64 - Book of the Blood Sea Ancestor (Patreon)

Good news, I had a technique that could absolutely perforate any of Jingye’s defences. It wasn’t even close just how effective it was. When it could fire.

Bad news, it required almost thirty seconds of agonizingly slow build-up, it was spiritually loud as fuck to the point that you’d have to be an Iron to miss its charge-up from a hundred meters away, and it left my channels feeling fried to a crisp every time I fired it.

Obviously, the play now would have been for everyone to continue playing distraction while I charged up another… 

I needed a damn name. Jingye had called it an incineration ray, which wasn’t bad, especially from the standpoint of defining yourself around the fears of your enemies (that was supposed to be a great way to reach for an Icon, according to my theories on Sagehood)–but it didn’t fit the theme. Stargazer Sunbeam—sunbeam? Stargazer was a nice thematic touch, but it was too flowery; the path that Eithan and Arakmedes had given me was about the stars, not about stellar poetry. Sunbeam felt like it had one syllable too many—

But, of course, Jingye had singled me out. Even under the effects of maximized Starfire Surge, I didn’t have an eternity of relative time to waste.

He rushed towards me, ignoring the rest. He hadn’t even activated a sacred art, which would have alerted my spirit. Instead, all I had as a forewarning were my eyes. Motherfucker just sprinted.

Tiles cracked underneath each step, making it sound like an automatic rifle was firing as he approached me with a cocked-back fist that promised the wallop of a lifetime.

Eight feet of pure muscle bore down on me for a pregnant moment, matching me for speed, and outstripping me for power by far. So far, in fact, that it wasn’t even funny.

I turned, dodging his punch by a hair.

Didn’t matter. It sent me flying away anyhow, towards the direction of Yerin. Yerin didn’t catch me. Instead, she dodged my hurtling form and instead intercepted the orca, who had given chase while I was still airborne.

His every movement seemed to carry a wake of force madra; I hesitated to call this an Enforcer technique. It felt more simple, more primal. Perhaps just a side effect of being who and what he was as a sacred beast and Monarch descendent, like the Akuras and their armor.

It was hazardous to even engage him in martial arts. Even dodging his blows, I’d still get hit by the byblow of force madra.

Yerin charged for him with an upper cut–but, unbelievably–he met her sword with his book, which he brought down on her like a hammer. He was using his goddamn book as a weapon.

Yerin fell to a knee, completely overshadowed and overpowered, and the ground cratered underneath her.

I planted my feet on the ground and skidded to a halt. I activated Starfire Surge once more and threw myself at Jingye, spear leading me, as though I was an arrow.

Jingye stepped back from Yerin’s kneeling form and met my spear with his book. He didn’t deflect me as much as he completely derailed the path of my spear, angling the tome’s inviolate cover such that my spearhead skidded along it, then pushing his weight into it; adding his own power to the spear’s momentum, sending it flying to the side with me holding it.

I stabbed the ground to stop my momentum, using the spear as a pole to spin around it and land on my feet. In one smooth motion, I pulled the spear from the floor and—

Dodged certain death in the form of a fist twice as big as my head, sending me flying once again.

Twin beams of Black Dragon’s Breath struck him from different angles, annihilating his rapidly regenerating form while an arrow made of shadows struck him dead in his eye, sending a spray of blood from it.

After recovering, getting my footing and running back up to him, I activated Nova Blade and made to stab him, but all I got was a glancing blow as he stepped back, reoriented himself, and opened his book once more.

Opening a book in battle. Absurd. It should have presented an opening, an opportunity for us. But the moment our techniques and weapons were about to reach him, the aura around him pulsed–and that was all the warning we had in the instant before he exploded once more, sending us scattering, breaking our Striker techniques.

Another river of blood essence poured into him.

The blood aura that filled the air was so thick that I forgot how to breathe.

Not Bruno.

What remained of its rudimentary will—now bestial and an imitation of a simple parasite that only knew how to feed and nothing else—reacted strongly to the power in the air. So strongly, in fact, that my immediate reaction was horror at the fact that the Blood Shadow’s malevolent will had returned.

But there was nothing malevolent about its yearning, I could sense. It just wanted to feed, like any organism did. I still held the reins.

I summoned Bruno.

The many-legged crimson parasite of my darkest nightmares coiled around my arm, opening its disgusting tentacled mouth, drinking in the aura, solidifying and strengthening by the second.

I looked around to find that Ruby was helping Yerin up on her feet, and her form rippled with power, parts of her body bulging with newfound strength in pulses that corresponded to the waves of aura that left the book.

This had to be some kind of incidental effect of our proximity to this treasure, and yet it was such a dramatic one. God knew what the fuck was happening to Jingye himself. This amount of blood essence pouring into him should outright kill him.

What the fuck kind of a Truegold was he?

Even as Yerin stabbed him, Jingye aimed a palm strike towards Lindon–who scrambled out of the way, eyes widening.

A cone of devastation erupted from Jingye’s palm, an aftershock of force madra with the force of a cone-shaped bomb–ripping up the tiles all the way out to the far wall.

Taking advantage of the opening, Yerin and Ruby both made to stab him from behind.

Jingye’s eyes flashed. The force aura around him pulsed inwards–

“Get back–!”

Jingye exploded. Or, rather, the air around him did.

Thanks to Starfire Surge’s acceleration, I could see the effects in real time. It was like there was a shadow larger than Jingye himself, in the shape of his body and emerging from him; almost like a Remnant hiding just inside his skin, and it was made of pure force madra. So much of it that it was almost solid. And then that shadow emerged, pushed against the force aura naturally surrounding Jingye, reacted with it–and voila, one Jingye-shaped bomb that fully vented its destruction not inwards but all around Jingye himself.

The result was another crater, several meters wide centered around himself. And a blast that sent half of us reeling, and Orthos outright flying. Yerin lost her grip on her master’s sword–it was still stuck in the back of Jingye’s gut, the highest point she could reach standing.

It didn’t affect Lindon through his Soul Cloak; he leaped in with an Empty Palm aimed at Jingye’s core… and it didn’t do anything at all. Lindon’s eyes widened, and he ducked under a furious swipe that might have sent his head flying.

With a casual motion, Jingye pulled Yerin’s sword out of his back and tried to break it in two–it was like a kitchen knife in his hands. But after a moment of failure, he frowned and tried again with a massive, breathtaking pulse of force aura. But that still failed, and after a moment he threw it away. 

Yerin went scrambling after it. 

A few seconds later, as Lindon and Orthos and I all engaged him in melee, he exploded once more, sending us reeling. Distance. We had to keep distance from this monster.

These periodic force explosions. They weren’t sacred arts techniques. This was… something far more simple, but far more terrifying; it was exactly the kind of venting of madra I had criticized Lindon about, but brought to a level completely unimaginable. These explosions–they were the aftereffects of simple madra friction. Simple venting of madra. Jingye was basically dumping his entire supply of force madra into the air, all at once, and letting the ensuing reaction serve as a weapon against us.

What the hell. Why? And what kind of channels did he even have that would allow this?

This was, absolutely, bar none, the most inefficient possible use of madra. It was literally impossible to use madra more inefficiently than this.

But he wasn’t going down.

Which begged the question. Why was he doing this? And where the fuck was he getting this much madra?

His book kept pouring blood essence into him. And it was after Jingye pulled off that trick two more times that I realized these periodic force-aspect explosions were literally nothing more than his body’s way of venting excess force madra. It might not have even been conscious.

A Bloodline Legacy. He’s a Monarch’s descendant. He has a Bloodline Legacy that converts blood essence into force madra. It has to be.

That was a basic, elementary insight. But it was with genuine horror that I realized the followup implication.

An Empty Palm can’t dissipate the madra from his core if his core is being endlessly refilled.

In the meantime, Ruby and Bruno kept feasting off the spare blood aura and essence in the air. The effects were even more, far more pronounced than feeding them Diamondscale Sea Drake flesh; Bruno had expanded from a creature the length of my forearm to one the length of my entire arm, fingers to shoulder.

Ruby had gained an entirely new level of definition, and looked exactly like Yerin, but for the red hair and eyes and a certain airbrushed quality that all Gold-level spirits had. Perhaps it was only possible for a spirit to truly look physical in the Lord stage, but if so, Ruby was now as close as a Gold-stage spirit could possibly get to that point.

But I couldn’t tell if it was making any difference at all. A river of blood essence so thick it looked almost physical just kept pouring out of this ‘Book of the Blood Sea Ancestor’ and into Jingye; it didn’t matter how we wounded him, how many arrows Mercy pierced him with, or if Yerin or Ruby even managed to cut him to the bone; everything just regenerated, nigh-instantly.

He might have even been growing in height. His form seemed… skinnier now, as if the fat had been taken off his bones. But his height was now closer to eight and a half feet tall.

Was he… still using us? Was he just using this fight as an opportunity to refine his physical body?

Yes; I suspected the answer was very much, yes. It perfectly explained why he was fighting without using his Enforcer technique.

What a monster.

Then Jingye turned and leaped like a bull in Mercy’s direction, moving with a speed so extreme that it was almost instantaneous; it brought him over a hundred feet in a quarter of a second right through Mercy– 

Or where she would have been. She dodged on pre-prepared Strings of Shadow, wearing the full Akura bloodline armor–

But the wake of force madra sent her tumbling like a ragdoll. It was only with her control over her own Strings that she could maneuver even after losing control of her own feet. 

Mercy somehow managed to send another Forged arrow at Jingye, even as she tumbled through the air–a breathtaking display of skill, made pointless by him blocking the arrow again with his book; he was using it like some grotesque sort of shield. A moment later, he pivoted it to block another gout of Blackflame from Orthos.

This movement technique. It reminded me of the directional attack the Tidewalker sharks had used, but on an entirely different scale. Extreme speed, but in a single direction; we had to respond with lateral movements and dodging. There was no blocking this monster; even Yerin could only barely hold against him.

Jingye sent another devastating palm strike in Mercy’s direction, but Lindon was suddenly there with his Soul Cloak, Nine-Light Mirror covering his entire form as he blocked the Striker technique and reflected it right back at him, with an added edge of additional Radiance madra.

It tore up the space between him and Jingye, shattering the air and the floor–but Jingye just endured the strike, giving nothing but a pained grunt. Aside from losing a few more scraps of clothing–he was almost naked at this point–the reflected Striker technique hardly even phased him.

Jingye was starting to slow down. His blood berserker act had taken us off guard at first, but even with an apparently unlimited supply of madra and blood essence, there were limits to his will, his mentality, his focus.

He was only a Truegold, at the end of the day, no matter how empowered.

Thank fuck this guy had never crossed paths with the Dream Well. We wouldn’t have had a chance. It was only with that preternatural focus, that crystallized will continually being replenished by the extra emergency water sloshing through our systems that we could hold on, and dodge and evade force-empowered blows that could have decapitated ten bulls all at once.

It felt like I was lost at sea in a storm with only a dinghy to my name, having to battle the waves with an ordinary paddle. I could succumb at any moment, slip and allow him to strike me, releasing a blow that would surely kill me.

It was unfair that he had so much power. Not only that, but the ability to channel so much of it. Diamond Veins? I wouldn’t put it past him.

Jingye was a monster.

But we weren’t slouches.

Mercy had learned from her earlier defeat. Her movements crisped up considerably, and for a moment I could have sworn she had regained the full use of her Puppeteer’s Iron body as I saw her perform a backflip clear over a blast of force madra, releasing triplet arrows at the enraged orca, only to tie herself up to the ceiling with a string of shadow, pulling herself away from a follow-up attack.

Yerin and Ruby wasted no time attacking as one. They were one mind in two bodies as they each struck with purpose and direction, meaning to give the other a greater and greater advantage, overwhelming Jingye with cuts and gashes that regenerated slower and slower. They were pushing him towards—

Lindon burst into a supernova of black fire as he swung the Death Scythe.

It took Jingye’s leg off his knee, causing him to fall.

We were on him like a plague of demons.

And then he turned his crimson book to another page.

The aura of a blood Ruler technique filled the air. My muscles locked. My momentum didn’t disappear, so I ended up flying clear over Jingye, only able to turn my head a little to see that everyone else had suffered just about the same thing.

Everyone else except for Ruby and, a moment later, Yerin; who had, with a roar, broken past the thing holding her in place, to continue delivering a strike on Jingye’s de-footed self.

Then he opened his void key, out from which his trident peeked, and the ocean once again became his ally. Glowing blue water met Yerin and Ruby’s charge, blowing them off their feet as Jingye clambered up to his foot, one leg in his hand, cut off at the knee.

He pressed the stump of the leg against his knee, and more blood aura collected around the wound. I roared as I tried to break past this blood Ruler technique—far more comprehensive than the water Ruler technique he had used to lock us in had been. Bruno resonated with my command, cycling its madra defensively.

The technique shattered, and I could finally move. I quickly got to my feet, picking up my spear as I did, and ran towards Jingye’s turned back once again. I wasn’t using any technique. I didn’t want him to see this coming at all.

He might be the toughest son of a bitch I ever fought in my life, but even he would die after being stabbed in the head by nine inches of solidified Archlord madra.

The trident flew out of his void key, landing in his hand, and I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to kill him now with my sneak attack.

Didn’t matter. We had already proven once before to ourselves that he was nothing more than a Truegold. A Truegold hopped up on unbelievable power, but a Truegold nonetheless.

My stab missed.

Jingye whirled on his feet, activating what felt like two Enforcer techniques at the same time, and the edge of his tail came for my neck like a scythe. Goddamnit, I forgot about the tail.

In that eternal moment of relative time, I remembered the time I fought Jai Long, how I had been dancing on the edge of death back then. He had been my riskiest head-on fight by far. One of the few times in my life where I was certain that I didn’t have anything under control, and that my story could end just like that.

Strings of shadows pulled me out of the way in the nick of time while I just barely managed to maneuver myself into a dodge.

Jingye broke well past me, whiffing the strike by almost a dozen meters. He hadn’t even touched me.

But this strike was different.

His tail had been wreathed in force madra, and even the wake of it hit me like a bomb.

I flew towards a far wall, flattened against the surface of the wall, bouncing off and up towards the ceiling, where my body flattened once again and launched me down to the ground.

I bounced on the ground one last time, and forced myself to orient my body so that I would land on two feet.

I landed on two powerless feet and collapsed on myself, unable to breathe.

Frantically, I felt for my pockets, only to find broken glass and green liquid on my hands. I licked the liquid, feeling my life aura immediately resonate with the healing properties of the Life Well water, enough that I could stand straight.

Jingye laughed. “You don’t know how to die either.”

I stared at him incredulously, threw my head back, and laughed. Jingye laughed with me as well, charnel book in one hand, and an ancient sea god’s trident in the other. For a Truegold, he had all the power in the world.

And all I had was my body and my madra.

Did that burn him? Or was it as funny to him, as it was morbidly hilarious to me that he had survived my strongest attack to date?

“A Dreadgod couldn’t kill me,” I said, “What makes you think you’d have any better luck?”

“Hah,” Jingye shook his head. “Quaint, truly. You have kept up well, intruders. But now, let us see what I can do with both these powers combined.”

The book opened in his hand, and out from it, a trio of sharks made of blood with guts hanging out swam out, circling above him in a frenzy. The Spirit Well water solidified into a pod of orcas as well. Droplets hung in the air, vibrating, turning into jagged spikes of ice.

With both artifacts in hand, Jingye was clearly straining, but he had never been more powerful.

My mind raced.

Options.

The name of the game. Literally. Any fighting game gave you options for combat. My training did exactly the same.

Starfire Surge. Nova Blade. Solar Flare. Celestial Anvil. Rain of Stellar Spears. The Deadly Laser was one option, but I wasn’t counting it right now. I needed legitimate strategies, not bullshit asspulls that ended up not fucking working anyway.

I am never going to forget Jingye tanking that shit. Holy fuck. 

I noticed something immediately as I mentally listed my options: I hadn’t used my Forger techniques even once. In any case where the Celestial Anvil would have been useful, I ended up defaulting to my Nine-Light Mirror shield. Useful as it had been in some cases, I couldn’t forget my Path either. And Rain of Stellar Spears? Forget about it. Getting in melee range with him was a gift every time I managed it, and it never occurred to me to use the technique, or even figure out my limits with it now that I was a Truegold. Perhaps five spears wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

The hazard of having ‘too many’ techniques, it seemed. Even five ended up straining the limit of my combat IQ. 

A thought occurred. A memory.

I stood up against Li Jogen, hurling a desperate kick towards his face. A kick that was fueled by the propulsion of a Celestial Anvil. I had struck its explosive side with my heel purposefully, creating a kick that I never would have been able to imitate with my own inborn power, or the strength of my madra techniques. 

It had broken my foot at the time.

But it hadn’t mangled it.

…What would it do now that I had unlocked the full potential of my Ethereal Iron body’s preternatural flexibility? And the added durability I had gained with the Ghostwater carp?

This would require precise calculation of course. Not to prevent me from hurting myself. I was already quite willing to do that anyway, owing to my access to an entire barrel’s worth of lifesaving elixir. 

But to prevent myself from spinning completely out of control as the propulsion affected my feet instead of the rest of my body.

I had to angle the Celestial Anvil perpendicularly to the ground. Perhaps angling it a tad more upwards to account for gravity.

The disk appeared behind me, little larger than my foot itself.

I hopped backwards, pushing my foot into the surface, and locked my limbs as much as I could.

The impact blew me forwards. Starfire Surge slowed down my perception enough for me to think about the next Celestial Anvil to use, all the while as I felt out the shock of force travelling through my body, vibrating my pliable bones, and creating no cracks or damage in its wake.

I Forged and stepped on the next plate, doubling my speed.

A pod of watery orcas swam through the air towards me. I sliced one in half. Stepped on another anvil. Stabbed clean through the heart of another water orca. A blood shark opened its maw to try to rip me apart.

I summoned an anvil next to the tip of my spear, struck the anvil, and used the explosion to spin myself into a cutting cyclone that immediately shredded the shark, and another orca.

I noticed that the remaining living techniques were being dismantled by the combined techniques of everyone else. Dark venom coursed through the madra of two living techniques while bars of Blackflame cored out the centers of two others. Yerin and Ruby arrived with a coup-de-grace that sliced the rest in half, finally dissipating them all.

Jingye had fucked with the wrong people. He might have been fucking powerful.

He might have had Monarch treasures at his side.

He might have been the heir of the inheritance of some deceased Monarch of antiquity, but I did not give a solitary fuck.

We were the Ascension Crew. 

He never stood a chance.

I stepped on one more Celestial Anvil, intent on ending this asshole’s life once and for all.

His Maelstrom Hide glowed red at the edges as I tried to strike it. I didn’t have the wherewithal to apply Nova Blade to the edge of my spear, not while I was running Starfire Surge in tandem with so many Celestial Anvils. Two techniques had always been my limit, and Forging Collapsing Star madra had always been somewhat tricky to me.

As I hit his defensive technique, it felt like striking a chainsaw. It immediately deflected my spear and blew me away. I began charging my laser as I flipped over my head and landed on my feet, skidding backwards as I took in Jingye.

His feet lifted off the floor.

He hovered midair like some gigantic orb of bloody storm-water, barely even visible due to the effects of this crimson version of the threefold Maelstrom Hide. The spiritual pressure of his techniques gave even me pause. It convinced me that this couldn’t have been the work of a Truegold. It absolutely couldn’t. Jai Daishou hadn’t come nearly close to pressuring me in this way. Chon Ma hadn’t either. Even Eithan hadn’t.

What the hell was he doing?

“In my ancestor’s name! Trident, protect me! Book, shield me!”

Jingye’s trident and bloody book both glowed–and then his new crimson version of the Maelstrom Hide left his body and expanded, doubling in size, then multiplying until it was covering half the room.

We all used our Striker techniques–even my Laser once it had fully charged–but it failed to even scratch it. 

Of course. He was now borrowing from not just one but two sources of Authority. Gold-level sacred arts wouldn’t stand a chance. But how? How?!

There had to be a cost. There fucking had to.

I refused to accept that we were really this outclassed.

Then Jingye opened his void key and pulled out a dozen different high-tier natural treasures gushing fire and water, life and death, and shadow and darkness. And I began to have a very, very bad feeling.

“What is he doing?” Mercy hissed. 

“Advancing,” I muttered numbly. 

“I know that! But Ghostwater’s world principles are breaking down. What about sensing the unity of aura? He’ll ruin his entire Path if he tries to advance here.” 

I didn’t know that could happen. Was this some higher principle of the world that only the great factions knew? Surely Ghostwater had enough strength of aura to completely fuel an Underlord advancement. Was this aura also meant to be connected to the world at large? It would make sense, given the lack of wild Lord-level sacred beasts, and would support the theory that Cradle’s vital aura bore a rudimentary will of its own.

The less erudite and more practical part of me hoped desperately that this really would bite this guy in the ass and cripple him for life. More than he fucking deserved anyway.

“What are the world principles to me? What is unity of aura but resonance with heaven and earth?” Jingye answered, his voice a cold baritone. Did he ever stop fucking talking? “I have the acknowledgement of my ancestor’s will, a power greater than either. What are the heavens or the earth before the will of a Monarch?” Jingye looked upwards. “I only need one last thing.”

Jingye sent up a tendril of water into the shattered roof overlooking the Spirit Well, where he had channeled aura before this fight had begun.

After a few moments, the tendril withdrew, carrying with it a gleaming… thing. It was the size of Jingye’s own head, and shimmered like a pearl, but wasn’t one–it almost had the look of an especially rounded riverstone, with bands of sedimentary strata splayed across it like art.

It had the feel of an Archlord’s treasure.

The Spirit Well’s foundation treasure.

“The Heart of the Mother River. At last. The treasure I needed to resolve the incompatibilities of my madra aspects. Here and now, I will step into the realm of Lords. I advance.” 

The treasure resonated with Jingye’s soul, pouring into him a white light in rivers. Just as it did, ghostly fire swallowed up his form. His body slimmed up, and shortened as well, compacting as he reached towards his Underlord form. Even his tail began to recede, a change that occurred far faster than anything else.

His maw shortened, becoming a mouth, and his nostrils grew outwards as they took on the shape of a nose. Finally, his eyes started trailing from the sides of his head closer to the front. The eyes—and his nose—existed right above the partition between the black and white part of his face, making it look like he was wearing a bandit half mask. Of course, of fucking course this asshole had to be one of the prodigies who could advance in only a few seconds.

I released another laser as I watched, but it was just as futile as the last one.

There had to be a cost! I kept telling myself this even as I watched him transform into an Underlord in real time. Whatever cost he was paying, it would likely be healed by this advancement. What utter bullshit.

Then again, I guess my group and I didn’t have a total monopoly on sacred arts bullshit. It was humbling to realize.

You’re not always a main character.

Run, I wanted to shout. But where to? Once this guy finished advancing, we were fully fucked beyond belief no matter where we went. Stick around and he would absolutely kill us. Run away, and he would turn the ocean against us.

Hide? He would be an Underlord. He would find us.

His head started growing ‘hair’ in the form of thick tendrils the color of his smooth cetacean skin. It was a side-part, slicked back, where the side underneath the part was as white as the lower half of his now eerily human face, and the top and opposite side was completely black as the rest of him. His body was black except for the front of his torso, his throat, the underside of his arms, and the palms of his hands. Everywhere else was completely black.

And although he had slimmed up and shortened to human proportions, he was still built like a brick shithouse. I pegged him as maybe seven feet tall. A far-cry from his earlier height, but still dishearteningly large.

And now he had Underlord strength on top of the book.

“We have to give up Dross,” I found myself saying.

I hated myself for that.

But really, what other choice did we have?

The soulfire abated, and Jingye released his Maelstrom Hide, revealing his Underlord glory to all who watched, revving up his madra to inflict pressure on us.

Before we could even move, water encompassed all of us. It was gentle, as far as defeats went. He didn’t cover our heads. Only our bodies. I was shocked to see that. He didn’t immediately move for the kill against me, the one that had almost killed him in turn.

Instead, he held his trident up, commanding the water to smother our bodies, pressing the fight out of us.

It was over. We had lost.

Jingye jerked his trident, wrenching away the Eye of the Deep that Lindon had stashed in his pocket. He took the gem vessel in a bubble of water, floating it towards him. He hummed quietly, and punched some madra into the construct.

It immediately ripped Dross free from Lindon’s spirit and sucked his purple form back into the vessel. Lindon let out a small, despairing sound.

“There,” Jingye said, now utterly satisfied. “Thank you for teaching me my limits. You were worthy adversaries, one and all. I am glad for this opportunity, more than you could possibly imagine. Now, I shall—”

The ceiling collapsed overhead. Even with my speedy perception, all I could see was a ragged gray robe trailing behind a pair of twin streaks of emerald green.

And a hammer that could shatter the world.

Jingye flattened under the weight of that weapon, a green script-circle of force amplification trailing behind it. Dross’ vessel rolled away from Jingye’s grasp.

And I rejoiced, feeling that all was right in the world once more.

Ziel had come to play.

And he was not fucking around.