Yu Lin Bloodhawk knelt on one knee beside the Clefthoof Zebra. The horse seemed to sense a lethal threat. It suddenly threw up its head and let out a piercing neigh, trying to struggle, but Yu Lin Bloodhawk merely extended his left hand and pressed his palm over its burning heart.
"Don't be afraid..." he murmured, uncertain whether he was soothing the horse or the unfamiliar cold ruthlessness surging within him. "It'll be over soon."
Boom!
An immense surge of shadow energy erupted from his palm, engulfing the Clefthoof Zebra like black flames in an instant. At that same moment, its heart was crushed. This was not a simple act of killing, but a brutal "replacement"-the warmth of life was drained away and extinguished in an instant, replaced by icy shadow energy from the Shadowlands, forcibly poured into every blood vessel and every inch of bone.
The Clefthoof Zebra's struggles and neighing stopped abruptly. Its enormous body convulsed violently a few times, then went completely limp. Immediately afterward came the teeth-grating scrape of bones and the sticky sounds of flesh reshaping. The zebra's body began changing before their eyes: its glossy, tiger-like coat of alternating brown and black faded and shriveled at a visible pace, finally turning a deathly, pure black, with faint violet veins like cracks in ice emerging across it; its once-gentle eyes instantly collapsed, then were quickly filled by two flickering balls of cold white ghostfire; its thick limbs gradually grew stiff and solid, while its hooves turned pitch-black and hard, as though polished from obsidian, and slowly began burning with cold white flames.
The entire process took only a few breaths.
When Yu Lin Bloodhawk withdrew his hand, the creature lying on the ground was no longer the original Clefthoof Zebra, but a Death Warhorse radiating