"Ah..."
A heart-rending scream pierced the entire Thunder Sea.
At that very moment, the mass of dark gray light on Xiao Han's chest suddenly burst apart from the center.
Dark gray tentacles poured from his chest, crawling up his neck and spreading across his shoulders and arms.
Wherever they passed, they devoured every last trace of lightning.
His eyes changed from churning electric arcs to two different colors, his left eye a ghostly blue and his right a dark gray, like two masses of light tearing at each other.
An aged, deep voice came from Xiao Han's mouth.
"Lin Shisan... we meet again..."
The voice was no longer Xiao Han's at all.
Low and heavy, it sounded like sandpaper scraping iron, carrying the satisfaction of something finally released after being suppressed for far too long.
Xiao Han's lips were moving, but someone else was speaking. The broken fragments of Ning Jiuyou's Divine Sense remaining within his body had spoken.
Lin Shisan's brow furrowed slightly, then relaxed.
He raised a hand and brushed the lingering sparks of lightning from his shoulder, his tone as calm as if he had met someone he knew but did not particularly care to acknowledge.
"Ning Jiuyou, you're really going downhill. The mighty Third Protector of the Demon Sect, reduced to hiding inside a Meridian Opening Realm shell to survive."
"Such a sharp tongue. I hope it stays that sharp in a little while."
Xiao Han's body began to change.
The dark gray tentacles withdrew into his body, replaced by a layer of viscous gray-black mist that seeped from beneath his skin and enveloped him completely. Deep within him, his bones creaked and ground as though they were being rearranged.
"Ah... Lin Shisan, save me... I don't want him to devour me..."
Faintly, Xiao Han's cries