Crackle!
Blinding lightning bloomed at Bai Xiaowen's fingertips.
Origin Lightning!
Bai Xiaowen had grown highly proficient in his Origin Lightning spell. With Spirit Force Mastery as well, he no longer needed to go through the full casting motions. He only had to picture them, and lightning would spring from his fingers.
Fu Jing's blood ran cold. He felt as though disaster were about to swallow him whole. If that bolt struck him, he would die!
"Protect me!"
Fu Jing shouted. Two Evolvers beside him lunged in from either side, raised Spirit Force barriers, and shielded him from above.
It was not loyalty that drove them. Fu Jing had secretly bound Straw Puppets to them.
An Evolver bound to a Straw Puppet normally felt no different. Only when Fu Jing formed the hand seal would he strip them of their free will and turn them into his puppets.
Both men were Evolvers from Heavenly Prefecture Territory. Though their standing was lower than Fu Jing's, they had been there longer. Given a choice, he would never have revealed that he controlled them. But survival came first now.
Boom!
Thunder roared. A thin bolt pierced both men's Spirit Force barriers in an instant and killed the two who had "loyally protected their master." Two withered Straw Puppets drifted down from their bodies.
Fu Jing had already fled several yards.
The lightning veered by the slightest angle and grazed Fu Jing's back with a sharp crack.
Its force vaporized the blood pouring from his wound into a red mist. Fu Jing screamed and fell.
His Daoist robe shredded into scraps that scattered on the wind like butterflies.
A ghastly gash split Fu Jing's back, exposing a spine charred by the lightning. The remaining electrical force was still burrowing into his organs. That was the