Lin Shu lunged forward, a blur of motion wrapped in crackling arcs of lightning. His bone-plated fists slammed into Jiang Junxi's guard, one after the other like hammers trying to break open a vault. Junxi staggered back, his feet digging into the dirt, his arms shaking from the force.
"Tch…!" Junxi's thoughts raced. "My attacks aren't even phasing him! My blade cracked his armor in two places, but it regenerated instantly. And that damn bone isn't reacting to the corroding poison at all… is it really not ordinary ivory?"
He tried to retreat and gain distance, but Lin Shu was already closing in again, relentless. Sharp bone spikes lined Lin Shu's knuckles now—small, but lethal.
Junxi ducked beneath a sweeping strike, but Lin Shu twisted his hips mid-motion, slamming a knee straight into Junxi's jaw. The blow lifted him off the ground and sent him tumbling across the battlefield, dust and blood trailing from his mouth.
Lin Shu didn't stop. His eyes locked onto Jiang Yuyan, who stood still like a statue in the clearing, her hands moving in intricate, practiced patterns. Her Qi pulsed wildly in the air.
"She's still preparing," Lin Shu realized. "That's the moment to strike."
He stormed toward her.
Junxi, dizzy and gasping, forced himself up. "YUYAN!!" he shouted, voice hoarse. "He's coming!!"
"JUST HOLD HIM OFF!! I'M ALMOST DONE!" she screamed back.
Junxi wiped the blood from his mouth, teeth clenched. "How many times have I told you not to state the obvious, dumbass…!"
Still stumbling, he flung every tool he had—poison darts, explosive pouches, smoke bombs—anything to stall Lin Shu. Lin Shu zigzagged through the barrage, eyes burning with cold calculation. A dart scratched his arm, but the armor absorbed it. He broke into a sprint, closing the distance fast.
Junxi, teeth grit in desperation, suddenly threw his entire sword at Lin Shu's feet.
Lin Shu noticed the glint just in time. He twisted mid-run, rolling to avoid it, and landed low in a crouch.
"Persistent vermin," he muttered, shooting forward again.
But Junxi was already in the air, lunging.
His body slammed into Lin Shu's back. The impact wasn't strong enough to stop him—but Junxi clung, arms wrapped around Lin Shu's neck and shoulders.
"Get the hell off me!" Lin Shu snarled.
Then—crack. Bone spikes erupted from Lin Shu's back, piercing through his armor and skin to impale anything in their path. Junxi saw the spikes coming and pushed himself off just in time, one spike barely grazing his neck.
Yet even as he jumped away, he tossed a black pouch to Lin Shu's feet.
The bag burst on contact, releasing a thick, tar-like goo that slithered around Lin Shu's legs like it was alive. It hissed as it touched the earth, and hardened into a dark, rubbery substance that anchored his feet to the ground.
"What the hell—!?" Lin Shu snarled, trying to lift his legs. The goo pulled against him with every twitch. "It's binding me!?"
Junxi, now a few meters away, reached into his pouch and pulled out a strange black mask. "It's done," he said, slipping it over his face. "Put on the mask!"
Jiang Yuyan pulled a similar mask from her robes and secured it over her face.
"No… no!" Lin Shu's eyes widened. "What are they—"
He looked down. The black goo was spreading, crawling over the ground like liquid shadow. He tried to dig his claws into the ground and drag himself free, but the tar-like substance gripped his legs tighter.
"DAMN IT!"
Junxi stood tall, masked and smirking. He began pulling bag after bag of black powder from his pouch—and tossed them all.
The bags burst open mid-air, and dark smoke began to coil toward Lin Shu. It wasn't just ordinary gas. It shimmered, burned the air, hissed like a living beast.
A ball of swirling greenish gas now formed in Jiang Yuyan's hands. It pulsated with lethal Qi.
"Mid-Tier Rank 1 Technique…" she muttered. "Toxic Field."
She launched it forward like a cannon.
Lin Shu's body tensed. "No…! That gas—I'll die if i breath in it!"
He tried to leap, tried to force his feet free, even tried to tear the ground apart to crawl. But the goo had expanded into a wide disc, nearly two meters across. He couldn't even bend far enough without risking falling into it entirely.
The gas ball hit the ground just outside the radius
BOOM.
An explosion of vapor tore through the field. Green mist flooded the entire area, rotting the trees, melting the rocks, and causing grass to blacken in an instant.
Twenty meters around him turned into a poisonous grave.
Lin Shu gritted his teeth. He knew if he didn't act now, it would be over.
"…I can't escape," he muttered. "I can't dodge it. So that only leaves—"
Junxi stared ahead, tense. "Did we… get him?"
The gas roared like a beast. Yuyan narrowed her eyes behind her mask, her fingers trembling slightly.
Inside the cloud—was Lin Shu dead?
Or was he planning something else.
A bone armor–clad figure staggered into view through the steel-gray mist. Every seam sealed—mouth, ears, nose, eyes—his Ivory Dominion completely overlaid the gaps. The poison orb struck the ground, erupting in noxious gas. Lin Shu had no choice but to seal every opening—trading sight and breath for survival.
Blind and Breathless, He was chocking in his own armor .
"How do I escape this substance?" he thought, limbs pinned by the black tar binding his legs to the earth. His mind raced as seconds ticked away, consciousness teetering on the brink.
Outside the toxic field, Yong De, Yu Xuan, and Wang Muchen stood bloodied, sweat-lashed, breathing hard. They had defeated their opponents, but the heavy toll was clear—they couldn't chase down Junxi or Yuyan. They found shelter a few dozen meters back.
Yu Xuan broke the tense silence. "Do you think he survived?"
Yong De scanned the corrupt foliage around the mist ring. "I don't know. That technique is devastating… look, the plants are already withered—they collapsed before even burning. If a drop of that gas got inside him… he'd be done."
Back beside the haze, Junxi and Yuyan observed silently. Yuyan asked softly, "Do you think he can survive?"
Junxi smirked behind his corrosion-resistant mask. "Even if he survives the gas, I poured multiple bags of black-prison bind—enough to stop a lightning–horned rhino in its tracks. He's stuck. And that poison isn't just inhaled—once it touches flesh it melts, bursts organs. Even if he lives he'll come out as a corpse."
Inside the mist, time crawled. Lin Shu fought against the binding goop, every fiber of his armor resisting its suction. Awareness flickered—lightning still spun in his veins.
"Wait—what if…"
Victory or death rushed toward him with his next move. He raised an armored arm toward the spreading black prison.
"I'll be injured—but it's my only shot."
Lightning split. With a roar, a bolt streaked from his knuckles and struck the ground, scorching deep and fracturing the tar. He cried out, not in pain, but with controlled urgency.
Outside, Junxi's smirk flickered. He glanced at Yuyan. "He's still alive. That bolt… he's probably trying to free himself from the black prison binding."
Yuyan nodded.
Far off, across the ruined fields, Yong De leaned into Wang Muchen and Yu Xuan. He swallowed hard. "There's Lightning flickering inside that means he survived inside the gas field."
"I don't understand how he survived," thought Jiang Yuyan. "Even if he had a gas mask, it would have to be a specialized one—my toxic field corrodes normal ones in seconds. And even if he somehow neutralized the field, junxi threw in paralyzing gas right after. So how is he still conscious? Even if he's holding his breath, there's no way he could last this long—not while fighting, not under that kind of pressure."
A silent question hung between them. Should they help? They glanced at each other, wounds fresh, Qi low. They were not brothers to Lin Shu—they had no reason to risk their lives. And so, they turned, marching away in unspoken consensus.
Yuyan's voice hissed through her mask. "Good riddance. They aren't worth the risk."
Junxi placed a hand on her shoulder. "He's our only target. We'll deal with them later."
She nodded grimly.
Jiang Yuyan remembered what their superior had told them about him—how he had survived encounters with three of their branch family siblings across separate missions, how he escaped Jiang Liechen by throwing himself into a raging river and lived, and how he alone was responsible for the deaths of more than twenty Jiang clansmen. He was even suspected of destroying the Poison Heart Shop in the eastern district. That was why this mission had been given to them—why the clan provided them with many precious materials such as the black prison binding and even a powerful technique which was the toxic field . The elders had even wanted to assign two more siblings to assist, but manpower was stretched thin across guarded assets and ongoing deployments. So in the end, Jiang Yuyan and her brother had to face him alone.
Suddenly—
An explosion blasted the mist from the inside out.
Junxi and Yuyan leaped back, swords drawn. The gas dissipated like a fallen curtain.
There he stood: Lin Shu. His ivory armor battered, fractured, and dusted with scorched particles. He'd broken free. Eyes bloodshot, pupils battered by poison, he spluttered in a raspy roar—not of agony, but fury.
"AHHHHHH!" His scream was a weapon in itself—a tearing roar of rage, and a promise of vengeance.
At his approach, the mistless ground crackling beneath each step, Junxi and Yuyan braced themselves. His armor wavered—not Ivory Monolith, but the lighter, faster standard bone plating he wore in battle when conserving Qi and speed.
He had readied himself—his warning clear before any words could escape.
They exchanged a sharp glance.
Junxi hissed through the mask: "Yuyan—prepare. His armor's weakened. Now's our only chance before he recovers his Qi."
Yuyan muttered: "He's mobile… but vulnerable the poison did hurt his skin while coming out he also injured himself as cost to save his life. We can break him as long as we don't give him enough time to recover."
The next clash would be their fiercest yet.