Cade loosened his neck as he watched the approaching speeder, bringing his own flier down to land atop a nearby dune.

  It was close to midday, and the sun had reached its most punishing phase, unleashing a relentless blaze like a giant infernal furnace hanging in the sky. At this hour, even high-ranked beasts preferred to rest in the shade cast by the huge palm trees growing around the scattered oases.

  The old man had somehow managed to mark him. Unlike qi cultivators, who were accustomed to maintaining a thin, invisible barrier of spiritual qi, body refiners—and the Asura—had no such protection, making them far easier targets.

  Gorgo would have loved this elven speeder, he thought, watching the incoming vessel. It was a true marvel of artifice—narrower than his wide Arrow Nine, yet longer, shaped like a stretched teardrop built from white, highly reflective metal. Cade pushed his eyesight further, magnifying its surface—it was carved with detailed battle scenes from unknown eras.

  There were no windows or openings that would allow a peek into the cabin. How anyone inside could see where they were flying was beyond him. Likely another marvel of artifice. The speeder appeared far older and more sophisticated than most he had seen in the past. Cade had encountered enough ancient elven artifacts to know this vessel was worth a small fortune. How some old lackey from a low-ranking nation had gotten hold of it was a complete mystery.

  The speeder stopped two hundred feet away, the desert wind carrying the scent of heated repulsion ore. Its top split open down the middle, both carved metal panels shifting soundlessly aside to reveal a spacious cockpit. Inside sat the white-robed old man and an elven girl, perhaps fifteen years old. When Cade saw her, his blood nearly boiled, swirls of blood qi flooding his eyes. He mustered every ounce of restraint to keep the rage from taking over.

  “Junior! You’ve caused me quite some trouble, forcing me to carry this bitch around for a week! Then again, it was an opportunity to give her sufficient attention, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad,” the old man said with a brief, lecherous chortle. His voice then turned cold. “You snotty bastard, let me make this clear—if you try to run before I get my answers, I won’t even bother chasing you. Instead, I’ll give this little minx some stimulants and start removing her skin, strip by strip. Ever heard of the Mirror Tyrant?” The old man grinned, eyes glinting with cruel amusement. “Well, that’s me.”

  The girl had long blond hair and had been beaten until her skin had turned purple. Her upper body was covered in deep bruises and a lattice of slicing wounds—some fresh, others partially healed. Faint clamping marks marred her small chest, and he didn’t even want to imagine the state of her lower body. Her terrified green eyes reminded him of Lucy as they stared at him wide-open, pleading silently.

  Cade took a deep breath, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked in a series of sharp pops.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse, his words dripping with killing intent.

  The Mirror Tyrant chortled again, clearly pleased that his scheme had worked. He didn’t believe Cade posed any danger to him; the gap in their cultivation was far too great.

  “See? I knew you’d react this way. I’ve had plenty of time to gather information about you. Junior, you’re far too soft-hearted to be a cultivator,” the old man said. He stepped out of his speeder and stretched his back. After a few audible cracks, he turned toward the Asura. “Now tell me where the Duke’s sons are.”

  The girl sagged in her chair, clearly convinced there was no escape. Cade watched as moisture filled the pores of her face, two solitary tears rolling down her cheeks. Calm on the outside, his voracious heart beat like a war drum, his muscles coiling with tension—but he kept Grandmaster Erendriel’s words firmly in mind. Anger should be guided and used to his advantage, not handed to the enemy on a plate.

  “Is that all?” the Asura asked, feigning surprise. “I just returned from visiting them at the bottom of the Well of the Ancients. You could go back to the Duke and bring him the good news. Well—the news. Except now you won’t be doing any of that.” His final words carried an unmistakable promise of death.

  The Tyrant stared at him, his ruddy face taut as a drawn bowstring. “Insolent!” he snarled. “Junior, if you’re telling the truth, you’ve just signed your own death sentence. But don't worry, it'll take years for you to die inside the Duke’s dungeon. What he’ll do to you will redefine the meaning of torture and suffering,” he said eagerly, his voice dripping with cruelty.

  "Legion, today you will finally have your fill," Cade sent grimly into his realm of consciousness, ignoring the Tyrant’s threats.

  “Hehe, I was born ready, Master. I’ll swallow his soul one particle of qi at a time. He won’t enjoy the process—not one bit,” the spirit’s silver avatar replied at once, chuckling maliciously.

  "Good."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The Asura fixed the Mirror Tyrant with a cold gaze. His arm snapped forward, index finger leveled at the elder.

  “Old man, you seem remarkably adept at courting death. I’m honestly surprised you’re still alive. Well, your good luck has finally run out,” Cade said through clenched teeth. “I initially planned to simply relieve you of your earthly existence. But you’ve managed to infuriate me. Congratulations—now I’ll destroy you in both body and soul, ensuring you never reincarnate into this world.”

  The Tyrant trembled with pent-up fury. “Disrespectful bastard!” he spat. “An ant should know when it stands before a tiger. Clones, arise!”

  His hands flashed through a sequence of seals, and his body split into five silhouettes before Cade’s eyes. The Asura immediately unleashed his life sense.

  Even the life signatures are carried over. These are perfect spiritual clones!

  He had never encountered such an art firsthand, though he had read about spiritual clones in theory. Techniques like this were better suited to body refiners, and with the Tyrant’s cultivation, they could be exceptionally dangerous to any opponent lacking strong defenses. Each clone might not strike hard individually, but their numbers—and the elder’s immense qi reserves—made them deadly.

  The moment the clones stabilized, red mist erupted from beneath the sand, instantly blanketing nearly a mile of desert around Cade. While keeping the Tyrant occupied with their exchange, he had been steadily pushing incorporeal mist through the soles of his feet. In this state, it posed no physical threat, but it obscured vision perfectly—which was exactly what he needed.

  The Asura flickered. His body no longer blurred so much as vanished and reappeared like lightning. The movement was so rapid that, to mortal eyes, it would seem as though he were warping between locations, faint afterimages trailing behind him. Each step produced a thunderous boom as he repeatedly broke the sound barrier. He appeared beside the Tyrant’s speeder, retreating a couple of eyeblinks later with the elven girl in his arms.

  “Don’t worry. He won’t ever hurt you again. Stay quiet now,” he whispered. The stunned girl nodded, struggling to suppress her sobs. Cade’s heart ached at the sight of her condition, and he clenched his teeth so hard his molars nearly cracked. He inhaled slowly.

  Rage is a weapon.

  Meanwhile, the alarmed Tyrant shot out of the mist, his clones trailing after him like obedient hounds. He stared into the sprawling crimson clouds, attempting to pierce them with his gaze. A grimace of frustration crossed his face before his hands flashed again. A massive dark orb began forming above him, swelling with each passing moment.

  Cade caught its manifestation in the corner of his eye, but his priority lay elsewhere. He moved slower and far more gently while carrying the girl, keeping his steps as quiet as possible. Her cultivation was only at the fourth stage of Qi Condensation—she would never have survived his full speed. He reached the edge of the mist and laid a large linen blanket on the ground. When she realized he meant to leave her there, the girl clutched his neck desperately, refusing to let go.

  “Stay here. I’ll put up a barrier and draw him away. He can’t see through the mist,” Cade murmured, barely audible. He removed one of his red coats and wrapped it around her naked form. Though the Tyrant couldn’t see them, his hearing remained sharp. Cade placed her behind a large dune, then deployed the same defensive formation he had once used to protect Jade, shrinking it to the minimum size and condensing its strength. He pressed a finger to his lips, then vanished like a ghost, his silhouette dissolving into scarlet vapor.

  The Tyrant’s black sun had grown to nearly a hundred feet in diameter, glowing like a dark spherical beacon. His hands formed a triangular seal, and a thick beam of dark energy erupted from the sun’s center, cutting effortlessly through the mist. He swept the triangle across the rolling clouds, the beam following with ruthless precision.

  Impressive as it looked, it was largely wasted effort. The thick ray of black qi was undeniably powerful, shredding the desert surface with a terrifying hum that made the dunes tremble. It devoured the crimson fog wherever it passed, but Cade’s mist required very little blood qi to sustain. Its incorporeal nature and low density made it exceptionally efficient. Whatever the beam erased was almost instantly replenished by his voracious heart—2,500 spherules spinning continuously, shedding prismatic dust in vast quantities. Even this massive expenditure barely dented his reserves.

  How could the Tyrant strike something he couldn’t see? Reduced to blind chance, he burned through his vast qi supply with abandon.

  He’s obviously not worried about running out of energy.

  Now that the girl was relatively safe, Cade could finally counterattack. He moved silently through the mist, positioning himself beneath the elder, and released his oppressive aura, carefully tracking life signatures. He hoped the girl lay beyond its reach; in the worst case, it would only knock her unconscious without causing harm.

  The five silhouettes hovered apart from one another, indistinguishable by appearance alone. But the instant his aura brushed the real Mirror Tyrant, there was a minute fluctuation in his emotional state. Even diminished by the gap in cultivation, it was still unpleasant. That faint tremor echoed through the clones a split second later. Invisible to the naked eye, it stood out clearly to Cade’s refined life sense.

  Let’s see how you enjoy my second reversed death art.

  The mist churned and condensed, forming a massive open hand. Cade swung his own palm in a full-force slap. The mist answered instantly, mirroring the motion with flawless synchronicity. Weight, angle, momentum—every aspect of the strike, along with the governing laws, transferred seamlessly into the projection.

  This was the true power of the Mist Resonance Art.

  The colossal hand tore through the air toward the Tyrant’s true body at devastating speed, encountering no air resistance. The old man tried to redirect his dark beam, but Cade’s oppressive aura delayed his reaction by a fraction of a moment.

  It was more than enough.

  An instant before impact, the massive palm flared with brilliant scarlet light. With all the mist igniting at once, the enormous hand turned fully corporeal, swatting the white-robed figure from the sky with a deafening thunderclap. The collision unleashed a tremendous gust, ripping sand from the dunes and whipping it into a brief but violent storm. The elder fell like a rogue meteor, slamming into the desert and carving a deep trench with a ground-shaking boom as a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust billowed skyward.