight of a mountain, a blow that should have left a late Foundation Establishment cultivator crippled if not dead, yet Qin Yuanhao remained completely unaffected.

Qin Yuanhao let out a sinister laugh; he had told them before, these people could do nothing to him!

Through this exchange, Lu Yang finally discerned the truth behind Qin Yuanhao’s cultivation technique. He swung his sword downward, its light leaping like a vibrant rainbow, shattering all resistance before it.

This strike did not target any physical part of the body, but rather cleaved directly into Qin Yuanhao’s shadow!

"Damn it!" Pain flared through Qin Yuanhao, and he could not help but cry out.

"As I thought, you were indeed the one who slaughtered the bandit gang last night. Your weakness is your shadow!"

Lu Yang recalled Qin Yuanhao emerging from the brothel to carry out the Helm Master's orders; it must have been to eliminate that group of bandits.

With his greatest reliance exposed, Qin Yuanhao no longer lingered to fight. His physical form vanished, and his shadow began to streak across the ground at incredible speed.

Even if he could not defeat them, he possessed absolute confidence in his ability to escape; no matter how sharp a sword might be, could it truly hack a shadow to death?

"You three juniors, I shall remember you. Just you wait to receive my endless vengeance, hahahaha..." Believing himself to hold the absolute upper hand, Qin Yuanhao laughed without restraint.

Suddenly, a beam of blinding white light focused directly onto the shadow, instantly causing Qin Yuanhao to let out a soul-tearing shriek, a sensation akin to having a piece of flesh violently ripped from his body.

The Light-Focusing Array—a simple formation that absorbed a light source and projected it outward. It was easy to learn and master within moments, yet it was also considered an utterly useless formation under normal circumstances; here, however, its effects were miraculously potent.

Driven to desperation, Qin Yuanhao’s body tore out from the shadow to block the white light, causing the gap in the shadow to vanish.

His injuries mended instantly.

"It seems you came prepared, but so what? Do you truly believe, in your naivety, that a mere Light-Focusing Array can destroy me?"

Qin Yuanhao mocked, "Do you not understand the principle that the stronger the light, the stronger the shadow becomes?"

Unfazed, Lu Yang tossed out several more Light-Focusing Arrays, returning the mockery in kind: "Then have you ever heard of a shadowless lamp?"

Qin Yuanhao hesitated for a brief moment; he had no inkling of what a shadowless lamp was, but hearing Lu Yang's words sent an ominous premonition coursing through his heart.

Lu Yang had no desire to waste breath explaining principles mid-combat. Over a dozen beams of white light converged upon Qin Yuanhao, causing his shadow to sizzle and pop; whether Qin Yuanhao manifested his body to block the light or retreated back into the darkness, he could do nothing to halt the process.

The shadow grew faint, fading continuously until it became virtually imperceptible to the naked eye.

The principle of the shadowless lamp was not to make the shadow vanish entirely, but rather to dilute it until it was practically nonexistent.

With a furious roar, Qin Yuanhao burst out from the nearly invisible shadow, his true form no longer capable of concealing itself within the darkness.

A streak of sword light descended from the heavens like a sudden, flying rainbow, striking unexpectedly and catching him entirely off guard as it pierced cleanly through Qin Yuanhao's torso.

This was precisely the moment Lu Yang had been waiting for.

"That was close, he nearly slipped away." Seeing that Qin Yuanhao was dead, Meng Jingzhou breathed a sigh of relief; had the man escaped, all their preparations over the past few days would have been in vain.

Meng Jingzhou had believed their arrangements to be flawless, leaving Qin Yuanhao no avenue of escape, yet who could have foreseen that the man’s technique was bound to shadows, making him exceptionally difficult to trap.

With a grin, Meng Jingzhou gave Lu Yang a playful nudge on the shoulder. "It’s a good thing you insisted on crafting those Light-Focusing Arrays before we set out."

"It was purely luck. I only suspected his technique was related to shadows, but I had no solid proof."

"Still, let us not celebrate too early. It will be soon enough to rejoice once we have destroyed the evidence and erased all traces."

At Lu Yang’s suggestion, the three burned Qin Yuanhao into a charred corpse stripped of any identifiable features, threw him into the tiger demon's cavern, and then blasted the entrance until it collapsed completely.

In this manner, unless someone explicitly conducted a meticulous search of the mountain, no one would ever discover this place.