"What a wicked art!"
Chen Mu barked and flew back, suppressing the turmoil in his Blood Essence as alarm and uncertainty gripped him.
Long black feathers had sprouted all over Daoist Li's body and fluttered through the sky.
Most grotesque was the human face on his shoulder, as though it had formed from a mass of white fat.
It had grown straight out of his back and looked exactly like Chen Mu's face.
The sight of its twisted features made Chen Mu's skin crawl.
At the same time, he sensed that the energies surrounding him had become linked to that deformed face!
The last exchange had been stranger still. He had struck Daoist Li, only for the wound to appear on his own body.
How was he supposed to fight that?
Even Chen Mu hesitated. He retreated ten yards, then made his muscles writhe and press together until the wound on his shoulder closed.
Daoist Li had no intention of letting him catch his breath.
"Boy, you slew my Earth Corpse. Our fates were bound together long ago."
"Today, this old Daoist will slay you and refine another Earth Corpse. Kneel and submit, and spare yourself some suffering."
The wicked Daoist cackled, beat his black wings, and swooped down.
His Spine Sword suddenly snapped straight, sweeping toward Chen Mu in a slash of bloody light.
Chen Mu had no time to think of a countermeasure. He could only raise his saber to meet it.
Sparks burst through the snowy wind.
The Spine Sword clashed with the Dragon-Slayer Saber without yielding an inch!
As they collided, the sword seemed to come alive. Bloody smoke burst from the seams between its vertebrae.
Every joint along its length suddenly went limp, then rattled as it coiled around the saber and tried to crawl