Lightning Spear!

"Trying to run?"

Seeing the Giant Blood Bat, riddled with injuries, frantically beating its wings in an attempt to fly beyond the range of his Plant Domain, Yun Chuan remained calm. He merely raised his right hand, and blue arcs of electricity began to flicker.

Crackling arcs gradually gathered in his palm, spreading wildly through the surrounding area. He focused intently, striving to calm the electricity and make it condense according to his will in a certain pattern... until, at last, a blue-silver spear formed in his hand!

This move was an application of the lightning attribute among the four innate attributes of the Supreme Clear Sky Hammer. It could be considered a Self-Created Soul Skill. Its principle was to condense a large amount of lightning and stabilize it into the shape of a spear!

It sounded simple, but condensing formless lightning into the shape of a spear involved countless intricacies. It was not something that could be accomplished casually, as it involved knowledge from many different areas.

He named this move Lightning Spear!

"Compared to lightning, you're slow as a crawling turtle!"

Yun Chuan raised the Lightning Spear in his hand and assumed the posture of someone throwing a javelin.

A flash of lightning streaked through the air.

The next moment.

A thunderous explosion erupted around the Giant Blood Bat as it desperately flew away in the distance. The area it occupied was engulfed by terrifying lightning, with a wide ring of blue-silver arcs raging about and illuminating the surroundings.

It was as though another small sun had appeared in midair.

Meanwhile, the Lightning Spear in Yun Chuan's hand had long since vanished. At present, it appeared that the Giant Blood Bat had been taken out by his genuinely lightning-fast Lightning Spear.

Yet Yun Chuan frowned as he stared at the area where large arcs of electricity still raged. Something felt off. He felt that this Evil Soul Master had died too easily.

According to Spirit Hall's past records of exterminating Evil Soul Masters, they all shared one trait: they were exceptionally good at running and preserving their lives! They possessed all sorts of strange methods to escape calamity, even faking their deaths to get away.

Yun Chuan suspected that this Evil Soul Master had used a similar method.

In the distance, the crackling arcs gradually calmed. As for the Giant Blood Bat, it had long been reduced to charcoal by the intense heat of the electricity. With a gust of wind, it turned into ash that drifted down through the air...

On the surface, after being struck by the Lightning Spear, the Evil Soul Master's enormous body had been surrounded by lightning. There should have been no possibility of escape. He had clearly been killed beyond any doubt amid the raging electricity.

"Something's wrong!"

Yun Chuan closed his eyes and began using his domain to inspect Wild Mountain, searching for anything unusual.

Yet after searching the entirety of Wild Mountain, he failed to find even the slightest trace of that Evil Soul Master. It seemed the Evil Soul Master truly had perished in the lightning.

But the more this was the case, the stranger Yun Chuan found it. He became increasingly certain that there was definitely something wrong with that Evil Soul Master.

After thinking for a moment, Yun Chuan's figure flashed and vanished from where he stood.

At the same time, the countless plants that had been raging across Wild Mountain gradually settled down, then slowly returned to their original positions. Before long, Wild Mountain regained its usual tranquility. It now appeared no different from how it had been before.

Time quietly passed.

In the blink of an eye, the sun sank westward.

The entire world fell into darkness.

The night was dark and windy, and not even the moon appeared tonight.

Wild Mountain remained the same Wild Mountain, without the slightest movement.

Several more hours passed.

It was now deep into the night.

At last, something unusual appeared.

At the spot where the Evil Soul Master had originally hidden, the large tree there had been destroyed in the battle during the day. Only scattered debris and a stump remained.

But now, an extremely faint sound began to come from beneath the stump, seemingly the sound of some small animal digging through the soil.

A moment later, a small mound suddenly rose on the surface of the earth.

Then, a furtive little creature poked its head out.

It was a blood-red bat no larger than a rat. After emerging from the soil, it turned its head to survey the surroundings. Seeing that everything was calm, it let out a breath of relief.

"...That was close!"

"Good thing I hid my true body beneath the stump early on. The one outside was only a clone. Otherwise, I would have been dead for sure today."

After the tiny blood-red bat crawled out of the soil, it shook its body. A faint red glow then began to shine from it, and its body gradually expanded. Before long, it transformed from a bat into a human.

His sixth Soul Skill was extremely special, called Substitute Death Avatar. It could create a clone complete with flesh and blood, temporarily transferring all of his cultivation and consciousness into it. Although the true body would become extremely weak, it could hide away. Once the clone died, his consciousness and cultivation would return to the true body. This move was truly a divine skill for preserving one's life!

Its only flaw was that it could only create one clone at a time. Once the clone died, the Soul Skill would enter a cooldown period and could only be used again after one year. But despite its many restrictions, they could not conceal how exceptional this Soul Skill was.

"Spirit Hall's people should think I'm dead now. This place is safe for the time being. I'll hide here for a few days and recover my depleted strength. Once the heat dies down, I'll drain all the blood from those lowly commoners nearby. Then I'll go elsewhere to hunt for blood food. This time, I'll choose somewhere with more people. And the next time I'm exposed, I'll make sure to drain everyone dry first!" The Evil Soul Master's face was sinister, blood-red light flickering in his eyes. Thinking of those lowly commoners who had left him in such a sorry state, he wished he could go back right now and drain every last one of them dry.

"...I don't think you'll get the chance."

A gentle, pleasant voice suddenly rang out.

It was clearly such a gentle, pleasant voice, yet to the Evil Soul Master, it was no less terrifying than an atomic bomb exploding beside his ear!

The Evil Soul Master abruptly turned toward the source of the voice. A black-haired figure dressed in white had appeared there at some unknown point, standing with his hands behind his back and smiling at him.

"It wasn't for nothing that I waited here for so long. Sure enough, Evil Soul Masters like you aren't so easy to kill." Yun Chuan looked at him with some emotion. Who could have imagined that the one who had fought him earlier was merely a clone?

The true body had actually hidden beneath such an ordinary tree stump.

Had Yun Chuan not sensed that something was wrong and deliberately pretended to leave, while actually hiding in the shadows with his domain constantly active, then patiently waiting, he might not have been able to catch this Evil Soul Master at all.

"Y-Yun Chuan Holy Son!" The Evil Soul Master stammered as he looked at him. Recalling how the clone that possessed all of his strength during the day had been cleanly dealt with by the man before him, he felt that his life was over!

"Crackle! Crackle-crackle..."

Threads of electricity suddenly appeared around Yun Chuan's body. Soon afterward, blue-silver arcs rapidly enveloped him, turning him entirely into a glowing figure. The electric light illuminated the dark forest around them, making it bright as day!

"...I'll use you to test my new move."

"Lightning Release - Lightning Body!"

Yun Chuan's entire body was surrounded by arcs of electricity, but the lightning could not harm him in the slightest. Instead, it greatly increased his speed. With a single movement of his foot, he transformed into a streak of lightning and charged at the Evil Soul Master!

"So fast!"

The Evil Soul Master's heart jolted. He saw a fist rapidly enlarging before his eyes and instinctively tried to unleash the little Soul Power remaining in his body, which had returned from the clone, to blast away the person who had already reached him.

But before he could unleash his Soul Power, that lightning-wreathed fist had already slammed viciously into his face.

"Bang!"

Starting from his head, the Evil Soul Master's entire body was sent flying into the air. Broken teeth scattered in every direction, and his face was smashed into a bloody mess! The lightning damage carried by the fist also paralyzed his body, covering him in arcs of electricity.

But it was not over yet. Yun Chuan pressed his advantage without mercy!

With the enhancement of lightning, his speed might not have matched true lightning, but it was still far faster than usual.

Before the Evil Soul Master, who had been punched into the air, could fall back down, Yun Chuan's fist struck him again. First came a punch to the chest, then Yun Chuan flashed behind him and threw another punch. After that came a sweeping kick, landing squarely on his waist...

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang!!..."

After a flurry of crackling punches and kicks, sparks and lightning flying everywhere—

The Evil Soul Master had been beaten beyond recognition by Yun Chuan's fists and feet. The lightning damage accompanying the blows had nearly roasted him alive.

"Finally... take my Lightning Bolt Thunderclap Fist!"

Yun Chuan's figure flashed, and he raised a clenched fist. The lightning across his body began converging toward it. He was still several meters away from the Evil Soul Master, but when he threw his punch—

A sphere of lightning shot forth!

It struck the Evil Soul Master, who was paralyzed by the lightning and frozen in place, unable to move.

"Boom!!!"

The sphere of lightning erupted.

Terrifying lightning ravaged the area, blue-silver electric serpents continuously splashing outward and blackening the surrounding trees. Some even burst into flames...

After a long while.

The arcs of electricity gradually ceased their rampage.

The blue-silver light slowly dimmed before finally fading away.

Only one or two lingering arcs still flickered around the area from time to time.

As for the Evil Soul Master, he had long since been turned into a pile of ash by the raging thunder after the sphere of lightning exploded.

"Phew..."

Yun Chuan let out a long breath and withdrew his hand. After throwing a round of punches and working up a slight sweat, he felt thoroughly refreshed, as though he had taken a sauna.

"This time, he's definitely dead!"

He nodded and muttered to himself, "Sure enough, fighting to the death like this is much more satisfying. I don't have to deliberately hold back. I can fight however I want."

It was not as if he had never fought others in Spirit Hall. But those had all been sparring matches, where he had to hold himself back. How could that possibly be satisfying?

As the saying went, when one possessed a deadly weapon, the desire to kill naturally arose!

When you possessed great power, you would inevitably feel the urge to use it. That was how those who wielded martial strength came to defy the law.