A Glimmer Breaks the Darkness at Death's Door-Spiritual Veins Burned Away

The sizzling collisions dragged on through the pitch-black cosmos, shrill as a dull blade cutting through red-hot metal. They not only made eardrums ache, but sent faint tremors through the gaps between bones, raising every hair on the body. The black pillar of energy was like a colossal iron stake, dark from end to end, bearing down with the force to crush all things. It pressed relentlessly against the translucent white halo, forcing the soft yet resilient glow inward, warping it. Cracks along the halo's edge resembled a lake surface split apart by winter frost. Just as one fissure barely sealed, a dozen more fine fractures burst open the next instant. Tiny fragments of white light drifted down the cracks, vanishing in a flash within the dark void without leaving a trace. Ximen Qing hovered behind the halo, his body like a withered leaf about to snap in a gale. Each aftershock of clashing energy made him shudder violently, as though he would fall apart the next second. His face was pale as paper, utterly lifeless. His eye sockets were slightly sunken, his once-bright eyes growing dimmer by the moment. His cracked lips were covered in splits, seeping dark-red blood and tinged an unhealthy bluish purple. Blood at the corner of his mouth congealed, then welled up again, dripping from his chin in tiny beads. Before they could drift even half a foot, the roiling sinister black mist around him swallowed them whole without stirring the slightest ripple. His shoulders were slightly hunched, his once-upright frame curled into itself. Every breath took all his strength; his chest heaved violently, his ribs faintly visible beneath his skin. Each rise and fall brought a muffled groan trapped in his throat, heavy with piercing pain. Yet even as pain wracked his entire body,