Light and shadow parted the boundary leading to another realm.
The instant he stepped inside, Lu Ping understood that he had crossed the boundary between life and death. This was a space isolated from the world.
The last glow of dusk fell on the moss-covered Killing Stone.
The light stretched to its limit.
Lu Ping took a step forward, hiding most of his body in the stone's shadow.
Behind him, the faces of Satoru Gojo and Ieiri Shoko gradually blurred.
The wind at the Outer Shrine, the rustling leaves, even the texture of the light rapidly faded.
This was the gap between the Living World and the other side.
He stopped.
According to the newly emerging Ten Shadows inheritance in his mind, the next stage of the ritual required a specific medium.
Lu Ping raised his right hand and sliced open his left palm with his fingertips.
The blood did not fall. It hung in midair.
He mobilized the cursed energy within him, constantly compressing and refining it before pouring all of it into that drop of blood.
The blood turned from bright red to a dark, blackish red, like solidified molten iron.
"Wedge Blood," he said softly.
Bearing the sorcerer's vow, the drop fell straight onto the line beneath his feet where yin and yang met.
The instant the blood touched the shadow.
The shadow on the ground awakened like a living thing.
It collapsed inward, twisting the surrounding space and tearing open a deep, seemingly bottomless gap.
Without hesitation, Lu Ping stepped into it.
The light, sound, and forms of the Living World were stripped away the instant he fell.
There was no air here, no gravity.
This was a sea of pure consciousness, an existence known as the [Shadow Gap].
The world Lu Ping lived in belonged