The fragments of the three Black Moon warriors had yet to settle when Li Xiang's gaze passed through the drifting ash and landed on Bao Mu.
Bao Mu did not retreat.
Not because he did not want to.
The karmic thread held him fast. That invisible cord stretched from the Black Moon Mark on his forehead to the Ghost-Slaying Blade at Li Xiang's waist, taut as a bowstring.
He had tried.
In those few breaths when the three elites of his clan had raised their blades and marched to their deaths, Bao Mu had quietly shifted his heel half an inch, trying to put some distance between them. A fierce, burning pain had surged through the karmic thread, as though a red-hot iron hand had seized his soul.
There was no escape.
The departed souls of his clansmen screamed along that thread. Soul fragments crushed by the Ghost-Slaying Blade were embedded in the weave of karma, each fragment another lock.
Bao Mu raised his head.
On his deathly pale face, fear and despair were finally suppressed by something deeper.
Pride.
He was a direct descendant of the Black Moon Clan, a successor personally taught by the Black Sky Lord.
Among the lineages of the Ten Great Yama Kings, the Black Moon Clan had earned its standing not through brute strength, but through the Black Moon Mark on its members' foreheads and its mighty reputation for crushing countless enemies on the Netherworld Realm's spiritual battlefields over the centuries.
He could die here.
But he could not die on his knees.
"Come on."
Bao Mu switched from the Nether Tongue to human speech. His voice was coarse and hoarse, like two pieces of iron grinding together.
He spread his hands. His ten gray-white fingers slowly interlaced in the air, forming a hand