"Loa, oh Loa. I finally found you."
A savage smile spread across Halackwit's lightning-scorched face. He had already decided how to torture Loa to death-first tear off his limbs, then gouge out his eyes, then carve him up, cut by cut, until he begged for mercy, until he could no longer make a sound. He would repay their last encounter tenfold, a hundredfold.
This time, he had learned his lesson. He would not attack alone, and he would go all out from the start.
"Attack!"
All six rose into the sky at once. Halackwit and the other five Fallen Angels took up positions in six directions. Their battle-qi joined together, tracing a massive black six-pointed star in the air. Thick black mist seeped from every edge of the star, gathering in ever greater, denser masses. It pressed down from the sky like an overturned pot.
"Combination technique-Darkness Curtain!"
The black curtain descended. The last ray of light vanished, swallowed whole. The lake, the grass, the distant herds of gazelles-all disappeared. Nothing remained before Loa's eyes but pure, impenetrable darkness.
That darkness was no ordinary blackness. It seemed alive, burrowing into pores, seeping into eyes, pouring into ears. Wangcai let out a cry, muffled as though something had smothered it. Wuzhui edged closer to Loa, dark golden eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness.
The grassland man stood in the darkness too. He gripped his curved saber, his wounds still bleeding, but his back remained straight. He could feel the darkness eating away at his battle-qi barrier, like ants gnawing on a bone, bit by bit.
Halackwit hovered above the curtain, his eyes closed as he sensed the movements within. Darkness was their domain; they could perceive every change inside it. He was waiting-waiting for Loa's battle-qi to run dry, for the