The enemy struggled, muscles straining against an invisible force.
He found himself rooted in place, limbs locked as though forged from stone.
His body no longer obeyed him.
It felt alien, distant, like a puppet whose strings had been cut from his grasp and claimed by another. Panic flickered in his eyes as he lifted his head.
Chen Mo stood above him, gazing down with the same calm, unreadable stare he had worn from the very first clash. No triumph. No pity. Just quiet inevitability.
The leader tried to shout, to curse, but his jaw clamped shut against his will.
His tongue lay heavy and useless in his mouth.
Chen Mo said nothing.
He simply raised his sword.
The blade shimmered with a dark, devouring energy, black-purple veins of destructive power coiling along the steel.
It was the essence of the slain Destructive Dragon's core, now within Chen Mo, a force that hungered to unmake whatever it touched.
