The Shadow of Ever-Coiling

The ink-green liquid in the sky continued to drip onto the huge snake egg in the center of the altar.

Lu Ping exhaled slowly, quickly crossing his hands in front of his chest.

His ten fingers intertwined and locked, forming the ancient hand seals for the Ten Shadows Technique taming ritual.

Surging cursed energy surged backward along his meridians, overflowing from his fingertips like black ink.

He bent down, allowing the cursed energy to flow within the shadow beneath his feet, outlining the complex spell seals identical to those on the stone wall with startling precision.

At this moment, the surface of the Twin-Snake Egg behind him was already crawling with spiderweb-like cracks, dark green eerie light pouring frantically from the gaps, and hatching was only a hair's breadth away.

Just at the moment when the stone shell was about to completely shatter,

from the shadowy abyss beneath Lu Ping's feet came the scalp-tingling sound of scales rubbing together.

The masterless Great Serpent descended.

With the unreasonable cursed energy buff of the Three Corpses in a specific environment, the size of this newly manifested Shikigami was close to spinning out of control.

Its thick body soared into the sky like a derailed train carriage, instantly filling the top of the altar of dozens of square meters to the brim and blocking the faint light overhead.

Without the restriction of a taming contract, the Shikigami, having just manifested, was completely devoid of reason.

The huge shadow instantly enveloped Lu Ping.

The Great Serpent instinctively opened its giant maw, large enough to swallow a car, carrying a pungent, fishy wind, and fiercely bit toward the summoning caster close at hand.

Lu Ping's expression was indifferent, not even blinking an eyelid.

He had anticipated it long ago.

Just at the split second when that row of pale fangs was about to pierce his body, Lu Ping's figure fell like a raindrop into the surface of a lake, melting without a hitch into the deep shadows at the soles of his feet.

Boom!

The Great Serpent missed, its heavy lower jaw slamming hard onto the hard stone slabs, sparking dazzling fire and a dull roar.

Dozens of meters away at the edge of the altar, Kamo Chitsubaki took in this scene entirely, a trace of undisguised astonishment flashing across her usually calm face.

How was that possible?

Intelligence combining both the jujutsu world and curse users flashed rapidly through her mind.

In yesterday's cruel battle against the strong enemy, Lu Ping's Ten Shadows Shikigami had clearly self-destructed and been destroyed on the spot.

According to the ironclad laws of the jujutsu world, once a Shikigami was destroyed, the Ten Shadows Technique linked to it would inevitably suffer a strong backlash.

At that time, the sorcerer would enter a Technique Burnout period lasting several days.

During this penalty phase, the caster was completely unable to mobilize even a shred of summoning power.

Yet the youth before her had not only reconstructed the technique without any stagnation, but actually dared to forcibly initiate a highly dangerous solo taming ritual at the life-and-death juncture of being trapped in the enemy's domain!

The blood condensed in Chitsubaki's palms was on the verge of boiling.

Rush down to save him? Or take the opportunity to directly attack the cursed fetus?

Two completely different tactical impulses pulled repeatedly at the bottom of her heart.

Yet when she recalled the superhuman steadiness Lu Ping had displayed over the past few days, along with his unquestionable instruction just moments before, she finally took a deep breath of blood-scented air.

She forcibly dissipated the red glow at her fingertips, maintaining a posture of defensive counterattack, and chose to wait and see what happened.

Lu Ping at this moment was completely lurking within the cold, gloomy Shadow Space.

Although he had avoided the first wave of fatal attacks, his thoughts were churning violently.

Using an untamed, masterless Shikigami as bait and forcibly stuffing it into the sacrificial ritual of a pagan deity.

There was simply no predecessor's experience to reference for such behavior, and the chain reaction it triggered was completely unpredictable.

The worst-case scenario was that the origin of the Great Serpent would be completely obliterated by the sacrificial ritual, and he would permanently lose this powerful Shikigami partner.

At this thought, an authentic, cramping pain uncontrollably welled up in Lu Ping's chest.

Within the sequence of the Ten Shadows Technique, the strategic value of the Great Serpent was immeasurable.

Its ability to lurk silently and its devouring characteristic of a one-hit kill made it an excellent assassination tool, serving as core combat power second only to those legendary Special Grade Shikigami.

Regret, reluctance, and even a trace of panic over unknown consequences grew quietly in the bottom of his heart like wild grass.

Yet the next second, a decisiveness as sharp as ice-cleaving snow flashed in Lu Ping's eyes.

No madness, no survival.

If even the immediate dead end could not be seen through, all thoughts of preserving strength were laughable empty talk.

Only by surviving this hurdle would he have the qualification to continue making moves in the future!

The moment his thoughts cleared, the Three Corpses dormant within his body seemed to sniff out excellent nourishment, instantly pouncing upon those growing negative emotions.

Greedily chewing and swallowing, they then smoothly converted them into purer, more violent cursed energy, feeding it back into Lu Ping's limbs and bones.

The external situation had been pushed to the edge of a cliff.

Having lost Lu Ping as a target, the Great Serpent wriggled its body frantically on the altar.

Simultaneously, the Twin-Snake Egg in the center shattered with a boom.

A strange cursed spirit flowing all over with dark green corrosive liquid, growing two menacing snake heads and swinging a huge snake tail, broke out of its shell.

One of the heads had its eyes tightly closed with a weak aura, clearly still sleeping.

Meanwhile, the other awake head abruptly opened its eyes, immediately locking onto the unimaginably massive Great Serpent on the altar.

Its gigantic body was even greater than the size of the massive Great Serpent!

In the underlying logic of the sacrificial ritual, the Great Serpent, bearing standard spell seals on its body, was a ready-made, perfect sacrifice.

The Two-Headed Serpent God did not hesitate at all, its massive body tightly wrapping around the Great Serpent like an iron hoop.

The ink-green cursed energy eroded the Shikigami's scales like high-concentration sulfuric acid, and the assimilation process officially began.

Just at this critical moment.

Lu Ping, concealed within the shadows, accurately caught the split second when the Serpent God Cursed Spirit was wholeheartedly assimilating the sacrifice and the Great Serpent Shikigami's defense was at its emptiest, relying on the Three Corpses' extreme capture of external cursed energy fluctuations.

The pitch-black shadow bulged upward like boiling asphalt.

Lu Ping's figure returned to the real world like a phantom.

During the few seconds of stagnation in the Shadow Space, he had completed all the steps of taking out a Nue Feather Arrow, bending the horn longbow, and drawing the cursed energy bowstring in one go.

He had pre-completed the charging.

The moment he broke through the shadows, the bowstring was like a full moon, and the arrow like a shooting star.

Accompanied by an explosion that tore through the air, the pitch-black arrow turned into an afterimage, plunging precisely and unmistakably into the fatal weak spot seven inches below the Great Serpent's neck.

The violent cursed energy exploded with a roar within the Shikigami's body along with the arrowhead, instantly destroying its frantic vitality.

Shikigami Great Serpent, kill confirmed.

Taming ritual, declared complete!

The massive white snake body went limply slack, turning into a heavy husk.

The newly born Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit simply could not comprehend this sudden turn of events, and its beastly instinct drove it to open its bloody maw, swallowing the Great Serpent's remains along with the spell seals on its body in one gulp.

Thud.

The dull swallowing sound reverberated back and forth within the closed barrier.

Witnessing all this, the expression on Lu Ping's ice-sculpture-like, indifferent face finally surfaced with a trace of a smile.

His perception extended all the way downward along the karmic lines in the netherworld.

Deep within the Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit's stomach pouch filled with corrosive cursed energy, he clearly sensed the response belonging to the Great Serpent.

That was a sense of absolute control, like commanding one's own arm.

Not only was the taming successful, but the Great Serpent's body had also not been repelled by the barrier, effectively infiltrating the enemy's inner core!

The second step of the plan proceeded unimpeded.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Ping immediately issued the most cold-blooded command through their mental connection.

Inside the Two-Headed Serpent God Cursed Spirit, the Great Serpent, which had already "died," abruptly opened its cold snake pupils.

In the judgment of the domain's rules, after completing the swallowing action, the sacrifice and the deity were regarded as an inseparable whole.

External attacks could not harm the Serpent God's core, but the Great Serpent at this moment was a sharp blade parasitic within the Serpent God's body.

The pitch-black giant python wriggled frantically within the dark green flesh walls, opened its barb-filled fangs, fiercely tore open the Serpent God Cursed Spirit's abdomen to crawl out, and bit toward the connected, yet-to-awaken "sleeping snake head."

That was an important source upon which the Serpent God Cursed Spirit relied to maintain its power.

Hiss!

The Two-Headed Serpent God let out a shrieking scream of the utmost misery.

The conscious head swayed frantically, completely unable to understand why such fatal agony was coming from within its own body.

Driven by the instinct for survival, the conscious head jerked backward, bit open its own abdomen, and savagely bit the tail of the Great Serpent that was wildly devouring its other half.

Bizarre, bloody, and absurd.

The two massive entities of similar origin formed a heavily distorted picture in the center of the altar.

The Great Serpent was ruthlessly devouring the sleeping head, while the Serpent God's other head was frantically chewing the Great Serpent's tail.

Tail to head, they bit and swallowed each other, opening an endless Ouroboros cycle.

This was a pure contest of origins, contending not just for power, but for the primary ownership of this body and even the entire domain!

The violent aftermath of cursed energy swept the surroundings like a hurricane.

The hard bone steps were shattered inch by inch, and the snakes on the ground were swept into the sky like fallen leaves, raining down as a "snake rain."

Lu Ping lightly tapped his toes on the ground, his figure retreating backward rapidly like a falling leaf, quickly withdrawing from the storm center of the power collision and landing steadily at Chitsubaki's side.

"You're crazy, but luckily your life is big."

Chitsubaki looked at Lu Ping, who had retreated safe and sound, her tense nerves finally easing a fraction.

"Hard to say."

Yet Lu Ping's brow remained tightly furrowed.

He ignored the splashing rubble and overflowing toxic blood, his gaze locked like a falcon onto the center of the storm.

The consequences of devouring each other from the same origin were completely unknown.

He was still worried that the command just now would cause him to lose the Shikigami he had just risked his life to tame.

If the Great Serpent's origin was completely obliterated in this war of attrition, the loss would be irrecoverable.

The cold sweat on Lu Ping's palms had not yet dried, and the cursed energy within his body consistently maintained a peak level ready to erupt at any moment.

Time ticked by second by second.

The teeth-grinding sounds of bone and flesh snapping and the shrill screeches ahead began an unstoppable decline.

The rolling massive snake bodies gradually slowed their movements.

Ink-green and pale blood intertwined, flowing silently down the steps.

In the end, all motion sank into utter dead silence.

The victor seemed to have been born.

Lu Ping held his breath, attempting to sense the final outcome from that pile of blood-soaked remains.

Just at this moment of absolute stillness.

A ripple suddenly welled up without warning deep within his brain.

An obscure, ancient chant seemed to cross the river of time, surfacing directly deep within his soul.

It was like an innate instinct, urging him to call upon that brand-new name.

Lu Ping subconsciously chanted the summoning incantation used for prayer:

"Coiling within shadows, the eternal realm undying."

"--Appear, Ever-Coiling Shadow Serpent."