Bai Zhu's curses carried down the street, echoing endlessly through the vast space.
Hecatos stopped screeching.
Hengpu District's bone wings folded inward, layers of feathered bones stacking atop one another as its enormous body shrank. Golden particles slipped into the gaps between its joints, filling each break one by one.
A few breaths later, a figure over two meters tall stood atop the altar.
It retained its crow's head, its long beak jutting forward, and wore a black feathered robe that hung to its feet. The chains that had once run through its bone wings gathered with it, turning into dozens of steel cables that fastened around its wrists, ankles, and spine.
Bai Zhu rested the Guan Dao on his shoulder again.
"Think shrinking down makes you impressive?"
"I can do that too."
Hecatos stepped down from the altar.
Clatter!
The steel cables behind it snapped taut, dragging across the kneeling skeletons by the roadside. Rows of skulls were yanked upward, their hollow eye sockets all turning toward Bai Zhu.
As its first step landed, the flames on Bai Zhu's blade shrank by half a foot.
As its second step landed, the stone slabs by Bai Zhu's feet cracked.
Before its third step had fully settled, the pressure on his shoulders and back had already forced his legs downward. His boots crushed the stone beneath them and sank half an inch into the ground.
Bai Zhu tightened his grip on the hilt and did not retreat.
Hecatos was still ten meters away.
Under normal circumstances, that distance would have been enough for him to strike several times. But now, the Guan Dao weighed heavily on his shoulder, and the Reiatsu within his body was circulating more slowly as well. That thing was forcing him into the ground simply by drawing