The instant the pitch-black stone shard shattered, the green flames on the ridge gave a violent tremor, as though someone had seized them by the throat. The chief shaman's eyes bulged. The bone staff in his hand shook fiercely, and the ghostly light gathered at its tip abruptly surged back into his body. He grunted, his knees slamming heavily into the ground, his knuckles whitening with strain.
The golden light in Chen Wuya's palm had yet to fade. Instead, he stepped forward, his heel giving the ground a light tremor three inches deep. The step made no sound, yet the churning breath within the chief shaman abruptly stalled—he had been about to trigger the reverse gu to self-detonate, using his remnant soul to form the Ten Thousand Souls Dream-Erosion Formation and drag everything within ten li into a nightmare of eternal night. But the tremor transmitted through the earth veins by Misaligned Force precisely disrupted the spell-power cycle about to take shape within his meridians.
"You..." The chief shaman looked up, black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. There was no longer rage in his eyes, only terror. "How could you interrupt the Blood Pact Invocation?"
Hoofbeats rushed closer from deep within the forest shadows. A silver-armored figure leaped onto the ridge. Tuoba Lie stood on high ground, his gaze sweeping over the kneeling chief shaman before settling on the lean figure before the courtyard. He said nothing. He merely slowly raised a hand, his curved saber pointing diagonally at Chen Wuya.
"You said this battle was certain to be won!" the chief shaman suddenly howled, his voice dry and grating like sand scraping over stone. "You said no one in the Central Plains understood the true meaning of shamanic arts! Yet this man... he can sever Spirit