Night Whispers (1)

Shen Yucheng had lost the initiative, his right arm restrained, and his exquisite techniques were immediately greatly compromised. What stifled him even more was that the disruptive hallucinations and phantom sounds had not vanished. They always surfaced abruptly at the critical moments when he needed to devote his full attention to Zhou Wan's dense offensive, interfering with his judgment and scattering his focus.

Clearly, his opponent's spiritual power and the force of her techniques were both inferior to his, yet he seemed to have fallen into an invisible spiderweb. At most, he could wield sixty or seventy percent of his full strength; he was restrained at every turn and forced into passivity step after step.

Zhou Wan, meanwhile, had completely seized the rhythm.

Her figure drifted like smoke, always maintaining the most suitable distance from Shen Yucheng. The Green Jade Brush moved without pause, layer upon layer of runes for restriction, disruption, and weakening pouring forth. Combined with her precise predictions and positioning, she brought the controlling art of literary Dao cultivation to its utmost limit.

She did not clash with Shen Yucheng head-on at all. She simply continued weaving an ever heavier net of restraints.

Though Shen Yucheng possessed deep foundations and astonishing resilience, and tried several times to turn the tide—even nearly breaking through the blockade once—Zhou Wan always added fresh control at exactly the right moment, or exploited the tiny mistakes caused by his illusions to lightly and neatly press down his counterattack.

In the end, beneath Zhou Wan's seamless, flowing succession of ultimate combination runes—"Draw Earth as Prison," "Spirit Lock," and "Mountain Suppression"—Shen Yucheng was completely confined by densely packed chains of ink-black spiritual light and suppression seals as heavy as mountains.

He struggled with all his might, his immense earth-element spiritual power surging and shaking