Red shot towards the ghost atop his flying sword, leaving a trail of blue Spiritual Energy behind. The woman, however, seemed to notice his approach.

She tried to fly back even as the wound in her stomach burned. The edges of her body started to merge into her surroundings, transforming into mist. It seemed that when pressed, the woman could still retreat even while wounded, and Red wasn’t fast enough to catch her.

However, this time, something was different.

The majority of her frame turned invisible, and yet when the transformation reached her wound and met the flames burning around it, it halted. The fire seemed to prevent her midriff from turning invisible, and as such she still stood out even while the rest of her body disappeared.

Red, in turn, didn’t lose sight of her.

He held his crystal core in front of him and started to chant the exorcism mantra. The flying sword beneath his feet accelerated, reaching the woman with a sudden outburst of speed. Finally, Red managed to get close enough to her.

The effects were immediate. The core in his hand glowed, and a stream of Spiritual Energy poured into it from the invisible ghost.

A shimmer appeared in front of Red, and the woman’s figure revealed itself. The energy was coming out of every part of her body into the core, and even in the brief second the youth was within range, it seemed a substantial amount of her essence had already been stolen from her.

The woman was staring at him with a mixture of hatred and surprise.

Suddenly, the stream of blood pouring down her eyes seemed to glow, causing Red’s mind to flare in warning.

He continued to recite the exorcism mantra while holding the core up, but with his other hand, he brought the flaming sword to bear against the woman. Before he could swipe down, though, the extra appendage at her back shot forward, grabbing the blade bare-handed.

The fire started to consume the deformed arm, yet its sacrifice was enough to arrest the momentum of Red’s swing.

At that moment, the youth felt as if something was pouring out of the ghost’s eyes and reaching into his own. He tried to look away, but he found himself unable to. It was as if every muscle in his body ceased functioning all at once, and he couldn’t react even if he wanted to.

‘I was careless.’

He didn’t think that the woman had kept another trump card, not to mention one that could be executed by merely meeting her gaze. He was still too inexperienced when it came to fights at this level, and now it cost him this valuable opportunity.

Yet, to his luck, he wasn’t fighting alone. A shadow flashed by the corner of his eyes before a pale, clawed hand swept at the woman’s face out of nowhere.

“Burn in hell!”

The ghost tried to react, but she was too slow. Aurelia’s sharp fingernails tore into her face, ripping out a huge chunk of flesh and causing her opponent to scream in pain.

However, much in the same way, when the woman in black was wounded earlier, beneath her skin wasn’t flesh and bone, but a grey misty substance that seemed to make up her body. This injury that would have killed any human was only enough to make the ghost recoil.

As she did so, though, she broke eye contact with Red.

The youth felt control over his body return, and he continued to swing his sword down, just like before he was paralyzed. The blade cut into her body, yet it didn’t seem to find purchase on anything. It felt as if he was cutting into air, and her ghostly flesh split apart like mist to give way to his weapon.

Not even his flames seemed to wound her, yet Red knew this wasn’t because it wasn’t effective. They just weren’t burning strong enough.

‘Burn! Burn!’

He felt the crimson mist’s instructions, carrying a murderous will. The youth was all too glad to comply.

He focused on the flames of the sword, ordering the spirit to fuel them with all of its power. The being, perhaps sensing the opportunity to kill their opponent, offered no resistance at this juncture.

The sword, resting midway through the ghost’s torso, glowed with an intense black-red light. The whole world around it seemed to dim in comparison, and a moment later, this energy exploded.

Red lurched back from the shockwave, but the flying sword remained steady beneath his feet, not allowing him to fall. A ball of dark-red flames spread from the epicenter of this explosion, but it quickly dissipate into nothingness, revealing the figure of the ghost.

“AHH! AHHHHHG!”

The woman’s entire body was engulfed in these flames. She flailed around in pain, looking like an avatar of fire flying in the sky.

This scene gave Red pause. It was hard to imagine the kind of pain these flames inflicted on a person, but it was enough even to make this ghost of a near-ascension cultivator lose their mind from the sensation. Whatever the case, it didn’t seem like she would be able to recover from this.

“The exorcism technique!” Aurelia called out to him from the side. “Quickly! Absorb as much of her as you can!”

He didn’t know if she was asking this of him for her own benefit or to make sure the woman in black died. However, even if the flames consuming were more than enough to kill her, Red also wouldn’t take the chance.

He leaned forward, and the flying sword brought him over to the woman on its own. He then held the crystal core up and started to recite the exorcism mantra.

The woman didn’t try to flee this time around, or perhaps she was incapable of doing it. In any case, a continuous stream of energy poured from her into the insectoid core, and her struggles became increasingly weaker.

At some point, though, Red felt the core in his hand tremble, glowing with a light intense enough to be seen from kilometers away.

“That’s enough!” Aurelia came to his side as she looked at the item. “The core can’t take any more of her energy.”

Red nodded and stopped chanting. The continuous stream of energy stopped pouring out from the woman in black, and the youth could do nothing else but watch as the flames consumed her.

“Is she dying?” he asked.

“She is.” Aurelia nodded. “These flames are burning her soul away. She won’t last much longer.”

The woman’s ghost continued to flail in the air, her screams becoming more and more inhuman and desperate as she burned to death. The youth didn’t feel any pity for her, though.

A few seconds later, though, her figure suddenly seized, freezing like a statue, and her screams died in her throat. Red immediately sensed something was wrong, and he held his sword up in preparation.

“Wait!” Aurelia held her hand in front of him. “She’s too weak to stand against us.”

The youth was skeptical, but he listened to her advice.

The woman in black stood frozen for almost ten seconds, her body contorted in an unnatural posture, before she moved again. She didn’t continue to flail in pain, though, and instead turned around to the duo, even as the flames continued to consume her.

The agony she had been suffering seemed to have suddenly disappeared, and the ghost managed to stand there as if nothing was happening. Red couldn’t tell beneath all the fire, but he felt as if she was looking directly at him.

“I always had a hard time reading that man.” The woman said in a serene voice. “I can’t tell if this was all some elaborate plot of his to interfere with my plans or if this is all a coincidence. It was always rather vexing, even when I still had all my powers.”

Red frowned, but he didn’t respond to her. Even with her strange actions, he still didn’t feel any sign of danger from her weakening self.

“I would have liked to learn what he was up to, but it seems I have found someone far more interesting.” the woman pointed her burning finger at Red. “You, child, unremarkable in almost every aspect, but the target of an intersection of multiple different fates, each one far bigger than you could possibly imagine… Is this also a coincidence or is this someone’s plan in action, I wonder.”

She brought her hand up to her face, examining the black-red flames.

“Learning of your existence… It has made this humbling loss worth its price.” She said. “Of course, reparations must be paid eventually. So grow strong, child, and make sure to explore each of these threads tied to your fate to their very end. Become someone remarkable and powerful, and make it worth my while when I come for your bones in the future… Don’t make this defeat of mine meaningless, is all I ask of you.”

The youth’s frown deepened. Before he could say anything else, though, the woman’s body started to evaporate into ashes, scattering to the wind. The black-red flames also died out along with it, and Red felt her presence disappear once and for all.

The woman was dead, and yet hearing her last words, he didn’t feel contented with this victory.

‘She mocked us earlier when we referred to her as a ghost. Could it be…?’

“Don’t overthink her words, Red.” Aurelia’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Whether they were true or not, the only reason she said what she said was to plant the seed of doubt in your mind. Don’t let her succeed.”

Red looked over at his companion. The woman had reverted from her ghoulish form, turning into a young woman once more. Somehow, though, her figure felt way more substantial than the youth ever remembered it being in the past.

“I will return to the core.” She said. “I need to refine the energy before it goes out of control.”

Red hesitated, but he still nodded.

The woman gave him one final deep look before her figure dissipated into light, returning to the core in his hand. The glow from the item diminished substantially as soon as that happened, but the youth could still feel its newfound power in his grasp.

That was when he felt the flying sword beneath his feet twist around. Red didn’t resist its movement, and eventually, the blade brought him back to the sky above his sect.

The flying sword flew down in a soft arc before coming to a stop a few meters above the ground, right by Hector’s kneeling figure.

Red hopped down and looked around at the courtyard. The battle felt like it lasted a long while for him, and yet no more than ten minutes had passed by since the woman in black first attacked. During that time, though, every building in his sect had been destroyed, and three of his companions lost their life in battle.

His entire life had changed in a brief but earth-shattering confrontation.

Hector looked at him with a pale smile. “You did it.”

Red didn’t respond.

Despite the death of his opponent, the youth felt like this couldn’t have been further from a victory for him.