The ashes in the bronze cauldron suddenly exploded, and a reeking wind rushed into their faces. A giant wolf leaped from the smoke and dust, fangs bared, its shoulders and back towering like a mountain. When it landed, the stone chamber rang with the impact. Chen Wuya twisted on the ball of his foot, borrowing the misaligned force to shed momentum in reverse. He slid three steps sideways, barely evading the sweeping claw.
Before the wolf demon had even steadied itself, it pounced again, so fast it left only an afterimage. Chen Wuya had no time to think. On instinct, he reversed one of the qi circulation routes from the Canglang Art, sending his true qi up from his tailbone in reverse, straight into his left arm. Before his palm even touched the enemy, the force within him had already become a tangled mess. Yet at the instant of contact, the system issued a cold prompt:
Error assessment: Reverse Meridian Piercing Yang. Reasonability evaluation complete—"Misaligned Force: Wave Splitting" activated!
He thrust out his palm. The force should have come from the heel of his hand, but instead he concentrated it at his fingertips, his five fingers spread like claws in a seemingly lawless stance. Yet when the blow struck the wolf demon's chest, it drove forward in rippling layers like spreading water, making its muscles convulse and bringing its charge to an abrupt halt.
Bai Zhi seized the chance to leap up. Her flexible sword slid half a foot from its sheath, its blade tracing an arc of light along the ground as it went for the wolf demon's hind leg. She did not press the attack. Instead, she lightly tapped the ground with the sword tip, using the rebound to flip through the air as she said