Golden Wraith Building.
Old Man Zhuanyu was in the first-floor hall, holding a cup filled to the brim with scarlet liquid.
At that moment, he smiled down at a figure below.
A disciple knelt on one knee, his face full of pain and bewilderment, his body trembling violently as though beyond his control.
Clinging tightly to the disciple was a pitch-black giant bird.
The giant bird was pressed close against him, its long neck wrapped around the disciple's throat.
The two heads pressed together seemed fused as one, flesh and feathers intertwining. He desperately tried to tear them apart, but they stretched like pulled sugar threads, endlessly lengthening without ever breaking free of their entanglement.
Half of the disciple's face was rapidly assimilated by the black bird, his features already twisting grotesquely.
He looked up at the smiling Old Man Zhuanyu and pleaded.
"Master... Master, save me!"
Old Man Zhuanyu calmly lowered the cup from his lips and licked the bloodstain from the corner of his mouth.
"Your mind lacks resolve, and you were possessed so easily. With aptitude like yours, you are not even fit to be a vessel. Do you still need to beg your master over such a matter?
You know the rules. Whoever wins becomes my disciple."
"No! Master! I don't want to become a vessel! Save me... save me..."
The disciple below continued screaming until his heart was torn apart and his lungs split, hoping Old Man Zhuanyu would intervene. But Old Man Zhuanyu said nothing more, utterly unmoved.
As the disciple's flesh and the vessel continued to entwine, countless black substances surged madly into his body, and great clouds of black qi bloomed from his eyes.
After a short while, the disciple's body stopped trembling and gradually quieted.
The black giant bird clinging to