The bitter winds howled through the shattered peaks of the Dead Spine Mountains, swirling with ash and the acrid scent of burnt Qi. The sky was dark, torn by lightning—nature itself recoiling from the battle raging below.
Lei Shen rose from the snowy rubble, cracks of molten jade tracing his skin like veins of wrath. His stormy eyes fixed coldly on Yi Zhen, who stood calmly, his corrupted Qi coiling like living fire around him.
> "You walk out of my crucible like a beast reborn," Lei Shen snarled, "but don't mistake torment for strength."
Yi Zhen's twisted smile deepened.
> "You were right, demon. I was weak. But now, I am beyond your gluttonous hunger."
He flexed his fingers, and the corrupted Qi surged, forming jagged claws of smoke and flame.
> "This battle isn't about who devours whom."
> "It's about who breaks the other first."
---
The first strike came like a thunderclap.
Lei Shen's arm blurred into a spear of crackling lightning, aimed to impale.
But Yi Zhen's body rippled, shifting like liquid shadow. His new technique—the Inverse Flow—allowed him to invert momentum, turning Lei Shen's attack into a wild force that tore the mountainside instead.
> The Inverse Flow was born in the furnace.
It reversed energy and will.
Now, it bent destruction back on itself.
Yi Zhen's counterstrike was swift and brutal—a sweep of corrupted Qi that smashed into Lei Shen's ribs, sending him crashing against a jagged outcrop.
But Lei Shen grinned, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
> "Impressive. But now I grow hungry."
A sinister aura pulsed from him, a black hunger that seemed to swallow light.
> "Dao of Gluttony."
---
The air warped as Lei Shen opened his maw wide, devouring a chunk of the shattered mountain—a shard infused with Heaven's Stone Essence.
Instantly, his skin shimmered, reinforced with unbreakable stone.
> "Each bite feeds my Dao," he boomed, "granting me the powers of all I consume."
He seized a jagged ice spear from the ground and bit into it, the spear melting into his flesh and granting him control over frozen time.
---
Yi Zhen hissed, eyes narrowing.
> "So you feast on the world itself. But I feast on despair."
He unleashed a wave of Corrupted Qi Erosion—a black mist that ate away at everything it touched, breaking down matter and spirit alike.
The mountain cracked, ice shattered, and the very earth seemed to groan in agony.
---
The battle escalated—lightning and black fire clashing, mountain and sky turning into weapons.
Lei Shen's gluttonous hunger forced him to constantly consume, shifting forms and powers with terrifying speed. But Yi Zhen's inverse techniques allowed him to twist those powers against Lei Shen, using his own gluttony as a trap.
With every blow, Yi Zhen's calculated strikes and ruthless cunning pushed the Demon Emperor back, mocking him with a grin of pure malice.
> "Is that all, Demon? Or will you consume your pride next?"
Lei Shen's face twisted into rage.
---
Suddenly, Lei Shen vanished into a swirl of devouring Qi, reforming above Yi Zhen's head like a falling star.
> "I am hunger itself. You cannot defeat the endless appetite of the Dao of Gluttony!"
With a devastating bite, Lei Shen aimed to crush Yi Zhen's core.
But Yi Zhen twisted his body in a blur, countering with a precise strike—a corrupted dagger of Qi—piercing Lei Shen's shoulder and forcing him to roar in pain.
---
Both warriors paused, panting amid the ruined landscape.
Blood and corrupted energy dripping from their forms, they eyed each other.
> "This is far from over," Yi Zhen whispered, voice cold as the grave.
> "The mountain will bear witness," Lei Shen growled, "that I am eternal hunger."
Lightning crackled. The earth trembled beneath their feet.
And then—
A dark fissure tore open beneath them.
From its depths, a shadow greater than either warrior stirred.
---
Author's Note – Terry
This fight is just heating up. Yi Zhen is no longer the broken prey—he's a calculating predator with terrifying new powers.
Lei Shen's Dao of Gluttony brings an unpredictable, brutal edge to the battle, forcing both to use everything they have, including the environment itself.
But the fissure beneath them hints at something… even darker.
What lies beneath the mountain? And will either survive to see the next sunrise?
Hold tight — the war has only just begun.